Maybe most guys would have been proud to have a topless dancer as a girlfriend, and in a way I was, but Daniella and I had put a lot of effort into hiding what her job was from my/our friends. Whenever she was out in public with me, she wore thick black glasses and carried a copy of a Jane Austen book with her. She told my friends that she was a paralegal. Now my friends were going to the topless club where she worked for New Year’s Eve, and I needed to warn her. Kirk, Jerome, and the others would be there in about 15 minutes. That didn’t give me much time.
The first phone booth (this was in the early 1990s) was on a street corner about five minutes away. Even though a rough looking guy was talking, I parked my car and got out. The rough looking guy saw me and turned his back on me while continuing his conversation. I knew what that meant. I got back into my car, found another phone booth a few minutes away, but a guy was standing nearby at the bus stop looking at me while playing with his zipper. I didn’t like the looks of that either, so I got back into my car. The next phone booth was occupied by three teenagers eyeballing everybody who drove by. The next phone booth was… never mind. It had already been almost 15 minutes since the other guys took off. They’d almost be to Nero’s. Any phone call I’d make would be too late. I took a deep breath and drove home.
It was past ten. The football games were over. The cheesy New Year’s Eve countdown shows had begun. I wasn’t in a festive mood.
I didn’t know what to expect. Would Kirk and the guys recognize Daniella? If she saw them first, would she stick around or leave? Would she pretend she wasn’t Daniella if they saw her? Would Kirk and the guys tell me if they saw Daniella? How would they break it to me, that my shit-talking librarian girlfriend was a stripper? If that happened, would I act shocked, or would I confess that I knew? Would Daniella be pissed at me for not warning her, or wouldn’t she care? I was sometimes surprised by what pissed her off and what she could blow off.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. Daniella stormed into the apartment about 30 minutes later, caked in makeup, hair down, wearing her badass leather jacket and extra tight jeans. Daniella looked great as a badass. I would have loved to have gone out with her in public as a badass, except when I wore a badass leather jacket and rough jeans, I just looked like a nerdy guy dressing up as a badass. The badass outfits accentuated our physical mismatch, so she usually went out with me in librarian mode. But I liked looking at her when she was a badass.
Daniella stood frozen by the door and grinned. “Shit, that was close,” she said.
Daniella told me that she had spotted Jerome as soon as he’d walked into Nero’s. He was a tall guy with a distinct chin, and Kirk had almost gotten them all thrown out right away by grabbing a dancer without paying for a lap dance first. Jerome had had to throw down some cash before they could be seated, but the disturbance had given Daniella a chance to bail out, to act like she wasn’t feeling well and head to the back of the club. That was the short version, which was all I really wanted. The less I knew about Nero’s, the better.
“I tried to warn you,” I said. “I promise. I just couldn’t get to a phone in time.”
“They wouldn’t have given me a message,” Daniella said, still standing over me instead of sitting down. “I know a dancer, her kid was in the emergency room, and they didn’t tell her until after the shift was over. Fuckers.”
She paced around while she talked. “I was lucky I wasn’t on stage when they came in. When you’re on stage, you’re screwed if somebody you know walks in. Shit, I lost a lot of money over this. I was with a guy who works for an oil company and I…”
Then her grin disappeared. “Shit, I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear this.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know it’s too late to tell you now, but you didn’t have to hide. I guess I don’t mind if people know you’re a dancer.”
“I do,” Daniella said. “I like our friends thinking I’m a paralegal.”
Daniella brushed her hair out of her face. She still smelled like smoke. “If they find out I’m a dancer, they’ll think… things… about me. I hate that.”
Daniella finally sat down next to me. “I like having friends that think I’m… normal… for once. I like what we have going.”
I nodded thoughtfully (at least I hoped it looked thoughtful). Even though my friends thought highly of Daniella, “normal” wasn’t a word any of them had used, but I decided to keep that to myself.
“This worked out good for you,” Daniella said, her grin returning. “You said you wanted to spend New Year’s Eve together, and you got your wish.”
“That’s true.” I hadn’t thought of that.
“How do I know you didn’t plan this?” she asked. I couldn’t tell if she was serious.
“I’m not that devious,” I said.
“People think that,” she said slowly. “Your friends think you’re a nice guy, but I know you, I know how freaky you really are. You could plan something like this. You could have… told… your friends to go to Nero’s.” She got so close that my mind got muddled (in a good way), even in her smoky dried-sweaty condition, and I thought she was going to do something seductive, but she was simply looking me in the eye. “Tell me you didn’t plan this,” she said.
“I didn’t plan this.” I hadn’t, so that was easy.
“Hmmmm,” she said. “You might be telling me the truth, but I’m going to punish you anyway.”
Punish? This was getting good after all.
“You’re going to take me downtown, and we’re going to go…” and she listed a bunch of bars and night clubs where the drinks would be overpriced. “And you’re going to let me drink, and you’re going to dance with me.”
This really was turning into punishment, but she didn’t know it. Any guy would have been glad to be her bar-hopping date on New Year’s, but all I could think of was the money, my cash that was running out. One thing about Daniella, she was always an expensive date.
“But… I can’t dance,” I said. It was a lame excuse, but I was desperate, and I’ve never been a quick thinker.
“Then you can stand there and pretend with a drink in your hand, and I’m going to dance, and nobody will even notice you, and you’re going to act like you like it.”
Watching her dance crazy wasn’t a bad way to spend time, but the money issue still gnawed at me. “Some of those places have long lines,” I said desperately. “We’ll never get in.”
“They’ll let me in,” she said.
“But they’ll make me stand outside.”
“I can get you in.”
“It’s getting late.”
“They’ll just be getting started.”
I groaned. This was more impossible than trying to talk my mom out of going to church on Christmas Eve. At least with church, I only had to throw a few bucks into the offering plate. I had no idea how much money Daniella could make me spend at the bars on New Year’s Eve, but I knew it was going to be a lot. I cursed my brother and his wife at that moment. I should have said no to them. I should have been enjoying this moment. Daniella was going to get me into some trendy bars and dance crazy in front of me and probably do something really affectionate at midnight, and all I could think about was the money. The money. The stupid money.
++
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Identity Crisis .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s getting kind of long), start here.
Being in a relationship with a liar has its advantages, especially if both people involved know that the other doesn’t always tell the truth. Daniella danced at Nero’s, but we told my friends she was a paralegal who didn’t like to talk about her job. She carried around classic literature but didn’t read any of it. I had no problem with that. I had a bookshelf in my living room with hardcover classics that I’d claimed to have read. The problem with Daniella and me lying to my/our friends was keeping the lies straight and then not getting caught.
New Year’s Eve was supposed to be a big money-maker for Daniella, but I had images of what she would do to earn that money. Guys got really drunk on New Year’s, and I had no idea how crazy things could get at a topless club that night. I had images of Daniella dancing in extra-slutty ways to make money. The mistletoe crap was bad enough, but I had pictures in my head of guys holding onto Daniella at midnight and expecting her to…
But I couldn’t talk to her about that. Daniella had told me several times not to think about Nero’s. She said boyfriends had broken up with her after they’d seen her dance at Nero’s. I didn’t want to think about her previous boyfriends either. This didn’t make any sense, I thought. I was going to have to break up with Daniella soon for financial reasons, and I was still getting jealous. If anything, the dancing should have bothered me less than it had before. I guess jealousy doesn’t work that way.
