Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I open the door to La Flor’s room. She’s lying on her bed in a fetal position, her pillow covering her head. Her iPad blaring blues music.

“La Flor* what’s wrong?” I said.

Her muffled voice said, “I don’t want to talk, Ray. Leave me alone go away.”

“No, I am not going to leave you alone until you talk to me. I want to know what’s wrong. You are not a blues music kind of girl. You walk and talk with the beat of life kind of girl. Now get out of the fetal position and let’s go into the kitchen and have some coffee and talk about whatever is bothering you.”

Grudgingly, Flor untangled herself from her fetal position and sat up on the edge of the bed.

I took a look at her and said, “I think you should go to the bathroom and freshen up a bit.”

“Do I look that bad?” La Flor’s eyes raised to meet mine.

“Yes,” I answered. I knew right away, I said the wrong thing. It’s a species thing. I got to work on it.

“Are you going to put that in the blog? I don’t want my readers thinking I had a bad look.”

“Too late, it’s already in,” another male faux pax.

La Flor rose from the bed, went to the bathroom, turned to me, and said, “Is there any ice cream left? What about the chocolate cake? I think there were couple Fudgsicles left.”

“You cleaned up the ice cream. You licked the crumbs from the one-third of chocolate cake that was left until the plate. The Fudgsicles sticks have no chocolate stain on them.”

“Can you send out for pizza?”

“You can’t eat your way through this.”

“I can try.”

“Do you know how much weight you will gain if you keep this up?”

“If you’re good friend, you will write that no matter how much I eat I don’t gain an ounce.”

“I’m a good friend, but not that good of a friend. You’ve got to get control of yourself. Now go freshen up and we’ll talk.”

“10 minutes later I knocked on the bathroom door, “La Flor you have to come out of the bathroom.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You have to face the world.”

“I don’t have anything to live for.”

“Coffee and a snack are ready for you.”

The bathroom door opened. La Flor stepped out. I gave her a smile. She walked past me into the kitchen.

We sat at the table.  La Flor and I both have filled coffee mugs in front of us.

“Where is my snack?” she said.

I walked to the refrigerator and brought out a small bowl of blackberries and strawberries.

La Flor stared at them, then said, “At least you could have had chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered blackberries.” She got up, went to the cupboard and pulled out a jar of peanut butter.

I said, “Okay La Flor, spill the beans what is it, I have a feeling it is guy trouble.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No, I could hardly tell anything was bothering you.”

“I do hold my feelings well.”

“Yeah, it was a wild guess on my part,” I said.

“I got an email from Jack.”

“And, what did Jack say?”

“He said he was thinking of getting a court order to have me cease-and-desist from stalking him.”

“Were you stalking him?”

“No, I was not stalking him. He mistook my 300 texts a day as stalking.  And, only 100 texts each day were selfies so he wouldn’t forget me.”

“It appears that your relationship is over. Look in the mirror, you are Leflore, beautiful, tough, and edgy, PI.”

La Flor pulled the teaspoon full of peanut butter away from her lips and smiled. She said, “Ray, you are right. He’s getting to be old-school. I’ve got to set my sights higher. He probably goes to bed at 9 o’clock. My day is just beginning at that time.”

“You’re a night owl.”

“That’s when the action starts, Ray.” La Flor looked over to the trash basket and said, “Did you eat all the cake and ice cream? You didn’t save me a Fudgsicle? I have a suggestion for you.”

“What is it, La Flor?”

“When you go to the Y, spend two hours at full speed. Maybe you can cut half of those calories off.”

“Maybe so La Flor, maybe so.  What are you going to do?”

“I’m texting my friend at the mystery writers blog and seeing if she wants to go out with me tonight. There’re lots of fish in the ocean.”

May the good Lord have mercy on the male alt ego species.

We all have down times. We all slip into depression. That’s where friends count. A friend who will be there with us. A friend who will not judge us. A friend who will listen quietly. And, a friend who will help lift us out of the darkness and into the sunlight.

* La Flor is a fictional character and acts as my alt ego. Her character has evolved over the blog posts. She began with a single letter as her name. Her name gradually grew to two letters, then three before she settled on La Flor. She liked the name because it fit her idea of a beautiful, tough, and edgy feminine PI.  It is my interaction with her persona that serves as the source of these blog posts. I have no notion how La Flor will continue to evolve. It is an adventure for me as well as the reader.