Two for One-Relatively Speaking (The Two for One series)

by Sean David Wright

  “Danielle! Cut it out!” Arlene ordered. She rushed over to stand between her daughter and the bathroom door. “You are being ridiculous and it is not your place to tell me what I can do!” Her tone of voice was that of a mother talking to her bratty teenager, a tone she hadn’t used with Danielle for a long, long time but which returned as naturally as if they had both been time warped back twenty years.

  “Sweetie, Arlene is right,” Katie said. “Let’s fight this battle after you’ve calmed down a bit.” To Arlene she said, “Maybe you’d better just get dressed and come home.”

  “No.” Arlene said this so sternly that now Katie felt like a bratty teenager. “I’m not going anywhere with you two. I am tired of not being taken seriously and being treated like I’m some silly old cow who’s lost her marbles. Now, there are things you don’t understand, Danielle and maybe in a few days I’ll explain them to you but right now the only thing you need to know is that I had a fabulous time with Nita last night, I had a fabulous time with her today and I’m staying. Now go.”

  “Mom…” Danielle warned through clenched teeth.

  “Go.”

  “Mom, you do realize that I purposely set Nita up with you so she could convince you that you’re not a lesbian, right? That whole game she was playing in the restaurant last night was an act.”

  “It was not, Arlene!” This came from behind the closed bathroom door. “I really was smitten with you right from the start!”

  “Zip it, Nita!” Danielle hissed, banging on the door to emphasize the command.

  Arlene said, “Don’t tell her to zip it! Where are your manners?”

  “My manners? The bitch slept with my mother and I’m supposed to have manners?”

  “Darling, Nita confessed everything to me about you and Katie’s plan last night and she did it before anything physical happened between us.”

  “That’s true,” Nita added from her place of refuge. “I came clean as soon as we arrived at Vertigo and—”

  But Danielle shut her up by banging on the door again with her fist.

  “Mom, I am not going to sit by and watch you go through some fucked up midlife-betrayed-housewife crisis.”

  “You will let me do just whatever the hell I want,” Arlene retorted. “You do not know me as well you think you do, young lady, and you are in no position to order me about, never forget that.”

  “Jesus Christ! Fine!” Danielle gave the bathroom door one last bang, pushed past her mother and went into the living room; Arlene and Katie followed and Danielle wheeled on the older woman. “I’m going home, Mom. When you come to your senses you know where to find me. Come on, Katie.” And she walked out of the condo.

  Katie didn’t immediately follow; instead, she held up her hands in a gesture of helplessness and said to Arlene, “I am so sorry about all this.”

  The other woman smiled and opened her arms for a hug which Katie more than willingly gave her.

  “Oh, don’t be sorry,” Arlene said. “I can imagine that this is pretty shocking to her. It’s not surprising that she’s acting this way, remember I raised her and have seen her throw worse tantrums than this. However, shocking though all this may be it is still no excuse for her to believe she can push me around.”

  “For what it’s worth, I agree,” Katie said.

  Just then Danielle suddenly came back in. She put her hands on her hips as she glared at her wife.

  “Uh, Katie? Me storming out is so much more effective if you do it with me!”

  Chapter 13

  Thursday—Liverpool

  There were two things going through Max’s mind at this moment. The first was that Liverpool was a very fine town; yes, very fine indeed, with innumerable charms and an overall sense of…what is the word he would use? Peace. Yes, Liverpool was a town with an overall sense of peace, tranquility, serenity and all those other words one finds in a decent thesaurus when one wants to say nirvana without actually using the word nirvana.

  He was feeling so magnanimous toward the settlement of Liverpool because just as he had predicted things in London were positively wacky, as loony as a Chaplin film but with less talented writers and he was grateful to whatever forces were in charge of the universe that he was here in peaceful Liverpool, many, many miles removed from that perfect storm of nuttiness.

