“Still hungry after brunch? Patricia Arquette. And, yes, I’d also dig some guac. I worked up an appetite.”
While I’ve taken Dave’s advice from the other day into consideration, I still check my phone.
God, all I find is one demanding thing after another. For the longest time, I just made fun videos and tried to encourage people to visit awesome restaurants, and now I’ve been pulled into things I didn’t anticipate and don’t even want. After annoying phone calls, and pacing, and silent screams, I mute my phone.
I’m not fucking doing this anymore.
My lounge chair has recently become my refuge. I ignore every email and text I have and only relax when I realize that Dave has sweetly taken care of snacks.
“I love a tableside guac, don’t you? Literally watched this made, and I mean it. Not like when people misuse that word and are all,Yeah, like, I literally died at how good that song was. No, you did not fuckingdieover an Ed Sheeran song, okay? If you wereactuallydeceased, then you wouldn’t be able to talk about it because you’d be dead and all. Nothing happened except that you liked some sappy lyrics.”
Well, fuck.
I try to hide my smile.
This New Friend Dave?
Iliterallymight love him.
Devouring chips and guacamole only buys me so much time, so eventually, I start talking. Because he asked questions and genuinely seems to want to know. But I also sense that Dave would wait forever if I didn’t respond because he’s not staring me down for answers; he’s just eating chips as happily as I am.
“You asked me last night about my name.”
“I did,” Dave agrees.
“My mother grew up watching the originalWonder WomanTV series with Lynda Carter, and after hearing her over-the-top enthusiasm, I begged to watch every season. Ten minutes into the first episode, I was as enthralled as she was. And I guess I thought it was a possible connection for us. As though maybe my mom would like me for once. But she didn’t. She just liked Wonder Woman.”
I cannot believe I’m saying this all out loud, sharing it for the first time.
“Later, a neighbor, who knew about my love, outsourced a Halloween costume. The glittery gold bra top that I had to keep yanking up, the stars on blue shorts, the shiny red rubber boots? She showed me how to set my arms in the strongest power pose. There was a speech on how to use this stance to believe in myself. But I guess it never took. Still, I was the best goddamn ’70s Diana Prince slash Wonder Woman that I could be.” I don’t know why I’m volunteering this information, but I am. I guess it just feels nice to tell someone.
“It would have been nice if my mom had wanted that costume for me. If she’d found a way for me to get one. Taken me out on Halloween night. But, to this day, I worship the picture I have of me spinning and pretending to turn into a superhero. So damn full of joy.”
Dave’s smile is so reassuring and comforting, and I know I haven’t overshared.
“When the movie came out, I went alone.”
“And not with your mom, I gather.” He’s not surprised.
I shake my head. “No. She is a monster. It would have been so nice to watch with a great mom. But at least she abandoned me in Wonder Woman’s good hands. Not that I think she intended to pass on anything good to me, but I’ll take the accidental win.”
“It was a pretty glorious movie though, yes?” Dave asks.
“Totally. And at least I knew that Gal Godot was going to be
the actress I’d hoped for. And she was. I started sobbing about ten minutes in. I was so happy, and also crying like mad, but.” I sigh. “And then—”
He cuts me off in the best way. “No Man’s Land?”
“Yes.” I nod, taken aback and almost mystified that he knows to mention this. That’s my beautiful trigger. “No Man’s Land.”
He agrees. “When Steve says something about how this isn’t what they came here to do?”
I nod. “And Diana replies that it’s what she came here do.”
“That broke me, too,” he admits.
This Dave person is going to make me fall in love.
