by Cathy Lamb
And Dan The Vibrator had nothing at all on Toran Ramsay.
I fell asleep on top of Toran. When I woke up, to him kissing me, we made love again.
In my books I sometimes write that the sex is speedy, shuddering yum the first time and slower the second time to savor, to build the pressure, to stroke, to tease a tad, here and there....
Nope. Didn’t happen like that to Toran and me.
Raging heat and thunderous orgasms again.
I collapsed a second time on top of him. We went to sleep.
Third time?
Same thing.
Toran hugged me all night long.
On Thursday and Friday I decided to garden after I worked on Toran’s books. I had made headway with his business and I needed to get my hands in soil.
Gardening brings me peace like almost nothing else. I put on my jeans with the rope belt and my black gardening boots and went to the nursery.
I can’t help myself in a nursery. If I have a shopping addiction, it’s all related to plants. The owner sent her sons back with me to drop off the loot and place it where I needed it planted. The Stanleys came over and helped me, and we worked in my garden for hours.
We planted boxwoods in a circle in the backyard and propped up the statue of the little girl wearing galoshes holding an umbrella in the center of it. It was chipped now, but I loved it. We fixed the brick walk to the front door and lined a path to the back corner of the yard where I would later place two wooden chaise lounges. We planted nine rose bushes, where my mother had planted hers. Three were still living.
There were already many trees, but Toran had brought me three apple trees, and we put those in, too.
The next day I planted marigolds, alyssum, and begonias in my father’s leftover shoe, our wheel barrel I’d finally found, and an old, cracked rowboat of my father’s. It was still in the garage, and I didn’t want to part with it. The Stanleys and I carried it to the back, filled it with potting soil, and soon it honored my father’s love of the sea, only now it showed a love of begonias.
After the Stanleys left, the sun sinking, shadows dancing, I picked up my mother’s birdhouses and started painting them. Red, blue, green, yellow. When they were dry, I would hang them on a fence, altogether.
Right before the sun went to sleep, I took a walk around. There are many things I love about gardening, but one of the most important is that you can always see improvement. A patch of weeds is gone. Flowers are planted. Bushes are trimmed, garden art hung, a bird feeder cleaned, a patio swept, a vine wrapped around a trellis.
Life is so often not like that. You can’t always see the improvement. You can’t see that you’ve done anything, that anything has been accomplished, or made better.
But in a garden, it’s right there. You made pretty.
My mother would be pleased. I remembered what she’d told me once. “A feminist knows what she likes to do and she does it. For you, it’s gardening. So do it. Never let society or, especially, a man, tell you what you should like to do or how you should feel. Listen to yourself. You are the only one who knows the true you. Now, get out in your garden and get dirty.”
The next night Toran and I had dinner, a seafood paella that I made, my mother’s recipe, then played chess, at my house. We had all these awkward interludes where we forgot we were playing chess and stared at each other. I realized once that I had moved my pieces three times without him moving, and he realized he’d moved twice without me moving. This was absolutely unheard of for us, as we take our chess games seriously.
When he won, he stepped over the table and wrapped his arms around me, and we made love on the rug in front of the fireplace. He said, “I won, so I choose the position.” I was more than willing to capitulate to that.
We played queen and king. Knight and rook. Pawn and bishop.
We fell asleep in front of the fireplace. I woke up the next morning, in bed, his arms around me, blankets and my iris comforter piled over us.
I smiled and started to laugh, he woke up and started to laugh, and then we started the whole king-queen love match again.
I could play chess with Toran, then make love. Checkmate.
I love Toran.
We didn’t talk about it, but we started staying one night at my place and one night at Toran’s. Back and forth. We took Silver Cat with us. She likes riding in the car.
I worked in the office upstairs in the yellow building and he’d come by to say hello. He was incredibly busy with the apples and blueberries, harvesting, cleaning, boxing, shipping, trucks in and out, but he would say hello, smile, and we’d stand like that, smiling.
Norma caught us kissing once and said, “Now, this brightens up me day, it does, sure and again. Carry on. Don’t let me stop you!”
