Because this opinionated and sometimes caring old lady was a sharp observer, she picked up on the fact that her son was in Gloria’s sights. And told him so. He just laughed. But then started to think. Not about Gloria, exactly, but about the fact of her liking him. He liked the idea of her starting to work there two years ago in a neutral state and then noticing this man who worked there, that is, him, Randy, and coming gradually to prefer him over all of the men in town and over all the men in the world, apparently, coming to like him the most, in some special way he didn’t really know about yet but would like to know more about. What was it about him that she liked so much? It was interesting. He liked, also, the way they seemed to agree on everything. That wasn’t the case with other women. Other women often disagreed with him. If he said it was about to rain, they might say, “I doubt it” or “Doesn’t look like it” or “That’s not in the forecast.” But she, Gloria, would say something like “I bet you’re right.” Which confirmed they were simpatico. And when it did start to rain, she’d say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” which seemed, to him, like a forthright way of acknowledging how right he’d been. And then (he found this generous) she’d smile, as if it pleased her to be able to acknowledge how right he’d been. Which he liked. He liked the way she noticed and enjoyed the way he tended to get most things right. She seemed, in this way, confident. It didn’t bother her, the way it did most women, when he was shown to be right. If a person was right, he was right, she seemed to feel, it was no skin off her ass.

So, imagine you are a woman who, all your life, people have shied away from and avoided, and whenever you said something it went out into the world and just hung there, causing a neutral or slightly adverse reaction, and every time this happened, you felt it, and so, behind you, in your life there had accrued a series of light but painful little blows, conspiring to convince you that there was something wrong with you, and now you find yourself in the daily presence of a man who seems to be coming to like you and has even started to leave you little presents on the break room table (a chocolate mint, a single Twinkie). And imagine that this man’s mother is against it, against this thing that is the thing that, now, propels you, Gloria, out of bed every morning. And that she, the mother, finds all of this amazing and laughable and disappointing and even, one day, tells her son that his interest in you is causing her to downgrade her opinion of him. And imagine that the man shares this with you. But, far from discouraging him, he says, this has actually made him feel, for the first time, that he is the protector of some woman not his mother. Which, he says, blushing, has made him feel tender, toward you, or whatnot.