Garrett diligently wrote down what I was saying and I felt motivated to keep talking about my book idea. It was so nice to have someone sitting with me who was listening to me and my ideas. Not only was Garrett listening, but he was literally taking notes and encouraging me. Even my own friends from New York seemed to be so wrapped up in their own lives that they hardly ever took the time to have a real conversation with me. It was nice to have an encouraging conversation about some of my goals.
“What about once they get hired? What should women know then?” Garrett asked.
“They need to know how to make friends without seeming like a push over, or someone who doesn’t work very hard. They need to know which type of friends to gravitate toward and which ones to stay away from.”
“Explain that more,” Garrett asked as he continued to take notes.
“What I mean is that many women are afraid to have friends in the office when they start getting important jobs. Although the male co-workers all have friends in the office, as a woman I felt like I was being judged every time I stopped to talk to one of my female co-workers. But also, there are women you should avoid in a workplace setting. The ones who cause drama and sleep around aren’t the ones a woman should befriend.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Men would see a couple women talking and make comments that we were gossiping or something else like that. It never occurred to them that we might actually be having a conversation, just like normal friends do. They also assumed any woma
n who was friends with a woman who slept around was also that sort of woman.”
“This stuff is really good Sarah. You need to write a book for sure,” he said and handed me the piece of paper he had taken notes on for me. “Women in business need a book like this.”
Garrett was sweet, but what did he really know about business or women in the workplace? Of course, I wasn’t going to say anything to him; but Garrett was a ranch hand, he clearly didn’t understand what women dealt with in a corporate working environment. I doubted anyone would even buy such a book, if I ever took the trouble to write it.
“Thank you and thanks for humoring me for a little bit. It was fun.”
“By the way, I saw you in a pretty manly suit in that photo at your parent’s house; was that when you first started working?”
“Yes, that was when I got my first office. Obviously, I needed some fashion help. That’s certainly something I’d want to talk with women about. They should dress as fashionably as they want in their careers and not worry about it. Men wear the suits they want to wear and they don’t think twice if the women in the office with be offended by their outfits. Yet as a woman, we have to worry if our skirt is long enough, our breasts are hidden enough, and if the men will be able to concentrate on their work with me around.”
“Write it down,” Garrett said with a smile as he handed me his pen. “If you don’t write it down when you think of it, your ideas tend to lose their passion.”
Garrett spoke with such authority on the subject of writing that I almost wanted to believe him. But he had a way about him in most everything he did and it always seemed to show him in a good light. Even when he had talked about being bitten by a pig, he ended up coming out of the story even more irresistible than he had been before I heard it.
“You seem knowledgeable about writing; have you written anything before?”
He hesitated and seemed to look up into the night air for an answer before he responded. It was odd that he had to think so hard on if he had written anything before, but I waited patiently for him to answer me.
“Just when I was younger. But I really loved it and I thought this trip would be a good time to get back into it.”
“You know, I hardly know anything about you. Tell me more about Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?” Garrett said with a puzzled look on his face.
My gut clenched at his response. He had clearly told me before that he was from Wyoming, yet he didn’t seem to recognize the state at all as I asked him. I tried not to let all the alarms in my mind get set off; he could have simply forgot that he had told me about that part of his life. But something did seem off about the way he didn’t recognize the state.
“Yes, isn’t that where you said you were from?”
“Oh, oh, yes, Wyoming. I’m sorry; I didn’t hear you right the first time. It’s very beautiful in Wyoming. A really peaceful place to grow up.”
“Did you live in the city?”
“Um, well, yeah, it was pretty much the city. Not a big city though, but we didn’t live on a ranch like this.”
“Are your parents still alive?” I asked him.
Again, Garrett paused for an extended period of time before he answered me. My gut was screaming at me by that point. I knew he was lying to me. Obviously, I had no idea why he was lying or what exactly it was that he was hiding, but I knew enough to not be happy.
What had started as a fun evening of flirting and excitement was turning into a huge disappointment for me. I couldn’t flirt with or sleep with a man who was so obviously lying right to my face. I wanted to believe there was another reason for his awkwardness though. I kept pushing forward in hopes that something about our conversation would reveal who Garrett truly was and why I felt like he was keeping things from me.
“Um, no, they passed away.”
“I’m so sorry.”