Easy Does It #21 "Easy Lady Meets Dan the Man"

Chapter 21

Easy Lady meets Dan the Man

            A burst of cool wind twirled into the restaurant. Dan looked up from his menu. He felt something in his chest twist. It was her. It had to be her—Easy Lady. She stood in the doorway and she was…beautiful. She was wearing a silky red dress that swayed on her curves. The dress flowed over her like water and Dan was immediately reminded of why he liked women with shape. She had curly brown hair that was very soft, a bit puffy, and he thought, briefly, what it might look like if she hadn’t plastered every strand with hair spray. And true, she was wearing a lot of makeup like he’d expected but he thought that all that cake might be covering a very sweet face. It was something in her eyes. Something about the way her green eyes sparkled. He’d always been a sucker for green eyes. Then Dan remembered. This wasn’t Sweet Lady. This was Easy Lady. And she was twirling an argyle sock. He’d always found argyle socks irresistible on women.

            Julie walked over to the table. She was suddenly very nervous, but she tried to hide it with her strut. Thanks to the heels, strutting came naturally. Her hips were swinging so hard they’d knock a small child out if they got in the way. Julie tried to focus. This guy, this Dan the Man, didn’t fit the picture she had in her mind at all. Just looking at him she felt like she wanted to talk to him. Really, talk. Then she reminded herself of his lame email and that he was here to meet Easy Lady and not Julie Mills. “Hello,” she purred, trying to summon the sexy voice she imagined an easy lady would have. She tried to purr, but really it sounded more like she had something stuck in her throat.

            Dan extended his sweating hand and tried to stand up, only he’d somehow gotten tangled in the long white table cloth and the table tottered and threatened to turn over.

Julie reached out her hands and steadied the table. “Easy there, big boy,” she said and shifted on her spiky heels. Julie felt as if there were a glaring spotlight on her and everyone in the restaurant was staring. Did this Dan-the-Man almost tipping over the table qualify as a ‘catastrophic event’? She looked for Eve who had just taken a seat at the bar next to a big guy in a massive leather jacket. Eve smiled and gave a hidden thumb’s up sign. So, no, not a catastrophic event. Not yet at least. Julie swallowed, tried the purr on again and continued: “You must be Dan,” she said, “The Man.” She held out her hand to shake his and realized she was still holding the argyle sock. She decided to make it work for her.

            Dan gently took her hand in his, and shook it along with the argyle sock. Then he remembered that Captain Picard would have a more aggressive handshake, a handshake that said “I am a virile man as well as Captain of the Starship Enterprise.” Dan re-shook her hand, pumping it hard up and down.

            “Greetings,” he said, doing a rather impressive imitation of Picard’s Shakespearian voice. With a flash of inspiration, Dan quickly changed the handshake into an impressive commander-squeeze until Easy Lady looked almost pained.  “And you must be,” he lowered his voice to a growl, “Eaaaaaasyyyyy Laaaaaddddyyyyy.” His face flushed red after that one. He felt sweat trickling down his back.

            Julie nodded, sort of. If only this Dan Man hadn’t spoken, or shook her hand, or moved from the table.  “Actually, my friends call me…” she paused here. Her friends called her Julie because that was her name. Her real name. But she wasn’t Julie right now. Right now she was a vixen, a temptress. She was Easy Lady. E.L. Then the name came to her in a flash and Easy Lady was fully realized. “They just call me Elle. I’m Elle and it’s my pleasure to meet you. At least, I hope it will be my pleasure.”

            Dan adjusted his tie. “Seat,” he croaked. “I mean, sit. Have a seat. You. Down.” 

They sat. 

            Neither said a word. 

            What Would Picard Do? Dan frantically thought, but he didn’t know how Picard would handle a situation like this. In fact, unless they were talking about a new uprising of the Borg, then Dan didn’t really know what kind of small- talk Picard would make with a beautiful alien.

            Julie opened her menu and traced the words with a long press-on nail. It flipped off and landed in her water. She chuckled, and then hid behind her menu, praying that Dan the Man hadn’t noticed. She didn’t know what to say or do as this “easy lady”. As Julie, she’d ask Dan the Man what he did for a living and was his tie pin really a Star Trek pin or was it just an accident that it exactly matched the insignia Captain Picard would press to summon the Enterprise on Away explorations. Julie pressed her red lips together, and lowered her menu. “So…” she said. 

            “So….” He responded. Dan couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. He turned his head to look at his brother. His brother was sitting next to a very attractive blond who was also looking in his direction. Kevin made a humping motion with his hips. Dan took a deep breath and turned back to his date.

            “I must say,” he said trying very hard to sound like he had command of the situation, “You look, uhm, luscious. Like a big, uhm…” he paused here. Picard wasn’t helping him. It was time to switch tactics. Try impersonating someone who was better with actual women and not cyborgs. What about Sean Connery the definitive James Bond? What would he say?

            “You look like a luscious juicy steak,” Dan said, trying on a Scottish brogue. “That I want. To…” What would James Bond do with a steak? Why was Dan thinking of steaks? “That I want to…uhm…eat,” Dan finished at last.