I wasn’t going to sit at home all night on New Year’s Eve while Daniella worked. Jerome’s New Year’s get-together was an all-male bar-hopping extravaganza. My best friend Kirk was single again, and since he was a decent looking charming guy with a passion for drunk women, Kirk was great for bar-hopping. I was invited as a driver. New Year’s Eve was for amateur drinkers, and I didn’t drink and I was overly cautious when I got behind the wheel, so I was the safest guy to have around.
When I got to Jerome’s at 9:00 (what happens next might make more sense if you read this first.), about ten other guys were already there watching a late football game and getting boozed up. Most of us were in our 20s, but I only knew a few of them. I was a quiet guy, so I probably wouldn’t talk to many of them. I would never have been in this social group without Kirk vouching for me.
“What’s Danielle doing tonight?” Kirk asked. He had a beer in his hand but still seemed sober.
“Did you know her name is really Daniella?” I said. “I just found that out a few weeks ago.”
“No shit,” Kirk said. “What’s she doing?”
“New Year’s Book Club,” I said. “They’re discussing their favorite books of 1992.”
Kirk guffawed. “I’m never going out with a woman who reads again,” he said, probably thinking of Linda, his ex-girlfiend. “But Danielle is cool… I mean, Daniella.”
“Weren’t you Frankenstein?” some guy said, interrupting.
I almost didn’t recognize him without the eye patch, and his hair was longer now. I found out later that his name was Mitchell. “At the Halloween party, you’re the guy with the Frankenstein head,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. I felt like saying “Frankenstein’s monster,” but I was sober now and didn’t care about that anymore.
“Your girlfriend called me a douchebag,” he said.
“She called me an asshole,” I said. I was a quiet guy, but I didn’t mind one-upping others when I could.
“Damn, she’s hot.” Mitchell shook his head. “A shit-talking librarian.”
I looked around the room, and a bunch of the guys were nodding at me, not because I had a lot of good qualities, but because they remembered Daniella. She had made an impression, the crazy dancing hot chick in the Jane Austen costume. I was usually the guy who was jealous of some other guy’s girlfriend. Now they were envious of me. It wasn’t the bad kind of evil Biblical jealousy that got people killed; it was simple mild envy. I took it as a compliment.
“So, where are we going?” I didn’t like bar-hopping because it always took me a while to get comfortable in a new place, and as soon as I would relax, everybody else would want to leave and go get drunker somewhere else. It was frustrating. Kirk and the other bar-hoppers liked having me around because I could put up with drunks, and I’d keep them from getting arrested, but if they got into fights, they were on their own. I was the type to hide under a table and pretend I’d already been knocked out.
“Nero’s, my man,” Kirk proclaimed. “We’re going to Nero’s!”
Nero’s? The city probably had close to a hundred topless clubs, and Jerome had to pick Nero’s? Daniella had warned me to never go to Nero’s. It was a deal breaker in our… relationship. I couldn’t go to Nero’s. I wouldn’t go to Nero’s.
“I hate Nero’s,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
“What do you know about Nero’s?” Jerome asked.
“The food there sucks,” I said, and everybody laughed, and I had to think of another reason. “And they enforce the two-foot rule.”
“They do?” Jerome said.
Nero’s probably didn’t enforce the two-foot rule (I’m sure Daniella made a lot of money violating the two-foot rule), but it was a great argument, better than complaining about the food.
“When have you been to Nero’s?” Kirk asked.
“I went a couple times when I first moved down here,” I said. “But it’s been a long time. You know, strip clubs can eat through your wallet pretty quick.”
“Does Daniella mind you going to a strip club?” Jerome asked.
“She doesn’t know,” I said. Of course! Daniella was my built-in excuse not to go. “I didn’t know. She’d kill me if she found out.” I pretended to be flustered. “I can’t go. I can’t risk it.”
“Whipped,” Kirk said.
“By a hot, shit-talking librarian,” Mitchell said. “I wouldn’t go either.”
“I’d better not,” I said, acting like I was reluctant. “But, I’m telling you, if you want to see strippers, don’t go to Nero’s.”
Jerome had his heart set on Nero’s, and even though I kept trying to convince him otherwise, he wanted to go to a high-class place with valet parking where he could throw a lot of cash and credit around. It was Jerome’s money, so Jerome got to decide. Kirk, Mitchell and a couple other guys worked themselves up by shouting euphemisms for female body parts they were hoping to see that night. I was trying to think of a way to warn Daniella.
I didn’t know how important it was to Daniella that she keep her dancing a secret from my/our friends. Maybe at first she was keeping the secret for my benefit, but now she had friends who’d bought her act as well, so she had more stake in this than she did a few months earlier. If Kirk and Jerome recognized Daniella, word would get back to Linda and any other friends in that clique. I didn’t know if it mattered that much to Daniella, but I figured she might want to know ahead of time that a bunch of guys in our social group were about to roll into her strip club.
“Call when you’re about to go home,” I told Kirk. “If you need me, I’ll still pick you up.”
The guys understood, and they probably wouldn’t call, but I really didn’t want them driving home.
Jerome, Kirk, Mitchell, and the others piled into a couple cars, and I had no idea what to do. Nero’s was about 20 minutes from Jerome’s house. My apartment was at least 30 minutes away. I didn’t know the phone number to Nero’s; I didn’t even know if the place had phones. I couldn’t just walk into the place and warn her. My only chance was to get to a pay phone and try to warn Daniella. Maybe I could call information and somebody at Nero’s could relay a message for me.
It was a long shot, but I had to try.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Designated Driver, Part 2 .
If you want to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning (it’s gotten kind of long), start here.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There are a lot of rules to writing (and I think I just broke five of them with this opening sentence), so many that I won’t even try to list all of them. As an amateur, I read about rules of writing because I want to improve. But I’ve found that when I try to follow the rules too closely, my writing sounds like somebody who is trying to follow the rules of writing.
Since I don’t get paid to write for Dysfunctional Literacy, I’ve decided to write the way I want to write, and I’ve noticed that I tend to break some common rules about writing. Maybe breaking these rules will keep me from becoming a successful author. I don’t know. Maybe breaking these rules will help. Either way, here are some common rules of writing that I sometimes break.
WRITE EVERY DAY.
Nobody should do anything every day, except eat and sleep. Even if writers are paid to write (which I’m not), they shouldn’t write every day. Doing something every day makes people boring. I should know. I’ve been told that I’m a boring guy, so I know what makes people boring, and part of being boring is doing the same things every day. And if you do write every day, don’t tell anybody because then people will expect you to be boring. If you’re going to be boring, surprise people with it.
I write almost every day, but if I don’t write, I don’t beat myself up over it.
SKIP THE BORING PARTS.
Elmore Leonard gets credit for this one, but other authors (like Stephen King) have mentioned it too. It’s probably a good rule, but I break it sometimes (maybe because I’m a boring person in real life). Every once in a while, I intentionally write a scene where nothing happens just to set up a state of being. Some readers would call it the boring part. I try to make the boring part not boring so that maybe readers won’t notice it’s a boring part. I even started a chapter of “The Literary Girlfriend” with the sentence, “This is the part that some authors (and readers) might be tempted skip.” It got a lot of hits, but I don’t know how many people actually read it.
