Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 12 - The Saturday Morning Brunch: Philosophizing with Lana and Maureen

This is Episode 12 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version  from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store (at a lower price than Amazon!).

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Saturday Morning Brunch: Philosophizing with Lana and Maureen

On the following Saturday morning, Mike and I drove to the Motley Cow café. Mike had suggested this outing to three strange girls at our regular end-of-the-week celebration. I now hoped the young ladies forgot this suggestion, so we might enjoy our coffee, bagel, and hangover with serenity, instead of the uneasiness of meeting the hopeful girls on equal and sober footing.

Following five days of rising to alarm clock buzzes, dressing to discomfort, and presenting ideas to stone-faced men, another opportunity for free expression of time had arrived. The late August morning brimmed with the energy of a new sun and pure liberty. I could forget the restrictions of career until Monday.

I also knew that Lana went to the Motley Cow on these mornings with her previous night’s lover, since she often brought me there. Most likely, I thought, she used this small breakfast in a public place to implicitly announce her support for the tryst beyond the night. I braced myself for her to bring a new suitor, maybe the weightlifter guy with whom Mike had seen her last week.

Most people once called the suburb of Peyton Beach a town. It once had no connection with the nearby spreading cities. Now the cities formed the inclinations of all the suburbanites. They looked southward to the horizon of invisible buildings of trade and money whenever they needed visions of any majesty. Down one road, relics of old Peyton endured. Two lines of aged structures were somehow spared from the glass offices and shopping plazas surrounding it. In one corner building stood the Motley Cow, the café that had become fashionable recently, maybe since Lana began dragging in her new lovers. But it had always served excellent food and coffees. Its owners practiced perfectionism, which their customers demanded from services but not acquaintances.

As I entered with Mike, I saw three women sitting around the center table. So much for peace.

I turned a gasp into a cough. There sat Lana Schon. Gina, to whom Mike soon became attached by the hand, and Maureen Kelly also were there. Gina and Maureen had arrived together. Mike had obviously mentioned the event to Gina last week, but had forgotten about the other no-show girls; he expressed surprise, but saved himself with some overdone theatrics.

As I placed myself in the chair next to Maureen, my stomach sank into my intestines, no thanks to the hangover. Lana inspected me with her blue eyes, those that had closed in pleasure so often from my touches. Now I should converse and be popular: Negate her pre-assessments of me.

“It’s a terrific morning,” I said. “Are you windsurfing today, Mike?”

“That’s next on my agenda. Then I need to work.”

“Oh wow,” Lana said. “On a Saturday? A workaholic, eh?”

Mike shook his head vehemently. “Work hard play hard. I’m getting paid overtime. Besides, this month I get my performance ratings.”

“I hardly ever see him anymore,” Gina said with a muffin in her mouth.

“People are working a lot, but morale’s high right now,” Lana said.

“Still, we have that layoff coming up,” Maureen said.

“Are they ever going through with that, Lana?” I asked. “You should know. Personnel knows everything.”

“That’s ‘Human Development.’ They plan to have one before the fiscal year closes, but the date keeps slipping. If it does affect any of you, we have a good record of placing people in other companies.”

“Mike’s job is safe,” I said. “And so’s Maureen’s. She’s one of the best secretaries in the company. I’m worried because I’m too specialized. And the job market is too thin for my field.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Maureen said as she tapped my forearm.

“People say good things about your work.”

“He works too hard,” Lana said. “You all do. I hope you guys find your career as enjoyable as I do.”

Guffaws answered her. “Are you serious?” Mike said. “I’d rather be windsurfing.”

“They’d never pay you for that,” Gina said.

“Not enough to survive on,” he said.

“Do you actually find some sort of meaning in your work, Lana?” I asked, as a tease.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Sometimes the politics and egos frustrate me, but then I realize they’re not only my problems. They’re everyone’s. Being in my position, if I can see a problem facing women like sexual harassment or the glass ceiling, I know everyone else in the company is feeling the effects. They usually don’t know it yet. So I try to solve it. I’m helping to make people’s jobs more enjoyable.”

“That’s good,” Gina said.

“I’d like to think I was helping people,” I said. “I hope Magic Theater is a good product to sell.”

“Yeah, so you can keep your job,” Mike said as he draped his arm over the back of his chair. “And I can have more accounts, and more overtime.”

“Not only that--”

“Jonathan here isn’t happy with his career,” Lana said.

“Who is?” Mike said. “Do you believe that anyone actually loves their job?”

Gina laughed. “As if. Almost like two people saying they’re in love.”

“Well, it depends on how we define love,” I said.

“Okay,” Lana said as she smiled. “How would you define it, Jonathan?”

