by H. M. Mann
“And add scenes here and there with characters that have nothing to do with the plot,” Gloria said.
“Something like … Meanwhile in Racine, Wisconsin, Penelope Burgomaster fed her cat Dickey leftover burritos and rancid lake sturgeon.”
Gloria blinked.
“Or something like that,” Johnny said.
That was … random. “Um, use more exclamation points. Have Gunn rescue Cat, Thais, and even Emily from more danger. Is Cat even dead?”
“She doesn’t have to be,” Johnny said. “She could really be warm in her grave.”
Funny. “Bring her back to life, but only briefly, during the climax.”
The word “climax” jolted Johnny’s hips. “Even if the climax is a love scene?”
Gloria blinked again.
There’s that crummy pollen again, Johnny thought.
“Well …”
“I’m just saying,” Johnny said.
“Um, okay, uh, after every, um, romantic scene, the two of them must be fresh and clean as if they hadn’t, um, done it.”
Johnny pouted. “No lust mists?”
“Okay, I’ll let you have one lust mist.” Though that is severely nasty! “And whatever, um, love scenes you write, you have to, um …” I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before. Johnny is … innocent. Maybe he’s never … I can’t ask him that.
“I have to, um, what?”
“Johnny, your, um, love scenes are …” Spit it out! “Johnny, I don’t normally read romances, but I think you have to make your love scenes more, um, sexual.”
“Sexual?” Johnny said the word as if it was foreign to him. Johnny blinked but not from the pollen. “Sexual.” Johnny really liked Gloria now, and not just because she was so cute. He liked her because he could talk to her about anything without blushing. “I’m, um, not that experienced, Gloria. I don’t really know what sexual, um, is.”
I knew it! Wait a minute. “You did have two adults acting like millipedes.”
“I was kind of going for a metaphor there. Eternity. A ring. Something perfect. They wouldn’t need a lot of room for that, would they? They could use that position right outside the front door, right there on the welcome mat. Might startle the neighbors or the UPS man or a pizza delivery guy, but …”
I do not understand how this man’s mind works. I may never understand. She picked up a section of the manuscript and found a page of dialogue. She moved closer to Johnny so their hips touched.
I think I’ve found something to get addicted to, Johnny thought. Her hip is quite warm to my form.
“See this conversation?” Gloria asked.
Johnny looked. “Uh-huh.”
“There’s nothing I hate more than not being sure of who’s speaking in a book. I sort of know who’s speaking here, but you can do, um, better, I mean, worse. Let’s practice.” Gloria took another page of the manuscript and turned it over. “You start.”
This could get very interesting, Johnny thought. He wrote in all capital letters: “ARE YOU SPEAKING FIRST OR AM I?”
Gloria wrote: “You are. Why?”
“I DON’T SEE MY NAME BEFORE OR AFTER THE QUOTATION MARKS.”
“Neither do I. I’m speaking now, aren’t I?”
“I THINK SO. WHAT WERE YOU SAYING?”
“If indeed it was me.”
“OF COURSE.”
“And if indeed you just said, ‘Of course.’”
“RIGHT.”
“I think I was saying something like … huh.”
“NO. I SAID, ‘HUH.’ I SAY THAT A LOT AROUND YOU.”
“Why?”
“YOU’RE SO DIRECT.”
“I am?”
“AND RIGHT NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE TIME.”
“Where’s the other percent?”
“THE TOILET PAPER CONTROVERSY.”
“Oh.”
“AREN’T WE SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING COZY SOMEWHERE?”
“We are?”
“THIS IS A LOVE SCENE, ISN’T IT?”
“We’re in a Quick-E Mart at nearly three-thirty in the morning.”
“WE DON’T HAVE TO BE.”
Gloria could barely control her breathing because of where she thought Johnny’s sensuous pen was taking them. “Well, you obviously get the idea.” She swiftly moved around the counter to her stool.
I scared her away already? What did I say? He reread the dialogue. Oh. She thought— But that’s not what I meant! I have to change the subject. “My first, um, attempt was a complete disaster.”
