Janet Flora | Writer

          You know you can't change him, so you try to get him to change himself.
          He has told you all you need to know: that he has been unsuccessful at all his past relationships, and he's just about to turn Forty; that nasty little word that starts with F, but it's far from Fifty, and you did hear of that guy—your mother's second cousin's friend, Max, who, at 52, got married for the first time—and he swore he'd always be a bachelor. Then wham, he met a flight attendant on a return trip from Vegas to New York. She was 37, just your age, and last you heard they're living happily ever after in Staten Island and they just celebrated their son's third birthday.
          Even though you know you can't change him—you're too smart for that—sometimes you hear a story like Max's and it gives you hope that he can change himself, and perhaps he just needs to see the light, so you think of ways to lead him into the light, which is different than leading a horse to water, because the horse might not drink the water, but the man will probably see the light, especially if it shines brightly.
          You start slowly, subtly, not wanting to shock or startle him out of his safe, dark cave. You decide that maybe he needs to see you in a new light, and while you're not really conservative, you're not quite a "babe." You start using products that you read about in the magazines, like lip-plump, which promises fuller, pouty lips, and then you try some gooey gloss, and you go to a makeup artist, who puts on individual lashes that stay on for weeks if you don't rub your eyes too much. Your guy even seems to notice. He says "you look different," and since he is not a guy that usually bathes you in compliments, you think this is great, because after all you're not a babe, but he is a hunk, and when you're out with him you know you are the envy of many other girls who are indeed babes. And when your guy calls you "baby," "sweetie," or "honey," that just always seals the deal more tightly, and you think he's worth the work, worth the wait—particularly since you already put in three good years; so what if you need to light the way for him a bit?
          After the first year that you're together, you take him to meet your parents; you think this is a great idea, especially since your mom looks so good for her age. Your mom has lit candles for the dinner she has made for this special occasion, so the light is soft and flattering, although your father notices even in the low light that your guy doesn't have the best table manners and never puts the napkin on his lap.
          When you're not busy getting yourself glossy, or having candle-lit dinners, you realize that you can use pop culture to help light the way for him. You suggest theater and movies, since inside the theater it's dark, but the light is coming from the stage, or the screen, and it shines brightly—not on him—but for him.
          You get tickets to Rent on Broadway—hoping that when the cast sings that song about measuring a year with love—he'll think of those Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, and measure them with the good times he has had with you.
          You rent Jerry Maguire and you both laugh out loud, but you notice that he starts falling asleep when Renée Zellweger says, "You had me at 'Hello.'" You drag him to see Shopgirl, which you think is perfect because the Steve Martin character is this older guy who just can't commit, but at the end of the movie he tells the girl, "I really did love you." But the girl has moved on and found a younger guy who loves her openly; he's the kind of guy that lives in the light.
          You hope your guy will fear losing you to someone who lives in the light; after all, your guy has lost girls before. They're the ones who moved on, many getting married to someone who didn't need so much fixing up, and now those former girlfriends are fixing up houses and backyards and apartments; some are fixing the spare room into a nursery. There are one or two former girlfriends who are still hanging on, they're looking around for different guys, but they've just found more like him so they check in with him from time to time to see how he's doing, or more accurately, to see if he's doing the same.
          Sometimes when you can't get to a movie you give him a book, like the classic The Little Prince—the prince who cares for his rose, but your guy is really interested in the pilot in the story, not the prince and his rose; actually, your guy really isn't that interested in reading at all, so you read him passages from books that seem inspirational, like The Alchemist, where the young shepherd boy meets a woman, and he feels he is in the presence of the only woman in his life, and he knows he is in love and is changed forever by this woman. But as you read your guy falls asleep to the sound of your voice.
          You watch him sleep, look closely at his closed eyes, and as your own eyes grow heavy with sleep, you think, maybe, just maybe, when the light comes up in the morning, it will seep through his eyelids and wake him up—not only to a new day, but something else—he'll be in someway changed, but just before you drop off to sleep you think again about that morning light and just for a minute—no, maybe only a few seconds, you think maybe it's you who needs to see the light.