THE ROMANCE COACH

Session One

On Friday, Miriam entered right at ten o'clock, not a moment earlier. Daniel took note and felt a trace of irritation at how closely he had watched the clock since 9:15.

"Mrs. Adeyemi."

"Mr. Okafor." She settled into her chair and pulled out a simple spiral-bound notebook from her bag—something akin to what a seamstress might use to jot down measurements. She clicked her pen open. "Before we get started, I’d like to set some ground rules."

"Sure thing. That’s usually my duty, but go ahead."

"I don’t want a husband."

He blinked, surprised. "I’m sorry?"

"I’m saying this upfront so you don’t waste my money." Her tone was calm, as if she were telling a customer a certain fabric was out of stock. "My husband passed away two years ago in March. I’m not looking to replace him. Your assistant noted in the form that I was trying to *find love again*. That wasn’t my intention. She put those words in my mouth."

"Chidi is my manager, not—"

"I’m not seeking love," Miriam cut in. "What I need is to remember how to feel something. There's a crucial difference."

Daniel set his pen down, finding that he couldn’t seem to pick it back up. "Can you elaborate on that?"

"No." She flashed a brief smile. "That’s something a coach would say: *Can you elaborate on that?* I read that chapter. It’s part of the section on active listening."

"It’s effective."

"Of course it is. It’s effective because—”it prompts conversation. I will share when I’m ready. For today, I’d like to see what you can offer.”ill-in-the-blank prompts.

Miriam looked at each page in turn, the way she might examine a hem.

"This one," she said, holding up the Date Night Matrix. "Wednesday, *Cook a meal together*. Thursday, *Stargaze*. Friday, *Recreate your first date*." She looked up. "What if my first date was in a bus queue?"

"Then you recreate it in a bus queue."

"And if the man who stood in the queue with me is in the ground?"

Daniel's mouth closed.

"I'm not trying to be unkind," she said. "I am trying to show you that this sheet has no one in it. It's a very tidy sheet. Nobody lives on it."

"It's a framework," he said. "It's a starting point."

"I'm sure it is. For a person who is starting." She set the paper down gently. "I am not starting. I am finishing something. Or I am trying to learn how to carry it."

He did not have a worksheet for that.

He tried the appreciation letter instead. He tried the *Three Compliments Technique*, in which one finds three specific, sincere things to say to a person each day. He tried a small speech about vulnerability that he had given at four conferences, to applause.

Miriam listened to all of it with her hands folded and her pen still. When he finished, she said, "That was very beautiful."

"Thank you."

"Did you mean it?"

"I—" He caught himself. "I believe it."

"That is not what I asked."

The room felt smaller. The air-conditioner shuddered on and off. Daniel became aware that he was sweating slightly at the collar, and that the woman across from him had noticed, and had decided not to say so, which was somehow worse.

---

She told him about the sewing tin near the end, almost by accident.

He had asked, carefully, whether there was something her husband used to do. A small thing. A habit. It was the oldest trick in the book, the one he used to open clients up, and he was ashamed of reaching for it even as he said the words.

But Miriam didn't treat it like a trick. She looked at the window for a while. A hawker outside was shouting about plantain chips. A generator coughed and settled.

"Emeka used to leave me notes," she said. "In my sewing tin. I keep pins in an old biscuit tin, you understand, and I'm always reaching in for them. And I would find a little paper folded up underneath. *Eat something.* Or *Your hands are very clever.* Or sometimes only a drawing of a cat, because he could not draw and thought it was funny."

Daniel said nothing. He had learned, long ago, that this was the only useful thing to say.

"He never said it at the table," Miriam went on. "He never made a speech. I would find it three days later, when I was already tired and cross, and suddenly the day would be softer." She turned the pen over in her fingers. "I have not opened the tin properly since he died. I use the pins, but I do not look underneath. I think there may still be some in there."

"Notes?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know yet." She breathed out. "Do you see? It is not that I am sad all the time. It is that nobody has said anything small to me in two years. Everyone says big things. *He is in a better place. You are so strong.* Nobody says, *Eat something.*"

Daniel felt something move in his chest, a small, stubborn thing that had been asleep for a very long time.

"That's not in the book," he said.

"No," Miriam agreed. "That's why I came."

---

After she had gone, Chidi found him sitting in the dark of the office with the laminated Date Night Matrix on his knee.

"Rough?"

"She read the whole chapter on active listening," Daniel said. "On the bus."

"And?"

"And she was right. About the water." He looked up. "Chidi, how many people have I coached?"

"Four hundred and twelve. Four-thirteen if you count Mrs. Adeyemi."

"And how many of them are still together?"

Chidi hesitated. "The numbers are good. Seventy-one percent report improved satisfaction at six months."

"That's not what I asked."

"I know it's not." His friend came in and sat on the edge of the desk, which he never did. "You want the honest answer? I don't know. Nobody's followed up. You teach a thing, people say thank you, and they leave. That's the whole business."

"I tell people how to be loved," said Daniel, "and I have never been brave enough to check whether it works."

For a moment neither of them spoke.

"Well," said Chidi, picking up the laminated matrix and examining it, "it's a very good laminate."

Daniel laughed, a short, startled sound, and put his face in his hands.