Margaret is the Chief Financial Officer, so I know she’s no idiot. I want to have a conversation with someone who has some civility after that show of rudeness I just experienced. Bad manners are an unnecessary display of immaturity and they always embarrass me. “Margaret, tell me how it feels to be a woman at the top of all this testosterone.”
She smiles and rolls her eyes. “It’s hell, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I chuckle and we turn more towards each other. Brendan can fend for himself for a while. I’m sure he can handle it.
Chapter Seventeen
Brendan
Women: transparent. Me: not blind.
Rebecca’s playing a losing game.
I saw her watching him make the rounds. I saw her beaming at him when he singled her out for a glass of wine when everyone else gets beer. And I sure as fuck saw the two of them being very cozy when I walked in on them last time she was here. Rebecca’s the closest thing to a girlfriend since Sara. I let her in more than anyone else and even though she wants more, I’m giving her a lot.
What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been toyed with by so many women since I joined the single life that I have learned over and over the tricks they play, and it’s made me jaded. I’ve had my texts go unanswered, followed by My battery died. It happened too often for me not to figure out that they were doing it to act hard to get. I’ve also found necklaces left on my bedroom floor when we were never in there, dropped on purpose to scare the next girl off. I’ve woken up to look at my phone and found it not in the same place I left it. I put a password on it from that point on. I’ve even been told I impregnated a girl when I know I didn’t. I calmly asked for a paternity test, got slapped, but found out eventually what I already knew – that I wasn’t the daddy.
So when I saw her and Tommy together, I thought he’s trying to win her away from me to piss me off, and she’s eating it up to make me jealous. I was over it. I sent her on her way and didn’t call, text, or email. But then it was almost six months and I didn’t hear a word. If she wanted to manipulate me, she would have done something. But she waited for me to come around and that took me by surprise. It made me rethink my silent treatment.
Watching her talk to Margaret, I think about my philosophy, tuning them out. Many women are like Rebecca. They’re good human beings who just want to be loved. But it takes awhile to decipher which category they fall into – Good or Bat Shit Crazy. I treat the good ones very well, take them out, hold their doors, and compliment them on their best qualities – always honestly. But I’m not willing to settle down because I don’t see the point. And I haven’t found THE woman. I don’t think she’s out there, and that’s how I consciously live my life. I don’t understand why everyone wants to pair off. I’ve yet to find a woman who makes me think of her long after I’ve left her. There was this one girl after college who smacked some sense into me, literally, about respecting the women I sleep with. Between her and Mark, it stuck. And respect includes letting them go when their feelings become involved to the point where they could get hurt. I can’t remember her name, which is ironic, but I think of her sometimes… but it’s a blur, really. I remember her saying “idiot,” and us yelling at each other. I also have a vague image of her looking at me like I hung the moon before I realized she was drunker than drunk underneath all that makeup. But it was a long time ago and there’ve been a lot of faces and voices since then. And she moved to Italy, so why remember? But sometimes she comes into my mind...
Why am I even thinking of her now? I’ve lost my train of thought...
Oh yeah. Rebecca knows where I stand and she puts up with it. So I realized I was being a jerk by not talking to her. Sometimes it takes me a second to see when I’m doing that. I missed her.