            Julie looked up at him and blinked. “Oh,” she said.  She didn’t know how to respond. She tried to imagine what Eve would say to a guy like this. What would go

good with steak? What would carry on the metaphor and sound sexy at the same time? “And you look like a lump of mashed potatoes,” she said. “With gravy.” She tried to make it sound sexy, but it was hard to make mashed potatoes sound like anything but mashed potatoes. Dan and Julie looked at each other. He swallowed. She took a tentative sip of her water, trying to ignore the press-on nail lodged at the bottom, and noticed her lips left a bright red ring on the glass.

            “Well,” Dan the Man said.

            “Well-well,” Easy Lady responded.

            “Er…Let’s order?” Dan dabbed his napkin against his forehead. “Yeah,” he said with a little more force this time, praying his voice didn’t crack. “Order we shall.”

Easy Does It #20 "This-is-why-they-invented-valium nervous"

Chapter 20 

This-is-why-they-invented-valium Nervous

 

            “I’m nervous,” Julie said. “I mean, really, incredibly nervous. Like this-is-why-they-invented-valium nervous. Can you see him?” Eve and Julie stood just outside the door of Bella Vita. It was a little past eight and the restaurant was bustling with people, music, and waiters weaving in and out of it all delivering food. Eve peered into the window. 

            “I think he is there. There’s a single guy sitting at a table. He has red hair. Sort of spiky. And he’s wearing red. And his face is a little, uhm, red. He’s looking at his watch. And you know what?”

            “What?”

            “He’s cute,” Eve said, as she turned away from the window. “I mean, really, he’s cute.”

            “Too bad he’s an ass,” Julie said, looking at her black stilettos. She’d borrowed a pair of Eve’s shoes and was terrified of falling. The last time she’d worn heels had been…never.

            “Now, how do you know he’s an ass?”

            Julie looked at Eve with an expression that said ‘Uh, hell-o?’ “Eve,” she said, “He’s Dan-the-Man. His name rhymes…his email was…ugh. His email! Oh, I don’t care. It’s fine. It really is okay. It makes all of this easier. And maybe if I have a couple glasses of wine I’ll start to have fun. Do I look okay?”

             Eve turned Julie to her, gave her the once over, and nodded her head. “You look amazing,” she said. “Easy Lady, you are gorgeous.” Eve was getting a little teary. “You got your sock?” she asked.  Julie smiled and held up a single knee-high argyle sock. “Not exactly sexy,” Eve said, “But I respect your choice. Now, I’ll sit at the bar and if anything goes wrong, and I mean catastrophically wrong, just get up and go to the bathroom and I’ll meet you there.”

            “Isn’t that the point though?” Julie asked.

            “What?”

            “Isn’t that why I’m here? To have a date that goes catastrophically wrong so that I can get it out of my system?”

            Eve shook her head. “Forget all that. You’re here to get back at Ronny. Now smile.” Julie stuck out her chest and gave Eve a sarcastic ear-to-ear grin. Eve held up her phone and snapped a picture.

            “Hey! You didn’t tell me you were going to do that! Delete it.”

             “No. It’s mine.” Eve tucked the phone back into her purse. “What I meant by catastrophically wrong was if he whips out a measuring tape to see if your head will fit in his freezer. If that happens, then meet me in the bathroom and we’ll sneak out.” Julie suddenly imagined her headless torso on the front page of The Grand Rapids Press. The horror spread across her face. Eve laughed. “I’m kidding. Just try and relax. Own it. You’re about to have the worst date of your life, so have fun! I’ll be at the bar getting plastered.”

            “Okay then.” Julie smiled, threw back her shoulders, opened the door and strutted into the restaurant twirling the argyle sock in the air. And as she twirled the sock, she repeated to herself that she was no longer introverted Julie Mills, the waitress who sometimes cooked, the shy girl who was in love with Ronny the Rocker. No. Tonight she was free from emotion. She was single. She was (for the next three or four hours) Easy Lady, seductress, temptress, and lover of food.

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Easy Does It #19 'What Would Captain Picard Do?"

Chapter 19 

What Would Captain Picard Do?

            It took Kevin and Dan less than ten minutes to drive to Bella Vita Ristorante, a trendy little bistro with candlelight and a piano player playing Gershwin tunes and jazz standards. On the way over, Kevin gave Dan a running commentary on why he’d chosen Bella Vita Ristorante. He said it had good reviews and a good trend factor. You needed both to convince a woman that you were sincere. He’d read all about it in FHM Magazine. A restaurant like Bella Vita would no doubt work magic on a classy chick; take an un-classy chick like Easy Lady to a place like Bella Vita, Kevin had said, and not only would there be magic, but quite possibly an explosion of some kind.

            “Bro,” Kevin had continued as they walked from the car to the front steps of the restaurant. “Un-classy women are easily turned-on by places with white tablecloths. I know this from years of practice. Take a chick like Easy Lady to a place with small tables and tuxedoed waiters and suddenly she’ll depend on you. She won’t know what to do or how to order, and that’s exactly what you need. Someone to depend on you.” Dan had nodded, though he felt more like what he needed was to be able to depend on himself. 

