Female intelligence, p.13
Female Intelligence, page 13
He shook his head, his eyes welling up. “Contrary to popular opinion, he can be quite a compassionate guy.”
“No wonder you’re in his corner,” I said, attempting to make Greg’s image of Brandon Brock jibe with mine.
“I’d do anything for him,” he went on, sounding like a football player willing to die for his coach. “Sure I did a good job for Finefoods before he got there, and sure he wants me back as soon as I can hack it. But he didn’t have to help me out. I’m not indispensable. What he did was a big-hearted, generous thing.”
Big-hearted. Generous. Compassionate. Impressive adjectives, right? It was hard not to wonder if Greg and I were talking about the same man.
But we were, of course. I was just getting another glimpse of my client, a glimpse that seemed to confirm what I had sensed after our last session—that Brandon Brock was a bad boy but not utterly without redeeming features.
14
The next several sessions with Brock were tugs of war, with the occasional breakthrough. Take the session where I had him listen to an entire Michael Bolton CD and then verbalize what he was feeling.
“Nauseous,” was his answer.
“And why is that?” I asked, hoping for a response pertaining to his emotions, not his stomach.
“Because all the guy does is whine about love. Men don’t relate to that.”
“No, but we’re working on what women relate to. And they relate to men who are up front about their feelings, especially their feelings about love.”
“Baloney. They relate to men who keep them guessing. I’m not exactly without experience on this, Dr. Wyman. Women say they want us to fawn all over them, but what they really want is for us to treat them like they don’t exist. It makes us a challenge.”
“Certainly there are some women who prefer men who withhold, but studies show that most women respond to men who aren’t afraid to express their feelings, the way Michael Bolton does in his music.”
“Please. He’s not expressing his feelings. He’s wailing like a cat in heat. How does he get his voice to go up that high anyway? He’s a guy, right?”
“Yes, Mr. Brock, and you may not be his biggest fan, but he does manage to appeal to women with his sharing. Of course there are other singers who appeal to women for the same reason, but when it comes to putting feelings out there in a thoroughly brave, albeit overwrought, way, Michael Bolton’s the Man.”
“Ah. I get it. So you want me to walk up to this fictional Susan who works for my company and start howling about how I wanna be her ‘soul provider?’ What the hell does that mean, to be someone’s soul provider? Is he talking about religion? Money? What?”
I smiled. “He’s talking about being a soul mate to a woman, about experiencing transcendent love.”
His eyes widened. “You’re serious. You actually like this guy’s music. I bet you have every record he ever made. Come on, ’fess up.”
All right, so I did own a couple of his records. Who said I had to admit it? “Why don’t we forget about the kind of love Michael Bolton ‘howls’ about. You once told me you love sports. I’d like you to describe, in the no-holds-barred style you’ve just been listening to, specifically how you love sports, how sports make you feel.”
“I don’t have to sing my answer, do I?”
“Just speak it directly into the microphone, Mr. Brock.”
He resisted at first, but after a little pestering he leaned in toward the recorder. “When I’m watching a baseball game, sitting there on the first base line, looking out over that green grass, smelling the beer and the hot dogs, hearing the crack of the bat and the pop of the ball, I feel—”
“Go on, Mr. Brock. You feel what?”
“Oh, Lord. This is stupid.”
“You feel what, Mr. Brock?”
He cleared his throat. “I feel happy, giddy as a kid. I love the unpredictability of the game, love how there’s no time clock, love how one stroke of the bat can turn the score around, love how the players are human beings from all walks of life, guys who aren’t the size of a truck. When I’m at the ballpark, there’s no place I’d rather be—with the exception of this office, naturally.”
“Skip the sarcasm and keep going.”
“Okay. To sum up, I’d say I feel joyous when I watch baseball, among other sports. Joyous. Glad to be alive. Transcendent. Does that answer your question, Dr. Wyman?”
“It certainly does. Thank you.” Not a huge breakthrough but a breakthrough nonetheless.
At another session, I focused on getting Brock to observe small details about his surroundings and then comment on them, the way women do. Men are pitiful when it comes to noticing things (not counting a woman’s breasts), and so teaching them how to practice the art of noticing was crucial to their mastery of Womenspeak.
“Here’s the script, Mr. Brock. You and Susan are having a business lunch outside the office. You’re sitting at the restaurant, eating, and you glance over at Susan’s plate and say, with a concerned expression, ‘Susan, I just noticed: You ordered your salad with the dressing on the side and yet it came soaked in balsamic vinaigrette.’”
“I’m gonna fire Susan.”
“What?”
“How competent could she be if she didn’t send back her salad when it didn’t come the way she ordered it?”
“You’re missing the point.”
“So enlighten me.”
“The point is for you to notice that she didn’t get the salad the way she ordered it, to show that you’re being attentive to her, as opposed to ignoring her. You see, Mr. Brock, if two women were having lunch and one of them didn’t get what she ordered exactly the way she ordered it, the other one would notice it and comment on it, because that’s how women establish intimacy with each other.”
“By talking about salad?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “Personally, I never order salad at a restaurant. They don’t even call it salad anymore. They call it field greens.”
