Page 12 of From Fling to Ring

I touch my haircut like a security blanket I am hoping will make me feel better.

“Don’t look so disappointed. I may have another idea for you, Lucy,” she says, tapping her temple with a finger, her gaze on the swirling fog outside.

I force my face to perk back up to where it was before she reminded me of dirty bathrooms. “Really? Whatcha thinking?”

“This would be an interesting… book.”

Book? I don’t write books. I write thousand-word articles for a free weekly paper. I’m glad she sees potential in my idea and, of course, in me, but is she serious?

“Lucy, this could be perfect for the self-help genre.” She gets up from the table and crosses her arms, walking slowly around the room.

“You won’t remember this Lucy, you are too young, but in the 80’s and 90’s, there was this popular saying—I guess today we’d call it a ‘meme’—that a woman of a certain age was more likely to be hit by lightning than to find a husband.”

I laugh. “Oh yeah. I’ve heard that. Those decades must have been so weird.”

She side-eyes me. “Those were my formative years. Anyway, it stemmed from women resisting the historical pressure to marry young. More and more of us were rising through the ranks in our careers, and were in no hurry to land a man. Gender roles were evolving.”

It had been a long time since Michaela had given me one of what I call her ‘history talks.’ I loved this shit.

She walks to the window and stares, apparently lost in thought. “The media and others were pushing this negative bullshit associated with being single and older. It applied to women, not men of course.”

Of course.

She waves her hand like she’s dismissing the idea, which I know is the whole point of bringing it up. “It was debunked, and just kind of fell out of favor. The stigma around older women finding love faded. Just… wilted on the vine.”

As interesting as this is, and as much as I love hanging out with Michaela, I’m still not sure what this has to do with Tyler Brooks.

“So women became comfortable with the thought of marrying later—or never, as is the case with me. Women are more selective now. Less likely to put up with shit. Or so we’d like to think.”

To emphasize her point, she spins around to face me, her hair following her in a cascade. “We can take our time now. We don’t have to take the first guy to come along. Problem is, that hasn’t necessarily made it easier to pick the good ones. And more importantly, jettison the bad ones.”

As she returns to pacing the room, I realize she and I are on the same page. As always. She just had to think things through, which I am happy to wait for her to do.

Women can marry later without stigma. Right.

But… we could use some help with weeding out the… undesirables. Or, even recognizing the undesirables, the ones who blind us with their charm, the ones who make us think we can’t live without their attentions, no matter how fleeting they might be.

She claps her hands together so loudly, everyone turns to see what’s going on, as if they weren’t stealthily watching us through the conference room’s glass walls already. “I can see it taking off, this book, getting press, interviews, Good Morning America. All that jazz.” She’s pumped now.

And I’m getting pumped too.

But what did she say about a book?

I nod with great enthusiasm, and try to chase away the doubts causing my nervous laughter.

I’ve never written a book. I mean, I’ve written enough articles to fill a book. But a book… no.

Not yet anyway.

“You… you think, like people would be into it?” I stumble.

She nods with such conviction I want to hug her. “I have an agent friend I can put you in touch with.”

And just like that, I once again have the biggest fucking hard-on for the future of my career, confirming that all is right with the world.

For a moment, I don’t even mind that I have to write about dirty bathrooms.

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