Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts Read Online Free PDF Page A

announce that I could return to Group, “Group is like a laboratory where you get to work on relationships, not have them.”
    “Ok,” I said.
    “So I need to know…” said Roberta.
    “I take responsibility for it,” I said.
    “For what?” said Roberta.
    “For having truly mediocre sex with Frank?” I said.
    “Sounds like we have something to discuss in a session,” said Roberta.
    On our first date, Frank took me to the Emmys. Ten minutes before he was supposed to pick me up, he called me from the car wash to announce that he was going to be late because he needed to clean the car—and go to Bloomingdale’s to buy a tie, pick up his suit at the cleaners, and take a shower. Interesting. It was 6:50 p.m. and the show started at 7:30.
    We made it to the Emmys by 8:45 p.m. in time for his category. He won. That was enough to make me decide, OK, there may be a future with this guy.
    There are always signs along the way that will show you what direction your relationship is headed, even if your boyfriend is telling you something different. If you honestly look at them, and don’t rationalize the obvious failings, you won’t find yourself chucking away the logic born of a college education to “consult” with someone answering the phones for 1-800-PSYCHIC.
    “The bad sex, the passive-aggressiveness, the verbal warfare—you deserve it,” said Marcie. “It’s all a by-product of violating the L.A. Eco-Chain of Dating. I told you, only date people on your level. Not above. Not below. It’s not like you haven’t done this before.”
    She had a point.
    On our first major holiday together, Thanksgiving, I wanted to attend my traditional celebration, a production of taste and refinement equaling a dinner created by Alice Waters which my gay friends James and Stefan produced. “But, Blanche, we need you to come,” said Stefan who referred to me as Blanche since the day he had his first boyfriend when we were fourteen. “We were counting on you to be the token heteros of the table. Someone has to dress terribly and have genetically inbred bad taste.”
    But Frank insisted that we celebrate with his family because this was a really important day for them. He won. When we walked in the door at 5:45 p.m., Frank’s sisters, Mary and Sari, suddenly remembered that they had to defrost the skirt steak which Mary was planning to serve for dinner at 6:00 p.m. His sisters had forgotten because they were in their eighth hour of watching the Twilight Zone Marathon. Frank took it in stride as we ate at 9:00 p.m.
    At Christmas, I was overjoyed to find Frank running around like a madman to buy presents—until I found out that they were all for his sisters. I didn’t receive anything until the last day of January when I called him and told him that I was going to buy the bookcase which he had promised me, and either he paid for it or I would. Frank explained that he just couldn’t get it together, and had thought that I “would be cool about it.”
    On Valentine’s Day, Frank told me that he had a big surprise planned. At 8:00 p.m., he walked in the door with Chicken Fajitas for two from El Pollo Loco and a juicer, which he told me that I could use whenever I wanted to. He later confessed that he had tried to get reservations all over town, but at 7:30 p.m. when he called, everything was all booked up.
    My birthday, however, was remarkably different from the pattern set on other major days—he forgot it entirely. Or I should say, he forgot it until Jennifer called him from my birthday dinner and asked him when, or if, he was planning to arrive. As we were cutting the cake, he waltzed in the door with a dozen short stem red roses and a bag of oranges which I knew he had gotten from the guy who sold flowers and fruit off the back of a pick-up near the Wilshire Boulevard on-ramp to the 405 freeway.
    At year one—the legal deadline for determining the direction of relationships—Frank asked me to marry him on a Saturday