When I write a boring part, I have my characters think or talk about sex. Or maybe I throw in an unnecessary fight. I have a (maybe) boring scene coming up in “The Literary Girlfriend,” so I might throw in a bar fight where Jimmy gets punched out while thinking about sex. Maybe then it won’t be boring.
I think it’s funny that Stephen King has adopted the “skip the boring parts” rule. Elmore Leonard said “Skip the boring parts,” and wrote books that were 200 pages long. Stephen King says “Skip the boring parts” and writes books that are over 800 pages long. The last Stephen King book that I read 11-22-63 was an 800 page book with a 300 page story. Maybe Elmore Leonard should have written it.
ONLY USE “SAID” FOR DIALOGUE.
This is another Elmore Leonard rule, and I think it’s a weird rule. Yeah, using only “said” for dialogue takes the pressure off trying to be creative, but the word “said” is boring, and we’re not supposed to be boring. My daughter brought home a chart from school with words that are more descriptive than “said” (like “declared” and “exclaimed”). Should I send her English teacher Elmore Leonard’s list of writing rules? I tend to use “said” most of the time anyway, but sometimes “said” just isn’t good enough.
DON’T USE ADVERBS.
I don’t think it’s funny when somebody ironically says “Use adverbs sparingly.” It’s only funny when they’re serious.
Maybe a lot of adverbs are unnecessary, but I don’t know. An adverb is a part of speech. I worked hard in school to learn the difference between adverbs and adjectives. I know when words like “in” and “out” are prepositions and when they’re adverbs. I know that adverbs don’t have to end with “-ly.” I know that adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. I spent a lot of time in class learning my adverbs. My teachers devoted a lot of time and energy trying to make us bored students learn about adverbs. I’m going to use them whenever I feel like it, no matter what Mark Twain (or any other successful writer) said.
I shall not let my teachers’ efforts be for nothing. Stephen King and Mark Twain might say not to use adverbs, but they’re not going to buy my e-books, whether I use adverbs or not, so I’m going to use adverbs.
DON’T START A SENTENCE WITH “THERE” OR “HERE.”
I get this. Maybe it’s lazy to start with these vague words, but when you’re writing a 60,000+ word story on a blog and not getting paid for it, you should get to be lazy sometimes, especially when we’re not getting paid.
AVOID PASSIVE VOICE
I can be a passive guy sometimes. I have nothing against the passive voice, but I won’t use the passive tense just to demonstrate that I’m willing to use the passive voice. I can read a sentence that’s using passive voice, and I won’t notice that it’s in the passive voice. Do readers really recognize passive voice while they’re reading? I don’t think most people notice passive voice when they’re reading, and I don’t notice it when I’m writing.
DON’T USE EXCLAMATION POINTS.
I know, the emotion should be conveyed through strong writing (passive voice alert!) and not punctuation, but I even ALL-CAP dialogue occasionally, and I’m probably not supposed to do that either.
SHOW, DON’T TELL
This is the one rule I intentionally break. This rule has been driven into my brain (2nd passive voice alert!) for decades in writing groups and classes, but I don’t think the successful authors follow it. I’ve noticed that famous authors show AND tell. A writer almost has to do both. If a writer just “shows,” the reader might not always (or ever) interpret what the action or behavior means. I think it’s important to “show,” and I try, but it’s just as important to “tell” for the reader’s sake, especially when word limits are small. When I write a new episode of “The Literary Girlfriend,” I have to assume that there are new readers, so I have to tell the readers what has happened in the previous 40 installments. Writing a serial is different from writing a novel, but novelists still tell… a lot. Find me a novelist that doesn’t “tell.” I bet you can’t find one.
*****
It’s tempting to try to follow all the rules of writing to the letter, especially when the advice is given by successful (prolific) authors. But I’m not sure I want to emulate prolific writers when chances are that I’m not going to be one. Maybe NOT following the rules will keep me from becoming a successful writer. Maybe NOT following the rules will help me develop my own style that readers think is unique (but hopefully not too annoying). There’s probably a fine line between the two (I broke another rule!). The rules exist for a reason, so I won’t go out of my way to break them, but if I just happen to break a rule (or eight), I’m okay with it.
*****
When you’re an unknown writer, make your books short and sell them cheap.
Now only 99 cents each on the Amazon Kindle!
It was tough to act normal around Daniella when I knew I’d have to break up with her soon. Before I left my parents’ house the morning after Christmas, I wrote my brother a couple checks, and these wiped out my savings account. Without the money in this account, I’d have to hit my credit cards to pay for all of Daniella’s bills. I knew I couldn’t do that for long, so I figured that was it. I’d try to enjoy the last few weeks as much as I could.
Since I was normally a quiet guy, I didn’t want to be even quieter, so I overcompensated by talking too much. I drank too much coffee, and it was the coffee that made me talk. We were at the mall post-Christmas shopping (Daniella didn’t like Christmas, but she had nothing against me buying her post-Christmas stuff) when the caffeine hit me hard, and while she lingered from store to store, I talked. Once I began, it was hard to stop.
My friend Kirk had broken up with Linda (if you believed Kirk’s version of the story), but Linda claimed that she had broken up with Kirk. I was friends with Kirk, and Daniella had become friends with Linda, and Daniella told me everything that Linda had told her, but I had kept my mouth shut about Kirk for over a month. At first, it annoyed Daniella that I wouldn’t discuss what Kirk had said to me. Then she respected me for being able to keep a friend’s secret, but then she became annoyed again. From her point-of-view, enough was enough; I was her boyfriend, so I had to tell her what she wanted to know. With a few cups of coffee in me, I told her everything.
I talked about how Kirk was back to having one-night-stands with drunk women. I told her about how he thought it was good that he had broken up with Linda because he thought he would have eventually cheated on her anyway. I even started talking about how Kirk and I were roommates in college, and how I had a cot set up in a friend’s room for the times when Kirk brought in a one-night-stand. Kirk had some good qualities, but he liked his one-night-stands. That was his character flaw.
While waiting in line at a department store, I told Daniella a few stories about Kirk’s college exploits. The line was for three cash registers, and a couple dozen customers were in front of us, and it was a long post-Christmas line with loud kids and couples annoyed with each other. I entertained Daniella with the story about the time Kirk staggered into our dorm room in the middle of the night with two women and told me one was for me. Neither of the women looked healthy (I wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of guy anyway), so I declined and left for my friend’s room, and both women stayed with Kirk. The room got kind of rowdy that night.
“You ever been with two women?” Daniella asked loudly enough for others in front to hear. A bunch of conversations ahead of us stopped, and nobody looked in our direction, so I figured we were getting listened to. I held on to Daniella’s items, a pair of jeans and a couple low-cut sweaters.
“At the same time?” I said. “No. Have you?”
“Two women or two guys?” she asked loudly. I saw other people in line raise eyebrows at each other.
“Uh… I…I don’t think I want to know.”
Daniella locked eyes on me with her cheese-eating grin. “I don’t do things like that,” she said with an innocent tone. “I don’t know why people think I do. I’m very careful.”
She had on her thick black glasses. Her hair was pulled back. She carried around a hardcover of Jane Eyre. Strangers thought she was a librarian when she dressed like this and then would be shocked when she talked loudly about things librarians didn’t normally talk about.
“Well… you did sleep with me on the first date,” I said in a whisper.
Daniella’s grin disappeared. “No, I didn’t,” she said slowly, confused.
