“You’ve been saying that for months. And it’s just negative thinking,” Carmen our self-help guru said. “The trick is to become Queen of Whatever Bugs You The Most.”
All eyes focused on me and suddenly I wanted to squirm. Heat rushed to my cheeks and spread down my neck. Like an untalented teenager asked to perform musically for fawning relatives, I longed to hide under the table. Desperately I searched my brain for a believable lie.
“Remember. We’ve vowed to tell the truth,” Queen Magda said, as if reading my devious mind.
There was no doubt what bothered me the most. I had always known. I just didn’t want to admit it, even to my closest friends. It was a minute before I could manage to speak.
“The thing that scares me most in the whole realm of singlehood is flirting,” I finally admitted.
“Flirting challenged!” Queen Carmen lifted her wine glass in a salute. “That’s something we can help you with. I just finished reading Mars and Venus on a Date. We’re studying the book in Sunday school.”
“You’re studying what in Sunday school?” Magda, our good backslider Baptist asked.
“It’s a singles class.” Carmen defended her church. “And I’m Methodist so it’s okay.”
Laughter erupted, even though Carmen was dead serious.
“Coronation time!” Pamela riffled through the large canvas bag she usually carried and pulled out a rhinestone tiara. Carmen sprang to her feet and took a feather boa out of a nearby cabinet while Magda reached into her hall closet and grabbed a yardstick with The Home Depot printed across it.
A chair was arranged in a place of honor at the center of the room and I sat down, feeling more than a little self-conscious. The three stood around me, faces solemn. Carmen stepped forward.
“I cover you with royal robes to protect you from shyness and from the foolish fear of making an idiot of yourself in public.” Then she draped the hot-pink boa around my shoulders.
If only her proclamation were possible!
“I crown you with self-assuredness and every flirting skill gathered from the four corners of the earth.” Pamela plopped the tiara on my head.
Magda drew herself up to her full five feet and tapped me on each shoulder with the yardstick.
“I proclaim you Katherine, Queen of Flirtation.”
“Hail Her Royal Majesty Lady Katherine, Queen of Flirtation.” The three of them lifted their wine or cola glasses toward me.
“But I haven’t had a date in over thirty years,” I protested. “I’ll make a royal fool of myself.”
“Just so it’s royal,” Pamela said.
Chapter 2
I left Roundtable overwhelmed with cockamamie advice on flirting and giddy with carbohydrates. My assignment, until our next meeting, was to flirt with every eligible man I met. Actually I added the word “eligible.” My friends told me to flirt with any male aged ten to one hundred just for the practice.
Easier said than done. At least for me. With my self-confidence destroyed by my rat-fink husband, I didn’t have a clue how to start. And the thought of deliberately making a fool of myself seemed both inevitable and terrifying. Still I was determined to try.
It had all sounded so easy last night. I remembered every word of my friends’ advice:
“Just think about having sex with whomever you’re smiling at,” Pamela had said, her eyes dreamy with some far-away remembrance. “The power of sex is all in the mind. If you’re on the prowl and ready to say yes, men just know that. Make eye contact and imagine him naked. It works like a charm. I promise you.”
I swallowed hard. Just the idea of such thoughts terrified me. I had been married to the same man for thirty years. I had loved having sex with my husband. But when I looked at other men I saw the postman, or a fellow employee, or a plumber. Never did I see a potential date. And for sure they were all fully clothed. It never occurred to me these men ever stripped naked. Not even to shower. Pamela’s suggestion to imagine making love with men I met caused cold sweat to coat my brow.
“But be ladylike and demure as you do it.” Carmen immediately added her complication. “I’ve just finished reading a book called Sex for the Senior by some woman right here in Tulsa. She says that sleeping with a man before marriage is a sure way to stay single forever. So promise him everything with your smile, but don’t sleep with him. Else he’ll never propose.”
“But all of the guys you slept with married you,” I said.