            Kevin grabbed the door and they stepped inside, waiting in the tiny hallway while they decided the logistics of the evening. “First off,” Kevin said, “We’ll eat here. I mean, you will. And the chick.” Kevin motioned to the hostess who nodded her head in support of his choice. It was a small table for two at the center of the restaurant which would put Easy Lady in the center of it all, and provide Kevin with a clear view of what was happening from the bar. He pulled out Dan’s chair. “Sit,” he ordered, and Dan sat down. “Dude, sit up straight. Come on. You’ve got a bit of a physique there. If you don’t sit up straight she’ll be able to tell that the only action you get is with your Rubik’s Cube.” Kevin took a closer look a Dan who was sweating profusely; little circles of sweat dyed dark burgundy rings under his armpits. Dan was hoping his brother wouldn’t notice.

“Dude, are you okay?” Kevin asked, staring at his armpits.

“Yes. Sure,” Dan said. He unfurled his napkin and hit his water glass. Kevin

leaned forward and quickly stopped the glass from falling. “I mean,” Dan continued, “Well, I’m sort of okay. I think I’m nervous or something.”

            “Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. Look. Chill out. There’s no reason to lose your cool even before she gets here. I’ll sit right here at the bar, that way I can keep my eye on you and give you pointers if you start to crash and burn.”

            “How are you going to give me pointers?” Dan asked, his voice shaking.

             “Dude, are you sure you’re okay? You look all sweaty and shit.”

            “I’m fine,” Dan said, trying in vain to adjust his tie. “I’m just a little out of practice.” Dan was more than a little out of practice. He felt like he’d never been on a date in his entire life.  How had he managed to date Kim? He couldn’t even remember that far back and how he had seduced her. Although at some point he must have, since she’d moved in with him. It was harder than he thought to act cocky and self-assured like his brother. Walking into the restaurant, Dan felt immediately like he was interviewing for a job he had no qualifications for. 

            “Relax. I’ll help you out. That’s what brothers do, right? So,” Kevin said. “Remember baseball? Remember coach’s signal to slide home, steal second, and the rest of it?”

            “Not exactly. I haven’t played since Little League.”

            “Dude. Look. If you’re crashing and burning I’ll make this signal.” Kevin grabbed his left ear and jiggled it. “This means you need to get out of there and meet me in the back hallway and pronto. Now, if I do this…” He made a sliding motion with his hand. “It means this lady is into you and you can call for the bill and get out of here.  You’re in for a homerun. I’ll hang out and give you guys an hour or so of one-on-one banging time before I come home.”

            Dan tried very hard not to roll his eyes at the one-on-one banging time comment. His brother, though older than him and 34, was forever frozen as a sixteen-year-old fuck-up.

            “One more thing,” Kevin said. 

            “What?”

            “Remember, just do what I would do and you’ll be fine.”

            Dan nodded. It would make the night go faster and this lady wouldn’t care. It wasn’t like she was high-class material or anything. For one night, he’d see how his brother lived. Dan would succumb to his animal instincts and become a pig. He wouldn’t take advantage of the girl or anything; he’d just play with her, try to figure out how to unlock her, and then he’d go home. By eleven o’clock, he’d be in his boxer shorts eating cheese curls, and watching Star Trek. In other words, he’d be back where he belonged. 

            Kevin gave Dan a hard thump on the back, apparently for good luck and walked to the bar. Dan closed his eyes and tried to visualize himself as his brother. It wasn’t working.

            In a flash, it came to Dan—a way that he could be smooth and assured. He wouldn’t act like his brother. Kevin was too crass for him. No. Dan would channel another man that he admired. Tonight, Dan would think “What Would Captain Picard Do?” Captain Picard: perhaps the greatest commander of any interstellar spaceship, who, even completely bald could make even aliens tremble with desire…or so he read on fansites. Yes. He would channel the leader of the Starship Enterprise thus ensuring that he could seduce this Easy Lady. It would take everything in him to do this, but he would make it so.  

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Easy Does It #18 "Be like me. Be an animal."

Chapter 18

Be like me. Be an animal.

            Kevin put on his tight dark jeans that showed off his package and a crisp white muscle shirt. Over that went a white shirt and then his leather jacket. He looked at himself in the mirror and ran his hands over his chest. He looked good. Fit. If he were meeting this woman, he’d have her on his arm and out the door in less than an hour. Maybe he’d even get her to pay. Then again, he had to stop thinking about picking up women when this night was for his brother. For Dan the Man. It was the least he could do. “You ready, bro?” he called.

            Dan opened his door, dejectedly walked across the kitchen, and grabbed his car keys. “Ready as ever,” he mumbled. Kevin thought that if Dan stood up straight and had some confidence, he’d look pretty decent.  Right now he looked like a substitute teacher who was sent home after first period for being too boring.

            “Come here,” Kevin said.

            “What?” Dan tugged at his tie. “It’s choking me.”             “Come here, man.” Kevin adjusted his tie. “There’s just one thing missing.”

            “What’s that? I’ve got the car keys and my identification. I should be okay.”

            Kevin shook his head. Sometimes it was like his brother spoke in a foreign language. “Dude. You need to smell good.”

