Calendar Girls

by April Hill

  “There’s obviously something wrong with me, “ I confessed, to no one in particular. “I’ve had three fairly serious relationships since Eddie the Creep, and they’ve all gone down the toilet.”

  Jeff stopped what he was doing, propped himself up on one elbow, and stroked my hair. “Three’s not a lot,” he said softly. I knew that he’d intended the remark to be comforting, but from my point of view, he’d simply confirmed what I already knew. I was a pitiful loser.

  “Thanks a lot,” I growled. “That’s not exactly a boost to a girl’s ego, chief. I believe what I said was that I have had three fairly serious relationships since Eddie, the pimply-faced, lowlife sleaze ball. That does not mean, for your information, that there have been only three.”

  Jeff groaned. I suppose it had begun to dawn on him that that his unintentionally insensitive remark meant that the evening that had begun so well was at an end. The truth was if he had been just a bit more persistent, everything could have been fine. I am nothing if not pragmatic, you see. Sending an attractive man away just minutes after he’s provided you with one of the most astonishing orgasms in the history of the world would be truly stupid, right? The kind of thing my grandmother used to call cutting off my nose to spite my face.

  Precisely the kind of thing I’ve always been good at.

  So, I told him maybe we should cool things off for a while, and that my life was much too busy and fulfilling at the moment to “get involved in something that obviously has no future.” After trying to reason with me for twenty minutes, he gave up, pulled on his pants, and went home. I pulled the covers over my head and cried myself to sleep.

  When he hadn’t called two days later, I dropped by his office—on the transparently false pretext of asking for more information about the proposed parking meters. But, my coming had been foretold. When I arrived, an excited elderly lady at the front desk confided to me in a whisper that, “Verna said you were on your way over, dear. You just go right on in there now, and make up. The poor man’s been mopin’ around the place for two days, hopin’ you’d come by.”

  Yes, that’s the kind of town Mountain Lakes was—and still is.

  It was only seven or eight steps from the front desk to Jeff’s office, but by the time I reached the door, I was already sniffling. I knocked once, he opened the door and I fell into his arms, blubbering about how sorry I was, and how stupid, and could he ever forgive me? It might have been extremely romantic and touching, actually, if my nose hadn’t been running all over his shirt.

  What happened on the worn, leather couch in Jeff’s office in the next hour probably violated the police code of professional conduct, along with several city ordinances. Fortunately, the door was locked and it was apparently a slow afternoon for crime, so everything worked out nicely.

  Knowing that Verna would probably be lurking behind a curtain, watching for us to come back to the house, we spent that night at Jeff’s apartment—two small rooms conveniently located over City Hall. He went down to work the next morning after less than half an hour’s sleep, leaving me emotionally and physically drained, weak as a kitten, and halfway in love. Okay, so more like three-quarters in love.

  Verna seemed to be at home constantly, and I was getting tired of muffling my orgasmic responses in a pillow. If my love life was to continue in this truly lovely vein, I needed privacy. Which is why I used the classifieds to find a small house for rent and agreed to a year’s lease over the phone, without even going to check the place for cockroaches.

  Now, about Jeff: he was— in short— everything I’d ever wanted. Tender and attentive. Smart and funny. Supportive. There for me whenever I was down or depressed. In bed, he was innovative, and apparently tireless. I attributed this last very agreeable trait to the clear mountain air and water, and to a lifetime of clean living. (His, not mine.) Whatever the reason, Chief of Police Jefferson McConnell was like a one-man orgy.

  After the third week, he was telling me he loved me at least once or twice a day. And there was something else— something I’d never had before. Something that I, as a modern, liberated woman, had never wanted, and was sure I’d hate. Something corny, and old fashioned.

  Jeff wanted to take care of me. And it turned out that I didn’t hate it, at all. I liked it.

  He bought me a lawnmower. And came over to mow my crop of weeds every week.

  He fixed the leak in my bathroom sink, and replaced the rotting boards on my front porch. He scolded me for not taking my car to have the oil changed, and started doing it for me. He helped with the dishes. He bawled me out for leaving my doors unlocked, even though there hadn’t been a serious crime in Mountain Lakes since Theron Parnell at the hardware store threw a crate of canned corn at his mother-in-law and hit his wife, Lula, by accident. Lula’s broken collarbone had made the front page.

