The Girlfriend Curse

by Valerie Frankel

  Peg took a few deep breaths. She should tell him the truth, that he’d been drugged. That his dream had been real. That his decision to end a yearlong relationship was based on two separate misdemeanors, both perpetrated by Peg. Or she could say nothing and hope that fate would step in to reunite them—if Linus and Wilma were meant to be together. Or, she crossed her fingers, that it wouldn’t happen and Linus would be available in August. Peg would be out of the program, new to the neighborhood. They were friends already. Last night proved they had sexual chemistry. They could transform a friendship into a relationship, and have three times the chance of…of him dumping her in one year and marrying someone else six months later.

  Peg didn’t want to be Linus’s last girlfriend. She didn’t want to be anyone’s last girlfriend. No matter what the research said about people changing after thirty, Peg Silver feared her curse was permanent. That no amount of self-improvement or Inward Bounding would change it.

  Linus was smiling at her now. Probably remembering his faux dream. She had to turn away. The idea of Linus breaking up with her and marrying someone else hit her as painfully in theory as it had been in reality with Paul, and Daniel, and Oleg. Peg might have high scores in openness. She might be a risk-taker by nature. But she didn’t have the guts to take on Linus.

  Peg yawned broadly, her mouth a gaping cavern, which she patted with her hand. “I am suddenly so sleepy. I’ve never felt so tired in my entire life. My God, this conversation is like mainlining Demerol.”

  Linus said, “Talking to you has made me feel wide-awake. I couldn’t possibly sleep for hours.”

  “I’d get cracking on that dissertation edit,” suggested Peg.

  “Hard at work already,” he said.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said. “Good night.”

  “You, too,” he said sweetly.

  Chapter 26

  “We’re moving a mountain,” said Tracy the next morning as the women gathered around their communal sink to brush their hair and teeth. “That’s all Wilma would give us last night. You were standing right there. You didn’t hear her?”

  Peg said, “I was distracted.”

  Gloria added, “She also explained that the first week of Inward Bound was to delve into our individual psyches. The second week was to see how we acted in a couple. Week Three is about the group dynamic. I think we’re being put into threesomes.”

  “Week Four will be foursomes?” asked Peg.

  “The last week is ‘Inward Bound in the Wild.’ ”

  “So they’ll leave us lost in the forest with a matchbook, a bar of chocolate, a piece of fishing wire and a box of condoms?” asked Peg.

  Gloria spit out her toothpaste. While dabbing her lips, she said, “We go out in the world and attempt to talk to strangers.”

  “Thereby violating our splendid isolation,” said Tracy. “The smallest rejection, and I’ll be right back to Day One.”

  The women finished washing and dressing and met the others for a breakfast of yogurt, topped with raisins and cranberries. A quick side note: Peg had been appreciating the fine functioning of her digestion of late. She had Wilma’s high-fiber fare to thank. Not that she would thank her, or dare speak to her. Peg was in on her secret. Peg had too many secrets of her own to keep. If she didn’t, she’d be thrown out of the program, and possibly arrested by A. M. Call, upon whose shit list Peg was, no doubt, on top.

  After breakfast, Peg used Linus’s phone to get in touch with Chuck Plenet. He said, “Ms. Silver. I’ve been waiting to hear from you. The cats have done an excellent job on the mice.”

  “Yes, I saw their fine work,” she said. “Now kill the ants.”

  “If I go in there and spray, the insecticide could harm the cats,” he said.

  Peg held the phone back and stared at it, her jaw on hinges.

  Chuck continued, “I recommend dogs—five or six—to scare away the cats. For a small additional payment. Then I can bomb for ants.”

  “How much?”

  “Four hunnert,” he said.

  Linus called from the front door. “Peg! We’re all waiting.”

  She said into the phone, “Send in the dogs,” and hung up.

  She piled into Linus’s truck with the rest of the group. They drove out to Billings Farm in Woodstock, half an hour away. Wilma and Linus sat in the cab together. Peg watched them through the little window between the cab and the flatbed. They were holding hands. Theirs could be the kindest, most understanding, affectionate breakup in history. Or, Peg wondered, maybe they hadn’t really ended it. Maybe he’d lied about it. Linus could just be fucking with Peg’s mind for some ultimate Inward Bounding purpose. While Peg tried to imagine what that purpose might be, Linus looked back through the window, right at her. She turned away, her hair whipping in the wind.

