Falling for Your Madness (6 page)

“I work really hard to avoid that. But if it does happen, sometimes their customers can see through it. It’s not really good to be caught like that. But then again, sometimes businesses can rise to the occasion. I saw a TED talk on this. Companies purposefully create a brand that’s bigger than they really are and then aspire to be that brand. The brand makes them better. A really great brand changes how they see themselves and how others see them too, and ideally, everybody wants to do business with them.”

“How about that? Calling yourself something you are not so that you can be better. It’s not a brand. It’s an
aspiration.”
David was looking at me in
that way
again, a way that wasn’t seductive or playful. This look was hard to describe. It was serious and sober, yet innocent and hopeful. His eyes lit up like candles at a Christmas Eve service. Or maybe it was a sense of quiet safety, like at home, back in Chicago when the house is quiet and everything is peaceful. This look was my favorite. I knew when he looked at me this way that he wanted to be my sweetheart.

His patched elbows were on the table. I should have reminded him that that was bad manners, but his hands were under his chin, and he was intently listening to me. “Will you bring me books to read about branding or suggest some websites? I want to think about this. This sounds like something I can mention in my classes. I see a clear connection between modern branding and the heraldry that was common among the knights of the Middle Ages. Your 13
^th
century counterpart was the girl who blazoned arms for the knights of old.” He winked at me. Now the look was playful. “I think I just added a new written assignment to my syllabus. It’s a good thing we’re not in my class now; my students would hate you. You just gave them more work to do.”

“That would be a fun paper to write.”

David was taken aback. “You really think so?” He reached his hands across the table. The back of his knuckles brushed against my hand and I felt a charge go through me. He smiled at me. He must have felt it too. He looked at me for just a glimpse, and then his face went flush. He looked beyond me at my right, above my head, and then beyond me at my left. Then he looked down at his empty plate. I realized that he was nervous.
David was nervous.

He laughed a little. “Laura I am very impressed with you. I admire the fact that you are self-employed and that you have to work so hard to support yourself. That it’s not just about art with you, it’s about invoices and websites and branding. You are remarkable. What you do is really hard. I know I couldn’t do it. Who supports you?”

“I support myself.”

“No, I mean who supports you emotionally? Who do you talk to when you’re discouraged? Who cheers the loudest when you succeed?”

“My friends do, when they’re not teasing me. But mostly, my family. Especially my father.”

His smile was so big, it nearly broke his face in half. “How lovely. A daddy’s girl.”

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Rising Agent Bakery and Cafe

1111 Beacon Street

Brookline, Massachusetts

1:57 p.m.

We walked back to my apartment after lunch. This was when he offered his arm to me, and I took it. This was my favorite part. Who was I kidding? All of it was my favorite part. It seemed to me that every time I met David, I never did eat my scone, or my sandwich, or my dinner. The tea always got cold. The hour, or hour and a half, or three hours were up, and we weren’t through talking. He always kept his word and finished on time, even though I knew he was tempted to break that rule, or at least I hoped he was.

“David, why are you so precise in our time together? I know you have your way of doing things, and I appreciate it. But why only an hour and a half for tea?”

“For several reasons. For one, it sets a boundary. I do very well with boundaries. Also, it tells you that I respect your time, which I do. You are a hardworking businesswoman, and if you are not working, you are not getting paid. I would never dream of encroaching upon your other responsibilities. And by setting a time in advance, you know the precise moment when our time together is over, so therefore you’ll know how long you have to endure my nonsense. I don’t know if you noticed this, but I love the sound of my own voice.”

I laughed. He was such a funny man.

“And then there’s that old bit of wisdom that says, ‘Always keep them wanting more.’”
There was the other look I loved, the look of half-madness. “And of course, if I’m any more than ten minutes over my allotted time, Merle has explicit instructions to run me over with the car.”

Oh, how this man amused me. All I thought about was when he would kiss my hand. “I always look forward to the next time I see you.”

“As do I, dear lady.” He took my hand, and that time, he kissed it longer than he ever had. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

Friday, September 28, 2012

Bombay’s Finest Indian Cuisine

176 Harvard Street

Brookline, Massachusetts

7:04 p.m.

Today was the first day that I told my friends,
No, I can’t go, I have a standing date with David.
So, naturally, this news was posted on the Facebook page, and everybody and their dog had to comment on it. Oh, how they teased me. Their biggest question, though, was this:
When are we going to get to meet David?

I didn’t know. All I knew was that it made me feel good to say that David Julius Arthur Bowles, Ph.D. was my
friend
and that he liked spending time with me, three times a week. I decided they didn’t need to know any details—even though there certainly wasn’t anything steamy to tell. I had become very protective of him and his rules. David was
special.
He was just mine, no one else’s, and the jump from friends to sweethearts was coming soon.

Tonight I had spent a little more time on my hair and dabbed a little more fragrance on my neck. I planned on a kiss on a specific point of the southern hemisphere of my lovely face. And if we were sweethearts—that word made me laugh every time I thought of it—then I could walk with him tomorrow, and I wanted that more than anything.

“You must tell me about your family. You said your father was a struggling artist.” David had a lily-of-the-valley for me tonight.