“Yeah, you did,” I said, realizing that I had just said something stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “I mean, that’s not what I… I don’t mean…”
“It was our second date,” she said decisively, the grin returning. “After our first date, I went to work.”
“And then you came back that night,” I said. I knew that I should have bailed out of this conversation, but I couldn’t help clarifying what she meant. Stupid caffeine.
“I came back the next morning,” Daniella said. “And that was our second date.”
“There was no date involved. You just banged on the door, yelled at me, took a bath, and…”
“That was NOT part of our first date. Once a person leaves, the date is over. And I left.”
“And then you came back.”
“It was the next day when I came back. When you come back the next day, it’s a different date.”
“Only a few hours had passed. It was an extension of the first date.”
“It was a completely different day. Different day means different date.”
We were next in line, but Daniella’s back was to the cashiers as we argued.
“I don’t know why you want to convince me,” she said. “Do you really want to date a girl who sleeps…” Daniella suddenly turned around and yelled out, “HEY!”
A woman with two toddler daughters had passed us and walked up to a register where the cashier was almost done. The store quieted down again, and people from several clothing sections stopped what they were doing.
“You cut in front us,” Daniella said, pointing her finger right at the mother.
“There’re two other registers,” the mother said, gesturing to the other clerks who were still ringing up items.
“This line is for all three,” Daniella said.
“What line?” the mother said.
Daniella and I looked back, and we were the only ones in line now. We hadn’t even realized it.
“We’ve been waiting here for ten minutes,” Daniella said to the mother, who turned and gave a bunch of items to the clerks. All three clerks kept their heads down and rang up items.
“BITCH, DON’T ACT LIKE I’M NOT HERE!”
Daniella didn’t scream it, but her tone was so venomous that everybody froze. She shoved her Jane Eyre onto my stack of her items and then gave me her glasses. The two daughters stepped behind their mother. The mom turned, her eyes widening.
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, stepping in front of Daniella and juggling everything. “She probably didn’t know we were standing in line.”
“Are you taking her side?” Daniella’s eyes were narrow and getting red, and I knew I’d better phrase this carefully.
“You don’t need to get like this,” I said. “It’s just a line. We’ll be done in a couple minutes.”
“But she’s acting like we…”
“She has two kids,” I said. “Even if she did this on purpose, you can’t fight over that in front of her kids. It’ll mess them up. A place in line isn’t worth it.”
“But that’s her fault for…” Then Daniella turned her back to the registers. “Okay, you’re right.” She breathed in. “You handle it then.”
I was going to pay for everything anyway, so I just walked right up to the next register which had miraculously opened up.
“The line was long,” I said to the cashier as I placed the clothes on the counter.
“I’m sorry about that,” the clerk said, but she looked tired and really nervous and kept glancing at Daniella. The clerk was in worse shape than we were.
After the price came out to $70.23 (it was 20 years ago, so that probably wasn’t the real price, but I needed a good number), I gave the clerk four 20s and the 23 cents. I monitored Daniella while she kept her eyes locked on the mother. The cashier folded/bagged all the clothes and gave me the receipt.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry about the wait.”
“Uh…” I said, suddenly uncomfortable again. “I was supposed to get $10.00 in change.”
The cashier seemed perplexed. “No sir. You gave me exact change.”
“I gave you exact coins, but I gave you four 20s. I should get 10 dollars back.”
“I counted it, sir,” she said. “You gave me three 20s and a ten.”
I started to breathe hard. I had counted it myself, and I hated getting ripped off. “I know I gave you four 20s,” I said, my voice trembling. I turned to Daniella. “Didn’t I give her four 20s?”
Daniella shrugged. “I’m still pissed about that bitch cutting in line.”
“I know I gave you four 20s,” I said to the clerk.
“Sir, you gave me exact change.”
“I want to talk to your supervisor,” I said.
Daniella put her hand on my arm. “Jimmy, don’t be a dick,” she said.
“But I gave her four 20s. I know I did.”
“It’s ten bucks. Who cares? Her manager might fire her if you complain too much.”
“But…”
“I don’t care about the ten bucks,” Daniella said softly. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing the bags. The mother who had cut in line was gone, and a bunch of clerks were staring at us from their counters. “But I know I gave her four 20s.”
My heart rate was still up as we walked through the parking lot. “I promise you, I gave her four 20s,” I said.
Daniella giggled. “Have you been drinking?” At least one of us had calmed down, I thought.
“What, am I that bad? It was ten dollars.” I could really have used that ten dollars, but Daniella didn’t know that.
“You kept me from being a bitch,” Daniella said, brushing against me and sliding her arm around my waist. “And I kept you from being a dick. That’s the sign of a good couple.”
Good couple. I thought maybe Daniella was teasing me with the irony. I paid her bills, and she pretended to be the type of girl I could fall for, and somehow we were right for each other. The truth was, I was getting attached to her, even if I knew that the relationship was temporary. That moment, I regretted writing my brother those checks, but it was too late. I unintentionally sighed, and Daniella glanced at me but didn’t ask anything. We were a good couple, I thought, at least for a few more weeks.
++++
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: The Designated Driver .
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
When a famous actor tries to become a serious author, things can go very, very wrong. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Struggling writers often get frustrated when celebrities who aren’t known for their writing abilities get book deals. Lindsay Lohan is publishing a tell-all, and I’ve never heard about Lindsay Lohan’s awesome writing abilities. The Lindsay Lohan announcement was last week, so by the time you read this, another celebrity will have announced a book deal or maybe another celebrity book whose deal had been announced months ago will come out.
When it comes to celebrity books, I’m not the expert because I don’t read celebrity books, and besides, I’m not famous and I don’t have a book deal and that can cloud my judgment. I might not read celebrity books, but I read about celebrity books, so instead of deciding which celebrity books are better than others, I’m ranking the kinds of celebrity books from best to worst. Again, I haven’t read most of the books, but I can judge the categories.
THE CELEBRITY MEMOIR
This is potentially the best type of celebrity book. Celebrities are cool people who hang out with other cool people, so a good celebrity memoir can tell a bunch of stories about cool famous people. If the stories are sleazy, that’s even better. Maybe the stories will even be true, but that doesn’t really matter. When Lindsay Lohan publishes her tell-all, it will probably have a bunch of sleazy anecdotes in it. If not, a lot of potential readers will be disappointed.
Not every celebrity memoir has to be a sleazy tell-all, though. Tina Fay is actually a writer, so Bossypants was interesting without being sleazy. I’m sure there are other good ones out there. I would have read Kevin Smith’s memoir, but he titled it Tough Shit, and putting profanity in a book title is a sign of desperation. Even I didn’t do it with my e-books (maybe I should have). No celebrity should ever put profanity in a book title. Leave that to the struggling author that nobody has ever heard of.
THE CELEBRITY EXPERT
Bill O’Reilly is writing history books. I think Bill O’Reilly taught history, but I know a few teachers who have taught history for years, and they’ve never written one history book. Now Bill O’Reilly has written several of them: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and now Killing Jesus. I’d say Bill O’Reilly is making a “killing” off all of these books, but then I’d have to punch myself in the face.