We kissed again and she stood in the doorway, clapping. “Romance is in the Scottish air, by tea and by crumpets, it is!”
We cooked and ate dinner together. We liked poring over recipe books to plan a menu, or using the recipes I had in my head from my mother. Sometimes we made love when he walked in the door. Sometimes we made love for dessert. Sometimes we could wait an hour.
We went to Molly Cockles Scottish Dancing Pub a few times. We played poker and danced and had dinner with friends, Toran’s arm around me. We sat with Olive and her husband, Reginald. Olive had knitted Reginald a Doberman scarf, and he was wearing it. The Doberman had a maniacal grin. I don’t think this was intentional. She was wearing a scarf with a mutt on it. The mutt was crazy. Not intentional, either. Probably.
Rowena came when the kids were with The Arse and The Slut, and Kenna came with her husband, bald and friendly Denholm, who is a doctor, too.
We laughed. We were both asked, quietly, separately, if we were together, and we said yes, so they bought rounds of “love potion” beer, as Olive called it, and we went home and made love again.
Toran was a true Scot in bed. He was huge and broad and long-legged and solidly hipped, so he was sexy, au naturel. Sometimes he dressed in his kilt and played the bagpipes. That kilt turned me on.
But his sexiness lay more in the fact that I loved his mind, had always loved his mind. I was with the right person. I was with my best friend from when I was a kid. I was with the first man I fell in love with when I was fifteen.
He kissed me, I kissed him back . . . then I dove right in and rode the passion wave.
Finally, my own passion wave, like I’d written about in my books . . . Ha. It did exist.
Ha-ha!
I put all my clothes—there weren’t many—on my sleigh bed upstairs, on the fluffy and warm iris bedspread Toran gave me.
I have always prided myself on simplicity and frugality. It was probably a direct contrast to my mother, who is a clothes horse.
“A woman, a feminist, should look her best,” she always told me. “Not for a man, but for herself. For her self-image and self-confidence. Feeling your best gives you courage to get out the door and demand respect, to do what you need to do. Are you presenting your best, Charlotte? No. It takes twenty minutes to transform from looking like a slovenly sloth to a lovely woman. Homeless to Lovely. You can do it.”
I studied my clothes again.
I missed my mother. “Don’t try to disappear into blah clothes, darling, please,” she had told me. “You are much too special to do that. Are you trying to disappear?”
Yes, I was. I had disappeared, in many ways, for years, after my father died. I wanted to disappear in high school when I was teased and felt awkward, lost and lonely. I wanted to disappear after my divorce and what I found out about my husband. I wanted to disappear after that long, loud book tour and all the attention. I wanted to be alone.
Did my clothes reflect disappearance?
Yes.
I thought of Toran. Perhaps I didn’t need to disappear as thoroughly anymore. I could appear, instead. Not appear too loudly, but appear.
I picked all my clothes up and dumped them into a black plastic trash bag. Two skirts, si
x blouses, my cat vest, my horse poncho, my Julia Child shirt, the slicker that went to my knees, my red and yellow rain hat, the brown sweater with the blue whale, and my two pairs of jeans, one with the rope belt I’d found on my island. Black sturdy shoes with holes. I would donate them. No. No one should wear those clothes. I would save them from themselves. I would trash them.
I put on the brown skirt, brown sturdy shoes, and white blouse.
“For the last time,” I muttered.
I grabbed my purse and headed to the village.
I think I was the shopkeepers’ favorite person that day. At one shop, decorated mostly in pink, I bought three summer dresses, three skirts, three pairs of jeans, and ten colorful tops. The saleslady said the size I wanted to wear was too big.
“Dear,” Esther chuckled. “I don’t know why you think that’s the correct size for you and your bum. It’s not. Have you lost weight? No, then. This is your correct size. . . . No, dear, once again.” Esther took from me the shirts that I pulled off a rack and handed me new ones. “This size. This will cling to your bosom, not hang like a grocery sack.” She wagged a finger at me. “A woman should not dress like a sack.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“She is correct, then, in fashion fitting.”