  Max had just got done talking with Katie after making his morning check-in call to London. Normally, he spoke with Danielle, wished her a profitable day at work and promised to call home once more before he went to bed to say goodnight. But today Danielle had left for ARCL earlier than usual and it was left to Katie to fill Max in on the soap opera that was their lives. Thus Max learned that Arlene was still holed up with Nita, refusing to come home or to even see Danielle until her rights as a gay woman were recognized. This of course was irking Danielle to no end and Katie informed Max that their mutual wife was pulling her hair out trying to come up with why on Earth she had been cursed with such a dysfunctional family.

  “How the hell are you coping, Katie?” Max had asked.

  “Let’s put it this way: we’re out of vodka. And gin. And if I continue smoking like this I may as well find a good oncologist now and put her on speed dial.”

  So, appreciation for Liverpool not being London was the first thing going through Max’s mind this morning. The second thing was a bit more interesting: did Emily purposely not wear a bra or was it a mere oversight on her part?

  His stunning assistant was waiting for him over on the couch in the suite’s living room, having arrived while Max was still chatting with Katie. Though she had brought a notepad, pen and her trusty tablet PC she had, however, neglected to dress in her usual ensemble of tailored business casual clothes. Instead, she had shown up in a pair of cut-off denim shorts, thong sandals and a black ribbed tank top which, Max noted straight away, fit very, very nicely, so nicely in fact that practically nothing was left to the imagination. She may as well have arrived topless. Thank goodness he had been on the phone when he first saw her; it provided him the perfect excuse for turning quickly away from Emily while instructing her to come inside via a gesture.

  Now, disconnected from his house in the capital, he was wondering how the hell he was going to stay focused during their meeting with Emily looking like that.

  “Is everything alright?” Emily asked as Max approached. “I couldn’t help but overhear bits of your conversation. Sounds like there might be a crisis of sorts?”

  “Crisis? Well, when compared to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, no,” Max replied, pouring them both cups of coffee as a way of further avoiding looking at her. “But when compared to my desire to have a quiet home life, yes. On the plus side though I think I have the subject for my next book.”

  He placed the mugs on the coffee table and then just stood there suddenly at a loss for what to do next. He realized he had a seating problem now. If he sat beside her on the couch, as he usually did in these situations, it might make her uncomfortable given how revealing her outfit was; he didn’t want that at all. However, choosing the armchair opposite the couch, which seemed the gentlemanly thing to do, would only serve to give him a full frontal view of that wonderful torso every time he glanced up at her.

  “Are you okay, sir?” Emily asked, a hint of smile touching her lips.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just trying to decide where to sit, is all…”

  She patted the spot on the couch next to her. Somewhat reluctantly, Max took it.

  They worked for an hour during which Max tried very, very hard to ignore Emily’s tantalizing vanilla scent or how every time she crossed her legs the muscles in her perfect thighs flexed so invitingly. He hadn’t had sex in nearly a week and it was all he could do to maintain concentration on the business at hand.

  Finishing up and turning off her tablet PC she said, “You’re in a strange mood today, sir.”

  “Sorry,” Max said. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night. By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you: knock it of
f with the ‘sir’ stuff. I mean, I let my housekeeper call me sir but then she always misspells marmalade when she writes out the grocery list. Anyone who can’t spell marmalade has to call me sir. You, on the other hand, may call me Max.”

  Emily was laughing.

  “How does she spell it?”

  “M-a-r-m-m-a-l-a-i-d-e, if you can believe it. Does it every time. I purposely look for her grocery list every Monday just to see if after buying and handling countless jars of marmalade she’s finally learned how to spell the fucking word.”

  Emily got up to use the suite’s fax machine to send some documents to the set. When she returned to the couch she brought refills of their coffee. That she returned at all was surprising to Max. The meeting was done, there was nothing left to discuss and so she was free to go back to her room. Yet here she was, back on the couch next to him, one leg tucked up beneath her, sipping her coffee as though she planned on staying awhile. It was the last thing Max needed.

