'This is no Bridget Jones'

“You look very relaxed.” Valentina says.
“Well, I guess I am rather relaxed.”
“That’s okay. It just surprises me you’re so relaxed.”
“Did you read my message on Facebook?” I ask, “That I’ve been fired?”
“Yes, that’s why I think it’s so strange you’re relaxed. I would have been angry and destroying the office.”
“I’ve been angry, the first fifteen minutes. Then sad for half an hour. But then I went outside and listened Kings of Convenience and now I am happy again.” And somehow I remember this summer when I saw Sonic Youth with my father and how content he was. He turned 52 this week and has climbed from where I am now to a respected and successful position without losing the things that make him my father. He still plays air guitar. And for the first time in months I didn’t fear growing old. But then, to think about my father when I’m dating some other father’s young and attractive daughter isn’t something I feel very comfortable with.

“You know what I fear about growing up?” I ask her in the bar of her future husband. “Or, fear… more what I think is funny? Soon I will have to start dating women instead of girls.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, women don’t buy the tricks that I master to make girls go crazy about me. That’s what I like about you: You’re in the transition of becoming a woman and I can practice on you so that in a couple of years the women don’t laugh at me.”
“Why? I mean: I don’t get it.”
“You’re not naïve. You don’t believe my every word. I have to work for you. I like that.” And we move on to a nice dinner.

Over her chocolate desert she makes me guess the use of a little piece of paper she picks up from a baby blue holder in her bag. I try to use my wit. “It’s either something really girlish or something really dirty that needs some camouflage, considering the holder.” I say. She nods as in: Go on. “What would I use it for? That’s a good method to guess… well you could put your used chewing gum inside.” She laughs.
“It’s something Isabelle and I use.” She says as a hint. “What do you thing about when you think about Isabelle?”
“Sex. If I think about Isabelle I think about sex. And Brazil. Brazil and sex.” She laughs even harder. I continue: “It’s grease free paper so it would make nice paper to carry coke around.” She looks suspicious. “You could write your phone number on it to give it to some guy you meet?” She laughs again. A guy at the table next to ours obviously is entertaining himself as I sniff the paper and put it in my mouth. I ask him: “So, do you have any idea what this is?”
“An oil control pad.”
And Valentina almost falls of her chair. The guy’s right. It’s an oil control pad. Three words I’ve never heard in such close proximity before. I think about my father again: Would he have known?

And I wonder where in my life things went wrong to end up in this kind of situations. And I wonder why so much happens at the same time. And if this were a movie nobody would believe it.