vituperation

Long, long ago, in March 2004, Robyn and I were laying in bed one night, talking. I was hounding her to write a chick lit novel, as I do from time to time, because I think she’s a good writer. Her skill, coupled with her love of the genre, could make for a good book. I never convinced her to write that novel, but at some point — my advanced age and the ensuing mental decline preclude me from remembering the details of the conversation — I stuck my foot so far into my mouth my toes peeked out my ass.

I bet my wife I could write a chick lit novel, despite the fact that I’d never read one.

And she took that bet.

I wrote a preface, to get a feel for things, and posted it on my site. There was pretty good response from the people who read it, so I spent the next couple of months whipping out a cliched chick lit novel. I solicited for readers from here, picked five, and sent the manuscript to them. All had good critiques, and I made several changes before sending the book on to my literary agent.

He read the manuscript and thought it was good enough to sell. We pimped it to five publishing houses under a pseudonym, because he thought the publishers would be put off by the fact that the novel was written by a guy. All five publishers declined the book, but all five had good things to say. A couple said they’d be interested if the book was re-worked a little, and that they really liked my nom de plume’s writing style. I didn’t have any real interest in pursuing a rewrite, so the manuscript has lain dormant on my hard drive for the last 18 months.

My agent suggested I Lulu the book, but that seems like a lot of hassle. I’m a fundamentally lazy guy.

I happened across it today, and thought I’d share a chapter, so you can see what Fred writes like when he’s trying to write from a female perspective. I have to say, skimming through the book again, that overall I’m pretty pleased with it. Then again, I wrote it, so I’m allowed.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter thirteen

 

“I am not sticking my hand up a turkey’s ass,” I said.

Jenn and I stood at her kitchen counter, staring warily at the massive bird resting in a roasting pan before us. Thanksgiving dinner was only a few short hours away, and the time had come to stuff the turkey.

“For God’s sake, Rox,” Jenn replied in a wheedling voice. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

“I don’t see you falling all over yourself to do it.”

With a baleful look in my direction, she walked over to the pantry and rummaged until she found a box of sandwich bags, which she brought back to the counter.

“Here,” she said. “Put those over your hands.”

“No way! This meal was your idea, you should stuff the turkey.”

“But you’re so much better at it.” Her earnest expression was almost comical.

“How the hell can someone be good at stuffing a turkey?”

She pointed. “Smaller hands.”

“Don’t think I won’t remember this,” I said, reaching for a baggie.

Kyle stumbled into the kitchen a couple of hours later, while we were peeling potatoes. He went straight to the refrigerator, opened it, and then just stood there, indecisively peering inside.

“Good morning, beautiful,” I sang. His hair stuck out in all directions and his face was still puffy with sleep. He blinked blearily at me.

“Is Zach here yet?” he asked.

“No, he’s probably still in bed.”

Kyle raised his eyebrows.

“His bed,” I added quickly. “He’ll be here later.”

Kyle took a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge and left us, scratching his ass enthusiastically. Jenn wrinkled her nose.

“I can’t say I’ve missed that particular trait,” she said. She’d just spent ten days in New York shooting a series of ads for Diet Coke and had only returned yesterday.

“Pigs, aren’t they?” I said with a smile.

“And then some.” She picked up a new potato and started peeling. “So when are you planning to let Zach wake up in your bed, Prudence?”

I laughed. “Soon.”

“Oh, really? Does he know that yet?”

I shrugged, dropped a peeled potato in the pot of water, and took another from the pile.

“God, I feel like we haven’t talked in forever,” she said. “I take it things are going well?”

“Very.”

“And he’s past the problems with Gilby?”

“If he’s not he’s a good actor, because it doesn’t seem to be bothering him any more.”

We finished peeling the potatoes and put them on the stove. I turned my attention to the bowl of boiled eggs in the sink and started peeling. Deviled eggs are one thing I’ll admit to being able to cook. Jenn hefted the turkey out of the oven to baste it.

“You decide what you’re doing for Christmas?” she asked.

“Not stuffing a turkey, that’s for sure.”

“You know what I mean. Are you staying here?”

“No, I’m going to Newport to spend the holidays with Cassie and Bruno. Not that I’ve told my mother yet.”

“Uh oh. Will she be really pissed off?”

