Clichéd Love: A Satirical Romance

by Lynn Galli

  Breathy squishy cupcake didn’t understand that we were done. She must have wanted to continue talking about all the possessions they’d amassed since their inappropriate joining at a funeral of a man whose money she’d taken to leave the daughter alone.

  Lane appeared as I took a seat at the bar and placed a gin and tonic in front of me without me needing to ask for my usual recovery drink. “That one took a while, and you look dazed. This’ll help.” Her left hand flicked to get someone’s attention. My current hazy state kept me from being too curious about her gesture. I relied on muscle memory to deliver the drink to my lips. The cool, sharp taste helped clear some of the daze enough to recognize that Iris had joined us.

  “So?” Iris tilted her head in the direction of the now departing couple.

  So many words flitted through my head I couldn’t sort through them all. “They…I just…If you had to…It’s really unbelievable.”

  “Sounds like,” Lane commented and settled down across from me on her elbows. That was one of my favorite things to get her to do. She didn’t take enough breaks. Iris and I did what we could to encourage them.

  “Start with where they’re from,” Iris encouraged.

  “New York,” I managed to answer that one.

  “With that hair? No.” It was a statement, not an argument.

  “By way of Oklahoma.”

  “Ah,” they both said.

  “Is it a good story?” Iris asked.

  “If it’s true,” I admitted, even as much distaste as I had for it.

  “What’s the crux?” she prodded.

  “They went at it at her father’s funeral.”

  “Eww,” Iris said while Lane asked, “They fought at a funeral?”

  “No, another f-word. The F-word,” Iris said as if she’d been sitting next to me at the table. They both turned for my verifying nod.

  “With the casket there and everything?” Lane was so enthralled she ignored the four customers who were trying to get her attention because she made better drinks than the other bartender.

  “At the gathering afterward at her mom and dad’s place.”

  Iris pulled in on her lips. “Marginally better.”

  “But still,” Lane added her thought on the matter.

  “I’m so happy you both see this my way.”

  “How could we not?”

  “Apparently he was a homophobic dick, who threw her out after high school and disowned her. Hadn’t talked to him in years.”

  Iris’s eyes dulled. She’d probably heard that kind of story many times in her career. “Then why’d she go back?”

  “I know, right?” I declared.

  “And she thought having sex at her father’s wake was the way to get back at him?” Lane guessed.

  “I can’t believe she was actually thinking, but that’s the result anyway.”

  “Wow,” Lane breathed out. “You hear some real whoppers, don’t ya?”

  “This was a good one. In a completely wrong way, that is.”

  “Sometimes completely wrong makes for something quirky. Good quirky, though. Not disrespectful quirky.” Iris’s shoulders hitched up once as if she were apologizing for feeling that way.

  I wanted to hug her for feeling that way. Quirky was my customized setting, and not many people in my life had learned to value that. “Good quirky,” I agreed.

  “Can you use it?”

  A frown formed on my forehead. “I’m going to have to find an equally distasteful straight story to publish with it. The last thing I want is to give any readers the ammunition they need to think love between gay couples is inappropriate.”

  “Glad I don’t have your job,” Lane said and went back to doing hers.

  “Yeah, quirky’s good,” Iris confirmed, staring after her friend before turning that appraising gaze on me.

  That it caused a slight riffling in my stomach was something I could ruminate on after writing up the story on inappropriate funeral sex.

  34 |

  Another baby picture appeared on the screen thrust in my face. “Isn’t he just the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?”

  He was pretty cute, for a baby. Babies all looked alike to me. His pink, pudgy face wasn’t any different than the pink, pudgy face of my nephew as a baby. He was adorable, as she insisted. It was a baby. I could allow adorable as a descriptor.

  “He’s so smart, too. Started talking at seven months.”

  Sure, he did. A baby genius.

  “Walked at nine months.”

  Uh-huh, because he’s a future Olympian.

  “Scored off the charts on development.”

  Yeah, a verbal, speedy Einstein. She had a winner with this one.

  “How old is he now?” I asked the cute bike saleswoman currently boring me into being snide on our first date.

  “Seventeen.”

  “Oh, wow.” I couldn’t help the surprise. So far she’d only shown me baby pictures of her son. A lot of baby pictures. “Has he decided on a college?”

  “Well, he’s thinking he might take a year or two off first. I’m trying to get him to go to community college. Get some credits done with. That’s how all the kids are doing it these days.”

  Ah-ha, baby genius turned out to be the typical lazy teenager. His prospects were: living rent-free in his mom’s basement while she rides his ass to get a part-time job, or going to an open admission community college to keep her happy enough to let him stay rent-free in her basement.

  I thought about my progression from high school, spending year-round at college to take advantage of the summer sessions, which were cheap, fast, and cut a year off the time. After graduating, I developed my writing style at two papers over the next decade before my favorite editor coaxed me up to New York for a stint. As prestigious as that paper had been, I couldn’t stay in that city for more than two years. It wasn’t until I headed to Washington to work for the Post that I felt I’d made it in journalism. There, I spent several years mired in political-centric reporting, then looked for something broader in Chicago with the Trib. All of that experience finally led me here. I’d never once stayed in my mom’s basement, partly because she didn’t have a basement, but also because I wasn’t about to leech off my hardworking parents. Cameron, the cute bicycle saleswoman, didn’t have that attitude.