            “I smell fine.” He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew, just to be sure. “Cinnamon,” he said.

            “Not your breath dumbass. You need to smell good. Right now, you smell clean, but for a woman like that, you need to smell good. You know, like all pheromoney and shit. Here.”  Kevin sprayed him generously with a swampy cologne. Dan coughed and tried to wave the cloud away.  “Stop looking all pathetic, bro. Look…you’ll never get her into bed unless you have some attitude.”

            Dan shrugged his shoulders.  Kevin knew his brother inside and out.  And he knew right now that Dan was thinking that he was interested in more than just getting laid.  “Dude,” Kevin said. “Trust me on this one. You’ll never get over Kim until you do the deed with someone new. It’s like some universal law of dating. You’re not over someone until you’re with someone new. I know you’re nervous, man, but don’t be. Just do what I would do and she’ll be yours. Be like me. Be an animal.”

            “Fine,” Dan said. Kevin thought Dan’s voice sounded a little bit like his own. His brother would make him proud tonight, he had no doubt. And when his brother was to the point where he couldn’t screw things up any further, namely when the bill came, then Kevin could take some time for himself and find a woman of his own to spend the night with.

            “Let’s hit it,” Kevin said. “We’ll take two cars because I have this feeling that you’re going to score tonight. Like a serious touchdown.” To Kevin, everything in life could be reduced to an analogy with sports. His ability to do this had closed more than a few mortgage deals, and once again, it had closed the deal with Dan. They were on their way. It was going to be one crazy night, Kevin could tell.

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Easy Does It #17 "Grandma says I should try a Tahitian enema"

Chapter 17

Grandma says I should try a Tahitian enema.

            “This is ridiculous. I feel like I’m going to a special high school prom for hookers.” Julie stood in front of her full length mirror. Eve was behind her, helping her adjust the straps of her slinky red dress.

“Shut up. You look amazing. You look, dare I say it, easy.”

“That’s just it! I don’t want to look easy. It sounded fun and all last night, but this could be dangerous. I mean, what if the guy is a complete psycho?” She’d just watched a rerun of the X-Files where two people met over the Internet: one ended up an alien serial-killer and the other ended up dead. 

“Ronny was a psycho. Totally self-absorbed. Really, what’s the worst that could happen?” Eve asked. “Wait. Don’t answer that. Look, even your Grandma says you should go.”

“Yes, and my Grandma also says I should try a Tahitian enema. She says they’re very refreshing. And how did my grandma find out about this anyway?”

“Can I plead the fifth?”

“No.”

“Can I just plead then? Okay, I may have maybe given her a call to see how she’s doing. I like her, sweets. Really. And at the end of our little conversation I may have let it slip that you drank an entire bottle of wine and posted a sultry Internet ad.”

“Eve! You didn’t!”

“Don’t worry. Your grandma thought it was very sexy. She said it reminded her of when she was thirty and was dating this guy named Roberto…”             “Please! I don’t want to hear another word.” Julie spun herself around and checked out her back. The dress hugged her every curve the way she imagined an ex-con would hug a woman after getting out of prison, that is, it was plastered to every curve, and she had a lot of curves. Ordinarily, some might call this dress a sequined top. Clearly Easy Lady didn’t believe in things like leggings or pants. Julie harrumphed, trying to swallow the bubble of panic rising in her throat. Or was it the chili cheese fries she and Eve had just split? No. It was panic. She shook her head and tried to unzip the back. Her fingers couldn’t seem to budge the zipper from its lock on her. “I can’t do this, Eve. The last date I had was with Ronny three years ago and that wasn’t dating. It was prolonged sex with a roommate. Oh, God. Get me out of this!”

“No can do. You are glued into that. And I know how you feel about Ronny. And you can say it was just sex with Ronny, but I know after three years, it was more like you were in love with him. He broke your heart. Now it’s time to mend it. Go and have fun.” Eve patted Julie’s back and took another step backward to look at her. She crinkled her nose, grabbed her purse and rummaged around in it until she found the plastic Wet N Wild container she was looking for.

“And what says fun more than Electric Blue Eye shadow? Close your eyes.” Julie closed her eyes while Eve painted her lids. “Stop obsessing,” she continued. “I’ll be there with you. I’ll watch from the bar. You get a free dinner, and get back at Ronny cosmically. All in one swoop. Then we’ll come back and put your real ad up, and you’ll be back in business.”  Eve flicked the eye shadow closed, wiggled her eyebrows in approval, adjusted the straps one more time and patted Julie’s shoulders. “Now…look at yourself again.”

Julie stared into her own eyes and let herself look. The blue shadow really made her eyes look electric, like sparkling green ice. And she had to admit that the red dress, though slinky and short and just over the edge of a PG-13 rating, really did emphasize all the right curves, while seeming to diminish the wrong ones. Her breasts were pushed up and looked soft as bread, her belly was flat, and her hips flared and rounded. She looked pretty good. Actually, if she had to put it into words, she looked pretty bad in the way that Marilyn Monroe could look like sex-appeal wrapped in a pure white dress. Julie was, in fact a size 12, but so was Marilyn Monroe and Julie in this red number just may have given Marilyn a run for her money.