“Your first … attempt … at what?” No way he’s going to tell me about—
“Um, my first attempt at my first, um, time.”
Why won’t he stop? I’m about to have an arrhythmia over here! Asking me to get cozy and go somewhere! And now this?
He leaned his elbows on the holy orange counter. “I was down in Florida for spring break when I was a freshman. I went to Virginia Tech, if you can believe it.”
Johnny is … educated? Intriguing. He’s pushing triple digits now.
No need to tell her my degree. That’s so … ordinary. And sad. I may have to tell her about that one day. “Anyway, I was down in Florida on the beach, and I met this girl at a party. Bonfire, beer, moonlight … guys puking, fights, girls puking, passed out sororities, the whole romantic spring break scene. Anyway, this girl grabbed my hand, we wandered away … and the police showed up before we could, um, you know. They shined their lights in my eyes and everything. I reached for my ID, but of course I wasn’t wearing much at the time, so when I reached back …”
Don’t laugh, don’t laugh … Gloria laughed so hard she stumbled off the stool.
What’s so funny? “I never found my shorts. I guess it must have been high tide. I’ve always hoped that in some small way my shorts helped undermine Castro.”
Gloria continued laughing. “What?”
“I’ve always hoped maybe some Cuban would use my shorts to fashion a makeshift sail for a boat that would bring him or her to freedom. I wished I wore baggier shorts in those days like I do now. More surface area for the wind to hit.”
He can’t be serious! “I am so sorry I laughed, Johnny, it’s just … I could see you reaching for your ID …” Which means I just told Johnny that just now I imagined him naked on the beach. I may blush my entire body into this orange counter.
“I meant for you to laugh,” Johnny said. “I wanted to hear your real laugh, Gloria. I hope to hear it often.”
That was so sweet! “You will if you keep telling me stories like that.”
“It wasn’t a story. It happened.”
“What was her name?”
Johnny smiled. “I never knew her name. For real. And that’s why I say that people can hook up and learn each other’s names afterwards or not ever know each other’s name. It happened to me.”
“The police came for real?”
Johnny nodded. “Very big flashlights.” Johnny stared at the counter. “Um, now that you’re, um, safely over there, could we maybe write another scene?”
A love scene? Oh my! “What kind of scene?”
“Oh, just a date. Relationships have to move slowly, right?”
He’s catching on. “Right.”
Johnny wrote a line and slid the page across the counter. “Tag, you’re it.”
Gloria stared at the page: “WILL YOU GO OUT TO BREAKFAST WITH ME?” This is so sweet, too. She wrote: “Sure. I’d love to.”
She slid the page back to Johnny.
“Um, I just thought it would be easier to write a scene,” Johnny said, “or just list some more ideas if we were sitting side-by-side in a booth, like at the Roanoker.”
Which is just across the street. How convenient. “Sure.”
“Well, I’d, uh, I’d like to go home and get cleaned up first,” Johnny said with a grimace. “I know I smell like yeasty bleach. I can meet you there or I can pick you up.”
That car of his scares me. “It’s only across the stre
et, Johnny.”
“It might rain.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay.” He collected the manuscript. “And if you think of anything else, um, just write it down.”
“I will.”
He looked directly into Gloria’s eyes. “I’m glad you didn’t like it, Gloria. Thank you for being honest.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked down at the counter but didn’t slap, touch, or drum his fingers on it. “See you soon.”
“Around five fifteen.”
Gloria watched him go, even cocking her head around the counter to get a better look at him. She glanced at the clock behind her, willing it to race ninety minutes to quitting time. She pulled several napkins from the dispenser on top of the deli and went to work.
By the time Elizabeth “the Elephant Woman” McDougal came on at five and on time for a change, Gloria had filled fifteen napkins with ideas, the last an extremely sensual love scene.
She put that scene in her purse.
After all, she thought, I barely know the man.
She laughed nervously. And I think I’m about to get to know him a whole lot better.
