1. Persona non grata
2. How little do you know me after all these years?
3. A question of perspective
4. The people who weren't allowed to attend the ceremony in the temple
5. You can't choose your family

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

"We're thinking about it," said April. "It's maybe a little early to make a final decision, but I've started reading Susan's books about how to make arrangements for anonymous-donor artificial insemination."

Rex smiled and nodded and said "Ah" as if her statement were perfectly ordinary, but he seemed vaguely uncomfortable, perhaps because of the realization that the man could be edged out of the picture so easily.

Susan then said "It's one of the joys of being in a female-only romance, that both partners get to experience the joys and pains of motherhood if they like, or if one person in the couple has more inclination to do it, you can actually choose who it will be. You guys are stuck. If you guys decide to have a kid or kids, it will be Lynn who does the hard part every time, no ifs ands or buts about it."

"Well, I guess that's the way it goes," I said. "Some biological realities are hard to work around." Rex chuckled. I turned to him and said "You're just happy because you would get the easy job."

"Hey, you don't hear me complaining, do you?" he said, smiling.

Our dinners arrived, and we continued chatting while we ate.

Then April asked me "So how are you guys going to get around if you don't have a car?"

"Oh, we'll have a car tomorrow," Rex answered. "My parents have agreed to lend me one of their cars for the weekend."

"Your parents live around here?" asked Susan, spooning some food into Judy's mouth.

"Yep," he said.

"Rex grew up here in Orem," I said.

"You grew up in Orem?" Susan asked with an air of innocent astonishment as if amazed that ordinary human reproduction might occur in such a bizarre place.

<- previous page

"Shh, I don't like to tell people that," whispered Rex in a jokingly conspiratorial tone.

"So are you going to get to see any of your old friends from school?" April asked him.

"No, unfortunately the ones I've kept in touch with have all wisely moved far away from here, like me."

"Maybe tomorrow morning you could drop off Rex at his parents' house to get the car, and then we'll be out of your hair," I suggested.

"I noticed you said 'drop off Rex' and not 'drop us off,'" said April. "Don't you want to visit Rex's parents?"

"I'm not terribly thrilled about the prospect, no," I said, "but I imagine I won't be able to avoid it for the whole weekend."

Rex laughed.

"You don't like them?" asked Susan, giving Judy another spoonful.

"Let's just say that sometimes they can be a little difficult," said Rex.

"Well Lynn and I can relate to that," said April. "It's not as though our parents are always super easy to deal with."

"Here's to braving the dark waters of family," said Rex raising his glass.

Susan gave a bit of a smile. "Luckily for us, we'll be braving them a bit less than you will," she said.

"Because you don't have family in town?" I asked.

"Yeah, that, and we won't even be seeing all that much of your family," said Susan.

"It's true," said April. "We got a bit of an insulting blow this morning after we arrived. If we'd been told earlier, we wouldn't even have gotten on the plane, we'd have had our tickets refunded."

"What happened?" I asked.

next page ->