  “I find your life fascinating,” Emily said after a moment.

  “My life?” Max said, genuinely surprised for he found nothing fascinating about it at all. “No, Emily, a submarine captain’s life is fascinating, okay? My life is so the opposite of fascinating that it borders on ludicrous.”

  She laughed. “Your sense of humor is exactly like what’s in your books. But, really…I think you’re fascinating. Take where you grew up, for instance.”

  “Are you referring to the Bronx?” he asked. “Look, I know most people outside of Greater New York think the Bronx is in a constant state of guerilla warfare but it’s not. I grew up in a very nice neighborhood, alright? No drug wars, no drive-by shootings, no race riots. It was such a sissy neighborhood that when some do-gooder planted a rose bush next to one of the trees outside our apartment building when I was a kid nobody yanked it out or peed on it. The toughest kid in my school was Neftali Juarez…he grew up to be a cross-dressing lounge singer. The only newsworthy thing that happened on my block was when old Mrs. Leonetti accidentally microwaved her cat and the closest I came to joining a gang was when my mom signed me and my brother up for the Boy Scouts.”

  “Did you like being a Scout?”

  “God, no; I dropped out right after my first camping trip when I realized that the great outdoors were actually outdoors.”

  “So, if I were to find myself trapped with you in a jungle and we were surrounded by hungry man-eating beasts…”

  “You’d better hope there’s somebody else with us who can actually do something useful,” Max told her.

  “I bet those two ladies you live with have a great time with all your jokes. I know I would. You see, that’s another reason I find your life fascinating; not many men are willing to share the love of their life with another woman.”

  The novelist drained his coffee mug but restrained Emily when she made a move to get up and pour him another.

  “There’s nothing fascinating about my arrangement with Danielle, trust me,” he said. “She’s bisexual, what else was I supposed to do? Besides, it gives me plenty of time to myself and quite frankly I think I’m a better companion to her because of that.”

  “Do you mind if I ask how you three got together?”

  No, Max didn’t mind Emily asking but he spent a few moments considering. There were two versions of the story he kept in reserve in his brain for times like these. The long version detailed everything from how he and Danielle first met in Arizona before moving to New York together following the publication of Pope Anne, to Max’s discovery of Danielle’s bisexuality, to how Danielle met Katie, to how they all three ended up living together in New York, to the handfasting ceremony in the Bronx which united them all as a family just prior to their move overseas to London.

  “Here’s the short version,” Max began. The long version was more of a dinner-and-cocktails kind of story, he decided. “Danielle and I had been together for about a year or so when I found out she was bisexual.”

  “How did you find out?” Emily asked.

  “We got invited to a lesbian wedding and I discovered that Danielle had dated one of the brides.”

  Max went on. He had told this same story countless times by now and so it was almost like repeating lines he had learned for a play. He explained to Emily that after learning of Danielle’s bisexuality he had seen no reason why she shouldn’t indulge in occasional flings with women whenever she so desired.

  “And so I gave her permission to date women. Under certain conditions, that is,” he said.

  “Such as?”

  Max anticipated the question; in fact, he anticipated all the questions Emily would ask because everyone always asked the same questions.

  “Condition number one was that she wouldn’t use my accepting her dating women as an excuse to date other men. I wasn’t giving her carte blanche to cheat on me. Condition two was that she remain committed to keeping our relationship healthy, that she not neglect the feelings we have for each other.”

  “Is that when she met Katie?”

  Max shook his head. Danielle had actually met Katie several months earlier, he explained. It wasn’t until after Max gave his permission for Danielle to date women that she and Katie began dating.

  “But how did Katie feel about you?” Emily asked.