15
Johnny, shaved and smelling more like Irish Spring soap than yeasty bleach, read fourteen napkins covered with some wild ideas while he and Gloria waited for their breakfasts in a cozy booth at the Roanoker, a restaurant that had been serving country breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at reasonable prices since 1941.
“What do you think?” Gloria asked, her thigh introducing itself to Johnny’s thigh.
“I think that you are amazing,” he whispered.
And now my whole body is warm, Gloria thought.
“This scene where you get into everybody’s head all at the same time is insane,” Johnny said. “I have enough trouble getting into one character’s head.”
“What would you add?” She added more sugar and a little cream to her coffee.
Johnny blushed, or at least he seemed to blush. He had shaved with an old disposable blade, and he had major razor burns. “You don’t want to know.”
“Try me.”
I am trying you, Johnny thought, but your thigh and my thigh are about to spark up a fire in this booth. “I’d have the waiter think less about his aching feet and more about the heel implants he just got.”
Say what? “Heel implants?”
“He had read an article in Mean Cuisine magazine that said taller waiters earned bigger tips, so he went down to Mexico because his health care provider wouldn’t cover such an operation or any operation involving a scalpel for that matter, and had the operation in the back of a moving pickup truck from a doctor who also sold velvet paintings of Elvis and Ché Guevara to defray his overhead costs.”
How does he do that? She nudged him with her elbow. “You have a thing for heels?”
“Not really.” Even her elbow is soft!
She squeezed his bicep. Hard as a rock. Nice. “What else would you add?” As if anyone could add anything to that!
“Well, I’d have the waiter say ‘spee-see-all’ instead of special, and the ‘spee-see-all’ of the day would be ducks in clam sauce doused with Limburger cheese and sautéed in fresh broiled snail larva.”
Gloria grimaced. “You should never write at the dinner table.”
“But there’s more!” There’s always more! “The ‘spee-see-all’ would also include generous side dishes of lentil linguini topped with cinnamon, curry powder, and frog pancreas.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Really?”
She pressed her thigh firmly into his. “No. But no one would ever order the spee-see-all, right?”
“True.” He took a sip of hot tea. “Gunn’s stomach rumbled and grumbled. The last time he ate frog pancreas he nearly expelled an intestine and half a lung after several days dry-heaving corn he had eaten at an eighth grade class picnic to impress Mandy Bjornson, an exchange girl from Sweden.”
“You’re good at this.” Gross, but effectively tangential.
“Yes. I am good at writing badly.”
She rubbed her shoulder against his. “You’re funny, naturally funny.”
And she has a soft shoulder. “No MSG, no additives, no preservatives.”
Just … innocence, Gloria thought. He’s so rare. “What about Thais? Why won’t she order the special?”
Johnny sat back in the booth, staring across the rapidly filling dining room. “Thais has an aversion to linguini since it reminds her of the fishing trip she and her adoptive grandpapa once took up the Amazon River in the riverboat steamer used in African Queen. She had caught a two-hundred-pound tarpon, and when Grandpapa gutted it, hundreds of white intestinal worms tried to escape through the tarpon’s anus.”
“That is so sick!” Gloria giggled.
“Yeah, especially since Grandpapa used the same worms to catch more tarpon, and each tarpon came fresh to the boat with an anus full of escaping intestinal worms. It was a vicious cycle Thais didn’t want to be repeated on their first date.”
Nasty! “Who would?”
“By the way, Hector—he’s my boss. Hector is thinking of adding linguini to the menu.”
“He isn’t.” I can never eat linguini again.
“You’re right.” At least I hope he doesn’t! “Yeah, I work for a Guatemalan who makes a living selling Italian pizza in Virginia. Only in America.”
“Yeah.” Gloria checked her cell phone for the time. “Where is our waitress?”
Johnny smiled at Gloria. “You tell me.”
He wants a story from little ol’ me? “Um, she’s back in the back working a crossword puzzle while dreaming of getting a deep tissue massage from a tall blond Swedish man named Sven.”
“And what else?”
He loves to push my buttons. “It’s just a random idea.”
“Is that what you would be thinking?”
