Man vs. Durian

by Jackie Lau

  Except then she asked me to be her fake boyfriend.

  I’m intrigued.

  It’s the kind of thing I’d do just because it would make a good story. Besides, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with Valerie, and maybe if I do a sufficiently good job at being her fake boyfriend, she’ll go out with me for real.

  And I have lots of practice at being a boyfriend.

  “Sure,” I say. “I’ll be your fake boyfriend.”

  “You will?” she yelps.

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

  “You haven’t heard what you’ll need to do, other than the selfie. You’ll have to meet my family.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll have to be charming and pretend you’re a doctor.”

  “Sure.”

  “If you want to date someone for real in the next couple months, you’ll have to keep a low profile. My mother will show your picture to all her friends, and my mom’s friends always show up at the worst times, even in a big city like Toronto.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll have to go on the occasional fake date. Preferably where someone I know will run into us.”

  “Sure.”

  Valerie sits back in her chair, looking stunned. “You’re willing to do a meet-the-parents dinner for someone you don’t even know? Why?”

  I don’t tell her all my reasons. I just say, “I’m doing it for the novelty of it. How often do you get to fake a relationship?”

  “Look, I don’t think you understand what you’re getting into. My family is, um, nuts.”

  “I can handle it.”

  She seems doubtful but says nothing more about her family. “What other ridiculous things have you done?”

  “I once had six slushies in an hour.”

  “Sounds sensible.”

  “I felt gross afterward.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I also danced all night in an inflatable T-Rex costume. And I did a polar bear dip. Went in Lake Ontario on New Year’s Day.”

  She looks at me in absolute horror. Valerie has such a lovely expressive face.

  “It was cold?” she asks.

  “It was cold.” My balls basically shriveled into peanuts, but I don’t share that fun tidbit.

  “I question your sanity.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Suddenly, there’s a wicked gleam in her eye. She leans forward, and I breathe in sharply at her nearness. “I’ve got another unusual thing you could do,” she says quietly. It sounds seductive to my ears, but I don’t think that’s her intention.

  Also, I can see a hint of cleavage, but I drag my eyes back up.

  “Yeah?” I say, trying to remain calm. “What’s that?”

  “Eat a whole pint of durian ice cream.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I thought you were adventurous.”

  “I am. But we’ve established that I do not like durian, and I already have enough durian stories. There are two from today, for starters. And that time back in university...”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Queen’s. For English. I guess you should know that if we’re supposedly dating.”

  “Yes, but I’m going to lie and say your major was life sciences. Since you went to med school afterward, it makes more sense.”

  “Right, right. The doctor thing.”

  She twists her lips to the side.

  I really need to stop focusing on her lips.

  “Okay, no pint of durian ice cream,” she says. “How about a sample? One teeny, tiny spoonful? Please?” She puts her hands together, as though pleading with me.

  I’m a sucker for this woman, so I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Sure. But you better get me a coffee to wash it down.”

  She scurries behind the counter, where she exchanges some frantic whispers with another woman before she returns with a small pink spoon containing durian ice cream. “Here you go. Chloe will bring over the coffee in a moment.”

  I take the spoon from her hand and peer at it. The ice cream looks harmless, but I can already smell its terrible smell. Best to get it over with.

  I wince as I bring the spoon closer to my mouth, and then I bite the bullet.

  Yes, it’s creamy and cold. Yes, it’s slightly fruity.

  It’s also absolutely disgusting and I scrunch up my face as though I’m in pain.

  “Cheese!” Valerie says, holding up her phone.

  Well, I bet that’s a great picture.

  Thankfully, Chloe comes over with a coffee, and I grab it and take a gulp. It’s hotter than I expected, but that’s okay. Better for burning the taste of durian off my tongue.

  “I can’t believe you made him try durian ice cream,” Chloe says. “Not everyone likes it as much as you do, you know.”

  “What can I say?” Valerie says blandly. “I’m evil.”

  But then she smiles, and I feel like it was all worth it.

  My fake girlfriend might be a little evil, but I’m looking forward to this.

  * * *

  “Are you serious?” Aaron slaps his hand on the table and laughs. “You want to go out with this girl, but instead you agreed to be her fake boyfriend—which I assume doesn’t involve any sexual benefits—and tried durian ice cream?”

  Leo is also laughing hysterically.

  “Thanks, guys,” I say, lifting my pint.

  Aaron Wyman and Leo Schwartz are friends of mine from high school, and occasionally we get together for a few beers, usually at a sports bar not far from where I live.

  “You’ve been single for, what? Six months?” Aaron says. “Getting desperate, are you?”

  “Eight months, actually.”

  “When’s the last time you were single for that long?”

  I think for a moment. “When I was fifteen.”

  The truth is, I like being in relationships. Always have. I like romance. I like intimacy. There’s nothing better than the first few weeks of a new relationship, but I also enjoy it when I’ve been with someone for a while and know all their quirks.

  Alas, none of my relationships have lasted more than a year and a half, but I’m sure I’ll get there someday. I’ll find the woman I want to marry. It’s just a matter of time, and I’m twenty-eight—I’ve still got time.

