Santino "Sunny" Alvarez, on the Phone, with a Woman

by Rebecca Blake Title

It's that first conversation on the phone.
Where you find out if you can talk, for how long.
Will she still laugh? Think I'm smooth?
The conversation where you admit to your past
Just to get it out of the way.
My first mistake:
"And the other girlfriend is dead."
But that's not the kind of thing you say
The second time talking to someone.
There's that awful pause on her end
The wait while she decides how to respond.
I cut in before, and tell her:
"I shouldn't have said that. It's not the kind of thing you say
The second time talking to someone."
She says it's fine. That we spent all weekend talking.
I move on.
We talk about image and hair cuts.
"I cut my hair to get a job.
My girlfriend wouldn't talk to me for two weeks.
So I said that she could come over and she wouldn't have to talk.
Two weeks without sex. That was her punishment.
But I kinda like my hair this way."
She laughs in the right places. Encouraging.
I tell another story:
The first time I told a girl I loved her.
Not exactly the sort of thing to say the second time talking to someone,
But I'd already blown that, and she was laughing.
I want to show her I'm sensitive.
"I said, 'There's something really important I want to tell you.
It has a lot to do with us, and me and how I feel.'
And I was stumbling a lot and embarrassed, and you know,
I'm so intense, heartfelt with feeling, and so young.
And she said, 'You're gay.' And I thought, 'What?'
But then I thought back to what I said and inserted 'gay' into it
And I could see that it worked.
She said, 'I've always known you were gay, but I was just hoping you weren't.'
So I figured it couldn't get any worse, so I said, 'No. I'm not gay. I, I love you.'
And she started crying and said,
'If you're not gay then, I love you too.' "
And that story worked its charm.
She laughed and told me that last line was so perfect
She had to write it down.