“I’d like us to get back to the script.”
He honed his blue eyes on me. “You really think I’m from another planet, one of those Mars guys, don’t you?”
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t subscribe to that particular theory. I just think you need to become more sensitive, more in touch with your feminine side, as I’ve said over and over. And you’ll get there, Mr. Brock. I promise you.” I made a bet with my friends that you’ll get there, buddy. “Now. Give me the line. ‘Susan, I just noticed: You ordered your salad with the dressing on the side and yet it came soaked in balsamic vinaigrette.’”
He gave me the line, then asked, “Has anyone ever told you you’d make a great dominatrix?”
“Yes.”
After a few weeks, I decided Brock was ready for his first on-site training trip. When he arrived at my office for his Tuesday appointment at noon, I said, “It’s a beautiful day in May. Why don’t we wander over to Bloomingdale’s and buy your secretary a gift.”
He looked totally bewildered. “Why should I buy Naomi a gift? It’s not her birthday.”
“When is her birthday?”
“How should I know?”
“You should know because you’re her boss and you’ve been her boss for a number of years now. Once you’ve completed the Wyman Method, you’ll not only know when her birthday is, you’ll be able to say without any prodding whatsoever, ‘Happy Birthday, Naomi. I’d like to take you out for lunch today to celebrate.’”
“Naomi never goes out for lunch. She has a salad at her desk. At least, she had one yesterday.”
I beamed. “I’m very pleased, Mr. Brock.”
“What for?”
“You noticed what she ate for lunch yesterday. That’s progress.”
He shrugged modestly, but he was pleased, too. I could tell.
“So we’ll walk over to Bloomingdale’s and you’ll pick out a present for Naomi, a Thanks-for-being-such-a-good-secretary present. She’ll be delighted.”
“But I wouldn’t know what to buy for her. She’s the one who buys all the gifts. I give her a list at Christmas and she takes care of everybody.”
“That’s why we’re going on this little outing,” I said. “It’s time you learned how to take care of your own personal errands. No more distancing yourself from the people who matter to you.”
He bitched and moaned but off we went.
It felt wonderful to be out of the office on such a mild, spring afternoon. Even Brock shed his scowl as he strolled next to me. It seemed that everyone in Manhattan had chosen to be outdoors during their lunch breaks; such were the crowds of men and women basking in the warm sunshine.
“It’s nice out, isn’t it?” I asked as we walked down Third Avenue.
“Very.” He smiled at me, placed his hand on my back, and then, noticing my reproachful body language, stuck the hand safely into his jacket pocket.
“That was a smart decision on your part,” I said, referring to his aborted touching of me. “It’s inappropriate for a man to have that sort of physical contact with a woman in a business setting.”
“Yeah, fine. I was just—”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.”
What I’m leaving out here is that, despite how I scolded him, I liked that Brandon Brock had placed his hand on my back. There was nothing the least bit inappropriate or unnatural or sleazy about it. It was an innocent gesture, and I knew it. But I was trying to change the way he interacted with women, and I couldn’t do that if I didn’t remain consistent and, most importantly, maintain my distance.
When we entered the department store, he looked genuinely lost.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I—”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how to buy something for Naomi or any other woman,” he admitted, more belligerently than bashfully.
“Nonsense. Surely, you’ve shopped for Kelsey.” That day up at Sarah’s house, his girlfriend had been wearing enough expensive jewelry to weigh down an elephant.
“I’ve shopped with her. I’ve never shopped for her.”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Brock. You’ve never bought her a present?”
“I’ve paid for her presents—lots of them—but she’s always picked them out herself. So I’ve never had to think about it.”
“Good. Then picking out something for Naomi will be an even more useful exercise.”
“Picking out what for Naomi?” He stomped his foot, like a kid having a tantrum. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Brandon Brock wasn’t comfortable when he wasn’t in charge.
“How about trying to figure out what she might like? This will encourage you to think about her in a caring, supportive way, as opposed to viewing her as a machine. The idea is to remind you that she’s a person too.”
“I already know she’s a person. A person who does my shopping so I don’t have to.”
I told him to can the backtalk and follow me.
I led him to the escalator, which we took to the designer sportswear department.
“How about buying her one of those lightweight cotton sweaters?” I suggested, pointing to the counter behind which the sweaters were folded.
“If we’ve ruled out the black negligee,” he retorted.
I paid no attention. We walked over to the counter. “Now,” I said, beginning my coaching. “The gist of the script is that you’re going to ask the saleswoman for help.”
“I don’t like asking women for help. Never have.”
“I’m aware of that. Nevertheless, you’re going to wave that saleswoman over here and say, ‘Excuse me, Miss. Could you help me with these ladies’ sweaters?’”
“She’ll think I’m a cross dresser.”
“Stop it. Now, give me a practice line.”
He looked around, to make sure no one was watching, and whispered, “Excuse me, Miss. Could you help me with these sweaters?”
“These ladies’ sweaters. You forgot the ‘ladies.’”
“Sorry.”
“All right. After you’ve delivered the line and she says she’d be glad to help you, I want you to explain to her what you’re looking for.”
“But I don’t know what I’m looking for!”