  “Sounds promising,” I commented. Like with Cheryl and Cyrah, this first date with Cameron wasn’t going well. Although, I was the common denominator in those first dates. I should probably adjust my expectations. Yet, discussing the relevance of hot shoe designers with Cheryl or the latest gossip about every person in Lane’s bar with Cyrah or how adorable and brilliant a baby who was no longer a baby was with Cameron did nothing for me. The one thing I realized over this lunch was that I only seemed to want to date women whose names started with the letter “C.”

  “Tell me about these articles that you’re writing. I think I saw one the other day.” The sparkle in her eyes wasn’t just interest in my chosen profession. I’d been getting a lot of this kind of interest in the bar lately. This was the give-me-the-answer-key-so-I-can-win-the-contest interest.

  “If you saw one of the articles, then you’ve got the gist of them.”

  “The one I read was tricky. I had to guess.”

  “That’s been my hope all along.”

  “What about the soldiers’ story? Were they the straight couple or the gay one? I thought at first they had to be the straight couple because it was the military years ago, but then I thought that might be too obvious…” And she continued with her thought process on how she voted on that article—one of the first in the series. She wasn’t fooling me with the “think I saw one” indifference.

  We were on this date because I enjoyed her flirty nature in the store. She’d offered to show me some of the bike trails in the area. Yesterday, I called to see if she had some free time for one of those trails, and she suggested lunch instead of the proffered bike trail guidance. Once again the date I’
d hoped would be different from others turned into a sit down meal to go through topics that didn’t interest me. Now that she was clearly trying to get me to give her tips on how to choose among the couples in my contest, I lost all hope of salvaging this thing. None of the other dates had ended in a kiss. This one wouldn’t either. After the eight, nine—jeez, could it be ten-month hiatus?—from kissing anyone on a regular basis, I had no hope of practicing my technique to see if the kiss I’d shared with Iris was just a one-time fluke. Was I doomed to wonder if my kissing skills had completely left me?

  “Those people are trying to get our attention.” Cameron’s eyes were trained over my shoulder.

  I turned to see Iris and Lane waving at us from up the block. Both were in shorts, and Iris held a volleyball. I’d never seen Lane wear anything other than her standard bartender attire that usually showed off her slender arms and tight ass. I knew where they were headed. A lunch hour volleyball game broke out between two nearby companies in a park a block away. Iris had done work for one of the firms and had an open invitation to play whenever she liked. I refrained from sighing with my desire to join in.

  “You know them?”

  I looked back at the turquoise eyes that had enticed me in the bike shop. “They’re friends.”

  “Don’t think I’ve seen them before.”

  “Get up this way much?” Other than for this lunch date that was supposed to be a promised bike riding date.

  “Not since college, no. It’s definitely improved. Before it used to be only Broadway that had anything going. Now it looks like there are a lot more developed areas.”

  “They both live up here and stay pretty close. It’s probably why you haven’t seen them.”

  Her eyes flicked back in their direction. I was afraid to turn around again because I didn’t want to see them coming toward us as much as I didn’t want to see them leaving me here to toil away at this non-bike riding date that wouldn’t end in a much needed practice kiss. “Are they a couple?”

  “Nope, just friends.”

  She let out a disbelieving sound. “Does that really happen with lesbians?”

  I sat forward, now a little more interested. “What?”

  “All my friends have slept with each other. Most of them didn’t become friends until they’d tried dating first.” Her shoulders lifted like it was a given. “Unless they’re both butch. For some reason you guys can be just friends. Must be that whole top thing. Not that you’re butch-butch, but you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t identify as butch, certainly not like most of the butch women I’d met in my interviews. It wasn’t just my looks either, long hair and occasional light makeup; or the way I dressed, absolutely no cargo anything or tank tops; it was more my attitude. While I tended to want to date more feminine women, I didn’t adopt the take-care-of or take-charge-of attitude that some butch women possessed. I wanted an equal. Someone to take care of me as much as I wanted to take care of her.

  “They’re just friends,” I repeated and signaled the waitress for our bill.

  “I was thinking we could go to that coffee shop across the street and talk more about your articles. You’re a really talented writer.”

  “Thank you.” My eyes flicked across the street to the coffee shop that was just as busy as this restaurant. We’d been lucky to get a table on the patio, and I certainly didn’t need to move across the street to sit down again for more beverages when I didn’t need any more beverages or sitting down. “I should get back to work, actually.”

  Her eyes lit up, not the expected response of someone who really wanted to extend this date. “Who are you writing about today? I know some couples that would be perfect. My ex and I wouldn’t mind being interviewed.”

