The Fraud

by H. Claire Taylor

  On this particular night in early April, Notmie left the DPS behind and found a particularly beautiful home in which he couldn’t wait to spend the night. Knocking merrily on the door, Notmie was greeted by a woman in her mid-twenties who was unusually beautiful herself; so much so that Notmie was struck by her elegance, her soft features, her proportionate face, and became suddenly self-conscious of his coffee-stained pants. As he entered the house that he’d picked—well, really it was more of a mansion, ‘cause that’s how Notmie rolls—he saw lining the walls portraits of the most beautiful (and some of the ugliest) people he’d ever seen. And was that… No, surely it couldn’t be… but it looked so much like her…

  And this girl, she didn’t even seem to be affected by Notmie’s looks. Sure, she let him in, but he had a feeling it had nothing to do with his physical appearance.

  “The guest bedroom is right up here,” said the girl, leading him further inside.

  “What’s your name?” Notmie asked.

  “Melono.”

  “Family name, I suppose?”

  Melono paused at the bottom of a wide staircase. “Well, sort of, it’s a combination of my mother’s and father’s names.”

  “Let me guess,” Notmie said, thinking himself quite witty, “your mother’s name was Meloh and your father’s name was Bono.”

  “Close,” she said sweetly, “you got my mother’s name right—which is amazing and somewhat startling—but my father’s name wasn’t Bono, it was just No.”

  Melono smiled fondly and suddenly Notmie’s sneaking suspicion was confirmed. But just to be sure:

  “Who’s that woman in that portrait there?”

  “That? Oh, that’s just my Aunt Dammie. She died tragically about ten years back at an Elton John concert. I never actually met her. My mom just hung this here when Dammie died.”

  Bingo.

  “But that’s…” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue. “That’s my mom.”

  The perhaps unnecessary melodrama of his statement caused Melono to whirled around and examine his face.

  He could tell Melono doubted him. “I’m being honest, my name is Notmie, my father’s name was Not, and my mother’s name was Dammie.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said flatly, “and I think you’re nothing more than a fraud.”

  “Why would you say such a thing? Oh right, the shirt. Well, forget the shirt,” and he slipped the shirt off over his head to reveal his naturally chiseled abs and ripped pecks. “I’m not lying. Not this time, at least,” and he moved closer to her. Something about her beauty drove him wild. He judged by the way she was looking at him that she felt a similar attraction to his appearance, but something seemed to hold her back. He couldn’t understand. They were alone in a large mansion; what could be more perfect? Why wasn’t she moving closer to him like virtually every other woman he’d ever met would have in this situation?

  “You’re either a liar or a creep,” she finally spat out.

  Notmie was taken aback by the comment. “Come again?”

  “Well, if that’s really your mother, you’re a creep, because you know full well now that we’re cousins, and you’re still trying to make a move on me. And if you’re not my cousin, that means she’s not your mother and you’re a liar, and that’s even worse. I would never do anything with a liar.”

  “Hmmm… I guess I just hadn’t made the connection yet that we’re cousins.” Notmie pulled his Fraud shirt back on over his head.

  Melono shrugged. “Yeah, well it happens to the best of us.” And the whole awkward moment was forgotten.

  Melono led Notmie up the grand staircase to a large, dusty room that seemed to have been uninhabited for many years now. Notmie walked across the hardwood floor, turning to sit down on the carved oak bed, while Melono observed from the doorway. Before his backside hit the comforter, Melono stuck out her hand, motioning for him to freeze. “Do you want to take off those pants?”

  Notmie eyed her suspiciously, wondering what she was playing at.

  “But I thought you said we were cousins, Melono, and now you’re going and saying it’s okay if we—”

  “Oh, jeez! That’s—that’s sick and disgusting. No, that’s not—that’s not even what I was implying… at all.” She scrunched her face in disgust. “What I was wondering was if you wanted me to take your pants and wash them. You have a huge stain on your… ummm…”

  Notmie looked down at his pants and saw that the coffee stain on the crotch hadn’t disappeared when it dried like he’d hoped it would.