“I should stand over a vent,” Julie said. “Only there’s no extra material here to billow.”

“That’s right, girly,” Eve said, nodding in agreement. “You go. Channel that inner Easy Lady. I’ll be right behind you.”

            “Tell me why I look like this again?”

            “To free your inner sex kitten, purge your bad dating karma, get over Ronny and to entertain me all over an enormous bowl of pasta,” Eve responded in one breath.

            “That’s what I thought,” Julie said. “Okay then.  Let’s do this.”

Easy Does It #16 A Recipe for Disaster

Chapter 16 

A recipe for disaster.

            Dan knew that he was in store for a train wreck. Every time his brother tried to do something for him, it was always a train wreck. Tonight would be no different. When they were teenagers, Kevin had set them up with sisters. A classic double date. They went bowling, then to Yesterdog for chili dogs and cokes, and then to see “The Empire Strikes Back” at Studio 28. Kevin took turns making out with the sisters while Dan quietly ate popcorn, knowing that his brother was a member of the Dark Side. Or there was the party Kevin took him too.

            “Dude, you’ve got to wear this mullet wig and this 1980’s outfit. We’re going to a kick ass Mullet party.” Dan had changed, showed up to meet Kevin only to discover that it wasn’t a Mullet party at all, but a surprise visit from their parents to celebrate Dan’s birthday. His parents still had the picture on the mantel: There’s Mom and Dad in their Sunday best, Kevin looking like he stepped out of a magazine, and Dan wearing a sleeveless Motley Crue t-shirt and a mullet wig to rival Chewbacca. Train wreck. How could tonight be any different?  

He thought about his blind date while he took his shower, and went through his general pre-date rituals of brushing his teeth and shaving. He could see her now: she’d have big boobs and a little brain. They would have nothing to talk about. She didn’t look like the type of woman who talked much anyway. She probably just panted or something. He’d ask her a question and she’d…what? Purr? No. Tonight was a recipe for disaster. He just knew it. Dan opened the bathroom door, steam spilling out around him, and called, “Kevin! Forget it! No. No way. I’m not doing this!”

            Kevin opened his bedroom door and glared at him. There was music pouring from his bedroom and Dan could see the weights dumped on his floor. “Bro, it’s time you got out of the house and got a piece. This woman wants you.” He flexed his arm muscles for emphasis.

            “She responded to your email, not mine.”

            “But it’s your picture.”  Kevin walked past Dan’s closet, and into Dan’s bedroom, emerging with a red shirt. A shirt Kevin had given him two years ago and Dan had never worn. “Look, I’m doing you a favor,” Kevin said, and tossed him the shirt. “A favor for, you know, for letting me crash here for a bit.”

            “A bit? It’s been almost a year.  I’d call it taking root here as opposed to crashing.”

            “Like I said,” Kevin continued, ignoring Dan completely, “you let me crash here, and I’m thanking you by setting you up with the woman of your dreams.”

            “She’s not the woman of my dreams. She’s the woman of your dreams,” Dan said. “Your wet dreams.” He was still in his towel from the shower but he held onto the red shirt Kevin tossed him as if it were a shield.

            “Dude.  I have kick-ass dreams.”  Kevin threw a pair of black pants at his brother’s face and told him to get dressed.  “And to be honest, you’ve been a real downer since Kim dumped you.”

            Dan’s face tightened. “She didn’t dump me,” he said.

            “Whatever.”  Kevin walked into the bathroom, nudged Dan out of the way, and rubbed the steam off the mirror. He ran his hands through his hair and checked his teeth.  “She dumped you, man. You‘ve got to get over her. It’s not cool that you’ve been moping around here for two years. It’s gone past pathetic. Now it’s just weird. Get dressed, dude, you owe me.”

            Dan was, again, exasperated. Only his brother could be cocky enough to say that Dan owed him when clearly it was the other way around.  In the shower, Dan had decided firmly that no good would come from this night and it was a bad idea, and he still wasn’t convinced to take a chance counting on his brother.

            “Tell you what,” Kevin said. “Look.  You’re still pretty pissed at this Kim chick right?”

            Dan nodded. He was pissed. And hurt. It was why he just couldn’t bring himself to meet anyone else. He couldn’t trust falling for a woman again. Kevin looked at him and for a brief flash, Dan felt like he was reading his mind.

            “Then you’ve got to look at this date as an opportunity.”  Kevin said.

            “An opportunity to what?”

            “An opportunity to get back at Kim by showing her you’ve moved on. Dude, you’re never going to get on with your life if you keep rehashing what went down with you and that chick, so move on to another chick. Even if it’s for just one night and she’s just a practice chick. Seriously. Think about it. Why do you think I chose this Easy Lady for you?” Dan looked at Kevin blankly.  He really had no idea.  “Because she’s Eaaaaaaaassssyyyyyy. This is gonna be a piece of cake. Get it? A piece! If you get stuck, just act like me. She’ll never know the difference.” Kevin turned to his brother and smiled. Dan couldn’t help but smile back. “Now get dressed,” Kevin said. “We’re meeting her in an hour and I want time to scope out the restaurant, have a couple of shots, and find a place where I can watch the action.”