“That’s true, and see how those marriages turned out? If I’d been celibate, I would still be married to Delmar, my first.”
“Of course Katy will want to have sex,” Magda said. “Why would she opt to wait? Besides, in this day and age a woman can’t get a date if she says no. There’s the three-date rule. You all know that.”
“Why can’t I write my own date rules?” I asked, mentally penning, ‘Any guy who expects sex as payment for dinner is history.’ But no one was listening.
“Who waits for three dates?” Pamela asked but Magda ignored everyone and kept talking.
“You must take that sign off your forehead that says ‘don’t even think about it,’” Magda said. “Pamela’s right about getting your thinking straight.”
* * *
I forced these remnants of last night’s meeting from my mind and concentrated on the problem at hand. Garry Ray had carried off my nightstand when he moved out and my lamp was sitting on an old metal TV tray. My oldest daughter, Sharon, had volunteered to help me find a cheap replacement.
The two of us strode through Picture Perfect Furniture with a mission. We had heard there was a bargain area with discounted odd pieces, sometimes marked down as much as seventy-five percent.
“Can I help you ladies find something?” a man carrying a clipboard said.
“We’re looking for your bargain room,” I said.
The salesman was already giving directions when “Royal” voices belatedly sounded in my head and I remembered I was supposed to be flirting.
I looked at the guy. Stereotypical salesman. He was about my age, balding, wore glasses and had a paunch hanging over his belt. No wedding ring. Of course that didn’t mean anything.
And I was supposed to picture this guy naked? They had to be kidding. Heat burned my cheeks.
Smile, the voices said. Gaze into his eyes and smile. Think about having sex with him. I swallowed hard and tried to follow my friends’ advice. If a man could do that then I could, too. I’ll bet anything that Garry Ray mentally undressed every woman he met.
That thought cemented my resolution. I flashed the salesman a toothpaste-ad smile, looked deep into his rather alarmed looking brown eyes and stripped him naked inside my head. It really wasn’t too hard. Garry Ray had a paunch, too. I just subtracted the hair and put this guy’s face on my ex’s body.
“Discounted merchandise is on the lower level, ma’am. Remember to take the attached tag as soon you see the item you want. Whoever has that tag has the furniture.” Then he turned and fled as if for his life.
“No one is interested in helping someone find a bargain, there’s no commission,” I complained to Sharon as we walked down the stairs.
“Why were you looking at him in that weird way?” Sharon asked. “And why did your face get red?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said archly.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and I surveyed the area. Furniture was piled willy-nilly without any obvious planning. “You go left and I’ll head right. If you see a nightstand then let me know.”
“Grab the tag if you see one,” Sharon said.
“There’s no one down here but us,” I said. “So I don’t think that will matter.”
I trod my way carefully around a melange of sofas, small bookcases, computer desks and armchairs. I’d never seen so much mismatched furniture. But was there a nightstand anywhere?
Suddenly I spied one. Light mahogany with three drawers down the front. Just what I needed and it would blend in
perfectly with the bedroom furniture I already had. I turned away to signal Sharon.
“Over here,” I called. “I think that I’ve found one.” She said something that I couldn’t quite understand so I wended my way through the maze of junk and found her. “I’ve got it,” I said.
“Did you take the tag?” she asked.
“No, but it’ll be all right. I haven’t seen another soul.” I led her back to the nightstand just as a tall, well-built middle-aged man snatched the tag off my treasure.
“Excuse me,” I called out. “Sorry, but that’s my nightstand. I saw it first. I just left for a minute to get my daughter. Would you mind?” I held out my hand for the tag with a sinking heart. My excuse sounded feeble, but I knew that particular piece of furniture was supposed to be mine.
“What?” The guy looked confused. “But it had a tag on it. The salesman said if it had a tag that meant no one had yet claimed it.”
“He’s right, Mama,” Sharon said. “You should have grabbed the tag like I told you. That nightstand belongs to him.”
