The Paradise Problem

by Christina Lauren

and lol of course he isn’t going to kiss me.

lol...?

“Family housing. He was just a random dude I married so I could live here. Thank you, though.”

Amazing.

If you’d told me back in college that my primary source of income at twenty-five would be working as the night cashier at the corner convenience store, I… well, I might have believed you. Having done a one-eighty junior year when I acknowledged that my brain does not “science” and pivoted from premed to art, I remained realistic about what life as an artist might entail.

Well this is a book for me, isn't it?

but those of us whose ambitions are simply “afford rent and health insurance” are aware we will most likely be waitresses by day and hobby painters by night. So the fact that it’s 12:44 a.m. and I am womaning the register at the Pico Pick-It-Up and not at some fancy party rubbing elbows with the creative elite shouldn’t surprise anyone, least of all myself.

ha

I’m young and know how to wear a T-shirt without a bra.

With a short, fortifying breath, I reach for the front of her shorts, surprised by how steady my hands are as I pull the zipper up. My pulse turns to machine gun fire when the knuckle of my index finger accidentally brushes against her stomach. I fasten the button and then step away, clearing my head.

I have no idea what to say to this. My brain is still stuck on the word labia.

“That diamond is like… the size of my nipple.”

A tall white bird watches us from a nearby tree. It has a slender, reddish beak, with a bright yellow top and its head tilts curiously as we pass, as if it’s wondering, What the hell is the hurry? Frankly, I agree.

I picture David Green meeting someone I was literally married to and not taking a very keen interest. I try to imagine him only now meeting someone I’d been married to for five years, and I just can’t. It would never happen. If I as much as mention a third date, Dad wants me to bring the guy over for dinner at home. We’d never set foot on a beach like this—would never in our lives be able to afford even the coach-class plane fare—but we have something much more valuable. I glance up at West and feel a pang of sadness for him.

This is true.

“What if there’s a tsunami?” I ask. There are so many great potential answers: Then we make this bungalow into a ship and sail to Singapore! Then we surf our way back to the California coastline! Then we grow gills! But no. West says, without hesitation: “Then I suppose we get swept out to sea.”

I love Anna's beautiful mimd. Ther dnamic is going to be very etertaining

I have no idea how often married people have sex, but I happen to like sex, and I like to think if I was married, I’d have it a few times a week, at least?

ha!

My fingers ache for my sketchbook, wanting to capture every line and ridge so I can gorge myself on it later.

All artist unite...the sight of attractive people causes us to immediately grab a pen and paper "write that down write that down!" How many times I have thought the same thing when noticing how attractive my own partner is.

I have a lot of faults. I drink milk from the carton, I never make my bed, I am slothful, and sometimes I’ll just set the new roll of toilet paper on top of the empty roll instead of changing it. A monster. I am also gluttonous: I don’t want a few peanut M&M’s; I want the entire bag. Why have one margarita when three is such a nice, satisfying number? Everyone knows why! And that’s why I go back for seconds right now. But

I love this character.

“No! Sorry!” But frankly, (1) I’m not very sorry, and (2) him facing away isn’t any better, because I am a sucker for a great ass, and his is probably ranked between the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef on a list of things everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.

!!!

incorrigible.”

She pauses, fussing with the hem, which, no matter how much she tugs at it, is never getting longer.

Theirs is nothing like the feeling of tugging a dress or skirt down every five seconds just for it to never get any longer. I know the pain.

Also, the tag was still attached, and I pulled out my phone to do the math: the price per square inch is criminal.

Anna is so unintentionally funny.

My mom was an attorney, my dad is a mechanic, and I think when they first met, she was attracted to the hot blue-collar guy, the kid from the other side of the proverbial tracks. But as an aspiring adult, now I see how those kinds of surface attractions wear off. She didn’t hide her feelings about his coworkers or things like how his hands are never fully clean, even after scrubbing. Even as a kid I absorbed the sense that his was a job, not a career, and that there was a value difference there, in her mind.”

:(

What’s said in the kayak stays in the kayak.”

Goddamn

Why are we calling it that.

These words make my ocean-dwelling ovaries incinerate, but then a shadow looms over the sunshine: this is easy for me. Too easy. The realization makes me feel icky inside, because I suddenly can’t imagine my dad at all, let alone him laughing easily with these people, some of whom have never personally delivered their vehicle to a mechanic. Maybe I’m more like my mother than I thought.

“She was a virtuoso with her hands,” he says, and I know he means it playfully, but the innuendo lingers like a sneering echo.

We wouldn’t normally do this with a Chanel lip pencil, but desperate times and all that.”

“The nice thing about art is that it can be terrible, and people will still call it art.”

He looked like he knew how to read a map but i guess not

I’m sure, too, that no one in this room has ever had to choose between filling up their gas tank and buying groceries. I’m sure no one in this room has ever been afraid to open their mail or cried under their kitchen table over the stress of unpaid bills. I’m sure no one here has ever walked into a room and wondered whether they belong.

“Imagine we get locked in one of those,” Anna says, “and they find us days later, wearing salami and cheese to stay warm.” “Someone should study your brain,” I say, tugging the freezer door open.

They love you, but they’re broken. They will choose money every time.

I only have to follow the news vans.

Romance is a genre that spends a lot of energy placing value on connection, community, and partnership; these are things that give deep and meaningful value to life, even when life is hard. But unfortunately, we live in a society that values money above nearly everything else.