| The Salesman Who Can't Close the Deal |
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Sometimes you can read a guy from nothing but a phone call. You may even be prepared to like him, especially if he gave good e-mail, took an interest in your profile, and never missed a day of writing. A real plus these days with all the ghosters. Now Jimmy sits patiently waiting on my cell phone as I weave through traffic. I've forgotten my Bluetooth and need to be a tad cautious, especially because a walker yelled at me in about the same spot three days earlier for blocking the crosswalk while blabbing on my cell phone. So when Jimmy calls, I tell him I have to put the phone down. Then I pulled into a space at the side of the road and leave the motor running, air conditioning blasting in the heat. "I came home to eat lunch," he says when I ask how he manages a call in the middle of the day. His profile lists a profession in sales and he asks questions the way salesmen do, to put you at ease. I remembered a male acquaintance telling me long ago that salesmen have the best women. "What do you mean?" I asked, as always when confronted by supposed truisms, the unbeliever. "It must be something about what they do," the man said. “They charm; they’re professional charmers. So they get the lookers. The nicest women. Maybe they try harder.”Jimmy wrote because I intrigued him. "I'll wait to meet. As long as it takes. I want you to be comfortable." Well, this isn’t so bad, this being waited for until I’m ready. I hold the phone in my left hand, watching a woman with a toy poodle also on her cell phone. The poodle lifts his leg on a telephone pole. "I was watching the fifth Harry Potter movie. Eating my lunch. Have you seen them?" "Er, well I saw the first." I shiver in the air conditioning. Harry Potter movies? What is he talking about? The lunch hour must be a long one. "Well, I got them for my daughter's baby; she's six and I decided to watch them myself. You know, to talk to her about them." "Oh." The man is a Harry Potter-ist. “So what do you teach?” I can almost feel him listening as I tell him about my job, that mostly that I am thankful to have a job that I enjoy. "Of course, some days are bad, just like anywhere. But mostly I like what I do and with so many people laid off, I'm lucky to be working." So how had I got on to a heavy topic so soon, much too soon? Certainly Jimmy had something to do with it, encouraging my openness, my willing spirit. I want to meet him sooner, not later. "You're lucky you never had the experience of being laid off then," he says. I tell him it had been a long time ago, but I’d lost my job. "But when you're older, it's scary. It's different, being older." "Well, here goes. I might as well be honest with you," and he tells me that he's been laid off from his sales job since February, that he's been looking, that he's had offers, but can't see himself taking anything until recently. "It was a job in the medical field. Sales. I think I’d be good. If they offer me that one, I will probably go for it." He pauses. He has more to say. “Then two months ago I had a heart attack.” "I can’t imagine," I manage to say. I don’t want to mouth just anything to show I understand what life changes are in store for a man in his early fifties who’s had a major trauma. I sit stunned for a few seconds. "I just can’t imagine what that’s like." We talk about how this has changed his life. His doctor wants him to exercise and I am amazed that he seems resistant. I am amazed that he hasn’t been exercising all along. I am amazed by every day facts, by people with certain priorities different than my own. I try to remember his profile photo and yes, he’s certainly got a chubby face, but nothing more, nothing grotesquely huge to indicate a serious health problem. He is six years younger than I am. "So now you know. If you don't want to meet, I'll understand." "You mean you can't take me to the most expensive restaurant downtown?" "Well, I could, actually. I could. But there are so many things to do that don't cost a lot of money. And I'll be working again soon." I nod into the phone, my mind galloping. And this is what charms me the most, the idea that he can amuse that way, without spending money, by using his imagination. In the following days, I expect another call. Instead there are e-mails. Their tone is more of a waiting stance. Jimmy expects me to make a move. I am perplexed and finally, after a week of back and forth friendly, meaningless e-mails, I send him this:
Hey Jimmy, His response: I waited for your call or message. None I stare at his e-mail, reread it. Does the I waited for your call part mean he sat by his phone? In my mind I fabricate a living room in the suburbs, a safe, bland community of mostly married folks, where Jimmy sits on a green couch, highly textured, his cell phone at his side, watching Harry Potter number five. I’ve never seen Harry Potter number two, so I have no idea what thrills Harry five has to offer a man in his fifties. Do I detect a pout factor in his Best of luck on your quest to find a match?
Too bad. He gave superior phone, the phone of a seasoned salesman. In a fit of good will, I e-mail him in spite of his last communiqué, clearly a kiss-off.
Hi Jimmy, It seems I've offended you. And I was waiting for you to ask me out for an ice. How ironic. You were honest with me on the phone, so I have to tell you that I am not a pursuer. My not calling was nothing more than that. (You're still on my phone, btw, and I have 2 more VaCa days.) Geez, it was so easy talking with you that first time! X There was, of course, no response to this but the man was aggressive in his own way, deleting all our past correspondence and taking me off his favorites. I take him off my cell, call my walking pal Tony, and invite him for an Italian ice. |