  The third time Jeff came by my apartment at night and found the front door unlocked, he threatened to “blister my butt” the next time it happened—a silly, macho threat I attributed to his small-town upbringing, but actually found kind of sweet.

  One Saturday morning, he caught me crawling around on the roof. My TV was on the blink and I was attempting to adjust the antenna—an operation I had seen on a rerun of Dennis The Menace. Jeff explained patiently that TV sets don’t work that way anymore, and suggested that I might want to call the local cable company. As I came down the ladder, he applied a couple of hard swats to my rear end. Cute, and surprisingly sexy. I giggled and stuck my tongue out at him, and we ended up in bed. I didn’t miss the TV at all.

  When I refused to stay home from work with the flu, he came to my office, dragged me away from my desk, and drove me home, lecturing me all the way there about how I didn’t take care of myself, and should have my rear end paddled. He put me to bed, and slept the entire night in a chair by my bedside. When I woke up the next morning, still coughing, I found a wooden spoon on the pillow, with an attached note that read, “Don’t even think about going to work today.” He’d used a Sharpie to paint a happy face on the spoon. Having never been spanked with a wooden spoon before, or anything else, for that matter, I didn’t get the reference.

  He was, quite simply—wonderful. And almost perfect

  Almost.

  You knew there had to be an almost, right?

  The problem was that Jeff wasn’t what you’d call sentimental. Not in the way I wanted him to be. He’d never sent me flowers, for instance. Candy, either. Or jewelry, and I had always regarded flowers and candy and jewelry as the report cards you got in a love affair. Like those little, yellow happy-face stickers kids get at the top of their schoolwork to show how well they’ve done? It’s simple, really. Flowers and candy and happy-face stickers prove that you’re not the pitiful loser you always thought you were.

  And Kevin seemed to know that. Instinctively. After I wrote an article about the new state-of-the-art examination table he’d installed in his Main Street chiropractic office, he sent me flowers, and a box of chocolates.

  Dr. Kevin Rivers was the kind of man my mother had always wanted me to marry—meaning he had more money than anyone else in town, an expensive foreign car with a name I recognized but couldn’t spell, and he looked like a Malibu Beach lifeguard. He had a square jaw, an amazing number of dazzling white teeth, and the obligatory six-pack abs. His streaked, summer blond hair was doubtlessly out of a bottle, but when a careless lock of it fell across his handsome forehead and he brushed it back, the gesture made him seem boyishly young and charming. Not that any of the above traits are bad, but in my experience, guys like Kevin’s type usually had the IQ and conversational skills of floor lamps. And besides, none of them had even given me so much as a sideways glance.

  For reasons I could never understand, though, Kevin took an immediate fancy to me, and was constantly finding reasons to come by my office for a chat. Verna insisted it was because I was from New York City, and had an aura of cosmopolitan sophistication lacking in the local lovelies. Doubtful, but I was happy enough to
take her word for it. In a fishing town like Mountain Lakes, the handsome Doctor Rivers was considered a good catch, and deep down, I sort of hoped that our friendly chats and occasional lunches together would inspire a bit of healthy jealousy in Jeff.

  * * *

  As the winter progressed, I began to wonder when Jeff would get around to proposing. He acted as if our getting married was understood, and in a way, I kind of enjoyed being taken for granted. It felt comfortable. Everyone in town talked about us as a couple. “Saw Jeff and Emma over at the drug store, today.” Or, “Bill and Lilly will be there, and Jeff and Emma, of course…”

  Yet, the actual proposal thing never happened, with the ring and all that. I knew Jeff loved me, so I wasn’t exactly worried. There was really no specific reason why I couldn’t have simply brought up the subject, myself, I guess. Except my pride. And my insecurity. And my agonizing lack of self-confidence. All that stuff I thought I’d gotten past, but hadn’t.

