The sixth excerpt from “Our Putative Couple,” a work in progress. For the first five excerpts, please click (in this order) here and here and here and here and here.
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Sitting at the kitchen table after the video call, taking a loud and—in her self-conscious opinion—melodramatically drawn-out sip of her mug of Vibe Valley® brand Calming Herbal Hemp Tea, Lavender Mint Blend, Loose-Leaf (having purchased a 2-ounce [56.699-gram] bag for US $9.95 at her neighborhood’s most rainbow peace-sign festooned dispensary, Root Cause, earlier that day), Cassie squints straight ahead at nothing in particular, something Zane has noticed she tends to do when feeling perturbed, or annoyed, or miffed, or bummed. Or nothing at all.
“Anything wrong?” he asks, standing behind her, pouring himself a mug of tea from the Plessents® brand pyramidal, stainless-steel kettle (US $147.09) he what-the-hellishly ordered from Grand Chef Supplies®, his favorite upper-middle-class consumer porn website, using his own money, not a cent from the joint account he shares with his husband, who, before meeting him, had never owned any kitchenware, regardless of price. Zane’s husband had never cooked at all, instead subsisting upon microwavable, artery-clogging, food-type substances whose packages tended to depict superheroes or anthropomorphic animals or characters from live-action movie adaptions of YA (young adult) fantasy novels.
Cassie takes another, quieter, less melodramatic sip.
“You noticed how frail our bio-dad looked?” she asks.
Zane pauses. “Uh-huh.”
“He looks a little bit frailer with each call.”
“He does.” Zane tears open a Sweete Organics® Stevia packet.
“I have some knowledge of human physiology. I know if you live long enough, your body starts winding things down. But—”
She stops talking.
Zane, dumping the packet’s contents into his mug: “But what?”
She sips her tea.
“When Reed’s body finishes winding things down?” she says.
“Yes?”
She pauses for three-point-four seconds.
“Well, when that happens,” she says, “who will send me quinoa the next time I have a sports-related injury?”
Zane picks up his mug from the kitchen counter. He takes one quiet sip as his half-sister resumes squinting.
“Cass?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I know who might send you quinoa.”
“Who?”
“Chappell Roan [one of the half-siblings’ favorite pop singers—a white, cisgender woman from Missouri who achieved fame during the Twenty-Twenties]?”
“Yeah, just the person I had in mind.”
“I’d have to ask her first.”
“Of course.”
“But if she tells me thanks but no thanks ’cause she has to, I dunno, water her hydrangeas? You know how much attention celebrities pay to horticultural matters. You earn enough money, you can indulge all your green-thumb fantasies. Anyway, if Chappie can’t send you quinoa, well, I suppose I could.”
“You could? Well, good luck, babe [a reference to Chappell Roan’s 2024 single ‘Good Luck, Babe!’, which peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart].”
“Thanks.”
The half-siblings sip their tea.
“Actually,” Zane says, “I don’t think I would even ask her. After Reed goes to that big academic conference in the sky, well, I want the honor of sending you quinoa—just me, no one else, even though I don’t have diva-esque musical tendencies. Or any other musical tendencies.”
“I sorta suspected you actually wanted the job for yourself.” Cassie sips her tea. “All right, you can send me any nutritious grain you want, anytime you want.”
Zane smiles. He sips his tea.
“You know, Cass, I shoulda leveled with you about my quinoa-related aspirations in the first place, but—I felt like name-dropping?”
“No problem. We all feel that way sometimes. Just ask AOC [one of the half-siblings’ favorite national political figures: US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive, cisgender Latina Democrat from New York state].”
Copyright © 2026 by David V. Matthews
DAVID V. MATTHEWS 