            Dan obediently got dressed, but couldn’t help thinking that just when he thought his brother was doing something decent, he’d go and bring up the word action. Dan knew that to Kevin everything eventually was reduced to action. It was the one thing Dan could still count on his life: his brother was entirely predictable. Still, there was comfort thinking that if he wanted to, he could act exactly like his brother with this…chick. He didn’t have to be himself. Women didn’t like him…at least Kim didn’t. He could be anyone really, and Easy Lady would never know the difference. She’d never guess that he was just playing a game to appease his brother, and maybe get over the love of his life. 

            He buttoned up his red shirt and looked at himself in the mirror. His red hair was sticking up in all the wrong places and with the red shirt he felt a bit, well, red.  A bit defeated. What had Kim seen in him anyway? He had bad hair, a gut, and little sex appeal. True, he was a mean cook and tried to do all those sweet and wonderfully romantic things that leading men did in movies, but he hadn’t been enough for Kim.  How could he be enough for anyone else?

            He turned away from the mirror and realized that Kevin didn’t worry about how he looked or what women thought about him. Kevin was full of himself, pushy, and insensitive. It might be fun to pretend to be Kevin for a few hours. It really could be a relief to take on some of his brother’s qualities. And what better way to chase away his dating demons than on a woman who promised that everything in life was easy?

Easy Does It #15--If you don't like him, maybe he has an interesting friend.

Chapter 15 

If you don’t like him, maybe he has an interesting friend.

            Julie walked slowly up the flight of stairs to her apartment, carrying her mail in one hand, and the bright blue bag from Luscious in the other. When she got inside her phone was flashing, indicating a new number. She pressed the caller ID, saw a number she didn’t know (no doubt selling something), a number from the phone company, and then her Grandma’s number. Julie smiled and lifted the receiver. Sure enough there was the staccato tone indicating a message. She pressed her password and waited.

Listen, Julie, it’s your Grandma and I’ve just

gotten off the phone with Eve.  She’s rather an odd

duck that Eve but I like her.  She says you’ve got a

date tonight and that you don’t want to go.  Julie,

sweetheart, go. It’s medicine for your heart.

And who knows?  If you don’t like him, maybe he

has an interesting friend. 

            Julie hung up the phone.  Her eyes instantly flooded with tears. She felt suddenly deeply lucky. So what if the love of her life was tooling around Ohio with two married groupies? So what if the only date she could get now was off the Internet and because she was drunk and wearing a red teddy? She had Eve and Grandma in her life, what more did she need? She smiled to herself, because every now and then she needed something they couldn’t give her, but they had battery operated things for that. 

            She walked into her bathroom, turned on the faucet to hot, and waited for the tub to fill. If she could summon the right mindset, she could make something of this night.  She’d do all the necessary preparations for a date: wash and style her hair, exotic magazine make-up, and shave every part of her body…almost every part of her body. She would take Eve’s and her Grandma’s advice. And anyway, it wasn’t exactly Julie Mills going on a date with a stranger. It was Easy Lady, and who knew what she was capable of? Ronny would be shocked at just how spontaneous she was willing to be.

No. She decided that she couldn’t plot out her life. She’d go on this date. She’d consider tonight practice to cleanse her dating palate, purge herself of Ronny, and then she could start over. She needed to start over. Ronny had been on her mind and heart for too long now and it was time to exorcise him. And what better way to exorcise an ex than to do all the things she’d always wanted to do and not have to answer to it in the morning?

            Julie slipped into the tub and relished in her body relaxing. She breathed. Felt the stress slip from her shoulders. For once in her life she was going to stop obsessing and have a good time. She had complete freedom to be awkward and awful because she was going on this date not as shy Julie Mills, but as the sultry vixen Easy Lady. There was freedom in the idea. And, she thought, smiling to herself, who knew?  Maybe this Dan the Man had an interesting friend he could introduce her to.

Easy Does It #14 If that's not a dress for Easy Lady, I don't know what is.

 

Chapter 14

If that’s not a dress for Easy Lady, I don’t know what is.

It took Julie less than ten minutes to pull out what Eve thought was a bizarre assortment of vegetables and whip up a killer omelet. “What’s this green stuff?”

“That’s called spinach, Eve. Eat it. It’s good for you.”

“What’s this white stuff?”

“Feta. Now eat!”

Eve didn’t ask what the red stuff was, but ate happily away. Julie was a master in the kitchen. And apparently, her omelet creation was a cure for a killer hangover. They didn’t talk much when eating. Eve waited till the end of breakfast to tell Julie, “I don’t care how good you cook, sweets. You’re still meeting that guy. And if you don’t want to do it then call your Grandma for a pep talk.  She always talks sense into you. I’ve got an hour before I have to open the store. Want to give me a lift and I’ll pick out the perfect outfit for Easy Lady’s debut?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Okay then. Sounds good.”