Fans of Bill O’Reilly like the book. I watch his show occasionally, but I won’t buy his books, even if they’re not about politics (and even if he didn’t really write them). I’m pretty sure the other author did most of the work (speculation on my part, please don’t sue me) and that O’Reilly is involved for name recognition. I’m not sure why , as a reader, I should trust Bill O’Reilly’s account of Jesus over anybody else’s, but at least he’s getting people to read about Jesus.
Maybe Bill O’Reilly really does know what he’s talking about, but I automatically don’t trust him because he’s a celebrity (and a blowhard), and I don’t trust celebrities (even if I agree with them, and agreeing with them usually makes me rethink my position). Since I don’t trust celebrities, I can’t trust a “celebrity as expert” book.
CELEBRITY AS SERIOUS AUTHOR
I should admire James Franco. He has a monotone voice. I have a monotone voice. James Franco is an example of what a guy with a monotone voice can accomplish (if he’s really handsome and enough people proclaim that he can act). But James Franco as a “serious author” might be a bridge too far.
I haven’t read his latest Actors Anonymous, but I read a few short stories from Palo Alto. I hesitate criticizing authors because I know I have enough flaws in my own writing. But still, James Franco could… have… used an editor. I’m sure (or I hope) that most college students who write something the quality of Palo Alto would be encouraged to try harder next time. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t get book deals and lots of praise. I don’t trust celebrities who try to become serious authors because nobody is going to tell a celebrity that his/her serious work needs a lot of work. Well, somebody might tell a celebrity that, but then that somebody may end up unemployed.
I’m not a fan of the celebrity as a “serious author,” but there is one type of celebrity author that is even worse.
THE CELEBRITY CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR
I don’t know why celebrities want to write children’s books. I’m no psychologist, so I won’t even try to come up with a theory. It’s just kind of weird, when I see any of Jamie Lee Curtis’s children’s books, I think of the scene in Trading Places where she took off her shirt (I was in high school at the time, and we didn’t have the internet yet, so it left an impression). Whenever I see one of Madonna’s children’s books (the illustrations are pretty good), I think of her sex book. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but once you’ve done a nude shot in a popular movie or written a sex book, maybe you shouldn’t write children’s books. If Madonna wrote a YA dystopian novel, maybe I’d check that out.
++
Struggling authors can’t stand celebrity books because we see them as taking up a publishing spot that a lesser known unpublished author could have had. I know it doesn’t really work like that. I’m pretty sure anybody who buys a celebrity book wouldn’t have otherwise bought one of my e-books. Celebrity books have nothing to do with my success or failure as a writer. I know that. but I still get just a little annoyed when a celebrity book deal is announced.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sometimes readers/writers don’t have time to read and write. Jobs get crazy, and family stuff takes up a lot of time, so the reading/writing thing has to get pushed aside for a while. This next week will be hectic, and I have four half-done pieces for Dysfunctional Literacy and very little time to read or write in the next five days.
That can get kind of frustrating. I guess it’s the opposite of writer’s block. I usually get writer’s block when I have lots of time to write, so I end up wasting that time. Now, I have almost no time to write, and I have a bunch of ideas (though the ideas might not be any good). I’m not sure what the official term for the opposite of writer’s block is, so I’ll just call it “the opposite of writer’s block.” Below are four different selections that I’m working on, but none of them are ready to be read yet. In a way, this is like an unintended preview, a “Coming Attractions to Dysfunctional Literacy!”
CELEBRITY BOOKS
Lindsay Lohan is writing a tell-all. No, I’m not writing about her tell-all, but the idea of her tell-all inspired me to categorize the best and worst kinds of celebrity books. I included the Duck Dynasty books in one of the categories, and then Phil had to go and make himself controversial (or was made controversial, depending on how you look at it). Duck Dynasty is NOT the reason why that article isn’t done yet (it’s a tiny part of the article). I just haven’t finished writing it yet.
THE LITERARY GIRLFRIEND
I’ve tried to summarize what the next episode is about, but it sounds like a bad soap opera every time, so I’ve stopped trying. Anyway, there’s some bad behavior, and Daniella loses her temper, and I always enjoy writing the episodes where Daniella loses her temper.
And just so you know, “The Literary Girlfriend” will finally conclude, probably by March, 2014. When I started writing it in April, I thought the story would be done by August, but every scene was longer than I thought it was going to be. I thought “Long Story” was going to be really long, but then it turned out to be shorter than I thought it would be, and now “The Literary Girlfriend” is way longer than “Long Story.”
RULES OF WRITING THAT I BREAK
I’ve noticed that I break a lot of writing rules on Dysfunctional Literacy. Some of the rules, I don’t like, so I break them on purpose. Some just happen. In this half-written article, I’m looking at which writing rules I break and whether or not I (or writers in general) should break these rules. Maybe it’s good to be a rule breaker. Or maybe breaking these rules is what keeps me from being a successful writer.
BOOKS I DIDN’T MEAN TO READ
I just finished reading an old book that I never meant to read in the first place. I didn’t pretend to read it; I actually read it, even though it was accidental. I was surprised by a couple things about this book. I’ll reveal what this book was and what about it surprised me. Out of all four half-written pieces, this is the one I’m pessimistic about. It’s not very interesting right now, so it might not get finished. I’ll see how I feel next week.
*****
I’m not sure writing a preview will cure writer’s block. I only wrote the previews because I’m in the opposite of writer’s block, and the preview was the only thing I could finish tonight. Before today, I’d never written a preview. I rarely even tell people what I’m working on until I’m done. In fact, most people I know don’t even know about Dysfunctional Literacy (I’m good at keeping my mouth shut).
In the past, telling people what I was working on seemed to backfire on me, so we’ll see how many of the above selections I actually finish. If I end up finishing NONE of them then I’ll probably never write a preview again. But if I finish all of them (or even three of them), I may try this again. Hey, the next time I get writer’s block, maybe I’ll try getting out of it by writing a preview.
“Very special Christmas” episodes usually suck, so I might have just jinxed my own story. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Daniella woke me up before dawn on Christmas Day to tell me that she was leaving. I already knew she would. After all, we had planned it out. She was going to drive around the hills all day and blast non-Christmas music to make the day go away while I stayed at the family gathering at my mom and dad’s house. Even though she had put up a good front on Christmas Eve with my family, she was the type of person who endured Christmas instead of enjoying it. She wasn’t going to say anything before she left, not even a quick “Merry Christmas,” and I knew not to say it to her.
“How do I know you’re coming back?” I mumbled groggily.
“You haven’t made my January car payments yet,” she whispered, and then pecked me on the lips.
Yeah, that was enough to bring her back. She might leave me after I paid those bills, but not before them.
I got up a couple hours later, before the rest of the family would pile in for presents and meals and hours of sitting around lazily. As I watched everybody else open presents (I tried to act interested), I thought about what Daniella had told me before we left for this trip. She had never had a Christmas like this growing up, had never had a big family with a pile of colorful gifts under the tree. Christmas for Daniella (according to her) usually meant her mom drinking and Daniella wandering the neighborhood just to get away, including one Christmas she had spent at a convenience store watching zitty boys play arcade games. Daniella didn’t have the Christmas memories that I did. Seeing somebody else’s family celebrate wouldn’t help with her own emotions. So if driving around all day helped her get through the day, then that was better than drinking it away.
