Page 200 of You've Got Hate Mail
And I wait.
And then?—
“Why do women take everything so fucking personally when you’re just fooling around and having fun? Like, why isn’t anI’m sorryenough for them? What the fuck do they want from us?”
There it is.
Not specifics, but close enough.
“Generally, a pattern of behavior that suggests we’ve learned from our mistakes and are willing to take responsibility and do better,” I muse.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“What are you, six? Human up, dude.”
“Human up?”
“The women around here man up more than I do. So yeah.Human up. Be a person. Have feelings. Own them. Mean it when you apologize. Make mistakes because that’s what humans do. Learn from them. Do better. Make other mistakes. Wash, rinse, repeat.”
He fiddles with the pull tab on his can. “Easy to say for a guy who didn’t grow up with the world watching your every stupid teenage move.”
“World watched my wife die and had a lot of opinions about it. Not the same, but it’s not so different either.”
He slides me a look.
I shrug at him. “And it sucks. But you can’t change it.”
“Why do I come talk to you?”
“I’m cheaper than therapy.”
“I can fucking afford therapy.”
Ginny’s never said much about what Ten does. Just that he’s worked in Hollywood for a lot of years.
Always assumed that was an easier thing to say than to get into the weeds of all of the various kinds of jobs a person can have in Hollywood.
But now—now that I have more bandwidth, more brain power, more peace in my life—now, I’m wondering what that job is.
“Your lady-friend’s coming,” he says, nodding toward the fields.
I glance out too, spot Cricket and Lav and The Cluckinator, and I smile so big that my cheeks hurt. Couldn’t suppress it even if I wanted to.
“What’s it like living here?” Ten asks. “You get to fool around with all of the—urp. Uncle.Uncle. I take it back!I take it back.”
“Daddy, are you wrestling with Ten?” Lav calls.
“Yeah, we’re having a wrestling party,” I call back as I release my grip on Ten’s hand and let his fingers loose.
“We clear?” I add quieter to him.
He grins at me but still scoots further away. “Just giving you shit. I know you don’t fuck around here. Mabel wouldn’t tolerate it.”
“Iwouldn’t tolerate it.”
“But Beetle?”
“Cricket?”