  “Coffee,” he said awkwardly. “I spilled coffee on my pants.”

  “Right. Well, if you’d like, I’ll wash them for you tonight so you can have them clean in the morning.”

  Notmie smiled kindly at his newfound cousin. “That would be nice.”

  He started unfastening his pants, but Melono stopped him.

  “Why don’t you wait until I’m out of the room? You can just throw them out into the hall once I leave.”

  “Right.” Notmie grinned sheepishly.

  Melono turned to leave, but paused and turned back around to face Notmie.

  “By the way, you’re welcome to stay in my house for as long as you wish; after all, you’re family.”

  “Do you not live with your parents or brothers or sisters?”

  Melono frowned. “No, I never had any brothers or sisters. I was my parents’ first child, and after me, they figured the children could only get uglier, so they didn’t have any more.”

  Notmie had heard this story before. His own parents had come to the same conclusion after they had him.

  “But your parents, where are they?” he asked.

  She grabbed a chair from the near by desk and scooted it to face Notmie. “My mother was clawed to pieces by jealous runway models three years ago,” she said causally as she sat down.

  Notmie, though never having had this happen to him, could understand how that might go.

  “And my father was killed in a hunting accident,” Melono continued. “Apparently the person who he was out hunting with mistook him for the bear they were after and shot him straight in the face. What? I’m telling the truth!” she finished as she saw Notmie staring at her in disbelief.

  “Oh, but it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just strange. My father died a few years back from almost the exact same thing, except he was mistaken for a giant mongoose.”

  They both had a good laugh.

  Melono’s face slowly warped into a more serious expression. “Do you ever feel like death is just lurking right over your shoulder?”

  Notmie couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, all the time.”

  “I can feel it right now, even,” she whispered.

  “It’s probably that statue of the Grim Reaper that’s right behind you.” Notmie pointed to the statue.

  “Oh, yeah probably.”

  “Why do you even keep that thing in here?”

  “I don’t know, it came with the house, I think. Well, good night.”

  She stood up to leave and was just about to close the door when, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I’m going to a family reunion tomorrow, so, um, well, would you like to go? I mean, you’re family and all.”

  Two contradicting emotions rattled around Notmie’s brain. First, there was the joy of realizing that he still had family after all, even though his parents were no longer around. Second, there was the anxiety that there may be a large social gathering taking place where everyone was as good looking as him, and that would make him almost unremarkable. He wasn’t sure what that would feel like, and he wasn’t particularly in a hurry to find out.

  These two dueling emotions ran laps in his brain until a response finally slipped out. “Sure.”

  “Don’t forget the pants.”

  “Right.”

  Melono closed the door behind her and Notmie jumped up and slipped off his pants, tossing them into the hall for her.

  He decided the room was far too
chilly for a pants-free existence, so he bounded into the bed and threw the covers over his legs.

  And as he lay there under the thick comforter, resting his head on the pillow and contemplating the prospect of a family reunion full of people as unearthly beautiful as he, the warring emotions in his mind reached a temporary peace agreement, and for the first time in his life, Notmie felt something better than extreme vanity; he felt a sense of belonging.

  Part 3

  Disco Ball Blindness

  Notmie needed nearly nothing, not nearly needing the nasty noodles that Ned’s naked neighbor kneaded with his knees. Those traumatic days still lingered in the back of Notmie’s mind, presently popping into his head as he awoke from another nightmare.

  Man, thought Notmie, why was Ned’s naked neighbor always pushing those noodles on me?

  It was a bit creepy, and even the psychologist who Notmie had met with all throughout his childhood could not explain why Ned’s neighbor did it, nor cure Notmie of his recurring nightmares. She could, however, stare at Notmie for extended periods of time, promising that whatever troubles Notmie had were meaningless compared to his remarkable blessing of unearthly beauty.

