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“I bet I know why she’s tired,” Isabelle said with a smirk. My cheeks flushed, and Iris elbowed her in the side.
“Hush your mouth.”
I looked between the two of them. “Just what are you talking about? Fess up or I’m going to make like Jack Dempsey and beat it out of you.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes.
“Oh god, we just heard through the grapevine that you had a new man in your life. Some guy at work, right?”
I sighed, groaning with despair. Now my parents knew about Stan, even if they didn't know the grisly details.
I would now be stuck role-playing this fake relationship shit around my own family, too.
“You’re dating someone?” My mother asked, delight brimming in her tone. “Oh my god, oh my god, sit down, sit, sit, sit.”
I sat at the kitchen table. The rest of my family loomed around me, almost like they were on the other side of an interrogation chamber. I know they were just trying to be interested in my life, but I felt like it was a very adversarial type of situation.
No wonder I felt like getting my back up.
“Tell us all about him,” Mom said, her eyes eager.
“Does he have a job?” My father asked.
“Is he a convict?” Christian asked. His mother smacked him on the elbow.
“One more strike, young man, and I’m donating that video game in the glove box to those less fortunate.”
“Mom, it was just a joke.”
“Is anybody laughing?”
I rolled my eyes and turned to my father.
“Yes, he has a job.”
“That’s good, at least.”
“How long have you been seeing him? When did you guys meet?” Mom asked.
“One question at a time, Ma, geez.” Iris said.
“Only a few weeks, and we met at a party celebrating the acquisition of a new company at the firm.”
“So he is a guy from work.” My mother frowned. “If things go bad with the relationship, he might think it's awkward to see you at work.”
“Oh, believe me, mom,” I said with a knowing smirk. “That’s not going to be a problem.”
The relationship, the fake relationship that is, was most definitely going to go bad at some point. But that was by design. That way Stan could really stick it to his friends. Or something. To be honest, I didn’t really get his motivations.
I knew he wanted to think of himself as some kind of impenetrable fortress of raw intellect, who refused to be assailed by the weak armies of emotional connection. Yet, I was starting to feel increasingly intimate to him—and not in the obvious way.
I’d begun thinking of us, without conscious effort, as being together for real whenever I made plans. When I shopped for a new shade of lipstick, I wondered if Stan would like it on me. When I considered where to go to vacation for next year, I looked at places where I thought Stan might feel welcome.
“That’s what they all say. Everybody thinks they’ve got ‘real’ love and the rest of us can never understand.” Mom sighed. “Love is a verb, my dear. It takes hard work. It’s a way of life, more than just some kind of effusive state of being.”
“Geez, Grandma, you sound like an old kung fu guy.”
Irene glared at him and Christian shrank back.