There’s nothing as infuriating as your own stupidity, unless it’s having your firstborn point out said stupidity. In an attempt to try and compensate for my ineptitude I found myself arguing with the man.
“I just forgot,” I said. “I really did see it first.” Even I knew how insane my logic was. But the stand was only eighty dollars and it was beautiful. I needed this particular piece of furniture in the worst possible way. This guy was well dressed, so why did he need to shop in a bargain basement anyway? There was no way in the world he was as hard up as I was. Of course I couldn’t say that, so I just glared.
“We could toss a coin.” He grinned and reached into his pocket for a quarter. “Want to call it?”
“Heads,” I said. Everyone knows that heads always win.
He flipped the coin, grabbed it and slapped it on the back of his hand. Then he raised his palm. “Tails,” he said. “Sorry.”
When we reached the top of the stairs the salesman was waiting for me with a big grin on his face as if he’d belatedly processed my sexy non-verbal message. He rubbed the palms of his hands together and looked at me as if I were a sirloin steak and he were a TV chef.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “Did we find what we wanted?”
I could swear he was mentally undressing me. The jerk.
I grabbed Sharon’s hand as if she were five years old and marched her out of the store without saying one word.
“Mama,” she said with a worried look on her face. “You’re getting really weird.”
“Weird?” I asked, cut to the bone. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Well.” She paused a minute as if trying to figure out how to explain herself without hurting my feelings. “You flirted with the nerd and fought with the cute guy. That’s pretty strange, even for you. Maybe you should check some self-help books out of the library on old people dating.”
“Old people? Are you talking about me?”
“Oh, Mama, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but…”
“But what? Maybe I seem old because of the twelve hours of labor it took to bring you into the world.” I couldn’t believe I had said that, it sounded like something my own mother would say. I blushed from embarrassment, but my mouth just wouldn’t shut up. “I don’t need self-help,” I said. “I have the Roundtable.”
“But they’re all old, too.”
I rolled my eyes. How could a twenty-two-year-old understand? Then I remembered that I had felt the same way at her age. My flirting skills may be crap, but my memory’s still good.
This set-back would require calling an emergency Roundtable meeting. And lots of chocolate. And considering that I’d have to buy a more expensive nightstand, this chocolate would have to be the cheap kind. Life was so unfair.
Chapter 3
“How on earth does an almost fifty-year-old woman find herself a date? I don’t have a clue about how to even start. And that’s pathetic. It’s absolutely pathetic.” It was Round Table time again and I knew it would be useless to tell my fellow royalty that flirting scared me. After all, I was now Queen of Flirtation. So I changed the battlefield to discuss my dating phobia.
The vintage dining room table in Magda’s 1929 bungalow was a perfect setting for our heart-to-heart conversations. The cozy atmosphere made it easier to explain to my friends that I simply wasn’t up to the task before me. Just the thought of exposing myself to possible ridicule from the opposite sex terrified me. Even if I were Queen of Flirtation. I’d proved that by screwing up while furniture shopping. I popped another generic brand chocolate into my mouth to fortify myself.
Usually I viewed our get-togethers as menopausal therapy. But suddenly the crown that I wore sat heavily on my head.
“What if I can’t get a date?” I whined.
“Write a contract with yourself stating that you’ll have a date three weeks from tonight,” Carmen said. “Put your goal into writing, give yourself a deadline, and sign the agreement. That’s the only way to change wishing into reality.”
Sometimes I can take only so much positive thinking, so I fogged off into my own world for a minute as I tend to do from time to time. The gals are used to it. Pamela, the Royal in-house astrology expert, tells me this is typical since I’m a Pisces. For sure I’m more of a daydreamer than a realist.
I’m different and so are the other members of our little club; interesting women who are round pegs in a game-board of square holes, oranges in a crate of apples, polka dots in a catalog of plaids.