*

Julie may have been a whiz in the kitchen, but Eve was a Goddess in retail. She worked at Luscious, a trendy boutique on the east side of town. It was, in fact, called Eastown; the one block district where artists hung out at coffee shops, college kids smoked at the Hookah Lounge, and rich young mothers went shopping. Luscious allowed Eve a discount on all the designer clothes she so adored, and provided endless entertainment and drama. She didn’t mind retail. She enjoyed talking to people about jewelry, make-up, and clothes, but sometimes she got tired of the politics. The two owners, Michelle and Melissa, hated each other and put Eve in the middle. Thankfully, this morning, Eve was opening the store on her own.

She unlocked the door, keyed in the alarm code to disable it, and motioned Julie inside. “You, my dear, wait here.” Eve pushed Julie gently into the back of the store by the changing rooms. “I already know what you, or should I say, what Julie as Easy Lady should wear.”

Julie casually flipped through the tiny black dresses on a rack the way you might flip through birthday cars at a Hallmark. “You know those teenage ‘80’s movies we like so much?” she called to Eve.

“Yeah?” Eve’s voice called to her from somewhere in the belly of the store.

“Well, if we were in a teenage ‘80s movie, this would be the perfect moment for a musical montage where in ten seconds I try on forty outfits and we sing and dance and then high-five in triumphant.”

“Yeah,” Eve said. She was headed towards Julie and had something draped over her arm. “Only you don’t need to try on forty dresses. I’ve already got the perfect one. Here.”

They walked to the dressing room, which wasn’t a room at all but a small square rug surrounded by velvet curtains. “Easy ladies first,” said Eve, motioning. Julie pulled the curtains open, stepped in, and stepped out of her clothes. The dress seemed like it would be too small to roll over her hips. She waited for the rrrrrriiiiiip sound, but there was silence. The dress went on smoothly. It fit. It did more than fit. It fit her like a second skin, if she’d had a second skin of deep red silk and hidden sequins that caught the light just so. Julie couldn’t believe her own eyes. “Well, come on, sweets!” Eve said and whipped the curtains open. “Holy shit! I should have said, ‘Well come on, Easy Lady’ because if that’s not the dress for Easy Lady, I don’t know what is.” Eve couldn’t help the grin on her face. “This is going to be so much fun, Julie. I can’t wait ‘til work is over.”

“I can’t believe we’re going to do this.”

“But we are.”

“Yeah. We are. If only Ronny could see me now.” Julie twirled in her dress.

Eve noticed that she was smiling too.

Easy Does It #13 Low quality beer, a picture of a johnson & an invitation to dinner.

Chapter 13

Low quality beer, a picture of a man’s johnson and an invitation to dinner.

            Julie woke up when the sun was high enough to pierce her drawn shades and send rays of light over her eyes. She was sprawled on her couch and was still wearing what would forevermore be referred to as her Easy Teddy. She swept the sleep from her eyes, yawned, and slipped her feet into her stuffed bumblebee slippers to schlep to the kitchen.

             Eve was still passed out. Sometime late last night, Eve must have improvised and used two pizza boxes in place of a pillow, as her face was smashed into the top of a box while she slept soundly. Julie vaguely remembered eating pizza even before Eve showed up to help her wade through her emails. Then other vague memories began to surface in the haze of her mind. “Eve!  Eve, wake up!” she said as she reached over and shook Eve’s shoulder.

            Eve slowly lifted her head up and her eyes squinted open. “Where the hell am I?” She turned to Julie and blinked. “Who the hell are you?”

            “Very funny. So…do you have any recollection of what we did last night?”

            “Did you make me a woman?”

            “You were a woman long before I met you. No. I’m serious. Do you seriously remember what we did last night?”

            Eve nodded and smacked her lips together. She stood up, stumbled over to the fridge and opened the freezer door. She poked her head in, looking for something and said, “Of course I remember. Low quality beer, a picture of a man’s Johnson, and an invitation to dinner. Am I forgetting something?” She pulled her head out of the freezer and turned to Julie. Julie did not respond.

            “I can’t go,” Julie said. “What was I thinking? I can’t meet that guy. He’s probably a stalker. I’ve heard stories. You know…crazy men, married men, men who like to wear high heels and pigtails. Let’s forget it and do something else tonight.”

            Eve shook her head, closed the freezer, and opened the fridge. Again, she peered earnestly inside the fridge, searching for something deep in its recesses. “Nope.  Sorry. It’s not that easy…Easy Lady. You’re going to meet this guy. You’ll be fine. I’ll carry pepper spray and zap him over the fettuccini if he even looks at you funny. Besides, you promised. And if you look at your computer screen there’s a little sticky note waiting for you because I got your promise in writing.” Eve shut the fridge and opened the stove.

            “Eve!” Julie said.  Her voice was sharper than she’d intended, but she was irritated that once again she signed a promise while she was intoxicated. “What on earth are you looking for?” 

            Eve closed the stove. “I smell pepperoni,” she replied. “It’s making me hungry.”

            “That’s you, Eve. You smell like pepperoni.”

            Eve lifted her t-shirt to her nose, and inhaled. “How about that?” Eve asked. “I always said I was good enough to eat. Make me an omelet, would you? Then after that, we can go to my store and find you something to wear.”

Easy Does It #12 "Kim Took Off To Find Her Inner Cowgirl"

Chapter 12

Kim took off to find her inner cowgirl.

