Easy Does It #7 'Be Quiet Now. I've Got To Concentrate'

Chapter 7

Be quiet now. I’ve got to concentrate.

            Eve ran into her room, and let her silk robe pool at her feet. She was naked and stretched her arms above her head. Her breasts rose as she arched her back. She could relate to a cat: stretching felt good. There was a strip of blue light pouring through the space in her curtains, and it fell on her in a band, emphasizing her taut stomach and the curve of her hips. “You look hot,” a low voice muttered to her from her bed. Eve had nearly forgotten he was there. Well, not nearly forgotten, she had forgotten. Clearly, he hadn’t been that memorable.

            “You’re going to have to motor there, Chad. I’ve got an emergency.” She reached for the blankets and pulled them off him. He was still naked too, and though no moonlight poured over his firm torso, she could see him well enough. “On second thought…” she said and straddled him. “Just take care of me here for a few minutes and then you can go.”

            “Just a few minutes?” he asked. He lifted his hips, raising her up a bit.

            “Well, that all depends on you. Be quiet now,” she said, “I’ve got to concentrate.”

                                                                        *

Julie’s ad had, indeed, been put up on YouTube and had now had over 1,000 views. She was stunned. Shocked. And watched it again. Wow. That was Julie. That vixen was…her. Take that, Ronny. How’s that for predictable?

She re-watched her ad that would rival any Las Vegas ‘masseuse’ and looked at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since she’d phoned Eve to come over and review the messages, and she was starting to worry. It should only take two or three minutes to get from Eve’s downtown condo to Julie’s apartment in Heritage Hill. She lived at the top of the hill in a converted Victorian house. There were six apartments and each one was completely different from the rest. Hers still had tile from the 40’s, a stove from the 50’s, and orange carpet in the living room from god knew when. She’d decorated the apartment with cheap furniture from garage sales and antique stores. Nothing matched, and she loved it.

Even though Eve lived just at the bottom of the hill, it could sometimes take her an hour or so to drive the distance, depending on her mood, or her focus. “Why do you insist on driving?” Julie had once asked her. “Just walk up the fricking hill.”

“Me? Walk?” Eve asked. “I am a Michigander. We. Do not. Walk.”

Now, there was nothing for Julie to do but to sit in her warm apartment surrounded by her vintage 1950’s posters from Good Housekeeping to obsess and reminisce, in that order.

First, she reminded herself that there was nothing wrong with her. She was cute, attractive and sometimes sexy. Even though she was all of these things, she didn’t always see it. Mostly she saw someone who was not terrible-looking but could be great looking if she could just lose five more pounds. She never did lose those last five pounds though. She was too attached to them.

If pressed, Julie would admit that she liked her curvy body and that she looked killer in a push-up bra. She liked her body. She was sexy. Womanly. Even when she’d pass a newsstand and see the anemic faces of models looking at her, it didn’t bother her. They all looked so hungry to her. Hungry for cake. So she’d go home, whip up a cake from scratch, and indulge. At night, when she’d curl up with her dog-eared copy of Anais Nin, she’d feel sexy all over again.

            So feeling sexy and her self-esteem weren’t exactly the root of her problems with men. In fact, Julie had experienced a fairly active love life. It seemed that boys (and then as she grew older, men) found curvy women appealing. Julie had dated a string of interesting characters, the trouble was, none of them had held her interest. That was Julie’s real problem. She could walk around all day feeling sexy, but no one really brought that side of her to the surface. That is, until she met Ronny. 

That’s when her real trouble began.

She gave Ronny her heart. She might as well have wrapped it up in a box for him and handed it to him all gooey with emotion.  She loved him fiercely, so fiercely she ignored his ever-growing need for beer and “Nights with the Band”. 

            Even Julie’s grandmother knew Ronny was no good for her, and she reminded Julie of this every time they had lunch together. Julie made it a point to have lunch with her Grandma Mills every few weeks, especially since her parents recently “relocated” to Albuquerque. Julie remembered when she first introduced Ronny to her grandma.  They were eating lunch on Grandma’s porch and she pointed to Ronny. “There’s something wrong with him,” she said. Julie looked at Ronny and noticed a fleck of mustard on his chin.

            “Oh! Ronny, you’ve got something on your chin,” she said.

            “Wha’s tha?” he replied, laying the English accent on thick.

            “Your chin,” Julie said.

            “Oh, right-o then,” Ronny said as he wiped the mustard away.

Grandma Mills leaned over and said, “I didn’t mean that, Julie. I meant there’s something wrong with him there. In his head. He’s a nut-ball.”

            Grandma Mills had always been overprotective of Julie, especially because her parents weren’t protective at all, but this time, Julie didn’t believe her. Later, of course, Ronny proved that there was indeed something wrong with him, namely his penchant for The Two Wets groupies and his tendency to stand Julie up. And then, of course, he left her. 

            Clearly, Julie was cursed. It seemed that she would never get over Ronny because every time she tried, something worse happened that made her look at Ronny with renewed hope. Ronny wasn’t so bad. Sure, he was thirty-four years old and in a band. He had no permanent employment.  He pretended that he was from England. He slept around. But he had good hair and he kissed her with passion. He kissed her all over with passion and that wasn’t such an easy thing to find. 