  So, due to a scarring childhood and a lack of good professional counseling, Notmie awoke in the morning with the visions of that old, naked, noodle-pushing man running full speed at him, screaming like a banshee with foam spiraling out of the corners of his mouth.

  We’ve all had those types of dreams before (not with your friend’s naked neighbor, hopefully) where you’re falling, or perhaps something is flying toward your head, and right before impact, you jerk awake. This is precisely what happened to Notmie, except as he jerked awake, the bed creaked, then quivered, then split in half with a jolt that sent a loose floorboard rocketing up on the other side of the room. And yes, on this particular board happened to be the statue of the Grim Reaper, which became airborne and floated about as gracefully as an anvil toward Notmie’s sleepy eyes. Having just awoke from the dream of the naked noodle-pusher leaping at him with spaghetti in hand, dreams mixed with reality and Notmie began screaming, thinking that he was, once again, back on Ned’s green lawn and that the Grim Reaper was none other than Ned’s neighbor.

  Notmie screamed and ducked, which was lucky since the Grim Reaper’s sickle just barely missed his noggin, lodging itself deep within the bed’s headboard. The statue stuck out stiffly at a forty-five degree angle and Notmie continued screaming until he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror across the room. The sight of his unearthly beauty suddenly calmed him.

  Hey, good lookin’. He blew himself a kiss. But the ruckus had already attracted Melono, and she burst in the room crazy-eyed and panting.

  “Are you okay?”

  Notmie, still smiling at himself in the mirror, turned calmly to her and said in his most suave voice, “With a face like this, baby, how could I be anything but great?” He winked. Then, motioning to the headboard, added, “Oh, and the Grim Reaper launched itself at me.”

  “Oh man, look at the bed! It broke in two! And the headboard! It’s nearly chopped in half!” Melono ran her hands over the crack that came out in either direction from the lodged sickle.

  Notmie felt that an explanation was necessary for this level of destruction.

  “Well, I had this dream, and then Ned’s neighbor came running at me with no clothes and a bowl full of spaghetti—”

  But before he could finish, Melono waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, it happens all the time. Why, just the other day—” But before Notmie could hear about what happened the other day, a honk came from out front and Melono stopped mid-sentence.

  That wasn’t a normal honk; it was honking in the tune of Dixie.

  There it went again.

  “Oh, darn it all.” Melono groaned. “It’s that damned limo driver! He always shows up here just waiting for me to need a ride.” She tugged on the statue, trying to dislodge it. “The strangest part about it is that it’s always exactly when I need him.”

  Unable to tug the Reaper free, she gave up and headed for the door. “I guess we better start getting ready to go to the reunion. I’ll go get your pants.”

  Oh yeah, the reunion!

  Notmie had almost forgotten about that, but how could he when he had been so excited about it the night before? Oh right, that dream. Ha, yeah, that was a strange dream, all right.

  Melono came back and tossed Notmie his pants. He threw on his Fraud shirt and his breeches and sprinted downstairs to meet Melono. She was wearing a with “Liar” spelled out on the front in rubies.

  “Hey! We almost match!” Notmie pointed out. Melono smiled and nodded, and they both headed out front to catch their ride.

  The limo driver felt as if Christmas had come early when he saw that an equally beautiful male accompanied Melono. He wasn’t generally attracted to men, but he enjoyed being in the company of beautiful people. Come on, who doesn’t?

  Man, he thought to himself, diamonds sure do look good with rubies. I bet those two people are related, or else brother and sister.

  He grinned at his acute observation and asked, “Where to?” but being the nervous wreck that he was around such unearthly beauty, what he said was actually a prepubescent-ish “Ere ooo?”

  Notmie’s eyebrows shot up. “You speak French? I speak a bit myself, would you like to hear?”

  The limo driver was caught off guard by being directly addressed by Notmie and managed an, “IEEE UHv tooO!”