  One of the main points of this article series was how couples got together and stayed together. She and her ex were no longer together. “If you’re in the series, you’re not eligible to win the prize.” Not true. They just couldn’t vote on their own story, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  Her face fell. “Oh, well. It’s just so compelling.”

  The prize sure was.

  “This has been fun.” I stood after paying the bill because, of course, I was the apparent butch in this twosome.

  “Yeah, let’s figure out when we can do this again.”

  I had several options. In Chicago, I would have blown her off and never called her. Here, now that my current income depended on staying on the good side of lesbians, I probably shouldn’t do that. “I’d love to get together for a bike ride sometime.”

  “An activity date, okay, sure.” She didn’t sound that enthused by the prospect.

  “I was thinking more as friends.” I tried to be gentle about it, but her shocked expression told me I might not have accomplished that. “I’m sorry, did you feel like we made a connection?”

  “Well,” she paused, trying to figure out how to play this. If she were really hurt, she’d probably get weepy. “I guess not. You seem like a really nice person, but you’re right. There’s not much here.”

  Or anything at all here, but I’d take her observation if it got me out of this. “Thanks for keeping me company.” I went to shake her hand, but she slipped into my arms for a hug.

  “Keep me updated on the articles. I know I’m getting most of them right.”

  Goody. Based on some of the comments I got in the bar, everyone thought they were getting them all correct. According to my editor, only about twenty percent of the readers were still in the running for the grand prize. Everyone else had been mathematically eliminated.

  I turned in the direction where I’d last seen Lane and Iris. They wouldn’t still be there, but I could wander by the park on my way back to the car. If I stopped to say hello and watch them play volleyball for a bit before I went back to writing today, it might give me a little inspiration.

  35 | Jamie & Glen

  In the midst of another interview, I scribbled furiously on my notepad to prevent myself from plundering through all the problems this couple would face throughout the life of their child. A child born to two mommies using the sperm of one of the mommy’s brothers. A baby daddy uncle. It happened, possibly a lot in the lesbian community, but all I could see were the pitfalls.

  The one that birthed the baby, whom they hadn’t stopped talking about despite my many attempts to get them back on the track of their love story, had the habit of sighing heavily every few minutes as if something was bothering her. I’d asked several times if something was and gotten another anecdote about her baby. Her genius baby, of course, because heaven forbid, some lesbian had a baby that tested below average.

  My eyes shot to her partner after another loud sigh. Glen looked like she hadn’t slept in four years, wore a rumpled business suit that pulled tight across her chest and shoulders, and wasn’t as thrilled as the birth mother to have their story published. Her short blond hair could use a good brushing, and by the way she was shoveling the second order of sliders into her face, I guessed the stretched suit wasn’t a result of impatient shopping habits.

  “Oh, you can definitely tell from the picture that he’s going to be president one day.” I’d learned that questioning their highly unlikely prophesies for the six-month-old baby boy just got me another earful of arguments as to why he would skip all of elementary school, land directly into high school for a year before going to college at three, and then becoming an attorney at nine, a governor at eighteen, and president at twenty-five. I almost went searching for a copy of the Constitution on my phone to shove in their faces and prove at least one of their predictions could not possibly come true because it was against the Constitution. They had pictures of their baby on their phones; I had a picture of the Constitution on mine.

  “He is. I just know it.” Jamie heaved another sigh and took the phone back to search for even more pictures of the future president, who was, at their insistence, adorable. Of course.

  “Getting back to how you proposed.” I direc
ted my query to Glen without knowing for sure she was the one to ask, just using the typical stereotyping to deduce it.

  “I rented out the whole pavilion,” she said in between bites. She was a managing director of some pharmaceutical company and probably had the funds to rent out an entire pavilion just for a proposal. At least it was private, but she didn’t need to spend a fortune for privacy.

  They’d met when Glen was a pharmaceutical saleswoman and Jamie was a nurse for a doctor’s office. Jamie no longer worked as a nurse, as she’d painstakingly explained to me. Glen wanted her to do whatever she desired. As long as she took care of the cooking and cleaning and any babies. Only she didn’t say Glen wanted that, it was simply expected. I could put it up against several of the straight couple stories where the husband held the job and the wife took care of the house and kids. Straight people would be extra confused by the dynamic because they didn’t think two women or two men would take on those traditional roles.

  “It was such a romantic night,” Jamie sighed again. Just as heavily, so perhaps these sighs were not a harbinger of dissatisfaction. “We almost chose that night to get pregnant, but Gene wasn’t available for a donation.”

  Gene, Glen’s brother, the father of the baby and also the uncle of the baby. Since they weren’t moving off the subject of their baby with a father who was also his uncle, I started pecking at the dome surrounding their parental bliss. “Why did you decide not to use a sperm bank?” A facility that would afford many of the legal barriers they’d need if anything ever went wrong in their perfect family unit in the future.

  “The baby had to be mine, too,” Glen said as if I were an idiot.

  I smiled my idiot smile and said, “I thought you said that Jamie was the birth mother and your brother was the birth father?”