Clichéd Love: A Satirical Romance

by Lynn Galli

  “Or snorkeling in shark infested waters,” Mariah added.

  “I gave her a call after a month or two back home. Like I said, nothing can resist this hunk o’ man.” His thumbs jabbed at his chest.

  We all laughed again. I was too curious not to ask. “Do you know if your exes got together since they enjoyed doing the same things?”

  “That isn’t Gavin’s style,” Mariah assured me. “He’s more into convenience than connection. Becca was a convenient partner for the escapades on the island, but she lived up here and he’s in Tacoma. That would have been too much of a hassle for him to pursue.”

  “But not you?”

  She shrugged. “Nykos was fun and I liked him. In my line of work that’s rare to find.”

  “What line is that?”

  “Construction. Most of the guys I work with are all trying to prove that I shouldn’t be on the team with them, so it’s refreshing when you run into a guy that treats you like an equal.”

  “Sounds nice,” I murmured because it really did. Equality was part of many lesbian relationships, but being the sporty type and usually going for the more feminine type, it wasn’t always the overriding dynamic in my relationships. I was tired of having to be the accommodating one, the one to pay or give gifts or take care of them.

  “That’s all I have to do to get on your good side?” Nykos asked her.

  “Not anymore, buddy.”

  “I know, I know. You’re the boss, I’m just here to be your boy toy.”

  She laughed, a delightful sound for such a sturdy woman. I liked her, too, but he was the highlight of this duo.

  “You like this place?” Nykos asked, his finger waving a circle in the air.

  I glanced around the bar. “I do. I think Lane does a great job of running it.” Wouldn’t hurt to put in a good word for Lane with the guy who might help push the investment through.

  “What if it changed a little?”

  My head tilted away from them. “How little?”

  “Not exclusive anymore.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know that she’d want to run just another bar. There are seven within a four block radius as is.”

  His stopping hand came up again. “No, it would still be geared toward a gay crowd, but maybe less…flag bearing. Not so much with the Beware All Straight People Who Enter, but more subtle, classy.”

  Interesting. This guy designed and coded software and ran a group of engineers. What did he know about subtle or classy bars?

  “It’s Lane’s bar.” I couldn’t guess how she’d react to toning down some of the aggressiveness in here. I wouldn’t mind it. The first time I walked in with my long blond hair, light makeup, and professional dress code that was more feminine than androgynous, the foursome at the pool table had glared at me. They thought I was some yuppie straight chick who wandered into their territory. It wasn’t until I’d conversed with Lane and Charlie that they’d lost their adversarial expressions. In fact, all throughout this interview, people had been shooting us glances that could be interpreted as hostile. They seemed equally bothered by a straight couple taking up one of the tables on a busy night and by me clearly interviewing this straight couple. Since the test article wasn’t due out until next week, no one knew about the competition angle to my story yet. The people in here thought I was only interviewing gay couples.

  Nykos glanced over to the most unfriendly couple in the bar. They’d been shooting make-me glances at him all night. The one time I tried talking to them, I became uncomfortable enough not to care if they had the best story in the whole city. After my attempt, Iris told me they were firefighters with massive chips on their shoulders from being the only women in their department and not being welcome there for years. I could understand the need for the chip, but that was more than twenty years ago. Why take it out on people now?

  His gaze returned to mine. “Helen’s talking to Lane about it now. What I want to know is if you think some of these regulars you’ve been interviewing will continue to frequent the bar if it changes some?”

  “From what I’ve seen, they need something to help boost the crowds on certain nights. A change might be cheered as long as it doesn’t turn into another bar where we’re stared at for any public displays of affection.”

  “That’s good info. Thanks,” Nykos said, being serious for the first time all night.

  “Would it be a company investment?” I still wasn’t sure how these software people would be interested in the bar business, but if it meant Lane gets her bar, I was all for it.

  “Willa will do it on her own. She’s the hyperactive one. I want to relax in my free time. She likes to play venture capitalist.”