In the dressing room, I wrapped my arms around my chest because I felt so uncomfortable to be that . . . outlined in a shirt, but then I dropped my arms and gave myself a personal analysis.
I had boobs.
I was a woman. No need to hide the bosom. Right? I swallowed hard. Right? Could I put my body on display like that?
My mother had been clear about my clothes. “You hide underneath your clothes so you can’t see you and so others can’t see you. See yourself. You need to want to see yourself. Be brave, honey.”
I took a deep breath. Okay, no hiding anymore. It wasn’t like my cleavage was bulging out. I bought the clothes. I liked them. I could barely recognize myself, but I liked what I saw. Esther said, “You have excellent taste,” though she’d picked them all out for me. I dropped the pink bags in Toran’s truck.
At another shop I bought two pairs of sandals and three pairs of flats—one in red, one in tan, and one in cheetah print because I was feeling free, growly, and stylishly jungley. I bought two pairs of heels—one black, one red. I suddenly liked my flipper feet. They didn’t look so flipperish in heels. I bought a pair of red plastic boots for the farm.
At a third shop I bought twenty-four pairs of lacy panties and six bras. The colors? White, black, red, magenta, pink, purple. The lady there fitted me. “This is what you were wearing?” She held my beige bra up with one finger and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll dispose of it here. And it was completely the wrong size. Too small. No wonder it hurt. Your wobbly parts were being smashed to bits.”
I lugged the bags out to my car. I felt ridiculous. All these clothes. So indulgent! Materialistic! Unattractive consumerish behavior!
Then I decided today was my day to defrumpify and didn’t feel guilty. I rarely bought clothes, and then usually at Goodwill.
I stared at my pretty bags stacked up in the back of the truck.
I laughed. Good-bye, Frumpy Charlotte.
Hello, new dresses and lacy bras that will push my boobies up so Toran can see and touch them.
McKenzie Rae wasn’t the only one who could shake her booty in purple zebra stripes!
I decided to get my hair done before I left the village. I saw a salon called Louisa’s. It had lace curtains and a red sign.
Louisa was what I called a well-done-up woman. Her black hair curled down her back, her lashes were thick, her lipstick bright red, and her dress clung to curves that should not be allowed as they make the rest of us feel like bacteria. She was stunning. If I saw her near Toran, I’d want to put a brown bag over her head and wrap her in a black plastic sack.
I stared down at my skinny self with my rack of boobs. Then I compared myself. “I feel flat next to you.”
“No, no, darling, you not. Stick them out, like this.” She pushed my shoulders back and thumped me in the middle of my back, not that gently. “There. Now you are the woman! Be proud of the womanhood, no? The femininity? I say to God, each day, thank God I not stupid man.”
Louisa was from Mexico, I learned. She had fallen in love with Erroll Fraser when they were in Guadalajara. She was living there, and he had been visiting on a university exchange program. She was engaged, at the time, to another man. She was twenty. She broke off the engagement, and she and Erroll wrote letters for six months when he returned to Scotland. Then she followed him, after a wedding at her parents’ home in Mexico.
“We still in love. Every day.” They had four teenagers. Errol was a professor at the university.
Louisa studied me, sitting in her chair. She took the clip off the top of my head, pulled the rubber band off that held my hair in a ball, and said, “Madre de Dios. What is this? I no understand the clippy thing. Your hair like long-haired mouse. You want to be long-haired mouse?”
“Not really,” I told her. “I do have an affinity for mice because of my love of cats.”
“Ah yes. I like my cats, too. Adios and Hola, killer of mice. But you no want to look like mouse to love the cats, no? I am right, I know this. Come. Come,” she said. “I fix you. Don’t worry. You won’t be no mouse when Louisa done with you.”
Her scissors started clipping.
“Here. I turn you. You no watch. I see you be nervous. No nervous. I fix this”—she swirled her hand in the air around my face—“bad problemo.”