  They pulled up at Billings, a working dairy and vegetable farm, as well as a farming museum. Tracy and Luke had come here for the cornhusking bee, so they’d seen it already. The main building had a gift shop (lots of toy cows and sheep), a photo gallery showing Vermont farm progress over the last two hundred years—and some modern rest room facilities. Once Linus had spoken to the museum director, a Mr. Fillet (an FOL, he was overjoyed to see him, and greeted Linus with a two-handed shake), the Inward Bounders were led out the side door, toward the dairy barn. Along the way, Mr. Fillet pointed out the different types of cows (Holstein, Jersey, Swiss Brown). He showed them a pen with a newborn Holstein calf, just a week old.

  Mr. Fillet said, “Every time a calf is born, we have a contest to name her. If you’d like, take a slip of paper and a pencil, right there in the bucket, and write a name. We’ll announce the winner at the end of the day.”

  Everyone took a slip and a pencil and looked into the deep brown eyes of the sweet little black-and-white calf. She was innocent and adorable, vulnerable and quivering, a helpless, sweet, dumb animal.

  Tracy wrote, “Spot.”

  Gloria: “Checkers.”

  Ray: “Moo.”

  Ben: “Babe.”

  Luke: “Luke.”

  Peg wrote, “Rare.”

  “Rare?” said Mr. Fillet. “As in, ‘a rare specimen’?”

  “Rare, as in ‘raw.’ ”

  Mr. Fillet, stone-faced, said, “This is a dairy cow.”

  “So she won’t be eaten?”

  He said, “You must be from New Jersey,” before he pushed the group along.

  As they walked, Peg whispered to Tracy, “I should have written ‘Unpasturized.’ ”

  They left the first barn, and were lead into another one. The first was for show, for tourists. The second—three times the size, with at least a hundred animals—was the working barn. It smelled like a shit factory. It was a shit factory. As they walked down the aisle, each cow in each stall raised tail and dropped a load, seemingly in greeting. Mr. Fillet spoke softly to Linus, gestured toward some shovels and wheelbarrows and left.

  Linus said, “We’re going to have a little competition today to see how well you work in a group. You’ll be divided into two teams. Peg, Gloria and Ray are Team One. Tracy, Luke and Ben, Team Two.”

  “What do we have to do?” asked Ray, suddenly at Peg’s side, his arm around her shoulder. His eye looked better. He could open it now.

  Linus said, “You have to fertilize the vegetables.” He gestured toward the back barn doors to the rows of plants. “The garden has been ribboned into two parts.”

  “That garden?” asked Peg. “It’s at least two acres.”

  “You’ll need to fill the wheelbarrow a few dozen times, or more, spread it around, pat it down. How you divide the workload is up to you. Whichever team finishes first wins. You can spread the fertilizer thin, but it has to cover the entire acre.”

  Gloria said, “This is like an episode of The Simple Life.”

  “But not simple as in ‘uncomplicated,’ ” said Tracy. “Simple as in ‘mentally challenged.’ ”

  “What do we get if we win?” asked Ray.r />
  “The satisfaction of a job well done,” said Linus. “The losers have to explain over dinner where they went wrong.”

  Gloria said, “What do we use for fertilizer?”

  Peg said, “Shit, Gloria.”

  “Shit what?”

  “We use cow shit.”

  Gloria looked into Peg’s eyes, searching for the joke. Not finding it, she screamed, frightening the animals, who—en masse—dropped a fresh pie in protest.

  Linus said, “This silo”—he pointed at a shed with a trap-door on the bottom—“is where you’ll get the aged fertilizer. For every wheelbarrow of aged fertilizer, you have to replenish a load of fresh into this silo.” He pointed at the shed next to the first, with a trap-door on top.

  Tracy said, “Aged fertilizer.”

  “At least a year,” said Peg.

  “Yes, it does have the fruity aroma of vintage 2004,” said Tracy.

