Phlegmatic

As in:

If he couldn’t quite get used to trying to be with a woman who lived in a yurt with two other women, well, it was just going to have to be Kevin’s loss. It hadn’t taken Val very long to get to that conclusion and, indeed, she’d gotten there more quickly than her two “sisters,” her roommates Nora and Gwen, both of whom were intrigued by Kevin’s vulnerability and, yeah, the delicious looking dimples. Those they would miss.

But the sting lingered and it became sort of a joke.

“Well, look,” Nora reasoned, “at least you can’t call us trailer trash for living in a yurt.”

And what the hell did college men expect, anyway? That every worthwhile college girl had a rich father? That tuition, room and board, and heat for that matter, came out of a spigot?

They accentuated the joke by speaking regularly in a Victorian accent, choosing high-brow words and pretending their strong coffee was tea from the Lord’s manor.

And then James began to call on Val, and she relented and went with him one evening, in town, to a book reading by a famous zoologist, and then to a smoky bar for a couple beers.

“I can’t tell whether James is phlegmatic or erudite,” Val said when she returned, with snowflakes atop her woolen hat.

“Gosh sakes child!” said Nora, doing her best Judi Dench impersonation, “which is it then? Phlegmatic or erudite?!”

Val sat, big smile on her face, and looked gently into her lap. The snowflakes began to melt, sending drops to the knotted pine floor next to the pottery wheel.

“Ah, he’s an okay guy though,” she replied. “Just stiffer than I expected. Think I’ll go with phlegudite.”