“Probably.” I poked eggshells down the drain and flicked the Dispose-All on to grind them up. “But I really don’t care,” I added, trying to convince the both of us. “I can’t spend another Christmas with that bitch, pretending I don’t want to claw her eyes out.”

“That wouldn’t make for a very silent night,” she said, smirking.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s like, the minute I walk through the door I’m twelve again, jumping through her hoops and begging for her approval. Nothing I do makes her happy. I got married, she told me I was too young. I got divorced, she said no one in her family had ever been divorced. She bitches about my hair, my weight, the way I dress… When my first book came out, she told me she couldn’t believe I dedicated it to Cassie and not to her.”

I paused to take a breath, and noticed I had a handful of egg paste. In my anger, I never even realized I was squeezing it.

“I mean, Jesus,” I continued, rinsing my hand. “When I’m around her, I spend half my time feeling like I’m a kid, and the other half defending my life!”

“I’m so sorry, Roxy,” Jenn said. She opened the oven door and slid the turkey back in. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without my mom’s love and support.”

“You’d probably be as screwed up as the rest of us,” I said with a laugh. “I think you’re the only one around here who had a happy childhood.”

“Yeah, how’d I end up with so many dysfunctional friends?” she teased. “I think Gilby’s the only one who even speaks to his parents.”

She glanced at the kitchen door.

“Kyle’s family is awful,” she said in a low voice. “His parents were alcoholics. Still are, I guess. He doesn’t keep up with them. All I know is they didn’t work. They lived off the state and whatever they could mooch from relatives.”

She sighed.

“They beat Kyle and his brother—even put Kyle in the hospital overnight once. They got off by telling the doctor Kyle fell out of a tree, and the doctor didn’t press it. Kyle ran away when he was fifteen. He lived on the street for a couple of months, and ended up moving in with an aunt and uncle. They raised him until he graduated from college, then he moved out here.”

“College?” I was stunned. Kyle never struck me as the collegiate type.

“He went to Harvard, believe it or not.”

I gawped at her. “You’re bullshitting me,” I said.

“Yeah, I am.” She grinned. “But you believed me for a minute, didn’t you?”

“I think I almost passed out,” I admitted, laughing.

“He really did go to college, but it was a community college in New Mexico.”

“What did he major in?” I still had trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of Kyle in college. Never let it be said that stereotyping is a lost art.

“Early Education.”

“Get out of here! He wanted to be a teacher?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“A little,” I admitted. “Kyle must have a lot in common with my brother.” I couldn’t imagine any two men farther apart on the spectrum than Kyle and my brother.

“I didn’t know you had a brother!”

“Well, I don’t talk to him much.” I took a knife and began slicing boiled eggs in half, putting the yolk pieces into a bowl and the whites on a platter. “I haven’t seen him since last Christmas.”

“Where does he live?” she asked. “What does he do?”

“He lives in Linford, about five minutes from my mother. And he’s a fourth-grade teacher.”

“Is he married?”

“No, he’s gay. That’s the only thing he ever did to disappoint my mother. She wanted him to become a teacher, so he went to the University of Maine in Farmington and got his degree. She wanted him to live with her, so they compromised and he moved less than a mile away. She wanted him to marry a ‘nice girl’ and provide her with two grandkids, but that obviously didn’t work out.”

“How’d that fly with her?” Jenn suggested.

“Believe it or not, she’s fine with it. Like I said, he can do no wrong in her eyes.”

“Didn’t you tell me Cassie doesn’t talk to her?”

“Yeah, she moved away from Maine when she was eighteen and they haven’t spoken since. My mom’s never even seen Cassie’s little girls.”

“That’s sad,” Jenn said.

I agreed.

I stirred mayonnaise and relish into the yolks before continuing.

“Cassie told me she can’t be around someone whose whole goal in life is to tear her down. Life’s hard enough without having to put up with that shit.”

“So why do you put up with it?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Sometimes I think of her—my Mom—and I resent the hell out of her for making me feel so inadequate. But then other times I look at her and just see a bitter old woman who watched her life turn out so different from what she must’ve planned, and I… I kind of feel sorry for her.”

We sat in reflective silence for a moment, then Jenn spoke.

“What’s Zach doing for Christmas?”

“I’m going to ask him if he wants to go to Newport with me.”

She perked up. “Major relationship move.”

“What’s a major relationship move?” Zach asked, coming through the doorway from the den.

