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“It wasn’t a friend request. It was LinkedIn.”
Stacy glared at me.
“Do you want to know what I think about New Year’s?”
“That’s what I’m paying you for.”
She laughed.
“He drunk dialed you.”
“He – he, what?”
“Drunk dialed. You’ve never done that?”
I stared at her through the screen.
“No, Liss, of course you haven’t. But most of the world has at one time or another. Plus, New Year’s is sentimental as it is –should auld acquaintance be forgot. Surely you know that.”
“I guess.”
“You’re a fascinating study, Liss. You don’t get it, do you?”
I wasn’t even going to try to defend myself. Stacy tried another approach.
“Maybe he didn’t drunk dial you. Maybe he was intending to carry on a full-fledged conversation in the middle of the night. But then he got interrupted by someone.”
“Like his wife.”
“For example.”
“But we’re 9,000 miles apart. I think we are almost literally as far apart as it is possible to be on the planet. And we’re just old friends.”
“I imagine that the fact that you actuallydidhave an affair before would not exactly reassure her. And he told you not once but twice that he was imagining being with you under the open sky, gazing at all the stars in the heavens.With you,” she added again for emphasis.
“You’re exaggerating. He told me he was imagining being with some friends under the open sky. He didn’t specify whether I was one of the friends.”
“And you didn’t ask.”
She had me there. Not only had I not asked, but I had changed the subject entirely, immediately asking him about work. If a more obvious “don’t hit on me” move existed, I had not mastered it. In truth, I wasn’t opposed to him hitting on me. But when that text popped up, well, to paraphrase Clark W. Griswold, I could not, would not, have been more surprised if I had woken up with my head sewn to the carpet. In my state of surprise, I panicked and froze and fled to high – read: safe – ground. Work.
“Well I’m asking. Would you?”
“Would I what?” I picked at the hem of my skirt, worrying the black thread between my thumb and my index finger.
“Would you go? There?”
“To Laos? Sure. I’ve never been. I could add it to my list.”
It was during exactly one such conversation that Stacy had told me God hates a coward. Actually, she gave me the full quote, “God hates a coward. I don’t actually believe this is true. But it’s something to aim for,” words of wisdom for which we can thank Laura Ingalls Wilder. Obviously, I still wasn’t aiming in the right direction.
Stacy sighed.
“To see him, Liss. To sleep under the stars. Or—”
I cut her off.
“It’s not a decision I’ll ever be asked to make, so it doesn’t even bear thinking about.” I conveniently omitted the virtual tour of Luang Prabang he’d shown me, the imperative “come” with which he’d ended it. I was choosing to believe he’d spoken in jest.
