It was incredibly weird to be offering Lou some of my best period tips over the phone to help him deal with bleeding during the night.
You just don’t talk about such things with your husband, and, there should never be a reason to. But when Lou called me from Miami the night after his first day of interviewing, I was trying to help him with an important protection strategy.
Lou: Everything here is white. The sheets, the bedspread, the rug, the actual bed itself. The only thing that isn’t white in this guest room is my suitcase.
Me: Welcome to Miami!
Lou: Baby… I’ve really been having a bad day of bleeding, and I’m worried about getting something on this bed.
Oh my gosh — I was rubbing off on him!!
Me: Do you think it was the flight?
Lou: Maybe. And, sitting without that donut. But I went through a lot of dipes today. I’ve got enough for tonight, but I’m worried about this bed.
Me: Just layer up, then. Wear the two pairs of shorts I packed over top of everything else, and you should be fine.
Lou: Ugh. That sounds like a lot of clothing to wear to bed…
Me: Trust me. It’s how you’ll get through this.
After we hung up, I slid down into the soft clean sheets on Dona’s guest bed, and smiled to myself about how odd it was for me to be helping Lou through such a strange predicament. Lately, we had found ourselves in more than one or two crazy situations, but helping Lou with something like this kind of took the cake. But I also started to ponder Lou’s other news of the day. He gave me a full run-down of how things unfolded, and I needed to rethink his impressions before I could drift off to sleep.
When Lou landed in Miami that morning, “Steve,” the owner of the MLM company, picked him up in his brand new Maserati. Lou said the car was incredible — it was like “roller-skating on butter.” (Lou clearly didn’t realize how unimpressive that comparison would be for me.) Steve took Lou down to his favorite restaurant near South Beach. As always, the people watching in that part of the city was incredible. But Lou said during lunch, he tried to imagine us living there. He said he liked picturing us there — he knew we could make it work.
When Lou finally talked to me about the actual meeting with Steve, I was relieved to hear him say that the direction of the conversation was going very well. Steve really seemed to value Lou’s input, and it was clear he wanted to have someone like Lou on his team. Steve had owned several huge MLM companies in the past, too, but one of his companies had taken a messy turn.
It’s really difficult to rebuild your reputation in that industry, so Lou’s advice and his reputation were very useful. And between Lou and Steve, they probably knew every key player in that business. But Lou said he already had some reservations about how tricky it would be for him to “mix in” to the current management team. There were a lot of strong personalities.
Steve and his wife, “Paola,” had dinner catered and served in their newly remodeled home. Lou said he knew Steve had a young wife; but he wasn’t expecting her to be more than 35 years younger!
Paola was 25, and supposedly some kind of Colombian super model. Lou said she was actually much nicer than he expected — however, she didn’t make a very warm first impression. She seemed miffed at Steve for making such a fuss over Lou. But once Lou and Steve stopped talking about business, and turned the focus to Paola’s acting career, she was apparently quite chatty.
Lou said Paola was kind of a strange beauty. She was very… Augmented.(Lou’s exact words were, “She’s rather lumpy.”) Lou also told me that Paola seemed pretty needy and whiney, and every time Steve would start talking about business again, she’d click into baby talk and say, “Aai Pappi. No more work!”
Steve and Paola had recently had a baby, and when they discovered they were pregnant, they did a very hasty remodel of an oddly planned home on the water right the middle of a very ritzy section of Miami called Coral Gables. Lou said the interior decorating was kind of a trip — everything was extremely white! Lou said every sofa, every chair, and every surface of the house was white, white, white — which is horrible when you’re bleeding like a stuffed pig.
But Steve did have a great “man cave” downstairs, and, a state-of-the-art theater room for watching football games (or… for watching Paola’s movies some day.) Lou said Paola was very proud of the man cave she set up for her husband; it had a lot of leather furnishing, and a variety of animal print rugs, throw pillows, and blankets tossed around the room.
Grrrrr…
Lou said that Steve was going to take him to his office the next morning to have a proper sit down with the rest of his executive staff. There was a lot to discuss, including ways that Steve might want to reboot his company, and, whether or not Lou would fit in with the rest of the team.
Lou gave me a lot to think about that night.
I had already lived in South Florida twice — once when I was a teenager and my family moved from Steamboat Springs, Colorado to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Then, I lived there again when I got out of college. I got a job as a flight attendant, and at first, I was based in South Florida — which meant I flew out of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and occasionally Palm Beach.
I liked certain things about Miami, and in fact, I set my first novel, Hurricane Season, in South Beach because it’s almost like it’s own character! The frantic sound of everyone speaking Spanish, and all of the exotic-looking (and “lumpy”) people makes that part of the world truly unique and memorable.
But for me, living in Miami wasn’t really the biggest thing on my mind. Lou getting a steady job was what had my interests piqued. Before I drifted off to sleep, I remember praying for Lou. I started by thanking God that Lou was safe and sound, and he’d made it through the first day of the interview with almost no issues. And, I remember feeling so optimistic and happy that Lou was feeling valued by a business contemporary.
It’s those little things that I never want to forget to mention to God with gratitude in my heart. It’s easy to lose sight of tiny mercies when you’re grasping at straws — but somehow, I’ve consistently spotted small things to be thankful for that give me certainty that God is always present in the details of my life.
