One of your friends arrives at the restaurant for your girls’ night out with her clothes in disarray and hair mussed. She tells you, “I’m sorry I’m late, but I had a flat tire, and this handsome stranger helped. It was raining the whole time he changed the tire and I couldn’t just let him leave in those wet clothes. So I invited him back to my house to get dry. While he waited, wrapped in an old robe my ex left behind, we drank a cup of hot cocoa to get him warmed up. He talked about watching the latest Julia Roberts’s drama and I talked about how much I loved cleaning house. Time got away from us. If you don’t mind, I’ll order a small salad to go. He promised to stick around until I return and then we plan to talk some more about our growing feelings for each other.”
How do you know she was lying? Let’s list the lies starting from the end and working our way up.
1) Really what man wants to talk about feelings?
2) Has a man ever waited around for a woman while she visited a friend? Well, we would have to give her that one. If a guy thought he’d get lucky, he would stand one-legged, flapping his arms and singing Gangnam Style. “Hey, sexy lady…”
3) And what woman would admit to another she loved cleaning house. Her friend would be obligated to see her institutionalized.
4) For a heterosexual male willing to watch Julia in anything she didn’t look her best, we’d have to wonder.
5) Geez, there are other ways to warm him up. Hot cocoa. *snort* Get real. I smell that wine on your breath.
6) Old robe of ex. That would be cut up and used to wipe up dog poop.
7) Everyone knows there is a drought going on.
8) Who are you kidding about a flat tire? You teach “car repair for the independent female” at the local community college.
But the biggest lie she told you was when she said SORRY. We saw what she looked like when she stumbled by the hostess. One button missing on her blouse and her jeans are unsnapped. The back of her hairdo is standing straight up. We know what that means! Who in their right mind would feel sorry for someone who drank all afternoon and had great sex with a big hunk of … oh, crap. What was my point?
Oh, yeah. The truth was she was in a middle of a great scene in her current WIP and wanted to get back home to write some more.
[reprint of November 12, 2012 post on the Romance Magicians blog. One of my favorites.]