  My friends used to say I was a serial monogamist, always jumping from one relationship to another, but I’ve gotten better at being single in the past couple years. I no longer feel an uncomfortable itch when I’m single for more than a few weeks.

  And, yeah. Eight months. That’s a while.

  I even managed to have a one-night stand a few months ago, which is out of character for me. I’m usually all about relationships.

  “I wasn’t that desperate,” I say. “It took a while to find the right woman, that’s all.”

  “You think a woman who force-feeds you durian ice cream—”

  “Hey, she didn’t force-feed me. I could have said no.” But I was overcome with the urge to amuse her. Unfortunately, I now have photographic evidence of the moment when I looked like I was about to hurl—she sent me the picture, along with the couple’s shot she took of us.

  I keep looking at the second picture and smiling.

  “I’ll be the best fake boyfriend ever,” I say, “and then, hopefully, she’ll change her mind. If not...” I shrug.

  Actually, the idea that she might not change her mind fills me with crushing disappointment. But there are other women out there; I’ll pick myself up and keep going.

  In about half of my relationships, I was the one who was dumped. Some weren’t a huge deal, but three of them were pretty rough. In fact, my last relationship ended with me getting my heart broken, and that’s part of the reason it’s been eight months. For four months, I had no interest in another relationship.

  But now, I’m back to my usual self, and I’m ready to try again.

  And Valerie was checking me out when I had my shirt off, and she did ask me to be her fake
boyfriend, so I figure she likes me at least a little. I’d been prepared to walk away, but her fake relationship plan?

  I think that’s a good sign.

  Chapter 5

  Valerie

  “He’s handsome!” my mother says as she peers at the picture of me and Peter.

  “He is,” Sabrina admits grudgingly. “I don’t believe that man is a fucking doctor.”

  “Don’t swear!” Mom says.

  “Valerie swears all the time!”

  “Valerie is a lost cause.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  Mom continues to stare at the picture. “I don’t know what you have against doctors,” she says to my sister. “People like doctors. Grey’s Anatomy, right? Why couldn’t one of you be a doctor? Ah, well, marrying a doctor is the second best thing.”

  Not gonna lie, the word “marry” freaks me out. I don’t want to think about marriage. Just the idea of another long-term relationship scares the crap out of me.

  No, I’m not going through that shit again.

  Men just want to use me. They only care about what I can do for them, and when I stop being useful...

  Well, they start being sloppy with their affairs.

  I was so involved in my work—my actual job, plus the work I was doing for free for Stephen—that I was blind to what he was doing.

  Nope, never again. I will never let another man pull the wool over my eyes like that.

  I’m well aware that some women—like my friends—have good relationships, and I’m happy for them. Still, I’m convinced that every man who’s interested in me is untrustworthy. Past experience and all that.

  My brother, Alan, walks into the kitchen. He’s eight years older than me, and he’s an assistant professor in the earth sciences department at the university. He usually comes over for dinner on Wednesdays.

  “What’s this about marrying a doctor?” he asks.

  “Valerie has a new boyfriend!” Mom shoves the phone in his face. “He’s a doctor.”

  “Like me.”

  “Wah, not like you! PhD in geology is not the same as a medical degree.”

  Alan laughs. He likes saying that to annoy Mom.

  Still, although he might not have done exactly what she wanted, my mother is proud of Alan. He’s a professor. He has multiple science degrees. He’s respectable.

  Me, on the other hand...

  I work at an ice cream shop.

  She used to brag about me. I graduated second in my class at university, ahead of all the boys, and my mom was proud, even if she jokingly asked why I didn’t come in first.

  I got a job at an engineering software firm, and she approved of that, too. She wasn’t pleased that Stephen and I were living together without being married; she thought I should live at home until we got married or, at the very least, engaged. But she didn’t make too much of a fuss.

  And then, over one horrible week last year, my job and relationship imploded. I’d hoped she’d have more righteous anger on my behalf, but she acted like it was partly my fault, and now she’s pissed I’m working for Chloe.

  Alan turns to me. “You have a boyfriend? I thought you weren’t interested in dating again.”

  Yeah, he’ll be harder to fool. My mom is lapping this up because it’s exactly what she wants, but Alan knows me better than she does.

  The horrible truth? Mom loves me because of what I can do for her. A daughter who’s dating a doctor? She can brag about that. It makes her look good—and I haven’t done anything to make her look good in a while.

  I know she loves me beyond that, but sometimes she cares about other people’s opinions a little too much.

  “Yeah, I have a boyfriend,” I say. “No big deal. What’s new with you?”

  Alan doesn’t answer my question. “What’s his last name?”

  “Nope. We’re not doing this. I’m not telling you his last name so you can Google the shit out of him.”

  “Valerie!” Mom says.

  “I thought you said I was a lost cause? Why do you care that I swear?”

  Alan shoves his hands in his pockets. “This Dr. Peter better treat you well.”

  “Of course he will!” Mom says. “He looks like he’s very sweet, and he has kind eyes.”

  “Pretty sure you said Stephen had kind eyes, too,” I mutter. I have no idea what “kind eyes” means. Sounds like bullshit.