  “Yet you’re the one scoping out the bar.”

  “She’s tied up in our Virginia office, and she trusts my judgment.”

  That’s a lot of trust. Lane hadn’t mentioned her coming into the bar at all. Perhaps she’d been here at one time in the past, but now that she was evaluating it as an investment, she sends her sister and her business partner. It made me want to talk to her even more. “What is your judgment, or is it too soon to tell?”

  “Helen’s in. I just had to make sure the building was in good shape and give a second opinion. With some renovations by my talented wife and her crew, this place could be great.”

  My eyes widened. “Does Lane know?”

  “Helen’s telling her right now. Provided she’s open to a few changes, I’d say it’s a done deal.”

  “That’s amazing.” I searched the thin crowd and spotted Iris. I wanted to run up and hug her and tell her the good news, but that was for Lane to share. She’d be ecstatic. I couldn’t spoil that, no matter how much I might want to.

  22 |

  Rubber gloves and various cleaning tools in hand, I knocked on the front door of Lane’s bar. The official transfer of ownership happened last evening. She’d already submitted reno permits and was waiting on approval. Until then, Iris said they’d be doing some cleaning and painting. I knew how to do both, so I finished my writing quota early this morning and headed over to help out.

  Iris appeared behind the glass front door and smiled when she saw me. Her eyes shifted down to take in my overloaded shopping bag and came back up with a questioning glance as she unlocked the door.

  “You said you were doing some cleaning, right?” I lifted the bag.

  “That wasn’t a hint for your help.” She looked embarrassed about possibly having guilted me into helping them clean.

  “Does that mean you don’t want help?” I turned away as if to leave.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, making me laugh. Her guilty look disappeared at my tease. “Lane, look who’s here to help.”

  Given Iris’s response to my offer, I shouldn’t have been surprised that no one else was here. I expected a few of their other friends to be helping, or at least pretending to help for any free beer they might get. Instead, the bar, which looked decidedly grimier than the last time I was in here a week ago, was empty.

  “Vega,” Lane greeted with a massive amount of relief in her tone. She should be ecstatic to finally be the owner of this bar, instead she looked worried. “Thanks for coming. Did Iris force you?”

  “There might have been a gun involved,” I joked and watched her face pale. Not that she believed her friend would hold me up, but she probably thought Iris had to plead with me to come. “She said you’d be taking over today and doing some cleaning. Thought I’d lend a hand.”

  “I doubt you’ll still want to when you see the state of this place. I knew I shouldn’t have taken that vacation.”

  Helen insisted she take last week off for the only break she’d get in the next year of bar ownership. I wasn’t sure why it was distressing her so much. “I’ve got all the elbow grease you’ll need.”

  “There’s all other kinds of grease in the kitchen. That bitch didn’t bother to clean once when Lane quit.” Iris pushed a hand through her hair in frustration. The stra
nds stuck out in mismanaged chunks. Made her look a bit harried, matching her tone.

  “Iris,” Lane said quietly. She wanted to sound admonishing, but a quick flick of her eyes around the decidedly dingier bar kept her from sounding too harsh.

  “What?” Iris retorted, her chest visibly expanding. Another hair swipe settled some of the more outrageous wisps. “You gave her seven years, running her business for her lazy ass, and she gets pissy because she doesn’t get the price she wants and doesn’t have you to run it for the last week? That’s juvenile.”

  It was. Not that I expected anything less from Charlie. Other than on the first day I’d walked in here, she hadn’t shown much interest in her business at all. Of course, if I had Lane as my second in command, I’d probably feel fine with leaving the bar in her hands as well.

  A knock sounded from the back door, causing us to jump at the disturbance. Lane and Iris went to see who it was while I looked more closely at the bar’s interior. Not only had it gotten grimier, but several of the tabletops now had gouges in them. The chairs were scratched up as well. Moving closer to the bar, I spotted a chunk of the bar top missing. My glance went to the pool table area and found the felt ripped on all three tables. Charlie obviously took her frustration at the deal out on the bar.

