Pretty Girls

by Mimi Strong

On Monday at work, Stevey assured Nora, off air, that he was still, indeed, asexual, and the kissing had not awoken any lusty feelings for her. He would probably fudge the truth and talk it up during that day's show, but he didn't really like her like that. She was somewhat reassured by this, because after video dates the previous two nights, she felt like she had a boyfriend of sorts in Aaron, and kissing another man would be wrong.

  During the first two hours of their morning show, they did Weird Stuff We Ordered on the Internet. Nora gave Stevey what appeared to be crispy rice squares, but was actually soap.

  “No fair, it smells like vanilla,” Stevey said on the air. “I know you said it's soap, but I don't believe you. This is actually Rice Krispies and you're punking me.”

  “Why don't you take a little nibble?” she said.

  The producer grinned and nodded encouragement.

  “I'm going to munch into this corner here… mmm.” He did munch into the corner, chewed, then let out some horrible sounds. After, he kept patting at his tongue with paper towels, on air and off. Nora was impressed by Stevey's commitment to authenticity. He'd known bloody well the squares were soap, but he'd eaten it anyway, even though it was radio and he could have just pretended to have taken a bite.

  Stevey presented Nora with a pair of candy handcuffs, also bought via the internet, and dared her to do the rest of the show wearing them, while chewing her way free. Working the controls would be awkward with the cuffs on, but she did it. Stevey simply nodded, and she knew she'd gained his respect. They had equal commitment, they had trust, and according to early numbers, they had a hit show.

  When a caller asked about why Nora had chosen the charity she had the previous week, for the donations from listeners, she looked to Stevey for guidance.

  He gave her another nod, as if to say it was time, and she said, on air, that the charity was very close to her heart, because she'd suffered the loss of a limb herself. “I had a transtibial amputation at the age of fourteen, and I've been lucky enough to have the resources for excellent prostheses and medical treatment. Others are not so lucky, both at home in our own country, and abroad. I appreciate the good work all charities do, but because I've experienced for myself how empowering it is to be able to walk on your own two feet, be they flesh or metal, this charity is close to my heart. I thank you for your donations, and… ” She began pushing up the volume on the next song, a romantic ballad by Julio Iglesias. “The opportunity to kiss Stevey. Life is truly full of wonder.”

  When she looked up, Stevey was wiping at his eye.

  Nora packed some clothes in an overnight bag for her trip home. She still had some clothes and things in her old bedroom, but they were mostly winter clothes, and compared to her new purchases, they were so drab. She felt like she'd been living her life in gray and taupe, and somebody had just switched on the color. She didn't know if it was the new job, living on her own, the confidence from the nose job, or even the blossoming, flirtatious relationship with Aaron. It was probably all of the above, not that it even mattered. This must be what it feels like to become an adult, she thought as she pulled out of the parkade.

  She did a double-take at some people crossing the sidewalk near the radio station. They were from her former city, people she'd see at her grocery store, but what were they doing here? Upon closer inspection, the man's face was longer and the woman was older than she expected. They were doppelgangers! Nora had been seeing them everywhere since she'd moved. Everyone from her former city seemed to have a twin here in the new one.

  Stranger still, people looked at her as though they knew her. It must have been due to the billboards with her face on them. Nobody had approached her for anything as hilarious as an autograph yet, but she'd been getting more stares than usual. She'd mentioned this to Tianne, who had attributed it to the new nose and her matching confidence. “You want people to see you. It's like when a taxi puts its light on.”

  Nora had protested that she was no taxi, but as she drove through town, noticing people on the sidewalks looking back at her, even inside her modest little car, she wondered if it wasn't a little bit true.

  The drive to Eugene was sunny and relaxing.

  Nora returned home in time for a late dinner with her parents. Her mother had been experimenting with recipes, and had made a chicken curry with chunks of banana. It was good, except for the bananas.

