Sarah Ayoub - The Cult of Romance

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Australia in 2022

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

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Copyright Sarah Ayoub 2022

The right of Sarah Ayoub to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 4607 5894 6 (paperback)

ISBN 978 1 4607 1268 9 (ebook)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Cover design by and illustration by George Saad

Author photo by @capturedbyclaudine

To James, who called me One from the start, and
who taught me so much about love and romance
(with only a little bit of mansplaining)

Oh God, I cant look, Janet says, turning her head away from the screen. Were on the floor of the living room at my place, eating popcorn and working on an English assignment with my grandmother snoring loudly on the couch behind us.

What? I exclaim, tugging at her shirt. If I have to, you have to!

We cringe at the scene on the screen before us. Sleeping Beauty is batting her eyelashes and smiling at the man who has just kissed her without her consent, and all around the world girls think its romantic, instead of the violation that it is.

Why did we choose this movie for our assignment? Janet asks. Its gross. I cant believe we used to love it.

Because its the perfect example of how the indoctrination starts, I say. Its fed to us from childhood: boys get to play with trucks and girls play with dolls and mini kitchenettes, boys watch superhero flicks and girls watch princesses live happily ever after with men they just met. I mean, the guy literally kisses her back to life. Like, as if.

Imagine if its like Ms Awads favourite movie, she says, making a face. And were writing a thousand-word essay completely trashing it.

No way, I say. You cant possibly be a happy single woman in your thirties like she is a happy single Lebanese woman in your thirties without knowing that these movies set the most unrealistic expectations for girls.

And women, she adds.

Women, women, my tayta mutters mockingly behind us, barely awake from her evening nap. Why you women watching cartoon? Go make a samboosik or sumting.

Janet snorts. If I marry a guy who likes homemade samboosik, Ill die, she whispers.

Dying seems like, a bit extreme, I tell her. You can just buy them frozen at the lahme bi agine shop in Greenacre. Handmade by some old-fashioned lady like her. I point to Tayta behind us, who is dozing off again, gold chains around her neck all tangled.

Speaking of handmade, we need to start perfecting our recipes from now, I reckon, Janet says.

I nod in agreement, grabbing the remote and muting the closing credits of Sleeping Beauty so we can work on the business idea we recently had, born out of our weekend baking experiments and our desire to see the world.

Lets practise in the Christmas holidays before Year Ten starts, I suggest, turning to my laptop. If we nail, like two dessert-cup recipes, everything else will fall into place.

Yeah, but weve also gotta practise our piping, she points out. Were both bad at it.

I shrug. We have time. We have at least six years to save up before well take our first trip overseas together, right?

One hundred percent, she says. Its not like were gonna take a gap year. Gotta get that degree so I can work on becoming an uber-successful CEO.

She says that last part with so much sass that I cant help but laugh.

In front of me, the DVD jumps back to the main menu and I stare at the screen.

I still cant believe how much we loved this movie when we were little, I say eventually.

The look on Janets face is one of pity. We didnt know any better, she says. We just knew they were in love.

Pfft, I scoff. Like thats a freakin excuse.

Five years later

How was she? my cousin Layal asks as she walks up the hall of her townhouse, picking up a stray truck from underneath the stairs and tossing it into the large wicker toy basket.

Ive been watching her daughter, Grace, so that she and her husband, Charlie, could go to one of his work functions. Im spent. Three hours watching Peppa Pig on repeat, baking a dozen cupcakes and drawing has left me completely depleted, and reaffirms how much I love giving kids back to their parents at the end of a babysitting shift.

Layal drops her handbag to the floor and falls onto the couch, slipping off her shoes.

Good, I guess, I tell her. Ate when she was supposed to, peed on the potty with no accidents, asked for three bedtime stories, but

Charlie chuckles. Thats just standard Grace, he says. Goes through a wheel of excuses before bed.