The good thing about singlehood has been the support from my friends and fellow royalty. Being divorcees, we have very little money, but we manage to cope. Pamela is blond and tiny and intelligent and almost perfect. She buys her clothes at garage sales and looks like a fashion plate wearing them. She also, in case I forgot to mention it, is currently manless. Magda, is my inspiration and role model; manless and doesn’t care, or so she says. I think of her when I’m really down, and try and live up to her example of a single woman who can survive against all odds. Deserted by a philandering husband at age fifty with no marketable skills, she began a small newspaper and earned her living by wit alone. She also makes me laugh which is worth more than money in the bank.
The way I act around men, which is sensible for the most part, is all wrong. Anyone who thinks sensible is going to get you anywhere with the opposite sex should look at the torturing towers called shoes that women wear on dates. Then, of course, there’s me, striding along in my Reeboks, bunionless, but also manless.
The idea of starting to date at my age terrified me.
“Maybe I’m not ready to date, yet.” I came out of my reverie and interrupted the conversation which had somehow segued to Pamela’s formula for worming her cat. Magda’s pained expression as she listened to the gory details of cat doctoring told me the change of conversation would be welcome.
“That’s denial speaking.” Carmen jumped in with the total authority of a person who has read every book that Dr. Phil wrote. “Your divorce has been final for a year. You’re as ready as you’re ever going to be.”
“But it’s so hard to meet a member of the opposite sex who wouldn’t make me crazy. Or one who could endure my crazy family.” I thought a minute. “Actually, just finding a man is a major problem.”
“You’ve got that right,” Magda popped a cool-ranch potato chip into her mouth and chewed. “You have a better chance at winning the lottery than getting married again.”
I’d already bought a lottery ticket, but didn’t intend to tell Magda. Maybe I’m wasting my money, but you have to give me points for optimism.
“The truth is, I enjoy masculine company and conversation,” I said. “I might even enjoy marrying one again if I could ever develop a relationship to that point. But first, as both of my daughters tell me, I have to get a date.” I took a long drink of Coke, enjoying the sting as it slid deliciously down my throat. My mind drifted back to the s
econd furniture store Sharon and I had visited in quest of the notorious bed table.
“Pay attention to what’s going on.” Sharon evidently had figured out that my weird behavior with the first salesman had been a pitiful attempt to attract a man. Now she was “helping” me. I really hate it when that happens.
“That salesman was looking at you.”
“What salesman?” I was still fuming over the guy who had stolen my bargain nightstand and I’d forgotten all about the flirting stuff. (Boy was I going to catch it from the Royalty.)
“The gray-headed guy we passed coming in. He wasn’t half bad for an old geezer.” Sharon tilted her head toward the front of the store.
But it was too late. Just as I glanced back and saw the attractive silver haired man Sharon wanted me to hit on, a fortyish brunette with an airhostess smile had already snagged him. I shrugged. Missed my big chance, no doubt.
I watched the brunette in wonderment. She smiled at the guy with eyes cast upwards to gaze into his face in awe and adoration. But there was something else, too, a quality-X that I can’t define. These women just know that they are going to win the battle. I not only know that I’m going to lose, I’m not even sure what the war is about.
Maybe it had to do with a youth spent with my nose in a book and a mother who actually communicated real and worthy ideas to me. Now this wasn’t all bad. I liked myself most of the time. I was comfortable in my own skin and I knew how to wash out my own underwear. Both skills came in handy. But I’d still like to know how to flirt without feeling like a complete fool. Maybe then I could have convinced the hunk to let me have the bargain.
* * *
My Royal buddy’s quizzical gazes brought me back to the present. It’s so embarrassing when people are speaking to you and you’re on another planet.
“Earth to Queen Katherine,” Carmen said.
I shrugged. “Even though I’m now Queen of Flirtation, I have some insecurity issues I need to deal with.” I knew this razzle-dazzle would appeal to Carmen and Pamela who were into that kind of jargon. Magda recognized it for the pure bull that it was and rolled her eyes. But I didn’t let that stop me.
Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens Page 14
