My Lovely Lies
Originally posted on December 5, 2007
Melisa: So you’re leaving me after all, are you?
Gideon: Only for a couple of months. I’ve never signed on with a touring show before – ought to be interesting, probably good for my portfolio.
Melisa: I will be hopelessly bereft, you know that.
Gideon: You won’t miss me for a minute, and you know that.
Melisa: That’s untrue, Lover. I shall be simply inconsolable with longing.
Gideon: (laughs) You’ll have others to play with – you always do. When did I promise you anything? For that matter, what have you ever promised me?
Melisa: No promises, no commitments. And I do prefer to keep it that way.
Gideon: Works for me too, so don’t start with the forsaken maiden act. Because you’re not being forsaken and you’re not…...
Melisa: Not any kind of a maiden. (giggles) I will miss you though, in ways you might not expect. I’ve come to count on having your ear. I trust you to tell me which of my articles are good and which are nothing but trash.
Gideon: (laughing louder) You’re something else, Mel. All your stuff is trash. You deal in trash.
Melisa: Now, now, there’s a viable market for my trash. What would all the little working-class housewives read if not our lovely rag full of my lovely lies and innuendo? They need to know who has been abducted by aliens, and who has checked in to what exclusive “spa” to dry out. Surely you can’t expect them to survive without regular news of Brittney and Brangelina? Without writers like me dishing the dirt, their lives would be too dreary to bear.
Gideon: You got me there. Did I tell you I solved the Jerm problem?
Melisa: Did you. And how did you manage that?
Gideon: You’d have been proud of me. I foisted him off on the West Virginia half-wits…. that is…. half-brothers for the duration. Then…. are you ready for this? Then I leased my mother’s place for two months, made a cool five grand.
Melisa: Oh, you are quite the opportunist aren’t you? Won’t Jeremiah tattle to Mumsie, though?
Gideon: No, he doesn’t know a thing about the sublet. And I was proactive and told Mother he was just dying to get acquainted with his brothers. Thus the long visit.
Melisa: But why did you impose on your country kinfolk for that? I don’t understand why you didn’t just let Jeremiah stay here.
Gideon: Oh please, Mel. How long do you think the Jerm would survive your brand of ……“nurturing?”
Melisa: It would have been awfully entertaining to find out.
Gideon: The farther away he is, the better.