Crave Real Burgers, April 7, 2012
To Mindy and Jasmine’s surprise,
their definitive “Better than sex” proclamation was witnessed by five wait
staff, two waiters and three waitresses, standing behind their table. With an embarrassed smile, their own waiter
apologizes, “I’m sorry, Mindy, but our
performance won’t be ‘better than sex.’”
“But,” he adds smiling, “we hope you’ll like it anyway.” Turning to the wait staff, he snaps, “One,
two, three,” and the five begin singing happy birthday. A sixth waiter arrives, joins in the singing,
and is carrying a generous brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge
chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and tall sparkler candle. Jasmine had cued their waiter to Mindy’s
birthday, but she didn’t know they’d do it up like this. Was today Mindy’s birthday or the Fourth of
July?Once again, Jasmine and Mindy’s table has attracted the attention of everyone in the restaurant, but this time, it’s for the talented wait staff. Each are singing their own part, jazz vocal style. These guys had practiced this song. After the lyric, “Happy Birthday, dear Mindy!” their own waiter breaks into percussion. Jasmine thinks she hears drums, bass, and a synthesizer coming through his voice. In jazz choir harmony, all six finish it off: “Haaappy birthday to yoooooou!”
The two couples at the next table over give them a standing ovation. One of them, a 30-something male with a deep, low voice of his own, shakes their waiter’s hand, saying, “That was pretty close to sex! That was orgasmic!” Laughter rolls through the restaurant, as Jasmine and Mindy throw their blushing faces into the palms of their hands – until the two break into laughter of their own. Still holding her abdomen, Mindy asks, “How can I eat that? My stomach hurts too much!”
Jasmine’s
not sure she does “know” and thinks sometimes boys need to just grow up, but she
keeps that to herself and asks, “What happened?”
“He
said he needed his ‘space.’ I asked if
that meant another girl, and he said of course not, it means ‘space,’ and don’t
I get it? I said no I don’t get it, and
he walked away. We did that a few times
and he never told me what he meant by ‘space,’ so I figured ‘must be another
girl.’ One Tuesday night in my apartment,
he suggested we meet up again on Saturday, once he’s had his ‘space,’ and I
asked him for the twentieth time what he meant, and he screamed, ‘Space! Get it?’ I said no, so he got red in the face and yelled,
‘If you don’t know what it means to need ‘space,’ then you’re not the girl for
me!” I screamed back, “So you want a
girl who’ll let you play around?!” He
screamed back louder, “No! I want a girl
who gets what ‘space’ means!" He walked away, stopped at the door, shouted, "Maybe I want a girl who wants her space too!” then he slammed the door, and drove away. I was fuming too, thinking he must want some
stupid, ‘open’ relationship that I don’t want, but I didn’t know what to
do. The next morning, I was in a better
frame of mind and texted him. Here it is." Mindy shows her phone to Jasmine:
"I still don’t know what space
means, but I love you and want to make this work."
It’s
the last message on their thread – until the mysterious one that just arrived,
“Happy Birthday.” Mindy shakes her head,
looks at Jasmine, and points to that last text, “Still don’t know what to do
with this.”
Jasmine
doesn’t either, so she’s grateful for the interruption of their waiter. “How do you like your birthday dessert?”
“Delicious,”
Mindy beams. Then pointing her index finger at him, adds her disapproval, “Dangerous!”
“Glad
you like it!”
“I
liked the song too,” Mindy smiles back. “How
did you learn to scat sing?”
“I
made it into Vocal Jazz at CU Boulder,” he smiles.
“Ohhh!”
Mindy beams, “They’re the best! Good for
you!”
“Do
you sing?”
“A
little, not like you,” Mindy replies, ducking her head a bit. “I’m not sure I caught your name.”
“Tony. Nice to meet you,” he holds out his hand to
shake it.
Tony. Uh oh.
Is Mindy thinking what Jasmine is?
“Tony,”
Mindy says slowly. “Nice to meet you too,” and shakes his hand. “So a jazz vocal singer waiting tables . . .
?”
“I
know,” Tony nods, “Starving artist, trying to make it into show business,
waiting tables. Yes, I’m your poster
child stereotype.” He opens out both of
his arms, motioning ‘take it or leave it.’
Mindy
learns he’ll be performing in Colorado Spring’s summer show, South Pacific, he’s saving money to move
to Denver, and hasn’t yet decided on what he’d like as his “final” stop on the
show business ladder. He doesn’t want
the chaos of New York, nor the traffic of LA, but is considering San Francisco
or Miami. “For now,” Tony smiles, “I’ll
ease on down the road, until, look, a new day has begun!”
“The Wiz and Cats!” Mindy exclaims.
“You
know your musicals! Have you been in
any?”
“I
played Liesl in Sound of Music at
college.”
“You’re
sixteen going on seventeen,” Tony begins singing.
“I
am sixteen going on seventeen,” Mindy sings in reply.
“What
do you mean you sing ‘a little’? You have a beautiful voice.” Then, noticing the tables waiting for his service,
he apologizes, “Gotta go!”
Once
he’s out of earshot, Jasmine smiles at her blushing friend, “Make you wanna get
into show business?”
“Maybe,”
she smiles, “Maybe just into his arms?”