“Former struggling artist.” I said. “The last five years have been extremely good for him. He was commissioned by the governor last year and had a huge show in Chicago recently. In fact, the weekend we met was the big day. I couldn’t go, and I was so disappointed.”

“So he’s worked all these years and just now found success? What did your mother think in all that time that she had to wait? I imagine it was very difficult for her to support his vision.”

“If it was, she kept her frustration from us.”

“She must be a queen among women.”

I can’t wait for her to meet him.
“We didn’t live in a big house, we didn’t have luxuries, and I know that my mom got tired of counting pennies. But she never gave up on him. And now she’s getting her reward.”

“Your father is a lucky man. He wouldn’t be half the man he is without her.”

David was quiet. Wistful-looking. This was the same look he had given me on Wednesday when I’d said that writing a paper about branding in the Middle Ages sounded like fun. It was all I could do not to grab him by that tweed jacket lapel and say, “Now! Dr. David Julius Arthur Bowles! I will be your sweetheart!” He caught me looking at him and smiled.

“What do you see? Please draw it for me.” He took out his notebook and fountain pen. “No, Laura, I almost forgot. I bought some drawing pencils so you can draw properly when we’re together. Far more to an artist’s liking?”

“Oh, David. Thank you.” This was too much. I really didn’t think I was going to be able to eat my meal. So I drew what I saw. I took my time.

I drew him, my friend, David Julius Arthur Bowles, Ph.D. The longish nose. The smile, the one I liked. The curls that hung in his eyes. The touch of shade on his chin and lip. I wondered what he was going to do with this drawing, because if he didn’t take it home, I would. To frame. To hang on my wall. To practice kissing like I did when I was thirteen. David was, as he once claimed, unbelievably patient. He didn’t yank it out of my hands or try to steal a glance. He just ate his small, precisely-cut bites of tandoori chicken and watched me.

I gave it to him. “What do you think?”
He took his time to answer. I’d learned by my work with clients that these silences were extremes. Either the work was loved and the client was too moved to speak, which rarely happened to me, or it was so terribly bad that the client was having a hard time thinking of something positive to say.

“You, my dear, are exquisitely talented. This is magnificent. May I keep it?”

“Yes, of course.” I was a tiny bit disappointed that I couldn’t kiss that picture. I consoled myself that perhaps I’d be kissing the real thing very soon.

“Now I have another question.”

“Professor, is it on the test?”

“Oh, dear, sweet Laura, you have no idea …” He blushed. He really liked me. It was going to be all I could do to get through this meal. “Who do you think has the most power in a relationship? Men or women? And please, back up your answers with selections from the reading.”

“Wow. That’s quite a question. Do you ask it in your class?”

“I asked it today. It’s one of my favorites to ask. As I expected, it generated a lively discussion. I usually ask it right about the time that we’re talking about Arthurian legends and the concept of chivalry. And then, almost without fail, I write it on a board behind me, get chalk dust all over my jacket, and have the whole front row laughing at me. You, dear, have the question without the humiliating spectacle.”

“Lucky me.”

“No, lucky me. I am, by far, the lucky one here. But on to the question.”

“I’m going to say men.”

“Why?”

“Because they get to do whatever they want. And they …” Why was he taking me there? I didn’t want to think about Trey, and before him, Andrew, and before him, Chase. I really didn’t want to think about how I’d flirted with them and gotten their attention and then had had to fight to keep it. I didn’t want to think about how they’d resented putting aside their video games when I would call them. And it had never occurred to any of them to restrict their hands and lips to specific points on the southern hemisphere of my lovely face.
They had other power too.
A kind that wasn’t always welcome. One that started out fun and didn’t always end that way. I had a tear in my eye and really didn’t want David to see it. “I’m going to say men because they expect me to put up with their nonsense. And I feel powerless.”
This was too hard of a question, Professor. Don’t quiz me on it. I’ll probably fail.

He offered me his handkerchief. “Please forgive me for upsetting you. It was not my intention.”

“It’s okay.” Could I hold his hand? Was that against the rules? “Maybe I need to ask it more often. I am going to stick with my answer. Men have the power.”

“I don’t disagree with you. But please indulge me, for just a moment, for the sake of discussion. Do you think that it’s possible that women have more power? Could the powerlessness that you describe, which is very valid and is always brought up in my class, be experienced by women who either don’t know that they have power over men or choose not to use it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.” Then I remembered. I had too thought about it. My little sister knew about this, and sometimes, I was shocked at how she used her power.

“While we’re friends, I’d like for you to seriously think about it. One of the reasons that I have this project, this quest for a bride, set up the way I do is so that the women in my life feel like they have power, like they have control of where we’re headed as a man and a woman.” He swallowed. He looked nervous. “Do you find it suits you?”

“David, the best part of this arrangement is that I do know what’s going to happen. It’s very freeing. But you don’t have this little object lesson in your classroom.”

“I don’t need one. My students, if they think about it, have seen it in their own lives and in the lives of their parents. If they stop and look, they’ll see the hidden power of women. A woman has great power to build up and tear down her man. She can humiliate or exalt. She can inspire a man to greatness or keep him bound in failure. I’ve seen it happen. I imagine you have, too; the lovely story of your mother’s devotion to your father’s art is a great example of the power of a woman.”