Million Dollar Answer.
I have the million dollar answer; it’s been placed on a tiny piece of memory and hidden in the back of my existence. It’s been taken out and folded over so many times that the lines of truth and fiction have blurred, depending how many times I get asked the question.
“Where do you work?” He asks again. His upper lip rubs the rim on his salty margarita, and the salty crystals plant themselves straight into his Freddy Mercury mustache. He’s got big ham sideburns and skinny denims that are tight on his ass. He’s got that sweet next door boy turned Alaska lumberjack, and he buttons up his plaid navy shirt and rolls the cuffs. He’s got double full sleeves and I can see the vivid green pythons wrapping around his forearms.
He’s Jeremy and I met him at the campus Starbucks. He works there on random shifts between his busy grad teaching schedule. He’s adorable and he when he teaches he moves his hands in big, excited movements because he really wants his students to know how important saving the world is and how serious global warming is. I swear I’ve seen his horn-rimmed glasses mist up from tears, that’s how passionate he is. I love how he makes my whole milk vanilla latte with extra foam and he talks to me about saving the world one tiny sea-turtle at a time. He’s got big dreams and big blue eyes and he’s drop dead gorgeous.
And right. We’re back to that question. If people ask me the question the first time I’m usually able to deflect the topic. I’m good at deflecting. It’s a required part of my job, and I’ve become a pro, especially with men. Men are easy. With a hot girl sitting on their lap, they’re like dogs – they’ve got a one track mind. Toss them a tennis ball, they’ll chase it; throw them a squeaky ball, and they’ll go after that one. But in the real world, deflecting is a lot hotter. It’s not like I can shout, “Boobs!” and have him turn around.
So, I bide my time. I look into his innocent eyes and nibble the cocktail straw in my White Russian. I’m pretty positive he’s anything but conservative, so he probably won’t care that I dance in high heels and stash my ones in tiny black panties. But do I want to tell him, that though my days are filled with Mead notebooks and #2 pencils, my nights are filled top-shelf champangne and stacks of cash and repetitive declarations of love?
I lower my green eyes before smiling sweetly, “You mistook what I said, I don’t work. I’m too busy reading.”
He doesn’t notice my pause between the two sentences, as I stumble over the words, trying to pick the perfect statement. I don’t want to lie, but I know that there’s one thing worse than lying to a boy you like: telling him the truth.