  School was out for the summer, and Nora's parents were driving each other crazy, as they always did for the first few weeks. Nora did not regret being away at her own place this year.

  Nora's father stroked his beard and demanded to know when he could come and install permanent safety equipment in Nora's apartment's shower.

  “I said I have a chair. It's very stable.”

  Nora's father frowned and disappeared to the garage to work on the Camaro.

  “I will lend him to you for a week,” Nora's mother said. “Please. Take him. Get a hammer and break some things in your funky little loft, so he can fix them.” When this didn't convince Nora, her mother offered cold, hard cash.

  Nora said, “In another week, you two will be fine, then before you know it, you'll be grumbling about returning to work in the fall.”

  “Maybe it's time to think about retiring,” Nora's mother said. “Your uncle has the right idea. I talked to your father about retiring a few years ahead of schedule, while we're still young and mobile.”

  “What did Dad think of that?”

  Nora's mother tapped her ginger cookie on her plate and looked sad. “He said he might not retire at all. Says he's seen the other guys after they've quit working. They put on twenty pounds, get some type of illness, and they're done. All downhill from there. It's like… he thinks his life will be over if he's not working. I don't know what we've been saving for all these years. I just don't know. We should have taken you on more vacations.”

  “Mom, don't say that. You guys have given me everything a person could want. Except for a pony. I did always want a pony.”

  Nora's mother tapped her cookie again, a little smile on her lips. “Yard's a bit small for a pony, but we can go pick one up today if you like.”

  Nora hugged her mother and kissed her on the top of her head. She'd almost forgotten how much she loved the smell of her mother's special blend of hair products: coconut and lemon, to tame the curls but keep the shine. Nora's own hair serum smelled much more medicinal.

  After they cleared away the dinner and dessert dishes, Nora's mother retired to the rec room to watch her shows, and Nora found herself wandering around her parents' house, seeing everything with new eyes.

  The hallway seemed longer, and the main bathroom seemed enormous, compared to the modest-sized rooms at her loft. The floor was extra squeaky, and the kitchen counters were worn and dated. The clock on the stove made a low, constant hum.

  She lay down in her old room, on the spare blankets, since her beloved quilt had made the move with her. Had the room always been so quiet? She couldn't hear any traffic at all, and there was no pub down the street here in the suburbs, not like there was at her new place. She missed the noise, and fast-paced buzz of young people all around her, but she missed belonging to this little house too. She missed loading the top of the dishwasher while her mother loaded the bottom.

  On Saturday morning, she told her parents only half of the truth. She was, indeed, going to see Tianne and Kylie, but she was also going to see Aaron afterward. As they'd had nothing good to say about him when he was a kid, she didn't count on a sudden change of opinion now that he was an adult of thirty. Her mother had been listening to the new radio show over the internet feed, but did not let on if she'd heard Aaron Edward's new song.

  Tianne's husband had been called in to work for the day, so the girls met at Tianne's house and incorporated the kids into their plans. The six of them, including the baby, gathered around Tianne's thick wood farmhouse table and surveyed the craft supplies.

  “I've never seen so many kinds of glitter,” Kylie sa
id. Her cheeks had good color, and Nora tried not to stare, but the young woman seemed to have gained a few pounds. She'd been taking anti-anxiety medication (which she referred to as jelly beans in front of Tianne's kids), which helped with her moods so she could be in a better frame of mind, and take better care of herself.

  Nora busied herself cutting hearts and diamonds out of red and purple tissue paper.

  Tianne's ten-year-old son participated for all of ten minutes, before he decided it was more fun to shred papers and make his sister Lucy cry, prompting Tianne to acquiesce to letting him watch movies in his room.

  “Boys and girls are NOT the same,” she told Nora and Kylie. “My mother-in-law says all her boys were exactly like this, and it only got worse when they hit their teens. How was I supposed to know? I only had sisters. You two are lucky you work with adults.”

  “Adults?” Kylie repeated. “Have you not seen where I work? I never knew there were so many types of artificial vomit and poop. There's a new kind on my chair or desk, every day.”