  “Damn,” a loud swear sounded from the kitchen.

  I headed back and found that Helen and Joe had joined my friends in the kitchen. A filthy kitchen with burners and handles missing on the equipment, dents in the stainless steel prep counter, and shelves destroyed. The negotiations really mustn’t have gone Charlie’s way. Without the leverage of a long-term lease, Helen’s sister was able to buy the building obligation-free. All that was left was the value of the inventory and equipment.

  “We thought you’d have to replace some of this, but…” Helen trailed off as her hands expertly checked hidden compartments in the equipment. She frowned more and more with each new discovery.

  “The floor’s trashed, too,” Joe pointed out.

  I glanced down. Large broken pieces of tile littered almost every walkable area. Whatever they’d budgeted had just doubled, possibly tripled.

  “I’m going to be bankrupt before I even start the business.”

  “Hey,” Helen reassured, grabbing her shoulders. “This happens sometimes. Nothing we can’t handle. Willa has the renovation covered. It’ll be a little more extensive than planned, but it’ll raise the value of the building for her. You budgeted to replace some of the equipment. We’ll get floor models or find the ones that have dents in the sides and backs. Those are always massively discounted because chefs with huge egos never buy them. That’ll leave money for the ones you didn’t budget for.”

  Lane looked partially relieved, but the weight of this burden settled uncomfortably on her. “You’ll help pick them out?”

  Helen’s mellow smile glimmered. “I’m here for whatever you need. I couldn’t have started my restaurant without help. We’ll stick together.”

  “Starting with a little cleaning right now,” Iris suggested. “Not that you have to stay for that part, Helen, but we’re in, right, Vega?”

  “All set.” I grinned my most untroubled grin. “Show me where you want me to start.”

  Iris gave my shoulders a squeeze. She looked like she could hug me for the support I was showing, but she didn’t want to disturb Lane with how much work this was going to be.

  * * *

  So far it had been a grand Grand Opening. Lane looked exhausted but she couldn’t stop beaming. The mostly lesbian wannabe cocktail lounge turned modern lesbian-and-gay-fashionable-but-not-exclusive elegant public house was a hit with the old patrons and the new. On three occasions, I’d had to stand at the entrance and prohibit more people from entering. Lane couldn’t stop squeezing my shoulder or hand in thanks whenever I walked past her. My social media pages helped to drum up a quarter of the crowds throughout the night. Almost every local interviewee stopped by as well as a lot of the Seattle residents who followed me on the various pages. Some left pretty quickly when they discovered it was a mostly gay pub, not just gay-friendly as I might have labeled it online. It didn’t make them homophobic in my eyes. Most straight people needed a gay friend with them to feel comfortable being in a gay bar. As long as they ordered one drink before they left, Lane didn’t care. It left more room for others who weren’t as uptight.

  “Can you believe this place?” Riley came to a stop beside me and surveyed the busy bar. She wore her standard cargo shorts and tank top. I hadn’t seen her wear anything else. It was possible she didn’t have anything else in her wardrobe.

  “I can,” I said because I’d seen it form over the past two weeks.

  “Thought she’d gotten rid of the pool tables. I was gonna be pissed about that.”

  “You found the game room upstairs,” I guessed. The three-floor building used to have two apartments over the bar. Helen recommended that they renovate one of the apartment spaces into the office and a game space. Moving the pool tables, dart boards, and adding a shuffleboard table to the second floor kept regulars like Riley happy but away from the new direction of the pub. A new dance floor took up the original space occupied by the pool tables and dart boards. Before, couples would just start dancing in between the tables. It hadn’t been conducive to dancing, which was the reason several lesbians I’d interviewed stopped coming to the bar in the first place. Hopefully this new layout would entice them back as regulars.

  “It’s awesome. Love the new bathrooms, too.”