I bit into a bagel to gain a delay. I realized I could not articulate my ideas in speech. “Can you tell us what you’ve found in your many experiences over your many years?” The rest of the table burst into laughter.

She smiled. “I think so.” She hesitated with a swallow of coffee. “The traditional concept of love is based on myth. It came from the old fashioned idea of sexual inequality, which subjugated women. In reality, love is mutual and equal respect for the other. It enacts itself in the human central nervous system as a set of excretions and hormone mixtures. Then it forms a strong emotion. No emotion should be restrained, as lots of research shows. All those excretions could act on other parts of the body and make you sick.”

“Then my hormones have stopped excreting,” Gina said. “I’ve never been in love with Mike.” She flung muscular arms around his neck. “And we have no problem with that. He doesn’t mind. Right?”

“Right,” Mike said. “Love is for old people. By definition, real love will only exist between two people who’ve been married forever. My parents split up, so they obviously never found love.”

“I remember how it was to fall in love when I was in junior high,” Gina said. “What a mess. It’s much simpler not to need anyone. I’ve grown up.” She brushed a string of hair from her eyes.

“That’s right,” Lana said. “Discovering our self-worth is always more exciting than romance. Now we’ve heard my views and Mike’s and Gina’s. Jonathan can’t find the answer. What about you, Maureen?”

“Here we are being negative about love,” Gina said. “And then there’s quiet little Maureen who’s getting married in a month-and-a-half.”

“Really?” Mike and I said.

“Yeah, but I’m having severe doubts.” Maureen sipped her cinnamon tea.

“I’ve been trying to talk her out of it,” Gina said.

“I can’t think of any purpose in getting married,” Mike said.

“Some people have religious reasons,” I said. “Are you religious, Maureen?”

“That’s part of it,” she said, bending her head. “It’s been ingrained in me. I can hear my mother’s voice every time I think of us sleeping together.” Her fair face splotched into a rosy red.

“Maybe the rest of us simply weren’t raised to think like that,” I said.

The café owner arrived and brimmed our cups without letting one drop escape.

Surely their childhoods were like mine. Certainly none were led against their wills to Sunday services, except Maureen.

“If you believe it’s right, Maureen, you should do it,” I said. “You should do whatever makes you happy.”

“That’s her problem, Jonathan,” Lana said with a hint of acrimony.

“She could be happier by avoiding old traditions like marriage. Besides, don’t you two men think she could find better guys out there?”

“He’s okay,” I said. “But if you wanted, you could do better.” Mike looked out at a herd of motorcycles rumbling by.

I enjoyed disputing Lana, even on religion, about which I probably had thought much more than her. “Shouldn’t we be concerned with the religious question? Hasn’t there always been something telling us to wait until we’re married?”

“Not my mother,” Mike said as he laughed. “And I never met Maureen’s mother.”

Gina giggled. “Besides, sex is no reason to get married. It’s no big deal.”

“That ‘something’ was not her mother,” Lana said. “It’s society. But its sexual freedom has also made us more promiscuous. As women, we still need to fight for our bodies. We shouldn’t worry about religion, though. We need to make truly informed choices. We shouldn’t base them on fear of punishment.”

“That’s like the Bet,” I said.

“The Bet?” Maureen asked.

“Yeah. I read about this theory a couple weeks ago. This old French thinker, who was he? Anyway, he said that our choice to be religious is like we’re betting. We can choose not to follow a religion and have a more pleasurable life. Then the outcome will be either hell or nothing. Or we can choose to follow a religion, and have a less pleasurable life. Then the outcome will be either heaven or nothing. For the payback of a slightly more pleasurable life, we risk the worst loss one could ever imagine.”

“That plays on fear,” Lana said. “I wouldn’t want to base my decisions on that. It’d lead to absolutism.”

“The point remains, in theory.”

“Have you followed that reasoning?” Lana retorted.

“No, but it is frightening.”

“Get outta here, Jonathan,” Mike said. “It’s all stories. No God could torture someone forever.”

“Lana’s right,” Maureen said. “Fear should never be the basis for belief. You’re supposed to simply love God. That should be your motivation, not fear of hell or fear of your mother or any fear. It’s love.”

“Love God?” I asked. “How do you love a concept, something you can’t see?”

“Just try,” Maureen said.

“Some people can care for something without seeing it, Jonathan,” Lana said.

“You know what I mean. It’s hard to love a concept, especially given your definition of love as hormones.”

“Ooo, can you feel the love in this room?” Mike said.

“Some people don’t see God as a concept,” Maureen said.

“But it’s hard to love something without proof that whatever you’re loving respects your efforts and your emotions,” I said. “It should at least respect your choice to love it out of pure love and not fear. If you choose to love it out of pure, unreturned love, you should be returned something.”

