Chapter Thirteen
Marshall
“Do you ever feel like maybe it was a bad idea to go out with this girl?” asked Sean.
“Haven’t we been over this already? You told me I had done the right thing.”
“I’m not talking about the methods you used. I don’t have a problem with that. Do anything you have to do. I just wonder if maybe you’ll end up regretting having spent so much of your energy on this particular girl.”
We were seated at the island in his kitchen cleaning some of the guns from his gun collection. Afternoon sunlight bleached the granite countertops and glistened on the rifle I held in my lap. Between us on the counter lay a red plastic bowl filled with nachos and a glass bowl filled with queso.
“Thanks for doing this, by the way,” said Sean. “I know there are a million better ways you could be spending your time.”
“Well, it’ll go faster if we do it together. Growing up, my Uncle Billy always used to make me clean the guns from his private collection. I hated doing it, but he paid me twenty dollars an hour, so I didn’t complain too much. It was just one of the many things about life in the country that I vowed I would never do again once I moved out on my own.”
Sean cleared his throat loudly. “To get back to the topic at hand, though: you have every right to use every means at your disposal to win the girl. But Lori doesn’t exactly strike me as your type. I worry that you’re going to end up being like the proverbial dog chasing a car, who doesn’t know what to do with it once he catches it.”
“I can think of a few things,” I said to myself. “Anyway, she’s about as much of a stranger to you as she is to me. What makes you think we’re incompatible?”
Sean hesitated. “I don’t know how to put this nicely—”
“What, you think I’m an idiot?” I smirked. “And that no intelligent woman in her right mind would go out with me?”
“She just seems like the sort of woman who spends her off-nights baking a crumble and reading one of the forty books she’s checked out of the library. Didn’t you get that vibe when you talked to her? When is the last time you opened a book?”
“I’ve read a few manuals on playing chess. My brother Zack was always the reader in our family, and the rest of us gave him a hard time for it.”
“See, and that’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. I can guarantee this woman has read a couple thousand books in her life. Even if she’s never been to college, she’s educated herself. So let’s say, just for the sake of argument, you sit down together on Saturday night. You’re both quiet for a minute, waiting for the appetizers. She looks up from her menu, and the first thing she says is, ‘I was reading Proust in the bath last night.’”
“Why the hell would she say that?”
“I’m just giving you an example of—”
“No, for real, who in their right mind starts a conversation like that?”
“It’s entirely possible that she could say something like that,” he explained in a loud voice, “if only to catch you off guard. Now, what would be your response?”
“I’d say who the hell is Proust?”
“See, and at that point, you’re already on her done-zo list because a woman like her is looking for a man who knows who Proust is.”
“Really? Is he that important?”
“To someone like her, yes,” said Sean, “and for the record, when someone says they were reading Proust in the tub, the appropriate response is to ask how they managed to avoid dropping it, because his books are huge.”
“Okay. Noted. I just feel like you’re making a lot of assumptions based on the fact that she wears glasses and talks like a semi-literate person. I wasn’t aware that she would be quizzing me on my literature and pop culture knowledge first thing when we sat down.”
“I’m not saying it’s the most important thing to a girl like her,” said Sean, “but it’s pretty important.”
“And that’s another thing,” I replied, my voice betraying a hint of impatience. “You keep saying, ‘a woman like her.’ ‘A girl like her.’ You’ve known her for approximately four minutes. When did you become an expert on what she likes and doesn’t like?”
Sean was getting exasperated. He had the air of a teacher who was trying to instruct an unteachable student. “I don’t know her personally, but I’ve known girls like her. You have to go in there prepared to impress. Start off the conversation by dropping a few casual references to Dostoevsky.”
“I am not going to do that.” My only exposure to Dostoevsky came from an episode of the British version of The Office where the dumb boss, trying to impress a client, keeps looking up facts about Dostoevsky online and awkwardly inserting them in conversation. “I’m not going all ‘David Brent’ on our first date.”
“Fine,” said Sean, throwing up his hands in surrender. “But when she finds out you haven’t been in a library since middle school, don’t come crying to me about it.”
Silence smoldered between us for a moment while Sean grabbed a handful of chips. “Anyway,” he added, “what did you do today before you came over?”
I told him about my trip to the tailor’s that morning, and how when I had mentioned the upcoming invitational, he mentioned a group of friends who got together and played poker at the Celtic Knot on Wednesday nights. “They play for money,” he had said, “and the cash prizes can be massive.”
“We ought to go check it out sometime,” said Sean. “Not that you need it, but it wouldn’t hurt to get some practice in.”
“I’ve been seriously thinking about it. We’ll go on Wednesday if I’m not doing anything with Lori that night.”
“Glad you’re so confident,” he muttered, and he went back to cleaning his gun.