Occasionally, not often, but occasionally I am psychic.
Yesterday a man I have been flirting with for years met a very close friend of mine. They talked, they walked, he drove us home and spent a few minutes alone in his car with her. So this morning I set my phone on my desk and waited for the text message I knew was coming. When it showed up, 11:37 am, I laughed out loud and my colleague in the next cubicle had to ask me what the joke was.
Why didn’t you introduce me to her sooner? the text message said.
And I laughed because everyone who meets this remarkable woman, my friend, crushes on her instantly. It is like perfect erotic clockwork. Even I was subject to it, once upon a time.
She will spend a few minutes speaking with a boy behind a counter, and later he’ll track her down just to give her a gift. She will have drinks bought for her at bars. She’s the only person I know to every have herself mentioned on Craigslist’s missed connections. Her friends keep seeing this happen, how she melts men and women simply by walking in a room, and wondering “How does she do that?”
I have previously described this woman as a walking streak of sex, although she is milder by far than the literary reference would imply*. She has big green eyes and glowy skin that just looks soft.
Because I know her well, I know this attractiveness is partially unconscious. She is sweet, genuine, and interesting. She is uniquely beautiful, the kind of beauty that stays with you after she leaves. She is in some ways the epitome of the girl who’s gorgeous precisely because she has no idea how gorgeous she really is.
Once we were both in love with a boy who treated us as his best and closest friends. She and he were briefly together, he and I never were. We are all still close friends, our lives and relationships tightly knit. At the time I spent one bad day pissed that she’d had the interaction I wanted, but quickly swung around to being pissed at him for emotionally fucking her over.
So I called the gentleman back this morning and teased him kindly. “Also,” I added after he was finished blustering, embarrassed and cute, “this is your official heads up that I have been mildly jealous on this issue before, so although it’s really not a problem I will appreciate you being aware.”
“Dooooes that mean I can give you a hard time about it?” he quipped.
I chuckled. “As long as you understand that any hard times you give me will be returned tenfold.”
“Well, I would expect nothing less, from you,” he said, pouring on the innuendo in his good natured way.
I am a ‘one of the boys’ woman. I am more often a sister than a lover. I like this, most of the time. It makes it easier to get men to talk. But I’ll admit, I have my moments. Moments that are not so much blinding jealousy, which would be entirely out of character for me, but rather little pinpricks of memory and amused regret.
Because I love who I am and how I make my way in the world, but come on, wouldn’t it be nice sometimes to melt men’s hearts simply by the way you walk, or the sweetness of your smile?
So, more productive by far than some elaborate game of envy with no possibly good outcome, I just keep wondering aloud, “How does she do that?” and waiting for the very good day when she becomes aware of the ripples she makes in the world.
*See the character of Danny, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
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