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"Cut the attitude. I'm not a total monster."
"No, but you clearly are a little too used to getting what you want and do not think of anyone but yourself. And I'm not going to be the manic pixie dream girl who shows you the magical world of empathy."
Her words clipped him, stinging his ego. It was one thing to be dismissed, another to be calmly, almost lovingly criticized. He started to retort, and realized he'd be doing exactly what she expected. The silence was long, not entirely awkward, as the movie played on.
Gertrude sighed. "I read a lot about you. Seems like you inherited this big thing at a young age and it has alienated you ever since. So I don't entirely blame you for being… who you are. I do think you have to learn who you're stepping on though."
He remained silent. He wanted to say that he hadn't signed up for a fucking therapy appointment, but Gertrude still had the afterglow of being someone special to him, and he liked listening to her talk. It occurred to him that he didn't have friends. He had Abe Shah. Liza. A sea of employees. Was that why he craved women like Gertrude? Like the one who'd taken his virginity? These people who seemed gritty and real? "I can work on that," he said stiffly. It was difficult to admit.
"Changing is hard. Until a month ago I thought I was a fairly straight girl with one friend and no job. Now I want nothing more than to see my friends and taste the inside of Olivia's mouth."
He laughed, and that got her laughing too, until they were guffawing like old buddies, cackling as they started recalling all the stuff they'd done to each other over the course of the last two hours ("Did you call me a low-income slut?/ Did you call me an ivory tower motherfucker?") until eventually, the laughs subsided, and she was snoring loudly in his bed.
It was the weirdest date of his life. He pulled the blanket over her and left the room to sleep in one of the other bedrooms, because he was pretty sure if they fell asleep next to each other, he was going to fall in love with her.
He went to his computer, first though. Pulled up the employee records of that old factory.
He had to see if she still worked there.
It didn't mean anything.
He was just curious, that's all.
***
In the morning, she was glued to her phone through breakfast, and he had the sense that things were really, truly over. He struggled to make his peace with that, and reached a good spot with it by the time they got in his car. Instead of going to the bookstore, she gave the driver an address, and they were taken to her home.
He got out and opened the door for her. They hugged briefly on the sidewalk, and she gestured at the house. Its sagging porch, bowing roof and dirty siding. There was no car in the driveway, and the yard was a tangled mess of grass and weeds. "This is how the other half lives," she said. She didn't say anything else; it was a flat statement.
He got the message. In another world, maybe she did have the time to teach him empathy, like she said. Maybe they embarked on a fierce romance that changed the course of who he was forever. His company, dissolved, a mass of charity and philanthropy as he constantly tried to prove that he had changed.
But it wasn't this world.
They quietly said goodbye, and went back to their lives.