“Then you’re not loving something out of pure unreturned love, Jonathan,” Lana said with a laugh. She reveled in catching my inconsistency, but I smiled since she only re-stated the paradox for me.

“But I was taught that God does return love,” Maureen said. “And the proof you’re seeking now will never happen.”

Mike rose. “I’d love to keep chatting so deeply with you, but the wind’s picking up. Outside and in here. Gina, are you ready to go to the river?”

Gina nodded. Both she and Maureen stood.

“Can you get a ride, Jonathan?” Mike asked.

“I’ll drop him off,” Maureen said.

“Thanks a lot, Maureen, but I need to talk to Lana.”

Lana and I stayed sitting in the café, as the other three said their goodbyes. We were silent for a few minutes as they left and the shopkeeper cleared dishes away.

“You have a glow about you today,” I finally said. “I always enjoy looking at you in the mornings. They suit you. Maybe it’s the sun’s angle.”

“Thanks.” She smiled.

Another pause.

Then Lana laughed. “What is it about you that excited me? We shouldn’t have gotten together. I simply had to find out what you are.”

She kissed me, checking for glances, either out of embarrassment or show.

For the next quarter-hour, while we tried to converse, my mind examined the many scenarios to result in our lovemaking. They all would likely humiliate me. I guessed this would be our last day together, and I was oddly relieved. She was distant, as if she wanted to end our affair but hesitated to be final. This led to another hush.

During this lapse, as the silence began laying more bricks between us, I realized she was about to make her break.

“Lana, I have something to say to you. I know our being together is not your ideal relationship, but...”

I quieted.

“That’s okay, Jonathan. I understand what we were.”

I focused on her lips, her lashes, her smooth skin, her neck, her flawlessness. “I’m not sure you do. That’s why I need to read this to you.”

I pulled the small sheet of paper from my back pocket, and read:

“The youth hold nothing absolute, secured,

Decisive death of self they can’t realize,

When one caress of Beauty is procured,

To them a fleeting admonition flies!

So as those young appease their peers by feats,

‘Tis in this quest that Beauty’s glimpse is caught,

To Beauty now denuded love excretes,

Esteem from One is now the laurel sought.

For Beauty then surmounts the ego, wealth,

With less than grand eternal, they are bored,

Their lives at Beauty now are aimed, in stealth,

Past joys disgrace them, known by their adored.

The young in bliss through joyous life careen,

With Beauty’s form divine, that human seen.”

She dabbed a dish of jelly with her knife, then leaned back from the table.

“I assume you wrote that,” she said. “That’s kind of you. It sounds sweet.”

She watched the busy owners. Then she took the paper I had put on the table. “I know what it means, but I’m afraid you’re carrying this too far.”

“That’s not my intention. I’m not asking you to marry me.”

“I hope not. Jonathan, I know you. I’ve seen this coming, although your method is extremely old-fashioned. I won’t become one of your conquests.”

“Am I treating you like a conquest?”

“If we had seen each other exclusively, you’d have thought of me like a Vincula Gold Star.”

She paused. The restaurant was too silent.

“But in other ways, you look at me, like you want to have sex with me, or know me, or whatever. Sometimes I can’t figure you out. Then sometimes I know you try to forget yourself. Even these poems are a bit humiliating, and you don’t care. But then, I see other men, and everything changes.”

I smiled. “You take all these poems and read them more carefully later. You can decide whether I only want a trophy. I’m sorry, Lana.” She nodded and put the paper in her purse.

We sat without words.

I had drifted, at times. I sometimes devalued the woman herself, out of pride. The awe and respect from my friends and Lana’s body were merely amusements. I must continue seeking the perfection attached to her. Without it, I moved in a cloud of desire to retain popularity, flesh, money, powerful information, and whatever markets thrust at me.

“Jonathan, that poem sounded pretty,” she said as we walked to her house. “Have you ever thought of songwriting? Those grunge bands seemlike they really need some decent lyrics. What about the major labels?”

“I don’t know a thing about music.”

“You should try writing lyrics. I have a friend who knows an agent who handles bands and songwriters. What do you think?”

“I’ve never thought of it. I doubt my stuff is song material.”

“You can write other ones,” she said. “There’s some good money to be made. You should put your ambitions to work for you.”

She saw this was going nowhere. Then her face lit up. “C’mon, let’s go to the beach.”

“No, not today.” More than ever, I should prove my fervor was not for her, but for the idea of her, which I now lacked.

“I’m going, with or without you. I’ll change, then I can drive you home.”

Next week: Episode 13 - The Last Walk on the Beach: Capturing and ending “it”

Copyright © 2022 Christopher Rogers.

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