  I laughed. The new bathrooms took up the space of the old office with enough room for three stalls instead of just a lockable single bathroom. In the past, impatient, frisky women would lock the door for a sexy tryst, leaving any of us who needed to use the restroom out of luck or ducking into the men’s. Now those sexed-up hornys would need real guts to have sex in a bathroom stall if there was a line waiting for the other two.

  “Didn’t see you pitching in when Lane could have used you,” my thoughts tumbled out unsolicited.

  Her head tilted back, surprised by my comment. We’d become acquaintances. I was pretty sure she thought of me as a friend, and here I was chastising her when another friend could have used her help. “Charlie was a friend. I didn’t like how this all went down.”

  She didn’t like how it went down, but she’d show up for the grand opening? “How what went down?”

  “Lane got some rich chick to back her and screw Charlie out of a fair price.”

  I scoffed loudly, sick of how the rumor mill at this place never bothered with the truth. “That rich chick offered Charlie a fair price for her bar, but Charlie thought it was worth three times as much. If she were smart, she would have signed the lease for another five years. That would have given her leverage and close to the price she wanted, but she wasn’t. So the rich chick bought the building and gave Charlie more than she should have for the contents of this place, all of which Charlie damaged before she left.”

  Riley’s eyes grew wide. Yeah, didn’t think she’d gotten the whole story. “What do you mean by damaged? The place was in okay shape the last time I was here.”

  “Not one piece of equipment in the kitchen or behind the bar could be used when Lane took over. She had to replace practically everything, even though she and the investor paid Charlie for the equipment. Iris, Lane, and I spent four days cleaning then sanding down all these tables and chairs to get rid of the scratches and dents Charlie added.”

  “Damn.” Regret showed in her brown eyes.

  “Yeah, so like I said, your friend Lane could have used another set of hands.”

  “You did that?” She chose to ignore my gripe.

  “Of course I did. Lane’s my friend. I’ve been in here every day. I don’t have the skills to do a lot, but I can clean, sand, and paint after I was done working for the day. It was the least I could do.”

  “Yeah, well, Lane’s been kinda closed off for a while now.” Riley clearly didn’t appreciate being
called out on something. “She hasn’t exactly welcomed help or anything from her friends. Ever since—”

  “Cut a rug with me?” Iris interrupted, gripping my arm and tilting her head toward the dance floor.

  I laughed at the old fashioned term. “This thing right here,” I pointed to my body, “doesn’t dance, but thanks.”

  “Just follow along. C’mon, it’ll be fun.” She sighed playfully when I shook my head again. Her eyes went to Riley, a bit of challenge in them. “Maybe I’ll see if Adrian’s up for a turn around the dance floor.”

  Riley’s jaw clenched. “Maybe she is, but I’ll be the one dancing with her. See ya, Vega.”

  I turned back to Iris when Riley stormed off. “Was that planned?”

  A shoulder lifted in an innocent shrug. “Heard what you said about her not helping Lane. She was going to become really defensive in a second.”

  “And you came to my rescue?” I patted my heart dramatically.

  “I didn’t think she’d tie you to the train tracks or anything, but she can be a little abrasive when she gets defensive.”

  I laughed at the idea of being a damsel in distress for the first time in my life. “I thought you all were friends, yet no sign of her when Lane was getting this place together.”

  Iris glanced away, blinking a few times. It almost looked like she was keeping tears at bay, but that didn’t make sense. “You know what they say, good friends help you move, great friends help you move bodies.”

  “Yep, heard that one before. So Riley’s what kind?”

  “Good-time friend for the most part. She’ll show up for a party, celebratory drinks, meet for a game, all that casual good stuff you can enjoy with friends. I’m sure she’d help her foursome any way they needed. Everyone else falls into the good time category.”

  My sweep of the bar took in another dozen or so regulars that should have shown up to offer help for a couple of hours, but no one had. “They’re missing out.”

  She turned back with a pleased look. “I knew you were a move-bodies type of friend even before you showed up that day with your cleaning gloves on.”