  Linus said, “So, get to it. Wilma and I will be back in an hour or two.”

  And then they left, hand in hand. Peg slapped her forehead to dislodge that image, and then gathered her team around. She said, “We should have a loader, an unloader and a spreader. We can rotate jobs for equitable distribution of labor and—”

  Ray said, “Whoa, Peg. Before we agree to a game plan, we should nominate a team leader. I nominate myself. I have the most experience.”

  “You have experience shoveling shit?” asked Peg, who herself had worked closely with manure many times.

  “I do.”

  “When?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Gloria said, “I have bad allergies. If I touch any cow dung, I could go into cardiac arrest. I nominate myself to be leader and oversee the two of you doing the work.”

  Peg said, “I nominate myself. I have a plan, I’m organized, I’ve used the material before and I know how to spread. Gloria, you’re lying about having allergies. Otherwise, you’d carry an EpiPen in your personal drugstore kit, which I know you don’t. And Ray, just because you’re a man doesn’t automatically make you leader. It’s very unattractive, this domineering side of you.”

  Ray said, “Gloria, if you choose me to be the team leader, I promise you don’t have to touch any shit.”

  “Done,” said Gloria.

  “Peg,” said Ray, turning toward her, “your domineering side isn’t very attractive either. In fact, it’s a major turnoff.”

  “Said the man with hamburger for a face.”

  The cow by Peg stamped her hoof.

  Gloria whispered, “You shouldn’t say ‘hamburger’ in here.”

  “It’s your fault I look like this!” said Ray. “Now grab a shovel and start digging.”

  Team Two, meanwhile, had already filled three wheelbar-rows with the aged patties and were heading outside.

  Gloria said, “Let me get that for you,” and held open the barn door for them.

  “What is that?” asked Peg, staring into the dish.

  “Carrot and cheddar casserole,” said Wilma proudly. “The cheddar was made right at Billings Farm!”

  The casserole looked as appetizing as the manure. Even if Peg were hungry—which she wasn’t—she wouldn’t have been able to choke it down.

  Linus clinked his spoon against his water glass. He said, “Tracy, as leader of Team Two, I offer my heartiest congratulations. You should know that, in the history of Inward Bound, you fertilized your acre in less time than any previous team, setting a new record of four hours and seventeen minutes.”

  Applause. Tracy stood up and bowed. She said, “Was it that long? The time just flew, didn’t it, guys?” Her teammates nodded, Ben more enthusiastically than Luke. “Our strategy was to move the aged shit out of the barn first, using three wheelbarrows, and then spread side by side. We kept count, and then replenished the fresh shit shed when we’d finished spreading. I knew that if we could keep each other company, then it wouldn’t feel so much like work. I considered splitting up duties—loading, unloading, spreading—but decided that an assembly-line strategy wouldn’t be much fun, and if we didn’t have fun, we’d bicker or get tired. I’ve learned a lot about teamwork in my years with the Red Sox organization. And let me just say, I’m not used to being on a winning team. It’s much better than losing. I also want to add that Ben showed amazing strength. For a small man, he’s got a big shovel. And Luke couldn’t be a more efficient spreader, like he’s been smacking down shit his entire life.”

  “Excellent leadership,” said Linus. “Tracy, you’ve shown yourself to be a gracious winner and team player. Now, Team One. You barely covered half your acre in the same time Team Two covered their whole area. Tell us what went wrong.”

  Ray stood up. Tried to anyway. He had to slouch. The day of digging had destroyed Ray’s back, which was already tender after spending a night on top of a stick shift. He said, “Team One lost today due to vanity and ego.”

  He got that right, thought Peg.

  Ray said, “A member of our team decided that things had to be a certain way, and if they weren’t, this member would obstinately slack off and be a negative influence on the team effort.”

  Amen to that, thought Peg, nodding.

  “If this person had carried her weight, we would have won, under my leadership,” said Ray. “I’m sure Peg has learned some valuable lessons today about being part of a team and working well with others.”

  “I sure did,” said Peg, standing (which killed her back, too). “I learned that Ray is power mad and insecure in his masculinity. I suspect he overcompensates for this Cayman Trench–deep insecurity with sexual aggression and domineering tendencies.”

