XIII

Flossie, on the other hand, was suspicious from the start.

“What do you really have in common with a pretty-boy football hero from South Florida? What can you even talk about?”

 

That really burned me up.

“Well, if I want intelligent conversation, I’ll talk to myself.”

 

“I don’t know,” she said ominously. “Doesn’t seem right, is all.”

(Which sounded like a curse.)

Flossie, of course, knows everything about everything. Oh, yes, she’s quite a sage, that maid of mine, lecturing to me from her ironing board. Always SWIMMING with insight. Not this time, though.

“Oh, but Flossie, we’re just friends, and I’m not miserable,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

“Really,” I explained, “it must just be a heavy gravity day in my room—that’s why I’m stuck to the floor.”

And: “I don’t need there to be more to the relationship,” as I confidently polished off another Entenmann’s double fudge chocolate cake. My third one that day.

“Really, I don’t need sex. Or love. Or physical attention.” (This I confided to the rubber tree plant as I dry humped the banister.)

“I’m very happy with things as they are, thank you,” I said as I lit some black candles and spit three times at the moon.

 

Okay, so maybe I was lying to myself. And maybe I wasn’t that happy. But what could I do?