Based on the click click click of her scissors and her “This not right.... I cut this here. . . .” click, click, click and “You never cut hair, no?” I would probably be bald when she was done with me.
A bald cat lady.
But we did have a stimulating conversation as I learned about Louisa’s life, including that she makes the best Chinese food, reads constantly about World War II, adores her “rebel teenagers, ah. They so rebel,” and loves gardening. “When mad, me, I get out the clippers and snip, snip, like that. Everything I cut. Husband get out of way.”
Like I said, a stimulating conversation.
“Louisa,” Louisa announced, hands on her hips, black hair thrown back, an hour later. “She work miracle. I work the miracle on you. Not a mouse no more. Now you are va-va-voomimg.” She fluffed my hair. She took off my glasses and held them with two fingers, as if holding a wiggly mouse.
“Not these. No more. Tape? You tape glasses? You see.” She pointed down the street. “Go to doctor of eyes. He fix you.” She dropped my glasses in the same trash can as my hair and my “clippy thing.”
“Good-bye tape glasses. Not pretty, Charlotte. No.” She waved a finger in my face. “Now you sexy. Go get sexy eyes.”
I agreed to go get sexy eyes. As I’d heard one of the lenses break when it hit the bottom of the trash can, I had no choice.
“I do makeup on you, Charlotte. You see. Those green eyes. Bright. Love the eye! But I make brighter.” She took some sort of pencil out of a container. “And see? No, no, you no back away. No scared! This mascara. You hold still.” I was too afraid to move as she kept waving that black stick near my eyes. “See cheekbones, here. I like yours.” She put powdered blush on them. “And you mouth. See? Fat lips. I like the fat lip on you. Lipstick. So easy. Four makeups, Charlotte. Liner. Mascara. Lipstick. Blush for the cheekies. Mucho better. You take these with you, as gift. I turn you now. You ready, Charlotte? Now you are a Charlotte. Not a mouse. Here we go, señorita! I spin you now to mirror!”
Whew.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t move.
“See?” Louisa laughed in triumph. “I turn you beautiful. I so good. I so good at this. I the best. Now you the best.” She put her cheek to mine. “And I like you, too, Charlotte.”
Couldn’t speak.
“You no speak, right? I know. I t
alent.”
I shook my head, mesmerized. Was that me?
“New life for you, Charlotte. New and happy love life. Better in the bed now. You feel va-va-vooming, in the bed, va-va-vooming.”
Although things were somewhat blurry without my glasses, I hardly recognized myself. My long brown hair, relegated to a bun, was often tangly and fried on the ends and hard to brush through. Periodically I would take it upon myself to cut it. Now it dropped in soft brown waves to right below my shoulder blades. It was thicker and shiny. Louisa cut bangs, straight across, which made my overly long forehead appear . . . normal. The waves cupped my face so my face didn’t resemble a skeleton.
My eyes were brighter and seemed much wider, not so googly. I had cheekbones. I leaned forward. Fat lips. She was right. That lipstick did it.
“Yes, see? You have the fat lips. Not from fist. I have that before. No like. But these fat lips are your fat lips. For kissing and for . . .” She nodded down. “For the lower on the man, if you want. He like. That what I think. On the down low for the man only if you love him. You love him? You do with those fat lip of yours. What you think?”
“I think I’m surprised you’re talking about that, but I like the lipstick.”
She hugged me. “You lovely lady. That truth. Now, you go swing around that man of yours. And what I know now, I have new friend, Charlotte.”
I stood up and she hugged me.
“Oh no, Charlotte. No crying! You mess up all the makeup! No cry. See. Oh no. You make Louisa cry, too. Bad girl.” She thumped me on the buttocks this time. “No cry, ah, you sensitive lady.”
I couldn’t believe it.
I was . . . maybe . . . a tad . . . pretty.
I smiled. Braces had done the trick, and I did have white teeth.
“Now you are naughty lady,” Louisa said, winking. “Go be naughty.”
I did have to spend a few minutes thinking about my makeover and how that intersected with feminism, woman power, the role of women in society, and how I reject what society says a woman has to be and do and look like.