  Ray said, “You bitch!”

  Peg said, “You see? He is a misogynist.”

  Linus told them both to sit. “Okay, calm down. It’s all a learning experience. Now, Peg, as a florist—”

  “I am NOT a florist,” she said.

  “Have you ever worked as part of a group?” asked Linus.

  “I’ve landscaped alongside other people,” she said, “but I do my best work alone.”

  “Your family. Did you do a lot of things together?”

  “We have our own interests,” said Peg. Her family’s recreational approach was parallel play. On their annual Caribbean family vacations, for example, Peg would go snorkeling, Jack would sail, Mom would sit by the pool and Dad would swim in the ocean.

  “Have you ever played a team sport?” asked Linus.

  “I run,” she said, shaking her head. “Preferably alone.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “So you’ve never really had a team experience.”

  Peg said, “That is irrelevant. It doesn’t change the fact that Ray is inept and impotent.”

  “You of all people know that’s not true!” Ray said, and stumbled out of the kitchen, as fast as his hobbled, mosquito-drained body could take him.

  They all watched him go. Peg said, “I didn’t mean impotent in that way.”

  Linus said, “Peg, you owe Ray an apology.”

  Peg said, “What about Gloria? She didn’t work well with others. She didn’t work at all.”

  “Flinging blame is a hallmark of egomania,” said Wilma.

  “I’m not an egomaniac,” said Peg. “Am I? Do I seem like an egomaniac? What does everyone think of me?”

  No one spoke. Finally, Tracy said, “Come on, Peg. Let’s take a walk.”

  Numbly, Peg followed Tracy out on the back porch and down to the river. The night was hot and dry, the water still and black. Peg said to Tracy, “I came here on a whim. I should have thought it through before I signed up.”

  “Me, too,” said Tracy, the A+ student. “It’s been good, though.”

  “For you,” said Peg. “You’ve learned that you can attract men. First Luke, now Ben. You’re a great leader. You’re conscientious, extroverted and agreeable. All I’ve learned is that I attract the wrong men for the wrong reasons. And I don’t work or play well with others.”

  “You play well wit
h me,” said Tracy. “And I was primed to dislike you at first.”

  “Why?” asked Peg.

  “You seemed haughty. It’s the New York patina, the perfect hair and body. You’re intimidating.”

  “I don’t have patina,” said Peg. “Gloria’s got the hair and body.”

  “But she’s a scared little bunny,” said Tracy. “She’s not threatening.”

  In a small voice, Peg said, “I’m a scared little bunny, too.”

  Tracy burst out laughing. When she eventually gained control of herself, she said, “Aren’t you glad now you never slept with Ray?”

  Peg said, “God, yes. Can you imagine the horror if I had?”

  “If you were back in New York, you’d have done it the first night,” said Tracy.

  “Second,” said Peg.

  “You have Linus to thank for preventing that disaster.”

  “I’ll add him to my reparations list.”

  They walked along the river, listening to the mating call of frogs.

  Chapter 27

  “I nominate myself not to be leader today,” said Peg to her teammates, Ben and Tracy.

  “Good thinking,” said Tracy.

  “I’ll be leader,” said Ben, jumping at his chance. “Although I have little experience operating medieval torture devices.”

  The three Inward Bounders looked up, to the top of the stable. Hanging from a pulley, attached to a winch, was a six-feet-long, three-pronged metal clamp.

  Linus was standing several feet away, talking to Dr. Andy, the FOL who owned the horse farm with his wife, Katie. Team Two (Gloria, Luke and Ray) were clustered together, laying out their plan of action.

  “Dr. Andy has to leave,” said Linus.

  “I’ve got office hours this morning,” said the genial doc in a suit (first suit Peg had seen in her weeks in Manshire). “The bales of hay are in the pasture. Just roll them to the stable, use the fork and lift them into the hayloft. It’s a snap.”

  “You heard him,” said Linus. “Get moving. First team to hoist a dozen bales wins.”

  Gloria said, “Do we have to?”

  “Doctor’s orders,” said Linus.