Of course, Daniella missed some more Christmas family drama (or my family’s version of drama). There was some bickering, especially between the teenage niece and her mom (my sister-in-law). My brother tried to stay out of it, but then his wife complained about him not supporting her. There were also couple arguments between two nephews who both wanted to play different video games at the same time. I helped out by throwing a football around outside in a nearby field, where I could stand in one place and let them run around to catch my passes. My arm would be sore the next day, but it took my mind off Daniella for a while, and the two boys got rid of some energy. Later that day, I took a long walk around the neighborhood just to get away from the noise.
When I got back, I bumped into my other brother (not the one who flipped through Daniella’s fake Jane Eyre hardcover) while he was smoking a cigarette in the backyard. He was as quiet as me sometimes, but a lot of it was because he was struggling with not drinking. Smoking helped, but he had to spend a lot of time outside to do it.
“You got a minute?” he said.
I hadn’t talked to him much. Actually, I had been avoiding his entire family because of all the arguing. In my view, his wife was causing most of the tension in the house, and he wasn’t very good at refereeing. Both he and his wife had tempers that made simple family disputes escalate, but I wasn’t a parent yet, so I didn’t know if I could do any better. No wonder my mom thought Daniella was calm. It was easy for her to be calm when she knew she could leave whenever she wanted.
“Yeah,” I said. “How’ve things been going?”
“Better, but…” He threw the cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. “Aw, Christ, I hate to do this, but… I gotta ask you for some money.”
It was the antique store, he explained, or as my dad called it (when my brother wasn’t around), “that pain-in-the-ass antique store.” My brother had bought it about five years ago. It had been his wife’s idea, he said, and she pushed him into it. It was an expensive mistake. The store was off a stretch of an old state highway, and it had been there for years, and everybody in town (we didn’t get many tourists) had been a customer at some point, but it was an antique store. I didn’t even know why my brother’s wife had wanted it when it came up for sale. The store drained money from my brother, and now his marriage was in trouble (of course!). The bank wanted its money back, and my brother had even asked our parents for a chunk of cash a year ago. It was probably gone, but they had never asked for it back.
‘We’re finally making money,” my brother said. “I’ve got inventory figured out. I changed the hours, fired a couple people, we’re making money. It’s just the… debt. We’re not paying it off fast enough.”
“How much do you need?” I asked.
The number was significant. I had it, but it would wipe out my savings. Now, I was only 25, so under normal circumstances losing a savings wouldn’t have been a big deal. I’d make it up again in less than a year. I had a good job, and I was cheap. But even with my job, Daniella was an expensive girlfriend. I needed that savings. My monthly salary wasn’t enough to keep up with her bills and her tastes. That savings gave me six months with Daniella, and then we’d have to call it off. I wasn’t going to start using credit cards.
“Let me think about it,” I said, as I went inside.
“I’m sorry I had to ask you today,” he said. “This was… I didn’t want to do it in front of them, or her.”
“I know how much the store means to you,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. He knew I hadn’t said “yes,” but he understood that I was seriously considering it. “Your girlfriend’s great, you know. She looks at you when you’re not paying attention. You… should do whatever it takes to keep her.”
“Yeah,” I said and went inside.
This whole situation pissed me off. I had worked hard to get through school without much debt. I had paid cash for a cheap (but reliable) car. Daniella was my reward for years of cheap bastardliness and good decisions. Now my brother was asking me to pay for his irresponsibility. That’s how it was, I thought. The irresponsible always need the responsible to bail them out. I was tempted to say no.
But what if my brother was right? What if he really had figured out the store? If he went bankrupt because I wanted a hot girlfriend who liked (or probably only pretended to like) me, I couldn’t live with that. Yeah, I liked having Daniella for a girlfriend, but she was temporary. My brother and his business, all of that was long-term, if he was lucky, but only if I helped him.
Shit, I thought. I had to do it. I had to give him the money. And that meant I had to figure out what to do about Daniella.
The rest of the evening dragged on. I was fidgety, had an even tougher time than usual making small talk, and was actually glad when my brothers’ families began leaving. My niece hesitated before talking to me, and then asked, “Are you and Daniella going to be here tomorrow?”
“We’re flying out in the morning,” I said.
“Would you tell her I said bye?” she asked, and looked at the ground.
“Sure,” I said, and then I realized that was all we had said to each other during the whole two days.
Daniella drove up about 12:30 the next morning. I had turned off all the Christmas lights for her (and I would turn them back on after she went to bed). When I opened the door, she gave me a long, stand up hug. After she took off her coat, she pulled me to the couch.
“Look at this,” she said, and pulled out a few instant camera snapshots of her standing under the St. Louis Gateway Arch.
“You drove to St. Louis and back?” I asked, exasperated. That was around eight hours each way.
“I thought I might as well,” she said. “It wasn’t as tall as I thought. I couldn’t go in, but I got to walk around it.”
“Who took the pictures?”
“A homeless guy.”
What? Daniella couldn’t stand the homeless, at least not the panhandlers. The one time I saw a panhandler ask her for a dollar, she’d told him to fuck off so fiercely that the guy stepped back. I could have sworn I’d seen fear in his eyes. I always went for the soft approach when saying no to panhandlers, but Daniella couldn’t stand them.
“I gave him 20 bucks and drove him to a place to eat,,, but he probably got boozed up.”
I think my mouth hung open. I was sure she was putting me on.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m just glad you’re back safely,” I said.
Then she sat against me with my arm around her for about ten minutes. I wanted the moment to last, but I knew it wouldn’t. Just having her next to me was calming (I wouldn’t admit that to my mom), and I tried not to think of my brother and the money, but I had to. My time with Daniella was limited now, really limited, and I needed to enjoy every second.
Finally Daniella kissed me by my ear and said, “Thanks for not flippin’ me any shit about this.”
She squeezed my hand, I squeezed it back, and I tried to enjoy the feeling. We’d leave tomorrow morning, and she was never coming back to this house. I knew that. I’d come back, maybe even with another girlfriend or a wife and kids, but I’d never see Daniella again with my family. Maybe with our kind of relationship, it shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. I took a deep breath, angry at myself. I was already doing countdowns. It was going to be tough enjoying the final part of our relationship (whatever it was) if I was already doing countdowns. I knew I had to figure out what we were going to do in this temporary relationship, if we were going to end it soon, or if I would try to prolong it for as long as I could. I knew I had to figure it out. But I didn’t have to figure it out at that moment.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Good Cop, Bad Cop .
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here. Or click on “The Literary Girlfriend” category to select a chapter.
William Shakespeare used the word “ho,” but it didn’t mean quite the same thing it does today. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A few weeks ago when I found a bunch of old books of classic short stories, I was mildly surprised by a few of the words inside. There was no outright profanity, but some of the innocent language used in books published 50 years ago would cause my children to laugh today.
For example, in one book’s version of “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves,” some f*ggots were set on fire. 50 years ago, “f*ggots” meant “kindling or bundles of sticks used for a fire.” Now if somebody uses that word, he/she would be fired or sent to sensitivity training (which might be worse than being fired). I have to be careful when I write that word because I don’t want to get fired from my own blog.
Another example is “booty.” In the children’s version of The Iliad (yes, there was one), Agamemnon was jealous of Achilles’ booty. Back then (in Ancient Greece and 50 years ago when these books were published), “booty” meant “treasure,” which made sense because Achilles had collected vast amounts of “booty” during the war with Troy and its allies. But today’s kids have a different interpretation of Agamemnon’s lust for “booty.”