“Just say to her, ‘I’d like to buy a gift for my secretary,’ and then describe Naomi’s size—oh, and leave out the bit about her tits being so low she trips over them.”
“Okay, okay.” He swallowed hard, then waved the saleswoman over.
She didn’t see him immediately, so instead of waiting a few seconds, God forbid, he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled for her, nearly destroying my hearing.
“That’s no way to get her attention,” I hissed disapprovingly. “What do you do in restaurants when the waiter doesn’t appear the instant you need him? Snap your fingers?”
“Sometimes.”
“You’d think you never learned any manners, Mr. Brock.”
“I learned them. I just bypass them.”
“Well don’t bypass them in the future. Now, here she comes.”
The saleswoman hurried over to us. Brock stood there, fingering his tie.
“Let’s have the line,” I whispered, urging him on. “Go.”
“Excuse me, Miss. Could you help me with these ladies’ sweaters?”
“I’d be glad to,” she said. “Which one were you interested in?”
Brock looked at me, the proverbial deer in the headlights. I leaned over and whispered the next line of the script in his ear.
“I’d like to buy a gift for my secretary,” he managed after several awkward beats.
The saleswoman turned her gaze on me, looked me up and down. “Something in a small then? Or maybe an extra small?”
It was a completely understandable assumption on her part—that I was the secretary in question—but I wasn’t crazy about the way she automatically dubbed me an extra small, without even measuring me.
“Oh, she’s not my secretary,” Brock said, nodding at me. “She’s my—” He was stumped. And I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t discussed ahead of time what would happen if someone recognized him, recognized me, or simply questioned the nature of our relationship. It was a given that he didn’t want his sessions with me to become tabloid fodder, but I didn’t anticipate any problem there. People rarely recognize CEOs (except George Steinbrenner, Ted Turner, and Rupert Murdoch—celebrity CEOs, in other words). And people rarely recognized me anymore.
“I’m his shopping advisor,” I said, putting the matter to rest.
“Right,” he said, relieved.
“Then what size is your secretary?” the saleswoman asked him.
He hesitated. I thought he was actually going to backslide and blurt out the “her tits are so low…” answer. He seemed to be struggling with exactly how to describe Naomi’s chest size. Finally, he settled on, “She’s pretty large on top—not big-boned, but a full cup of java, if you know what I mean.”
I shook my head at him, pulled him aside. “That was most definitely not Womenspeak,” I whispered. “Try to remember what your goal is in all this, would you please, Mr. Brock? Try to imagine what a woman would say in this situation.”
He nodded.
“I’m fairly sure I have the general idea, sir,” said the saleswoman, who was trying to keep a straight face. “We’re talking about a large size for the sweater. Now then. In what color?”
Brock needed another conference with me. This from a man who made decisions on behalf of a multi-billion-dollar company. “What’s your favorite color?” he whispered.
“Yellow,” I whispered back. “Now come on, Mr. Brock. Before your next exchange with this saleswoman, I want you to summon up everything you’ve been learning in my office and bring it to the surface. I want you to call upon every single bit of information you’ve absorbed thus far. I want you to succeed at the Wyman Method. Right here, right now.”
He nodded again, with more determination this time. I held my breath.
“I’d like to see the sweater in a yellow,” he instructed the saleswoman. “But not a screaming, school-bus yellow. I’d prefer a softer, lemony yellow for my dear, tenderhearted secretary, more of a pastel shade, actually. Pastels are lovely for summer, don’t you agree? Especially pastel yellow. It’s sort of a sunshine-y soul provider.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or do a victory dance.
“Did you like that?” he said after the saleswoman trotted off to find the sweater. “I hoped you would.” He was grinning, enjoying himself immensely.
“Your Womenspeak was excellent,” I commended him, forcing myself to remain coolly professional. “Flawless, in fact. Which leads me to believe that the Michael Bolton session had an effect on you after all.”
He shook his head. “It was you, Dr. Wyman. You had an effect on me. Or aren’t I supposed to say that?”
I felt myself flush slightly, shyly. “Of course you can say that, Mr Brock. I’m enormously gratified that I’ve been able to help you. It’s my job to help you. The Wyman Method is a wonderful, wonderful program. I think you can see that now.”
“Right.” He glanced at his watch. “Uh-oh. I’ve got to get back to the office for a lunch meeting.” He reached inside his pants pocket, pulled out his wallet and shoved a credit card in my hand. “Here’s my Bloomies charge, Dr. Wyman. When the saleswoman comes back with my sunshine-y soul provider sweater for Naomi, give her the card, have her bill my account, and then hang onto the sweater for me until I see you next week. What do you say?”
Before I could even sputter a reply registering my acute displeasure, he was gone.
15
“Lynn? It’s Penny. Did I wake you?” It was eleven o’clock on Wednesday night.
“No. I was in bed reading.” Yes, she did wake me. I don’t know why people always lie about that. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. More than okay. That’s why I’m calling. I’m really, really close to signing up Feminax as a client.”
“What’s Feminax?”
“Obviously, I did wake you,” she said dryly. “Feminax happens to be the hot new manufacturer of tampons everyone’s talking about.”
