Pretend Until It Was Real

The problem with lying to your mother for five years straight is that eventually, the lies catch up with you.

"So when do we finally get to meet this girlfriend of yours? Alexandra, was it?"

That was the text that started it all. My mother, who had been asking about my love life since I came out at twenty-two, wanted to meet the girlfriend I had invented to get her off my back.

The girlfriend who did not, in fact, exist.

I'd made up Alexandra during a particularly aggressive holiday dinner three years ago. Just said I was seeing someone to stop the questions, and somehow she'd taken on a life of her own. She worked in finance, I'd said. Very busy. That's why she couldn't come to family events.

Now my grandmother was turning eighty, and my entire extended family expected me to show up with Alexandra on my arm.

I was screwed.

* * *

"I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend."

Vera Kim looked up from her laptop with the expression of someone who had just been asked to commit a minor felony. She was my roommate, my best friend, and currently the only person I could think of who might be crazy enough to say yes.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"My grandmother's birthday party. Three days. In Connecticut. I need someone to play Alexandra."

"Alexandra. Your imaginary girlfriend."

"She's not imaginary. She's... aspirational."

"She doesn't exist."

"She could exist. If you agree to be her."

Vera closed her laptop slowly, a dangerous smile spreading across her face.

"Let me get this straight. You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend in front of your entire family for three days."

"Yes."

"A family that thinks you've been dating this woman for three years."

"Yes."

"Which means we'd have to know each other's histories, inside jokes, intimate details..."

"Yes."

"And we'd have to be convincingly affectionate. Holding hands, pet names, maybe even kissing."

I hadn't thought about the kissing part. Vera was beautiful, dark hair, sharp features, the kind of bone structure that made people stop and stare. We'd been roommates for two years and friends for three, and I had been very carefully not thinking about how beautiful she was.

"Would that be a problem?"

"For you or for me?"

"Either."

She studied me for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression.

"I'll do it. On one condition."

"Anything."

"When this is over, you tell your mother the truth. No more fake girlfriends."

"Deal."

* * *

Day One - The Drive to Connecticut

We spent the three-hour drive establishing our "history." How we met (at a networking event, close to the truth, since we'd actually met at a friend's party). Our first date (dinner at that Italian place in Brooklyn, also close to truth, since we'd gone there for her birthday last year). The moment we knew it was serious (pure fabrication, since nothing about our relationship was serious. Right?).

"Pet names. What does Alexandra call you?"

"I don't know. Honey? Babe?"

"Too generic. Your mom will see through it." She thought for a moment. "Sunshine. I'll call you sunshine."

"Why sunshine?"

"Because you're annoyingly cheerful in the mornings. It'll feel authentic."

"I'm not annoyingly cheerful."

"You literally sang to the coffee maker yesterday."