Mr. International
Excerpt II
She doesn’t laugh when I speak. That is the first warning.
Most people treat intelligence like entertainment—something to sip while waiting for the main event, which is always themselves. But she listens as if she’s taking measurements, as if my words are not ornaments but evidence.
I tell her, casually, that I keep a notebook. Nothing special. Just fragments. Observations. A habit I picked up from an old professor who believed thoughts die if they aren’t trapped in ink.
“Do you write about women?” she asks.
“Sometimes.”
“Do you write about yourself?”
I smile, because it’s the kind of question that makes men feel important. But the smile doesn’t land. She doesn’t reach for it like a gift.
“I write about patterns,” I say. “How people repeat themselves when they think no one is watching.”
“And when someone is watching?” she asks.
I want to say: Then I become careful. Instead I give her something prettier.
“Then,” I tell her, “I become art.”
She nods once—not impressed, not fooled—just recording.
And in that moment I understand what she is doing. She isn’t trying to possess me.
She’s trying to know me.