Page 5 of Female Fantasy
In fact, I’ve never seen most of my favorite people in the flesh—but more on that later.
And then there’s the fact that said older brother, Teymoor, comes across as a tad overprotective. (It’s not his fault; his eyebrows are just really thick.) For a while there, he scared off all my potential friendsandsuitors. Not even by doing anything, really—he’s just so damn tall, and those thick brows are always furrowed in a way that makes him look angry. He’s working on that, though. Apparently, scaring away strangers is bad for business. And ever since Tey took over Kabobs ’n’ Bits, he’sbeen taking customer service very seriously.
I guess that’s the third reason I don’t feel suffocated here: Once my parents reached retirement age, they decided to sell our childhood home and live on a houseboat. They didn’t consult us kids first, just sent us a text demanding we pack up our remaining possessions in the house and say goodbye to sentimentality. That’s life in the diaspora for you: Once your parents have had to pack up and go several times, they won’t hesitate to do it again. And they might even pass on that same underlying panic to you. I inherited all that and more from my mom and dad: furry eyebrows, thin lips, and generational trauma.
But I didn’t get the short end of the stick in the same way Tey did. They all but tossed him the keys to Kabobs ’n’ Bits before motoring off in the direction of Maine. Not that Tey seemed to mind all that much. He studied business at the local state school and likes the responsibility. Classic firstborn, golden-child stuff. Now my parents communicate with us only via a WhatsApp group, where they send selfies from the high seas. Who knows when we’ll next see them. Probably Nowruz, if I had to guess. I usually text the group distasteful jokes that I know will piss my parents off, partly because it’s funny and partly because, as the baby of the family, I’m entitled to seek attention. Tey always tells me to can it, though. He doesn’t like getting in hot water, pun intended. See? Despite the Bigfoot stature and the scary-ass stare, once you get to know him, he’s an absolute muffin.
Speaking of muffins, I turn my attention back to the pastryI’m nibbling on and the hot apple cider smell that’s wafting out of the back room of Sift. With freshly baked goods each morning and a line that’s often out the door, Sift boasts the title of best bakery in town, if not the state. I love that only a panel of glass separates customers from the kitchen so we can watch the maestros work their magic. My mouth salivates as one chef uses a tiny pointed instrument to impregnate a flaky puff pastry with some sort of milky filling.
Fuck. My body often confuses hunger with horniness. I shake it off. I need to snap out of the delusion before my date arrives. The last thing I need is to be sporting rock-hard nipples under my fuzzy striped sweater and scare him off before he’s even ordered a beverage.
I look at the time in the corner of my laptop screen. This dude still has fifteen minutes to show before I send him a passive-aggressive text and never contact him again. The employees at Sift would take my side. After all, I’m one of their best customers. Plus, every time I reach the register, I do, like, five minutes of free improvised stand-up comedy. And I’m moderately hot! The general manager would probably kick my date’s ass on my behalf.
My Google Doc word count stares me down, reminding me that I’m still no closer to my goal than yesterday. When I’m not writing fanfic (orflip-flop, as Job called it), I pay the rent by copywriting, both for local businesses and virtual clients. Right now, I’m attempting to come up with a slogan for a suppository company. So far, the best I’ve been able to muster is “VIPussy” and “Put theBut!in Butthole,” both ofwhich, I think, are a little bit too rock ’n’ roll for my sixty-year-old white conservative clientele.
I let out a long sigh of despair.
Sometimes I feel like Wonder Woman or Hannah motherfucking Montana or something. By day, I write for people who barely appreciate me, taking the straw they send me and spinning it into pure gold. But by night, I’m revered, beloved by a niche community of online freaks just like me. My latest fic has hundreds of thousands of saves. Sure, nobody knows that StepOnMeRyke432 is me, but the validation those numbers give me? More than I could ever ask for. Honestly, who needs parents or a partner when you have virtual fame?
Oh, right.
Me.
Your online readership, in my experience, won’t stroke your hair while you sleep. Or take care of you when you’re sick. Or threaten to kill anyone who touches you.
I shudder.
Just then, my phone rings, breaking me out of my erotic daydream. I look down at the screen and feel the equivalent of a cold shower soak my senses.
It’s my brother.
“What up, what up?” I can hear the clanging of plates and utensils behind him. “What are you doing on Main Street? You’re two minutes away, and you can’t spare a second to come say hello to your big bro?”
I roll my eyes, annoyed. “For the very last time,” I say, “stop tracking me on Find My Friends, Tey. Or I swear to God I’llturn off my location.”
“But what if you’re kidnapped by an ax murderer?”
“Then my blood will be on your hands,” I laugh. “Anyway, I’m at Sift. Getting a little work done.”
I can practically hear his eyes narrow on the other end of the line. “But you hate working at Sift. You always say the smell distracts you from being productive.”
Damn. He’s good.
“Fine,” I acquiesce. “If you must know, I’m going on a first date.”
There’s a leering silence on the other end. Never good.
“Joonie.” His voice teeters between gentle and stern. “What happened to Job?”
“Um…” I search for an excuse but come up with squat. “He died?”
“You promised!” my brother groans. I picture the look of desperation on his face as he preps thepolo tahdigand fights back a grin. “You swore you’d give this one a real shot!”
“I did! I really did, Tey. You don’t get it. This guy was capital-wthe Worst. He told me that if he had daughters, he would nameevery single oneafter his mother, Elizabeth. So, like, one daughter named Eliza. Another named Beth. One named Liz. One called—”
“Okay, enough. I get it,” he says, cutting me off, but he’s not quite ready to let me off the hook. “Sure you aren’t exaggerating? Who the hell is pumping out four daughters, anyway? You?”
“I’m sure.” I choose to ignore that last comment. “He wasokay at first, but he was no—”