  With Valentine’s Day approaching, I told myself that’s when it would happen. Jeff was going to pop the question in some big, romantic way—on Valentine’s Day. The fact that he’d never gone in for big romantic gestures was a little troubling, but I tried not to dwell on that. He was going to propose on Valentine’s Day, Verna told me smugly—and local legend said that Verna was never wrong.

  The nearest town to Mountain Lakes was a wide spot in the road called Maryville; twenty-two miles north, even higher in the mountains. And every year, the high point of the winter social season in fabulous Maryville was the annual Valentine’s Day dance and truck auction. Kevin had been asking me out at least once a week for months, and I had always politely turned him down. But when he called two weeks before the dance and asked me to go with him, I found myself wondering what Jeff would think—or do—if I accepted the invitation. After all, Kevin was a good friend, and Jeff and I weren’t actually engaged, right? I’d never had two men vying for my affections, before, and the idea that I could was intoxicating.

  I didn’t accept, of course.

  But I did think about it. A lot.

  Instead, I drove down to the nearest big city, population thirty-six thousand, and bought the most expensive dress I’d ever owned in my life—a shimmering fantasy of wine-red velvet that fit me like a glove, and featured a plunging neckline that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. When Jeff popped the question, I wanted to be ready.

  Unfortunately, it turned out that wearing this specific dress would require the addition of something called a bustier—a corset, by any other name. Without the eighty-nine dollar deep-crimson bustier recommended by the concerned saleslady, the chances of getting all of me into a wasp-waisted velvet dress were apparently slim to nil. I slapped down my already overburdened Visa card, telling myself it was worth every penny—even if I couldn’t breathe and lost sensation in both arms. A matching red satin handbag set me back an ouchy sixty bucks, but the black lace bra and panty set with tiny red satin hearts in several strategic locations was on sale for one hundred fourteen dollars and seventy-eight cents. And finally, came the shoes. Crimson satin, with stiletto heels of a dizzying height that only the ladies of Sex And The City could have worn without breaking all their collective ankles.

  At last, I was good to go— even if I couldn’t walk, or breathe. Or pay next month’s rent.

  * * *

  Three days before the long awaited Valentine’s Day and truck extravaganza, Jeff called and asked me to dinner that night—without mentioning the fact that it would be Valentine’s Day. Dinner would be at Dinah’s, where else? Dinah’s Diner was unquestionably the finest restaurant in Mountain Lakes—meaning it was the only place in town that didn’t have a pool table, unisex toilets, or blinking neon beer signs in the front windows.

  “I figured we could take in a movie after supper, to make the evening a little more special,” Jeff added cheerfully. “The new Mission Impossible is opening.”

  I groaned. My wine-red velvet and red satin slippers were going to be a tad formal for Dinah’s, but at least the ketchup that dripped from my cheeseburger wouldn’t show. And if I didn’t wear the eighty-nine dollar bustier, or zip up the back of the dress, I could pig out on my traditional movie fare—a bucket of buttered popcorn, and a bag of Reese’s Pieces.

  Okay, so not the Valentine’s Day I was hoping for, but I had been looking forward to the new Mission Impossible.

  * * *

  But then, after a restless night spent reviewing my relationship with Jeff, I changed my mind. I called Kevin, and agreed to go with him to the dance. Then, I called Jeff, and told him I wouldn’t be able to make dinner at Dinah’s Diner, after all.

  “Something come up?” he asked, pleasantly enough.

  “No, not really. It’s just that Kevin sort of asked me to attend this dance with him—at Maryville. I thought maybe I could write an article about it, since it’s sort of a traditional event. You know, local interest, and all?”

  “Yeah, they hold it every year, in the grange hall,” Jeff said. “It’s not bad, if you like line dancing, but the place is always knee deep in drunken cowboys, all of them smoking. And if you’re looking for a good deal on a used pickup, that’s the place to be. Tell Kevin to take it easy, though. There’s a storm coming through, and that road up to Maryville’s can get bad in a hurry.”

  Later that day, two boxes arrived at my door. From Kevin, of course, not Jeff. A bouquet of red roses. Long-stemmed. And a tiny, gold-foil box of Godiva chocolates. Heart-shaped. You had to give it to the guy. He knew how to do Valentine’s Day.