  Tianne's five-year-old daughter, Lucy, looked up with big eyes. “Poop? Art-i-ficial poop?”

  “Look at those nice hearts Nora cut out for you,” Tianne said, quickly changing the subject. The baby, in Tianne's lap, lunged for the scissors, but his tiny little arms wouldn't reach.

  They censored their conversation until Lucy and the baby went down for their naps, then the wine came out.

  “You're getting laid,” Tianne said to Kylie. “When are you going to share the details? I hope you're using protection. If there's anything three kids has taught me, it's that the withdrawal method is not as reliable as guys promise.”

  Kylie looked embarrassed, her gaze darting back and forth between Tianne and Nora. “It's still early, and it's more of a crush situation, bordering on second date territory. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to jinx it.”

  Tianne studied Kylie, then said, “Let's see if we can pry into something else then. Come on, this is my only non-computer interaction with adults—my husband doesn't count. Are you… ready to talk about what's going on with your therapist?”

  “Tianne!” Nora admonished her friend.

  “She can always say no,” Tianne said.

  “It's fine,” Kylie said. “I'm happy to talk about it. Talking is part of the recovery process. It's still painful for me, but… ” Suddenly she was crying. “When I think about the adversity… ” She sobbed a few times, then caught her breath and continued, “Nora went through, after she lost her leg, and now how she is, and how brave she is, and courageous, it really inspires me. I have both of my feet, and I should be thankful. I am trying to pray and practice gratitude.” She sniffed and blew her nose on a tissue Tianne handed her.

  Nora felt her stomach pull up and her leg ache. If there was anything she didn't want to be seen as, it was courageous. She didn't fight as a soldier in a war, and she didn't travel to third-world countries to give medical aid. Sure, she supported some charities with her time and money, and she did what she could in her community, but she was no hero, and she didn't like wearing that label. She was no more a hero than any other woman who got up when the alarm clock went off and did her job to the best of her ability, whether she was a school teacher, or a mother, or a radio personality.

  In the past, if someone had said something to this effect, Nora would have challenged them and thrown off their constructed ideas of what her life was all about—what she was all about.

  But as she looked at Kylie, who seemed so healthy and connected to her life, she decided to let it go. Nora pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and counted to twenty, then she picked up the scissors and cut some more diamonds out of tissue paper.

  She glued the diamonds to some thick card stock and added some glitter. The rock star she had a date with later that evening would be the recipient of this card. Like Kylie, Nora chose not to talk about this new relationship, for fear of jinxing things before they began.

  When they were done with crafts and girl-talk, Nora hugged her friends goodbye and went off to her next appointment, her pulse quickening.

  As she drove up to Aaron's house, the A-frame log building got bigger and bigger. The place had to be five thousand square feet inside. Despite Aaron's complaints about the unfairness of the music industry, producing music seemed to pay a weensy bit more than being a radio DJ.

  Nora freshened her lipstick in her car and popped a breath mint in her mouth. She thought of young Aaron Edward at camp, with all his packs of gum—as if he needed a gimmick to get girls to talk to him.

  He opened the door wide, and she was surprised he wasn't wearing the leather pants. She'd been imagining him in them, but the khaki-colored, knee-length shorts were more appropriate for the warm summer weather. His black t-shirt, sporting the album cover of an Indie band Nora neither loved nor hated, was tight, showing off his chest, arms, and narrow waist.

  Nora was just wondering how it was Aaron didn't have a wife or live-in girlfriend when she spotted a matronly woman in the kitchen.

  “Hi, honey,” the woman said to Nora. “You kids probably want your private time. I'm just finishing the dusting and I'll be out of your hair. Don't mind me.”

  Aaron led Nora throughout the house, showing her the recording studio that took over the entire top floor. “It may seem like a big space, but when you have a band in here, plus their entourage, and their entourage's entourage, the place fills up.” He stopped to examine the arm of a leather sofa. “Cigarette burn. I'll have to add that to their bill.”

