Field Guide

Her: Don’t look at me like that.

Him: Like what?

Her: You know. With those goo-goo eyes. Like you’re IN LOVE.

Him: Well, I am. Is that bad?

Her: Not bad. Just … I don’t know. Just.

Him: Okay. How should I look at you then?

Her: What do you mean?

Him: I mean, how do you want me to look at you? Should I look at you like I hate you? Like I don’t know you, like you’ve got drool running out of your mouth or what?

Her: I don’t know. Just look at me like I’m an ordinary person. Or … well, look at me like I’m a book.

Him: A book?

Her: Yeah, a book. You know, something that’s interesting but you’re not in love with.

Him: So you want me to run my eyes back and forth over you and move my head up and down.

Her: Don’t be silly. Just look at me like I’m a book you see on a table and you stop to glance at it and you pick it up and thumb through it and think, Hey, this is pretty interesting, I’ll have to really read this. Something like that.

Him: Okay. So what kind of book do you want to be?

Her: Oh, God. Are you being stupid or what?

Him: No, I’m serious. Do you want to be fiction or nonfiction, maybe a book of photographs or a cookbook or maybe a dictionary or an atlas?  Yeah, that’s what you’d be, an atlas.

Her: Okay, just forget it. Just forget I said anything.

Him: No, no, I really like this. I think I’ll look at you like you’re one of those small bird books with all the colorful pictures in them, with the nice leather binding, and the tiny print and the silhouettes identifying families of birds.

Her: Listen. If you don’t stop, I’m leaving.

Him: Or maybe you could be a book of cartoons, a Wonder Woman cartoon book. Or a quotation book, or … no, I’ve got it, you could be the Bible, yeah, a large floppy family Bible with all the family names written in shaky script in the front and some old torn folded letters and pictures tucked into the pages and …