  I felt vindicated. And absolutely rotten. But the die was cast. For the first time in my life, I was going to play the jealousy card.

  Jeff called me on Valentine’s morning, not begging me to break my date with Kevin as I had hoped, but to warn me about the weather again, and the roads.

  “I wish you wouldn’t try going up there, tonight,” he said quietly. “I know you’re looking forward to this dance, but they’re predicting freezing rain.”

  “Kevin says to tell you that he has four-wheel drive,” I explained proudly, repeating all the mechanical information that my date had provided, like I had the slightest idea what any of it meant.

  “Okay for snow, not much good on ice,” Jeff said mildly. “I’d be happier if he had studs, at least. Just give yourself plenty of time, and start back home early, will you?”

  When I hung up, I felt awful. He hadn’t sounded jealous, at all. Or mad. Just worried about me.

  * * *

  The road to Maryville wasn’t bad. It was horrendous. I know absolutely nothing about foreign cars, or about four-wheel drive, but I know when a car is fishtailing, and when it’s skidding all over the freaking road. The county snowplows had obviously been out, but the road surface was slick with ice, and an hour after we started, we’d gone maybe five miles. And sure enough, two miles later, we slid off the road and into a snow bank. My side of the car was wedged against a wall of plowed ice and snow, making getting out of the car impossible. Kevin opened his door, stepped out, promptly slipped, and landed on his butt.

  To make everything worse, I was hungry, and in a nasty mood. Hoping to get skinny enough to stuff myself into my new velvet dress without having a couple of ribs surgically removed, I hadn’t eaten anything for two days—except at breakfast that morning, when I’d wolfed down six of the Godiva chocolates. There were three chocolates still remaining in the box Kevin had sent. I’d brought them with me, in their charming little gold box, maybe because I had a premonition about starving to death in a snow bank. I was feeling very, very sorry for myself, though. Nothing about this Valentine’s Day was going the way it was supposed to, and the hot turkey sandwich special at Dinah’s Diner was looking better every minute.

  And so was Jeff—looking better, that is. As it turned out, the handsome Dr. Rivers knew about as much about cars and about driving them in snow and ice as I did—maybe less. So, he called the auto club.

  Now, on a snowy nig
ht, with freezing rain, on an isolated county road, how long do you think the auto club estimated the wait to be?

  Nope, longer.

  “No problem,” said my date, a bit too cheerfully to be convincing. “We’ve got plenty of gas, blankets in the back, and the best audio system German technology has ever produced. There’s a bottle of thirty-eight year old Scotch in the glove box.” (Yeah, he did say glove box.) “We’ll be just fine. Some yokel with a pickup and a winch is bound to come along, soon. In the meantime, we can still enjoy Valentine’s Day, can’t we?”

  “That depends,” I grumbled. “Would you happen to have a couple of cheeseburgers on you?”

  He pulled me over and tried to kiss me, but I scooted further away and asked again. “Is there anything to eat in the damned car?”

  “Besides you?” he asked, with a sly smirk. I felt my stomach turn, but tried to give him the benefit of the doubt by blaming my reaction to his witty remark on my rumbling stomach.

  “Smitty’s Snack Shack is just down the road,” I suggested. “It’s sort of a convenience store. We could walk back down there and wait inside, where it’s warm. I’ll call Jeff—Chief McConnell. He can probably get here a lot faster than the auto club.”

  “What about the dance?” Kevin asked, in his whiny voice.

  I looked out the window. “Are you kidding? We’ll be lucky to get out of this ditch, let alone to Maryville.”

  He slipped his arm around my shoulders, pulled me across the gearshift and almost into his lap, and buried his face in my hair. “My God,” he breathed. “You smell wonderful. Is that Obsession you’re wearing?”

  I scowled, and shoved him away. “It’s lemon extract, Kevin. A buck a bottle at the dollar store. And I’d appreciate it if you’d get your damned nose out of my hair. Let me out of the car. I’m going to try to walk down to Smitty’s.”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not! It’s too cold, and too dangerous. We’ll wait here for the auto club. They always exaggerate how long it’s going to be. It’s an old business trick. Make the stupid customer happy by having the tow truck show up earlier than he expects.”