             She had to come to terms with it: finally and forever, Ronny was gone.  

Before she could surrender to another bout of crying while looking from her picture of Ronny to her Internet ad, her door buzzed. “Dahling…” Eve droned in her fake hoity-toity voice. “It’s me. I’m here to go shopping…shopping for men.” Julie tried not to laugh at the ladies-who-lunch voice, but laughed anyway and buzzed Eve up.

            Julie ran into her bedroom, threw on her lemon colored velour bathrobe over the red teddy, squeezed her feet into her bumblebee slippers and checked her face in the mirror. On a scale of one to five, five being high, her appearance was a negative two. Perfect for Internet dating.

Easy Does It -- 3

Chapter 3

I’ve always wanted to be a hermaphrodite. Then I could have sex with myself.

Julie unfolded the piece of paper in front of her, smoothed out the creases and passed it to Eve. They were seated in their favorite booth near the back of the bar, huddled over the table.  “I wrote it really fast. It needs work,” Julie explained.

“Seems kinda long,” Eve said as she reached for her reading glasses from her purse.

“Yeah, well, there’s no real word limit online. Glory of technology, I guess. Be honest, Eve. Should I really do this?”

“You said you wanted to do something crazy. Though, I have to admit, online dating doesn’t sound all that wild to me, although it was wild like in 1994. Now everyone does it. I was sort of thinking you were going to do something wild and drastic like a sex change or something.” 

“Yes,” Julie agreed. “I’ve always wanted to be a hermaphrodite. Then I could have sex with myself. You want some more cake?”

“Of course. So with this ad you want, what? True love?”

“No. No! I was thinking…maybe I want dating practice or something. I want to experiment with being crazy. I guess at the heart of it, maybe I just want to get over Ronny, or back at Ronny, or something, and I want to do it as quickly as possible. I can’t take any more of his postcards. I want to have postcards of my own! I thought…I don’t know. It’s stupid.” She reached for the paper and crinkled it in her palm.

“Give me that!” Eve said. “It isn’t stupid at all. What I meant was that when you said you wanted to do something spontaneous I thought you were going to go on a trip to Europe or have a radical make-over. But online dating is good. It’s a start. Give me your ad. And the cake.” She read:    

         Young Treasure Seeks Seaman on Love’s Sea

            When I was young, I collected broken pottery shards

            that had washed up on the beach. Each one, I knew,

            was from a shipwreck. In my palm, a tiny piece of

            white plate became the last dinner of a couple in love.

            A brown half of a beer stein with edges smoothed by

            sand and time became a sailor’s last drink just as the

            swell of the lake surged and took him over. These

            collected pieces of plates and bowls from the last

            moments in people’s lives proved to me that all things

            end: childhood, careers, and yes, even love. I am

            resigned to this reality. Still, I am looking to date.

            Casually. If you are interested, here I wait, at the

            bottom of the sea, for you to find me and uncover me.

Eve wound a finger in a lock of her honey hair. “Okay, Young Treasure Seeks Seaman on Love’s Sea. That’s catchy.”

Julie couldn’t tell if Eve was emotionally affected by the impact of her personal ad, or if she had something stuck in her teeth. “Is it all right?” Julie asked again. “Oh, you hate it, don’t you? I sound boring, don’t I? Oh, forget it!” Julie took a huge bite of her sandwich. Her eyes were burning with tears.

“I don’t hate it. Not at all. It’s just…a little sad.  It sort of makes it sound like your life is a shipwreck.”

“Exactly!” said Julie emphatically. “A complete and utter shipwreck.”

 “Let me read it again,” Eve said. Julie watched her intently, looking for any reaction from her, good or bad.

She read it again, coughed, set the paper aside, and quickly downed her glass of water. “Julie…Look,” Eve continued. “I love you. To pieces, and anything I can do to help get Ronny out of your system, I’ll do. But you say here Young Treasure Seeks Seaman. It sort of looks like you misspelled ‘semen’, like this is a personal ad for semen.”

Julie gasped. “Eek! No. No no no. I was trying to be poetic.”

“It is poetic, but maybe you should just say sailor instead.”

“Okay. I can do that. Anything else?”

Eve hesitated. “Can’t you cheer it up a bit?”

“Cheer it up? Why?”

“Julie, you sound like you don’t believe in love. You’re posting an ad to find love and you’re saying here, quite effectively, that you’re obsessed with things ending and dying. Do you really think that all of life is a shipwreck?”

Julie felt a rush of tears forming. She was so emotional lately, and talking about love did nothing to help her. “Not all of life, just mine.” 

“You’re smart. You’ve got talent. A wicked sense of humor, and, need I say, killer knockers. Your life is not a shipwreck. And I’m sorry to be such a hard-ass with you, but ever since Ronny took off you’ve been swimming in your own misery, and you’re better than that. Now write this down. We’re going to write you a personal ad that really works. That sings. An ad that will bring the man of your dreams to your feet.”

“Fine.” Julie said as she reached down and picked up her personal ad. She liked what she’d written. She didn’t think it was that depressing.

 Eve leaned in.  “Now take this down…”

Bud interrupted from the bar. “How about…Hot Mama Seeks Love Slave And Marriage. That would reel me in.”