This man surely likes to probe me. Whoo. “Um, no. His name would be Antonio, and he’d have really long, strong fingers.”
“Really?”
Gloria scooted a hip into Johnny’s hip. “Work with me, Johnny. I’m trying to be creative.”
And I’m trying to figure you out, Johnny thought. “When I was in the shower, I tried to think of the, um, most creative love scenes I could. And you know what? I couldn’t think of anything really weird. I only had Gunn catching a cramp on the bottom of his foot.”
“Ouch.”
“What about you?”
Huh? “What about me?”
“I mean, um, well … Do you have any ideas about …”
Oh my. Well. Hmm. “I don’t feel … comfortable telling anyone that sort of thing.”
Johnny said nothing.
“I mean,” Gloria said, “it was back before I got saved, you know?” Nice job, Gloria. You’ve just admitted that you’ve had sex.
Gloria is a Christian, a good girl. Why does that thrill me so much? “Um, well, I got saved when I was little.”
Johnny is a Christian, too? Now a few more things make sense. His writing is innocent because he’s spiritual. This is a nice turn of events. “I wasn’t crazy wild or anything like that, so I’m not going to be much help.”
Johnny nodded. “Guess my love scenes will just have to suck rocks, huh?”
Gloria shrugged. “We’ll think of something.”
Their meal arrived, and as they ate, Johnny fixated on Gloria’s thighs, and Gloria focused on Johnny’s shoulders. Both of them were hard thinking of that something that didn’t suck rocks.
“Gloria?” Johnny asked.
“Yes?”
“If I’m writing a satire, do I have to satirize everything?”
Gloria nodded. “That’s usually what makes a satire good.”
“Including, um, sex?”
It’s so hard for him to even say the word. And somehow, I find that utterly charming. “I guess.”
Johnny dabbed his lips with a napkin. “I’m …�
�� He sighed. “Let me explain it to you this way. You know that movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin?” He winced. “I’m the, um, I’m the prequel.”
Gloria did a super-saved, God-is-good, booth dance in her mind. I didn’t know that men—scratch that. I didn’t know that people like Johnny existed. He’s as rare as a unicorn, as rare a pair of stockings that lasts for more than two Sundays, as rare as a preacher who doesn’t sweat, as rare as—
“Gloria?” Her eyes are glazing over, Johnny thought. What does that mean?
Gloria found her voice. “Yes?”
“I need your help.” Johnny eyes popped. “Oh, not with the sex part. I didn’t mean that.” Johnny blushed. “With the writing about sex part.” Whew, that was close! But why am I still blushing?
She blinked. “You want me to help you with the sex scenes.”
Johnny nodded. Wait a minute, you idiot! “I mean, no, um, Gloria. I couldn’t ask you to do that. How rude of me, I mean, I don’t think you’re, um …” He closed his eyes. “I’ve said entirely too much and I’m sorry.”
Hey, he’s right! Who does he think he is, asking me to write about sex when I haven’t …How long has it been? Five years? Well, I am practically a virgin, I mean, twice does not an expert make. “It’s okay,” Gloria said, fanning herself with her napkin. “I, um, I’ve only …” I can’t believe I’m about to say this. “I’m barely experienced, trust me.” She started to giggle. “And here we are …” She continued to giggle. “Here we are trying to write ridiculous sex scenes.” Her giggles became laughter. “And whatever we write will be ridiculous, right? This is so funny!”
Gloria laughed so loudly the table of older women nearest their booth literally jumped in their seats.
“Johnny,” Gloria swallowed another giggle and whispered, “don’t you ever laugh?”
“Only in my head,” he said.
“Well, I’m really glad you’re a Christian, Johnny.” She bit her lip. “I don’t meet that many, um, nice men who aren’t ashamed to say they’re a Christian.”
Johnny looked at her empty plate. “I used to be, um, a good Christian.”
He used to be? Who says they used to be a good Christian? “What do you mean?”
Johnny placed his napkin on his plate. “I’m, um, sure you need to get some sleep, so …”