While
Mindy and Tony were flirting, Jasmine was musing over the opposite of her
question about why “desiring her man” should be a curse, and whether it relates
to that longing to be “completed” by one. Mindy complaining that Justin “wanted his
space” turned Jasmine's question upside down. What about the guy? According to the story in Genesis, he was not
“cursed” to “desire his woman.” So, maybe,
instead, he “wants his space”?
With
Mindy in a good mood, Jasmine takes the plunge to ask: “I wonder if Justin
doesn’t want a girl to ‘complete’ him?”
“What
do you mean?”
“Maybe
Justin feels complete enough on his own and doesn’t need to feel ‘completed’ by
a girl?”
“What’s
that got to do with him playing around?”
“But
he didn’t want to ‘play around,’ he wanted ‘space.’”
“So
you’re on his side!” Mindy fumes.
Jasmine wonders how to straighten this out, but before she gets a
chance, Mindy continues seething. “It had been a happy birthday, ‘till now,
‘till my best friend takes my ex-boyfriend’s
side!”
“Mindy,
stop it!” Not sure what to say,
Jasmine rolls her eyes, crosses her arms, shakes her head, and looks away. It’s
Mindy’s birthday. You can fix this. How? Jasmine wonders. By saying “sorry?” Jasmine’s not sorry. She believes in what she said, and maybe
Mindy needs to hear it. Maybe hearing it
can help Mindy heal. She said it, in
part, because she loves Mindy. Then tell her that.
After
a couple of deep breaths, Jasmine responds, slowly, “Look, Mindy. I love you.
You know I wouldn’t say anything to hurt you.”
Mindy
nods. A tear is almost forming in her
right eye. “I know.”
Jasmine
decides to take a different tact. “Do
you really think he wanted to ‘play around’?
Was there anyone else he seemed to be interested in? Does he seem like that kind of a guy?”
“No,”
Mindy admits. “He didn’t seem like ‘that
kind of a guy’ at all. Not at all. Maybe that’s why I was so mad at him. I was sure he wasn’t. And then he goes and acts like he is.”
“By
saying he wanted ‘space’?”
“Yeah,
why else would he want ‘space’? He
already had plenty of time for his theater, for his dance and music classes,
for fun with the guys. Isn’t that
enough? If he needed even more space
than that, he must not have really loved me.”
“What
if he didn’t need to be ‘completed’ by you?”
“All
right, your mind seems to be working out something I’m not following. What are you saying?”
“Have
I shared with you that verse about Eve that has stopped me dead in my tracks,
that’s behind my obsession of women and romance and wanting to be ‘completed’
by their man?”
“No.
You’ve mentioned the ‘you complete me’ line, but nothing more than that.”
“Did
you know that in the story of Genesis, the character of God gave Eve two more
curses after pain in childbirth?”
“No.” Mindy looks confused. Where
is this going?
“He
did: ‘you will desire your man, and he will rule over you.”
“He
will rule over you?” Now Jasmine has
Mindy’s attention. “The Bible actually
says that?”
“Yes,
the Bible actually gives Eve a third curse that Adam ‘rule over her’ in Genesis
3:16. That one scares me so much I
haven’t been ready to take out a pole to even start poking at it.”
“No
kidding. I’ve got chills running up and
down my spine right now. Why don’t
churches admit this?”
“Oh,
don’t get me started!” Jasmine has been holding this very question within
herself and feels like she is about ready to burst.
The
two friends sigh and let the silence rest them for a moment. Finally, Mindy breaks the silence. “So how does this all relate to Justin?”
“It’s
about the second curse to Eve, ‘you will desire your man.’ Read the way the church teaches us to read
the story, with Eve representing women and Adam representing men, that curse
was given to women, not to men.
Women desire their men.
It’s not sexual desire either.
The Hebrew word for “desire” in that passage, teshuqah, is about a “longing,” not for sex, but for the man
himself. The verse says, ‘you will
desire your man[1],’
not sex with him, as some have thought.”
Mindy
laughs, “Doesn’t everyone know it’s not the women who are desiring too much
sex?!” Instantly, both Jasmine and Mindy look through restaurant. This time, no one’s looking at them. Whew. “We’re learning, Mindy. You didn’t say that too loud!”
After
more giggling, Jasmine continues, “According to this story that Christians put
so much stock into, that story says women were cursed to desire their man!”
“Wow.”
Mindy takes a moment to let Jasmine’s words soak in.
“OK,” Mindy says slowly, still confused. “And how does any of this relate to Justin
wanting his ‘space’?"
“Because,
if you read it the way Christians have been taught
to read it, men were not given that curse.
Men were not cursed to desire their women.”
Mindy
takes in Jasmine’s thought and slowly works to form her question. “So you’re saying Justin wants his ‘space’
because he doesn’t have a curse that compels him to desire me?”
“That’s what I wonder.”
“And
I don’t want him to have that space because I’m cursed to desire him?”
“That’s
what also I wonder.”
“Level
with me, Jazzie. Do you really think God cursed women?”
“I
don’t see it like that, but I do think the story reveals some profound truths
about humanity. I also find it very
revealing that whoever wrote this story in Genesis actually admitted that men
ruling over women would be a curse to women.”
“And
what’s revealing today is that we’re not shown this.”
©
2019 by karina. All
rights reserved. Please
use only with permission from the author.
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