Producing Parents

“Good afternoon ma’am,” Ali bowed as he entered and greeted Yana, who was already sitting in the same chair he was on when he held her for detention. Naomi followed behind him and sat next to him.

                “Good afternoon, Sir Ali,” she nodded to him, then turned to Naomi and added, “Miss Darren.” She stood up and went in front of the table and sat on it. “I was really glad to see you together this morning. I think that’s an improvement in your bad acting skills.” If they’re after skills in faking things, they’re with the best teacher. “But we need to do better and that’s why we’re here.

                “Welcome to Faking Relationships 101.” Yana introduced and went on.

                “There are only a few things you should remember to make people believe all these are true. We can go around and announce you’re a couple but what for if you can’t act like you truly are? So, listen and listen well. If you can, write them down.

                “Number one: Get to know each other better. You’re colleagues and I know that you know some information about each other. But we need more than just obvious information. So find time to interrogate each other.

                “Number two: let others see you together. That morning in the corridor is a good move but it needs improvement. You’re far from each other as a couple, but close enough as friends. Try to make it look like the former. You can sometimes have lunch together, or have dinner. Go out to see movies. It doesn’t always have to be in school. Remember that our little Mr. Problem Maker is nowhere exactly to be found so we have to extend the pretend outside the school grounds. Sir Ali, you can sometimes offer Miss Darren a drive home. Miss Darren, you can sometimes, well, bring a bottle of water to Sir Ali when he plays.

                “Number three: hold hands sometimes. Why sometimes? Well, we don’t want to overdo it and make it look creepy. Just do it in the appropriate number of times. This might be a little awkward, yes, but for the mean time you can keep in your minds that you’re only faking a relationship. That makes it easy. The longer you do it, the better you get in faking it. Later on, you’ll find the holding hands part, meaningless.

                “Number four: Hug or put a hand on each other’s waist in an appropriate number of times as well. This could be done less than the number three.

                “Number five: Practice one to four, especially numbers one and two. Evaluate your acting by asking yourselves or each other if you believe it. If the other doesn’t, work on areas that have to be improved. Nothing can make this fake relationship seem real but having yourselves believing it is.” Yana finished.

                “That… is,” Naomi said, impressed in Yana’s way of delivering her lecture but at the same time shocked by how much homework she and Ali have to accomplish, “practically everything a real couple does.”

                “Well, faking kind of works that way,” Yana said, smiling.

                Ali was still shocked by Yana’s lecture that he couldn’t find his voice. He looked like his in the middle of speaking with his mouth hanging open.

                “That’s all for today, class,” Yana said, her fake smile flashed but her brows were meeting in a way that made her looked confuse. Even Yana knows that her professors need a couple of minutes more to digest her lesson. So she waited, frozen with her fake smile and meeting eyebrows. Ali and Naomi were both unmoving. Ali, staring blankly to the board, his mouth closed when he remembered how to swallow and Naomi had her head slightly turned to the door at the left side of the room, but her gaze is focused on the opposite side. That went on to what seem to them like forever.