  Max had the answer ready. “The thing you gotta understand about Katie,” he began, “is that she’s out to save the world. She’s chained herself to trees; she feeds the homeless on weekends; she stands in front of embassies protesting human rights abuses; she’s sailed with Greenpeace; she’s on committee after committee trying to end all wars, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the fact is, you can’t have that kind of dedication and maintain a normal relationship with anyone because what happens is that the person you’re with ends up feeling neglected. That’s where I come in. Katie is able to focus on her work, on saving the world, without worrying about Danielle being neglected because at least Danielle has me to fill the void.”

  He picked up where he left off.

  Time passed and eventually Danielle and Katie fell in love; more time passed and eventually Katie moved in with them; even more time passed and Katie got offered a job in London. That, in a nutshell, was their story and why he, Max Bland, lives with two women in a house with an astronomically high electric bill and shoes littering the floors like land mines.

  “Wow. Not your typical ‘boy meets girl’ story, is it?” Emily remarked when the tale was done.

  “Not in the least,” Max agreed.

  “You know, when I first read Pope Anne, I felt transported,” Emily said.

  “Well, that’s nice of you to say,” was Max’s reply.

  “No, really…it—and I’m sure you’ve heard this all a thousand times by now—it just captivated me, moved me. I fell in love with that story like I’ve never fallen in love with any other.”

  A feeling of relief swept over Max.

  “Well, I appreciate the compliment,” he said and then added, “So I take it you’re gay?”

  But the young woman laughed.

  “Gay? No, not quite,” she said. “I am bi, though That’s the real reason why I think it’s so wonderful that you allow your Danielle to enjoy her attraction to women. I would love to find myself in that situation,” Emily said. “A nice, understanding bloke; a steady girlfriend for when I’m so inclined…sounds like paradise.”

  She paused for a beat and then said:

  “Got room for one more down there in London?”

  “Thirty-five rooms, to be exact; make yourself comfortable. Just don’t leave your shoes lying all over the place.”

  “I’m not really into that whole shoe thing most women have.”

  “Then you can definitely move in,” Max said.

  As a way of changing the direction the conversation was following he got up and went to put their empty coffee cups in the kitchen sink. Upon returning he sat in the armchair this time.

  “I didn’t mean to pry about your sexual orientation,”
Max apologized. “It’s sort of a reflex action by now. Every time a woman goes on like you did about how much she loved Pope Anne I automatically assume she’s gay. In my defense, though, nine times outta ten I’m right.”

  He then asked Emily about her life story. The assistant shrugged, confessed there wasn’t much to tell: a childhood in Leeds and then university at Imperial College.

  “I actually tried marriage directly after university,” she told him. “Abysmal failure; it just wasn’t for me, I suppose and I allowed us to drift apart. There was also the problem that though I liked having a bloke well enough I still wanted to shag women all the time too. Tony wouldn’t have understood that.”

  “Are you sure?” Max asked.

  “He was a vicar.”

  “Ah.”

  After her divorce she finally joined the workforce armed with her still unused Communications degree and quickly found this job, working as an assistant at the BBC with an aim toward becoming a producer of her own shows.

  “Documentaries are what I have a passion for,” she confided. “I’ve a lot of great ideas, mostly centered on history and culture. I’m particularly enamored with, you know, historical mysteries and anything having to do with literature and wine.”

  “Quick, spell oenophile,” Max challenged.

  “O-e-n-o-p-h-i-l-e,” Emily said and then stuck out her tongue playfully.

  “Alright, you can still call me Max. Well, I love a good documentary. Just promise me you won’t make any about the history of linoleum or things you can do with earwax.”

  “Actually, I’d love to do one about you,” Emily said.

  “Ah, not planning on being a successful documentarian, are you? Emily, if you do a film about me all you’ll accomplish is inventing a new way to put the world’s lesbians to sleep. That’s why I’ve never cooperated with any would be biographers; my life was and is now as dull as that linoleum concept I gave you.”

  “You’re being modest, Max,” she said. “I bet you’d be surprised at how exciting things could get if you were to put yourself in my hands.”