A heart made of stone
“Granite Man” by Elizabeth Lowell
Cash McQueen is your typical Elizabeth Lowell hero (before she ventured onto the treacherous path aka Romantic Suspense aka The Way To Alienate RMB Girls Forever). He’s arrogant, rude and so alpha that his pee is used for rocket fuel. Like any series hero, Cash was perfectly acceptable in the books in which he appears as a secondary character. Put him in his own book however, and all the sense and normality he exhibited previously vanish in a poof of smoke.
Cash is best friends with Luke, who happens to be married to Cash’s sister Carla. One day, Luke’s younger sister Mariah Mckenzie comes along and Cash is a goner. He’s crazy about Mariah but doesn’t want to get involved with her because:
(a) she’s a Good Girl, and you don’t get involved with a Good Girl unless you have marriage in mind (this is why it is more fun to be a Bad Bitch, as exhibited by yours truly)
(b) Mariah is married to Cash’s best friend, so there’s that whole “I can’t be hitting on the baby sister of my best friend because it would be a betrayal of our friendship, forged in the fiery trials of having played with GI Joe when we were young.”
(c) Cash thinks he’s infertile, because he had a case of the mumps when he was younger, and hence thinks that he has nothing to offer Mariah. Yeah I mean, what with the world’s population declining and all, poor Cash really should drop off a cliff not being able to contribute to it.
Cash and Mariah dance around a little and finally get together. But Cash is worried all the while that he won’t be able to commit to Mariah. And when they finally hook up, Cash is constantly insecure that she will leave him, just like his first wife did after he was unable to father a child.
If you can’t see this coming a mile away, turn in your honorary RMB badge, my lovelies. Mariah gets pregnant, but instead of rejoicing and offering a suckling pig to the gods of fertility, Cash is enraged and accuses her of having slept with someone else and trying to pass the baby off as his. Poor wee tyke. Can’t say much about his chances in life, what with having such a blockhead as a father. I come to the realization that the book is entitled “Granite Man” and wonder if this means that Cash’s head is full of granite.
And poor baby Granite is also similarly cursed with a too stupid to live mother. Literally. Mariah decides that her way of getting Cash to believe her, is to go onto some mountain, find a pile of long-lost gold and give it to Cash, as a symbol of her love and devotion. Honey, it works the other way. He’s supposed to get you precious metals. And whatever happened to just getting a paternity test anyway? Because if I was a skeptical man, I would be far more inclined to believe the results of a scientific test, as opposed to say, seeing a huge pile of gold. Unless you inhabit some alternate universe of course, in which case:
Skeptic Granite Man: I do not believe that I am the father of your child!
Desperate pregnant woman: But you are! And I can prove it!
Skeptic Granite Man: How? *arching of eyebrow sardonically*
Desperate pregnant woman: Behold! I bring you gold!
Skeptic Granite Man: Oh you darling gold-digger you! You are pregnant with my child! My line will continue! *embrace lovingly as doves fly above, and hopefully crap on both their heads.*
Cash charges off after Mariah and manages to call her on her cellphone, while she’s at the bottom of a RAVINE. I don’t know what kind of service provider/ phone plan she has, but I want to sign up for it, seeing as how I sometimes lose reception when I take an elevator. He finds Mariah, and shakes her for being such a fool. She looks at him sadly and realizes that her attempt at finding the fool’s gold did not pan out (haha). Now she is the one who has hardened her heart, into a form of solid building material. Guess what it is. Let me tell you, it.. Granite did you say? How did you know? *casts suspicious looks around* You didn’t plant some mind-reading device on me did you? I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that stray jelly bean I saw on the floor!
Anyway, Cash is apologetic towards Mariah and after some rudimentary and pitifully brief grovel, she falls back into his arms. I’m going to find something I can bang my head against. Maybe granite.
Wendy said,
November 14, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
There’s a grovel/gravel pun in there somewhere…
La Lola said,
November 14, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
Aye, but no prizes for guessing where…