And it’s impossible to read Shakespeare (even children’s Shakespeare) without running across the word “ho.” “Ho is kind of new. 40 years ago when I was a kid, I would have giggled at “f*ggot” or “booty.” But “ho” wasn’t around yet (or if it was, I wasn’t aware of it). If a Shakespearean actor shouted “What ho!” I wouldn’t have flinched. After all, Santa Clause said “Ho! Ho! Ho!” One of my favorite snack treats was Ho Hos. It’s only been the last few decades where “ho” has come to mean… you know… the short version of “whore”. How did this happen?
First of all, the word “whore” comes from the Old English “hore” and then Middle English “hore” (I don’t know what they pronunciation difference is), and before the Old English, there was Old Norse “hora.” All three variations of “hor_” had the same meaning, which is basically the same meaning it has today, a prostitute (with an especially negative connotation).
Another word for “whore” that kind of looks like “ho” is “hooker.” Supposedly, the term “hooker” came about because a Civil Way general named Hooker really liked prostitutes. I’m a bit skeptical. I doubt Hooker was the first general to really like prostitutes. I’m guessing “hooker” was already used, but having a general named Hooker who liked hookers made the term more common.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary website, the first known usage of “ho” for “whore” was in 1965. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any information about who said it, to whom it was said, what the reaction of the person to whom it was said was, or how long it took for the usage to become common. I have a feeling that the person who first used “ho” as “whore” hasn’t gotten the recognition he (or maybe she) deserves. It would tick me off to be the first person to use a slang term that catches on and then not get credit for it. If I ever accidently create my own slang, I want credit.
Again, the reason “ho” matters when it comes to literature is that in some Elizabethan literature, the word “ho” was used as a term of greeting. Characters greet each other by saying “What ho!” (or some variation using the word “ho”). When kids (and some adults) hear this, they laugh. Yes, prostitution may have been common in Elizabethan England, but not every character in a Shakespeare play is a “ho,” despite what they say to each other.
In this era where so many old stories are being rewritten, it’s kind of fun to look back at the old versions. Just remember, context is everything. F*ggots getting burned at night is not a crime against humanity. Agamemnon lusting over Achilles’ booty does not lead to an inappropriate (alternative adult) scene. And two characters saying “What ho!” to each other won’t lead to a fight (and if they fight, it isn’t because of the “What ho!”). But the “What ho!” might lead to some giggling.
*****
After more than ten years of blogging, I’ve finally written a novel.
A grammar-obsessed English teacher falls in ‘luuuvvv’ but discovers how chaotic and dangerous ‘luuuvvv’ can be.
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon and from the trunk of my car at various local bookstores… until parking lot security kicks me out. Buy it now while supplies last!
Things had started off so well. Daniella and my family were getting along great on Christmas Eve day, as we (Daniella, my mom, one of my brothers, and I) were hanging around the dining room table with a bunch of kids running in and out, and then I had to use a sentence with “Daniella” and “love” in it. I hadn’t meant to use the word “love” while referring to Daniella. She had once said “Love ya!” to me, but that had been casual, and I had never mentioned it to her, and she had never said it again.
Now I had just said there was something that I “love” about Daniella, and my mom and my older brother got quiet and gave each other looks around the dining room table. I hadn’t told them Daniella was my girlfriend because I paid all her bills. That wasn’t something that a guy says to his family, and the relationship was more complicated than that.
“There is a lot to love about Daniella,” I said, figuring that I’d might as well go all-out.
Then Daniella gave me a dirty look, and I realized I had better rephrase that. “There are a lot of things that I love about Daniella.
“She’s beautiful, but she doesn’t have a big ego about it,” I said. “She gave a guy like me a chance when I probably didn’t deserve it. She knows a lot about cars. And she watches football more than I do.”
“You like comic books?” my brother asked her.
“I know the difference between Marvel and DC,” Daniella said before I could answer for her.
What? I never talked about comics in front of Daniella. I knew that one way to repulse a beautiful woman was to talk about comic books (it had happened a couple times earlier in my life). Then again, she had found the cash I had hidden in my comic boxes, so maybe she’d read a few.
“And… what’s the difference?” my brother asked.
“DC sucks!” Daniella stated with authority.
“Really?” my brother was surprised. Marvel had been his favorite, but this was the early 1990s, and the comic book industry was changing.
“Batman and Wonder Woman are okay, but Superman sucks. Green Lantern sucks. Everybody else sucks.”
I was stunned. I had never had this conversation with her. I didn’t know where this comic book stuff was coming from (except for the “sucks” part because she was opinionated about what sucked and what didn’t). My brother and Daniella started arguing about which comic book company sucked more (I thought both sucked equally in the 1990s, but with my monotone voice, I would have been ignored). I wondered if Daniella really knew what she was talking about or cared. I could see her wanting to piss off my brother just because she thought he had it coming. I’d told her some stories (and maybe exaggerated a few details to make him sound worse than he was).
Just when there was a lull in the comic book argument, one of the moms (my other brother’s wife) and her teenage daughter (my niece) started arguing in the hallway, and we were already quiet anyway and couldn’t help listening. The mom told the daughter to go to the car right now and get the purse, and the daughter told the mom to get out of her face, and the mom told the daughter to get back to where she was, and a bedroom door slammed. My dad started singing from the kitchen “Tis the season to be jolly…” and the mom realized we had overheard the argument, and I guess she decided that this wasn’t the best time to go nuclear on her daughter.
As my sister-in-law walked through the dining room (very red faced), my mom said, “In ten years, you two will be best friends.”
Daniella shot me a look, and I knew what it meant: “Or maybe not.”
My sister-in-law went into the living room and complained to my brother about what their daughter had done, but he was watching a movie (I think) and didn’t want to get involved. He probably thought what I was thinking, that the mom was probably overreacting to some slight infraction and had provoked the daughter’s reaction, but it’s not always a good idea to tell the wife that when she’s about to go nuclear.
Daniella messed up my hair and said, “I’ll be right back.”
Then she walked to the bedroom door (it was the one she was staying in, so the daughter really had no business going in there, but I didn’t think that was why Daniella was over there), tapped lightly on it, and went inside. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her knock so lightly. Daniella was normally a door pounder.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” my brother asked.
“Probably not comic books… or Jane Eyre,” I said.
“I like Daniella,” my mom whispered to me. “She’s pretty. And she’s smart. And she’s calm.”
Calm? The “pretty” was her genes and working out. The “smart” was her big glasses and classic literature she didn’t really read. I understood that. But calm?
“Is she going to church tonight?” my mom asked.
We Episcopalians preferred the 11:00 Christmas Eve service. It made for a late night, but there was an excitement to it (for those who liked church and Christmas hymns), and it freed up Christmas Day. But with Daniella here, I really didn’t want to go, and I was planning not to.
“She’s got an early morning,” I reminded her. Our story was that Daniella had distant family a couple hours away, and that she was taking the rental to visit. The truth was that she was going to drive through the hills all day, crank out loud non-Christmas music, and zone out. Daniella didn’t want anything to do with Christmas. That was her final condition to coming to meet my family. I didn’t like the idea of Daniella spending Christmas Day by herself in a car driving around aimlessly, but that was the agreement.
“What about you?” my mom asked.
“I’d better stay here with her,” I said, then followed up quickly, “We’re not going to do anything!” Daniella wouldn’t have let me, even if I’d tried, not in my parent’s house.
