It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [55]
17
“Thank you, Daddy.” Sharon kisses me on the cheek, takes her barely opened gift and goes to her room.
“What’s with her?” I ask.
“It’s nothing.” Dave is busy scattering around scarves. “Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal. Ha, this is a beauty, Austin Villa.” He wraps it around his neck. “Did you know that last week they succeeded in . . . . ”
Since the Mondial, Dave is fascinated with soccer, especially European soccer. What can possibly be interesting about soccer?
Happy that he is happy with my gift, I turn to Julie. “What’s the matter with Sharon? I thought that having, what’s his name, as a boyfriend put an end to her moods.”
“It’s Eric, and she’s better but not perfect. Nothing to worry about,” Julie assures me. “In a day or two she’ll snap out of it.”
“I think I’ll go up and talk to her. It will be nice to cheer her up a little.” I missed my girl too much.
“You can try.” Julie doesn’t give it much chance.
“May I come in?”
No answer, at least no answer that I can hear. I open the door slightly. Sharon is lying on the bed reading a book.
“May I come in?” I repeat.
Sharon puts down the book.
I choose to interpret that as a yes, and sit myself on her bed. She moves a little to give me more room.
I entered. That’s good, but what am I supposed to do now?
“What are you reading?”
“Some dumb book.” She pushes it to the floor.
“How is Eric?” I try again.
“Okay.”
“And school?”
“Fine.”
I’m starting to bore even myself.
“You know Sharon,” I try to be more direct, “I’d like to talk to you about something that really bothers me.”
“What is it?”
“We don’t have anything that we like to talk about. Not even a single subject that we like to discuss with each other.”
“Oh Daddy, can we do it some other time? I’m too tired for it now.”
Flop.
Okay, one last try. They say that teenage girls are sentimental. Maybe this will work: “Sharon, when I was in Europe the nights were very lonely. I missed all of you a lot. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I didn’t feel like reading, I didn’t feel like going anywhere. For no real reason I was in this terrible mood where nothing seemed worth doing.”
No response.
“Are you in the same situation? No real reason, just that everything looks plain dull?”
“Daddy!”
“Okay. I’ll leave you alone. But tell me one thing. Do you have a real reason for your depressed mood?”
“Of course I do. What do you think?”
I gently smile at her. “I don’t think that you do.”
“What do you know?” She sits up. “Do you understand that I cannot see Eric until Monday? Do you know that I’ve been forced to betray Chris’s trust in me? I don’t have reasons? Do you know how irritating Debbie can be? Everything that I do with Eric is childish. This girl is simply jealous. I know that it sounds pitiful to you. Unimportant girls’ stuff. Daddy, I’m not in the mood. Can I be left alone. Pleeeease.”
I concede. “Yes, jealousy can be very irritating,” I say, and stand up. “But sometimes we have to comply with it. That’s life I guess.”
“Debbie is my best friend. That’s what makes it so hard.”
“On the other hand,” I’m opening the door, “if you want Debbie to continue being your friend and not a pain in the neck, you’d better do something.”
“What?” She stands up as well. “What can I do?”
I go to her desk, pick up one of her pale pink pages and start to write. “Your objective, as I understand it, is to ‘Maintain a good friendship with Debbie.’ In order to achieve that you must ‘Accommodate Debbie’s behavior,’ which under the current circumstances means that you must ‘Tolerate Debbie’s jealousy.’ ”
“But . . .”
“Yes, Sharon, you have a but, a big but.”
“Thank you, Daddy!”
I ignore the pun. “You see, on the other hand, in order to ‘Maintain a good friendship with Debbie’ you must make sure that you’ll ‘Not allow friendship to deteriorate to ownership.’ ”
“Deteriorate to ownership