  “You did,” Sabrina says. “I remember.”

  “Kind and sweet,” Mom says. “But still sexy.”

  “Mom!” Sabrina and I say in unison.

  We don’t agree on much, but neither of us wants to hear our mother say “sexy.”

  “Will you invite him over this week?” Mom asks. “Or we can go to a restaurant near the hospital if that is easier for him.”

  Hmm. I really need to give some thought to how long I want to continue this fake-boyfriend charade. I still can’t believe he accepted. I was kind of joking, but then he agreed, and I thought...sure, why not?

  It’s nice that my mother is happy with me for the first time in ages, and I loved seeing the shock on Sabrina’s face when she saw his picture. I’m having fun, even if my mom used the dreaded S-word and M-word.

  “Sexy” and “marriage,” I mean.

  I still don’t understand Peter’s motives for agreeing to this—doing it all for the novelty of a fake relationship seems a bit much—but I have my eyes wide open, and I won’t let him take advantage of me.

  But although I initially came up with this plan when Mom suggested I have Peter over this week, I don’t feel ready for that yet.

  “Nope,” I tell her. “He’ll come over eventually, just not for a few weeks. I don’t want to scare him off.”

  “I’m not scary!” Mom protests.

  Sabrina snorts in response.

  “Look,” I say. “This is my first relationship since Stephen, and I’m taking it slow, okay? Meet-the-parents dinners are not happening right away.”

  “Hmph. You better not meet his parents before he meets us.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  That’s one promise I can keep. This entire charade is for the benefit of my family, not his. I doubt he’s going to tell his parents that he has a girlfriend named Valerie.

  * * *

  I can’t wait until this day is over. My God.

  I’ve been at Ginger Scoops since noon, and it’s eight thirty now. Only half an hour left, and then I can get out of here.

  My brain is numb and my feet hurt and I’m just generally frustrated with humanity.

  At two o’clock, there was a crying baby. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d just cried for a few minutes, but no, she wailed for half an hour while her parents stayed in the shop—they didn’t take her outside.

  At three o’clock, two large families made a complete mess of the back corner, and I had to clean it up.

  At four o’clock, I went to clean the washroom and found it was a mess, too.

  At five thirty-three, someone complained that their green tea ice cream was too “tea-y” and could they please exchange it for some passionfruit ice cream?

  At six thirty, I dropped the ice cream scoop on my foot.

  At seven o’clock, a creepy old man asked me on a date.

  At eight o’clock, there was an honest-to-God family feud in the ice cream shop. A man and two women were arguing loudly, their children were fighting, and guess what? There was another crying baby, too.

  When I first started working for Chloe, we were preparing Ginger Scoops for opening, so it was just the two of us. That was nice, after everything I’d been through. I was working with my friend and helping her dreams come true, and it was a relief not to have to use my brain.

  But then we opened and I had to deal with customers.

  Many of them are just fine. They tell me what flavors they want, they pay, they talk to each other as they eat, and then they leave. I don’t get any pleasure out of serving them, but I don’t mind.


  And then there are the entitled assholes and the out-of-control children whose parents make no effort to rein them in.

  And now...

  “Oh, no,” Chloe says. “Someone hurt Twinkle.”

  Twinkle is the rocking unicorn in the corner of our shop, except she now appears to be a rocking horse because her horn has been broken off.

  I don’t know how I missed that.

  “I’ll superglue it back on,” I say.

  “It won’t look the same.”

  “It’ll be fine.” I just want to get the hell out of here.

  But today, I’m not going home after I finish my shift. No, I’m going to Cheese & Me with Peter. Our first “date.”

  I’m not excited. It’s not a real date, after all.

  Okay, maybe I’m a teeny-tiny bit excited, but that’s it. More than anything, I’m ready to stop serving people who make giant messes and break off fucking unicorn horns.

  Just after nine, Chloe’s boyfriend comes in, and they do a little too much smooching by the front door. To my annoyance, I can’t help some stupid envy from bubbling up inside me.

  A couple minutes later, Peter’s face appears at the door, and I hang up my apron and gesture him inside.

  He smiles at me. “You ready to go?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s this?” Drew asks.

  “Peter. He’s my fake boyfriend.”

  “I’ll explain later.” Chloe presses a kiss to her real boyfriend’s cheek. “Wait here for a few minutes while I finish cleaning up.”

  “I’m so confused right now,” Drew mutters.

  As I follow Peter outside, I can’t help smiling.

  I’m just glad to be done work and going out for cheesecake, right?

  That’s all it is. It has nothing to do with Peter So.

  * * *

  Cheese & Me is, not surprisingly, fairly busy. It’s a Friday night, and there are lots of young people here, ready to stuff their faces with cheesecake and cheese tarts.

  “Do you like Japanese cheesecake?” Peter asks as we wait in line. “Or are we just here to be seen?”

  “I enjoy it.”

  But, yes. The reason I specifically asked him to accompany me to Cheese & Me is because Daphne’s daughter Chrissy works here. She’s a few years younger than me, finishing up her degree, and I know she works Friday nights. And if she sees me here with Peter, then she’ll tell her mom, who will tell my mom, and my ruse will look real.