  “Eh hem…” Notmie cleared his throat, turned his nose up, and began gesturing with his hand as he spoke. “Zis is a nice le-mo, yes?”

  Melono squealed with delight and clapped her hands as Notmie took a bow.

  In all actuality, Notmie had never heard the actual French language before. His “accent” was formed from watching Lumiere the candelabra in Beauty and the Beast too often, which led to him being exceptionally talented at sounding like an American faking the accent of a French person speaking English and saying, “Be our guest, be our guest!” And indeed, right after the “French” he spoke for the driver, he erupted with a loud chorus of that song.

  Now, we all know that one Disney song leads to another, so it was as he began to sing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” that the limo pulled up to a small gas station with a large neon light simply reading: Gas Station. At least that’s what it used to spell. Now, however, the lights were burnt out on the letter G as well as the tation, leaving a less than inviting sign to welcome all business.

  Notmie was unsure about this part of town and a bit frightened at the prospect of getting out of the car or even unlocking the doors.

  He inspected the building doubtfully. “Are you sure this is the place?”

  It didn’t seem like sort of place where one would have a family reunion, but then again, what did he know? He’d never been to one before.

  Melono’s eyes followed Notmie’s gaze. “No, not there. God no. That’s the neighborhood’s drug dealing locale. The reunion is across the street.”

  “Sweet,” replied Notmie, though he really hadn’t noticed the hotel yet. For the time being, he was preoccupied with his reflection in the limo’s tinted glass as he winked at himself over and over again to find his best side. Of course, he didn’t have a best side since both sides of him were unearthly beautiful. He was so caught up in his vanity that he didn’t even notice the massive building structure or the gathering crowd in front of him. When he finally did see all the commotion awaiting Melono and him, he was breathless.

  Stepping out onto the red carpet, Notmie’s ears were met with a cacophony of screams, shouts, and swoons.

  “Who are these people?” Notmie yelled to be heard over the noise.

  “They’re just random people. We try to keep it quiet about where the reunions are each year to avoid too much of a crowd from gathering, but it’s just gotten so hard recently with the internet and all. I’m actually surprised they managed to keep the crowd so small.”

  “Thi
s is small? There’s got to be at least”—Notmie began counting on his fingers but quickly ran out—“two hundred people here!”

  “There was twice this last year.” She gave the crowd one good wave for charity, sending out a shockwave of swoons through the on-lookers.

  Even though he’d been raised his entire life with people swooning over him, he’d never gotten a reaction as gratifying as what Melono just received. For a split second, Notmie experienced something he’d never felt before; he was jealous.

  How come I’ve never gotten a response like that? Am I just not as good looking as Melono?

  The sour look on Notmie’s face gave away his envious thoughts.

  “Go ahead.” Melono swatted him playfully on his arm. “Try it yourself.”

  He gave his slickest smile and waved to the crowd. Another shockwave.

  “How come everyone’s so crazy about us here? I mean, I know it’s ’cause we’re unearthly beautiful and all, but still, I’ve never seen such a big response just because I waved.”

  “Well, you do have a wonderful smile.” She winked at him.

  “Thanks, and so do you,” he said, politely returning the compliment.

  As Notmie and Melono entered the building, there were already a score of people mingling with wine glasses dangling in their hands and guffaws and har-hars floating through the air.

  Notmie stayed close to Melono as they walked through the crowd. “Are the family reunions always this extravagant? And how come I’ve never found out about them until now? They seem to draw quite the crowd.”

  “To answer your first question, yes, they are always this extravagant.” Melono scanned the room to take in the surroundings. “You’d be surprised by how much money we can raise for this simply by asking people for it.

  “To answer your second question of why you haven’t found out about these before, well it’s really quite simple…” and she explained about the earth’s rotation, pianos, and honeydew melons and how they all came together to provide a quite comprehensive answer to his question.