  “Glamorous,” Nora said.

  “You think that's hot, you should see my filing cabinets.”

  They ended up in a sitting room, facing the picture window.

  “The only thing marring your lovely view is my crap car,” Nora said.

  “Your car's cute.” He reached over and pulled on one of her curls. “Boing.”

  A door slammed somewhere in the building. “Housekeeper leaving? Are we alone?”

  “Mm hmm. Helen has left the building.”

  She thought through a few scenarios in her mind. She could be coy, or she could be forward. She could continue to pretend they hadn't been flirting with each other over their webcams, or she could just say something. She could ask him to kiss her, or ask for permission to kiss him.

  She stayed silent and tried to send him a message with her eyes.

  He started to say something, leaning in to her, then he closed his mouth and kissed her.

  After so many years of dreaming about this minute, Nora found it difficult to relax and experience it, so busy was her brain screaming out it's happening! I'm kissing Eddie!

  Her mouth was dry from nervousness, and the kissing was awkward. His hands flew around like confused birds, lighting on her shoulders, her lap, then the back of the sofa.

  After a few minutes, he pulled back, his gaze down, and said, “I feel like a teenager.”

  Nora felt like a teenager too, but in a good way. “You have my permission to go to second base,” she said. Though they'd barely seen each other in person recently, the long webcam sessions had given them some comfortable familiarity.

  He rubbed his hands together and blew on them, making her laugh. He put his hands on her stomach, under her shirt, and she stopped laughing. He kissed her again, and with his hands under her shirt and out of the way, it was much more enjoyable.

  She ran her hands through his silky black hair, and then down his back. His spine was damp with perspiration. She pulled back and lay along the couch, pulling him down against her. He lay on his side next to her and kissed her face and neck. He rolled her onto her side, spooning against her back, and kissed the back of her neck. She shivered and arched against him.

  They kissed and touched each other for an eternity, neither one making a move to remove a single article of clothing. Flushed with pleasure, she rolled back to face him and kissed him until her cheeks and lips were raw from his chin. His chin was closely-shaved, but still rough
compared to her soft skin. He grabbed her by the hips and held her steady underneath him, and the weight of him on top of her was bliss.

  He didn't make any effort to remove her clothes. She, however, had to make an effort to not remove his. She ached for him, and didn't want to wait any longer than it had been.

  He shifted his weight and asked if he was hurting her.

  “No,” she said.

  Grinning he said, “But you were making those little noises.”

  “Shut up,” she said, wrapping her arms around him as she pressed her hips up against his.

  He stopped talking and kissed her some more, his weight pinning her in place under him. She let out another sigh, and he nibbled her earlobe.

  They didn't even get to second base, and she appreciated the sensation of still being hungry for him, an hour later.

  Eventually, they transitioned into cuddling, and he mentioned dinner. Nora's head was hot and foggy as he pulled her up, off the couch.

  Downstairs, in the huge kitchen, Aaron rummaged through the drawer full of takeout menus. She fidgeted, peeking in drawers. When he turned to watch her, she smiled as shyly as a teenager and twirled one of her corkscrew curls with one hand.

  They ate pizza and watched an old movie together, he with his arm around her shoulders and she with her hand on his knee. Something was happening between them. She didn't know what it was, but she'd have to tell her parents. Not tonight, though. Tonight they would just be together, holding hands and kissing like a couple of kids.

  She stayed until it was difficult to keep her eyes open, then she tore herself away to return home. Aaron kissed her goodbye with all the passion of a man heading off to outer space, worried he'd never see her again.

  When Nora got home to her parents' house that night, she was careful to open and close the door quietly to not wake her parents. Razzles was on her bed. The fluffy white cat had been ignoring her since she'd arrived the evening before.

  She whispered to him, “Oh, are you over your abandonment issues? You want to hang out with me now?”