“Thanks a lot, Jenn,” I said with a mock scowl.

She apologized—quite insincerely, I might add—and slunk from the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Zach asked.

I commented on how nice he looked in a vain attempt to change the subject. He didn’t buy it, instead tugging me away from the eggs and to the table, where he sat and pulled me into his lap.

“I say, ‘What was that all about?’”

I told him of my plans.

“Really?” he asked, sounding pleased.

“Yes,” I replied, “but only if you want to.”

“Of course I want to.” After a quick kiss, he gave me an impish grin. “Now, little girl,” he said, putting a hand on my knee, “what do you want for Christmas?”

“Gee, Santa,” I said in a childish voice, bouncing on his lap. He groaned. “I want a Mr. Potato Head, and a yellow Corvette, and a new Barbie…”

“What do you really want, Rox?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“Peace on earth and a female president?”

“Roxanne Vanessa Miller, for Christ’s sake, would you just answer the question?”

“I’m calling foul! You promised you’d never use my middle name for nefarious purposes. The fine is one punch in the arm!”

In a weak moment, I had told Zach my middle name, which I loathe. He promised to tell me his, but never did. I can only imagine how bad it must be.

I balled up a fist and pulled back for my punch. Before I could hit him he caught me gently around the wrist with one hand.

“Then give me a straight answer,” he said.

“I forgot the question.” God, I loved to give him a hard time.

He sighed loudly, looking as if he thought he might be able to give Job a run for his money in the patience department.

“What do you want for Christmas, Roxy?”

“I suppose,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes at him, “that I want the same thing you want.”

His confused expression spoke volumes. I leaned in close and nuzzled his neck with my lips.

“I think you know what I mean,” I whispered.

Realization dawned in his eyes.

“You mean…” he began.

“I just might,” I said.

“I think I’ll go into the kitchen and check on the potatoes,” Jenn bellowed from just outside the door. I stood up.

“You’re about as subtle as a nun in a whorehouse,” I remarked when she came in.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“Did you ask him to go? He looks a little dazed.”

Zach snorted. “If I’m dazed, it’s because—”

“Zach, sweetie,” I said, “there’s no need to kiss and tell.”

“Yeah, I’m going to Rhode Island,” he said.

“Kyle is watching TV in the den and requests the pleasure of your company,” Jenn told him.

“Is that my cue?” he asked, smiling.

“It is.”

She watched him until he left, then turned to me.

“What was that all about?”

“What should I do with this?” I asked, holding up a bunch of celery. She fished a jar of cheese spread out of the refrigerator.

“Wash it, cut it, and fill it,” she said. “So what was he about to say?”

“Nothing. I just told him I was about ready to sleep with him. Can I cut the celery, then wash it?”

“There aren’t any laws specifying the order, though I’m sure our illustrious politicians are hard at work on passing some. So you just said, ‘I’m about ready to sleep with you?’”

“Not in so many words,” I said, “but he got the idea.”

When Jenn’s parents got there just before one, it was obvious to me where Jenn got her blond good looks and air of self-assurance. Her father was a garrulous giant of a man and I instantly liked him. Her mother, on the other hand, was quiet and diminutive, carrying herself with a certain elegant grace. Conversation during the meal flowed like water, carried along by stories from Jenn’s father about her childhood. He regaled us with tale after tale while we ate, simultaneously entertaining us and embarrassing her.

“God, I’m stuffed,” he said, tugging at the waist of his pants. He leaned back in his chair and eyed Kyle.

“So, young man, when are you going to make an honest woman out of my Jenny?” he asked.

“He does this every year,” Zach whispered to me.

“Probably never, sir,” Kyle answered.

“He gets the same answer every year, too,” Zach added.

“Daddy, stop torturing Kyle,” Jenn said, good-naturedly.

“I just think it would be nice if my daughter settled down and gave me a grandchild or two,” her father continued, as if he hadn’t heard her.

Jenn and her mother rolled their eyes.

“I know, Daddy, my purpose in life is to provide you with grandchildren,” Jenn said.

The bantering went on for a few minutes longer, until Jenn’s mother decided Jenn had been harassed enough and told her husband to knock it off.

After the table was cleared and the leftovers put away, we all retreated to the living room. Sitting on the couch, Zach’s arm warming my shoulders, I felt peaceful and contented. Good food, good conversation, and good friends. What more could a girl ask for?