When Daniella returned a couple minutes later, my mom asked, “Daniella, would you like to go to church tonight?”
I glared at my mom, but she ignored me, and Daniella smiled.
“I’m sorry. I have to get up early.” Then she rested a hand on my shoulder. “Jimmy can still go.”
“You don’t mind?” my mom said, relieved.
“What?” I said, trying to hide my outrage. This was betrayal.
“You need to go to church,” Daniella said. And when I tried to stare her down, all I got in return was… cheese… eating… grin.
“Go to church,” she mouthed.
I almost cursed, but it would have been impolite, using profane language about having to go to church on Christmas Eve.
My brother slapped me on the back. “Come to church with us. We can sing off key together as a family.
Just then, the daughter came storming out of the bedroom and rushed out the back door to the garage. We gave each other quizzical glances, but Daniella seemed assured. Moments later, the daughter came back in with a purse and took it to her mom in the living room.
“See?” I said to Daniella. “When she says her bag is in the car, the bag really is in the car.”
Nobody else but Daniella knew what that meant, so she acted like she hadn’t heard.
Christmas Eve day was pretty much how I had said it was going to be to Daniella. There would be a lot of little spats, kids crying, stuff getting knocked off of tables, food getting eaten throughout the day, lots of boredom, and a little dread before the church service, and there was. But nobody got drunk (a couple family members wanted to, but didn’t), and Daniella appreciated that. But no matter how pleasant Christmas Eve day was, Daniella wouldn’t spend Christmas Day with us.
And that was going to cause a problem that I hadn’t anticipated.
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: A Very Special Christmas Episode .
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
(image via wikimedia)
When Daniella said she’d visit my family with me on one condition, she really meant that she had several conditions. First, we had to fly up when she wanted. I had already bought departure tickets for the morning on the 23rd (mistake on my part), but she wanted to work the lunch shift that day and leave that evening. Then she wanted to choose the car rental (no big deal), and she wanted to come back the morning after Christmas. And then came the final condition. This one, I wasn’t so wild about, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.
Daniella was great at taking care of the details. She switched tickets (she even switched airlines) and got me legal drugs that would knock me out on the airplane without turning me into an asshole (I took a practice dose a few nights before the flight just to make sure). We drove her sports car to an exclusive covered parking spot near the airport
Daniella brought two hardcover books with her on the trip, a book jacket of Jane Eyre (which she slipped a trashy romance novel into so that it looked to others like she was reading Jane Eyre) and To Kill a Mockingbird, which Daniella really was reading. She had seen the movie and liked the book, even though she took it a little bit at a time. She was also proud that she was finishing a novel that had won a Pulitzer, though I’m not sure she knew what a Pulitzer was.
Our flight landed at nearly midnight, and I was still groggy from the (legal) drugs, but my directions were good enough to get us to my parents’ house safely at around 2:00 in the morning. They were already asleep, and I showed Daniella the guest bedroom, and I flopped down on a couch in the living room. I think I kissed her good night. I know I thanked her several times for coming with me.
This is how the holiday sleeping arrangements were set up. After all four of us Norman kids had left (or gotten kicked out), my parents moved to a smaller house in a different neighborhood. There were only three small bedrooms (one of which was an office), so anytime my brothers or sister came over, the visiting family had to get a hotel room. My parents loved the grandkids, but there were too many of them to let them stay overnight. To give my parents credit, they always paid for the hotel rooms, so my brothers and sister didn’t mind. Since Daniella and I didn’t have kids, we could stay at the house. Since we weren’t married, we had to stay in separate rooms.
Even though my parents tried to get me up around 8:00 the next morning (Christmas Eve day), it wasn’t until my brothers and their families showed up at around 10:00 that I finally dragged myself off the couch. I hugged a couple brothers, a couple wives, and a few kids, and I hoped my morning breath didn’t knock anybody out. I made a big breakfast while catching up with everybody. I stacked up a big plate and a thermos full of coffee for Daniella and delivered it to the guest bedroom. She was kind of surly (I knew she would be), but she took the tray and said she would come out soon.
And 30 minutes later, Daniella made her grand introduction, gliding into the living room wearing a sweatshirt and shorts. Daniella knew all the names ahead of time, so the introductions were easy (I won’t even include the names because there were two brothers, two wives, a bunch of kids, and most of them won’t show up later in the story, and all the adults have since been divorced, except for me, but as long as I’m married. I’m probably not out of the woods yet so I can’t really brag about that achievement). Since Daniella’s job required learning people’s (especially men’s) names quickly, she learned quickly who was who (or who was whom). My brothers were impressed, as I knew they would be. As the youngest, I had met a lot of my brothers’ girlfriends growing up, but the romantic gene had eluded me, so I always struggled with girls/women, and they had known it. Now I had just brought home a woman who was dazzling.
Seriously, Daniella dazzled them. My oldest brother followed her from room to room without even realizing it. I don’t think his wife even minded (they got divorced a couple years later, but I think there were other issues). When Daniella left her Jane Eyre on a coffee table, my brother picked it up, flipped through it, smiled at me, and put it down. Then he did the same with To Kill a Mockingbird. He nodded his approval.
My parents’ house was small, but the back yard was huge, so the boys (ages 6-13) could beat on each other outside between their video games inside, and since it hadn’t snowed in a while, they could run in and out without making too much of a mess. Parents could enjoy relative quiet, unless a kid was crying about something that had happened outside. The 6-year-old boy was high-pitched and whiny, and Daniella almost gave him some grape medicine, but I told her not to. I didn’t think she’d really do it, but with our history, I couldn’t take the chance.
While some of us were sitting casually in the dining room, my brother (the one who had flipped through Jane Eyre) decided to cause a little scene (which brothers will do with each other).
“Danielle,” he started. “What do you…?”
“It’s Daniella,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “Daniella, what do you think about Jane Eyre?”
I didn’t understand why Daniella wouldn’t correct other people when it came to her name. I had slipped a couple times and called her Danielle, but she never said anything about it when it happened. She was the type of woman to stand up for herself. She’d smashed a bottle on a guy’s head before. She’d set up another guy by getting punched in the head just to get him arrested. I knew (or was pretty sure) Daniella was really her name. Then I realized that my brother had asked her about Jane Eyre when she was reading a trashy romance underneath the Jane Eyre book cover.
“I didn’t think I’d like it,” Daniella said. “But it’s a lot like a trashy romance.”
Then she eyeballed my brother, daring him to say something else about it.
“I’ve… never heard anybody say anything like that about Jane Eyre before,” he said.
“Daniella has a lot of unique observations,” I said. “That’s one of the things I love about her.”
As soon as I said that, I regretted using the word “love” instead of “like,” but it was too late. I couldn’t just clear my throat and say, “I mean, ahem, one of the things I like about her.” It would have been twice as awkward and I would have looked like a prick, and at least I had used the word “love” in an ambiguous kind of way. Daniella gave me the cheese-eating grin. She knew what I had meant, but I could also see her milking this in front of the family. My mom’s eyes lit up. My brother raised an eyebrow.
Love? This was the wrong time and place to accidentally use the word “love.”
*****
To be continued in… The Literary Girlfriend: Family Christmas Drama .
And to read “The Literary Girlfriend” from the beginning, start here.
Dysfunctional Literacy 