Dan ignored his brother. He was always yelling something at him: either to grab him a beer, or a coke, or watch some football replay, or see how his muscle flexed in the mirror. It was exhausting. After a day of building websites for a Christian Reformed church, and then the adult bookstore Purple Velvet, Dan was emotionally zapped. He wanted to unwind and relax.

He picked up the Rubik’s Cube again and began to shift and spin the colors. It was the one thing left from his old life that he still had, and could do quietly without his brother’s interference. Now, even this seemed to be a sacrifice he’d have to make.

“We’re going out tomorrow night.” He heard his brother’s voice barrel through the living room. “I just snagged you a date.”

Dan felt his breath rush out of him, and realized it was fear. He hadn’t dated anyone in ages, not since Kim emptied out their apartment and took off to Texas to find her inner cowgirl. That was over two years ago and Dan still hadn’t recovered from that terrible moment of coming home and finding his life and the woman he loved…gone.  Kevin had been pestering him to get back into dating, but Dan just didn’t have the stomach for it. Plus, he was still a little angry about the whole situation and he didn’t want to date another woman until he met someone he could trust. Really trust.

And now, Kevin had gone the extra mile and actually set Dan up on a date. Dan knew that he’d have to go with Kevin on this one. Kevin never took no for an answer, it was why he was such a good salesman. Dan would have to accompany Kevin wherever he wanted and then meet this mystery woman that Kevin was setting him up with. The last woman Kevin wanted him to meet had had breasts that in some countries might be considered assault weapons, they jutted out so far. It was the image of who this woman would be that sent Dan into an anxiety attack. 

“Yo, Dan!” Kevin yelled. “Come in here and check her out.” Dan slowly set his Rubik’s Cube down and stood up. He might as well lock it away for good. There was no way out of this so he might as well see her picture and try to figure out a defense plan for tomorrow night. Whoever she was, if Kevin picked her, then Dan knew she was not the one for him.

Easy Does It #11 Nothing Said Romance Like A Foreign Language

Chapter 11 

Nothing said romance and sophistication like a foreign language.

            Kevin Masters couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d watched the video twelve times and he still couldn’t believe it. He’d found the perfect woman for his brother Dan: a woman who Dan couldn’t go wrong with. Here was a woman who might actually get his brother to leave the house wearing something other than sweatpants and his ‘I Believe in Aliens’ t-shirt. Here was a woman poised on a couch like a cat in heat, basically begging for a one-night-no-commitment stand. 

            And that’s exactly what Dan needed: a relationship with a woman that wasn’t a relationship. What Dan needed was to be more like Kevin, but Kevin had been the one blessed with the good looks and charm and the ability to know what a woman wants. Any woman. And he’d had enough one-night stands to rival James Bond. In fact, if Kevin really thought about it, he actually was James Bond; he even had high-tech gadgets to prove it. 

            Kevin rubbed his hands together in excitement. He pressed print on the computer, and waited for the sputtering of the woman’s picture. She was something else. And because he knew what a woman wanted, he knew exactly what it would take to reel her in. He was tempted to post his own video asking for a hook-up, but he’d promised himself he’d find someone for his brother. So, he was forced to send a written response instead. He signed in with his brother’s email and wrote the woman back.

                        Dear Easy Lady,

                        You look like my kind of sock.  Red, silky,

                        and luscious.  Just what I want to wrap

                        my feet up in. 

                        Yours,

                        Dan the Man

            Kevin knew it wasn’t exactly a poetic email, but this woman wasn’t looking for poetry. She was looking for a man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for it.  Of course, he was doing this for his brother, and it would be Dan who sat across from this spicy vixen and not Kevin.  But Kevin would derive the pleasure of seeing his brother finally score, knowing all along that without him, Dan would stay at home and read that classic literature baloney while listening to weird piano music on the radio. Kevin reread his brilliant email and then added a P.S.

                        P.S.  Let’s make this real easy.  Meet me. 

                        Tomorrow.  Saturday night. 8pm.  Bella Vita,

                        where we can have a drink, some conversation,

                        and then a bella noche.

            That last part was the clincher. The “bella noche”.  Nothing said Bring It On lilke a couple of Italian words. Kevin had developed three very convincing accents for just this purpose. He tilted back in his chair and smiled broadly. “Yo, Dan!” he called to his brother who was in the living room messing with his Rubik’s Cube. He played with that thing so much he’d probably go blind. “We’re going out tomorrow night. I just snagged you a date.”

Easy Does It #10 "Funny how even your heart could lie to you."

Chapter 10 

Funny how even your heart could lie to you.

There was no way Dan was going to figure out the Rubik’s Cube with his brother yelling at him from the bathroom to grab him a beer while he was ‘thinking’. He dejectedly put it on his coffee table for a later time, although when that later time would be was anyone’s guess.

Since his brother had moved in with him, it seemed Dan never had time for himself. He never had the time to relax and drink a glass of wine while listening to Miles Davis. He never had time to watch an episode of Star Trek without interruption. Never had time to watch the Food Network and eat a sandwich without Kevin saying “What’s up bro? Gimme some of that.” No. All of Dan’s previous indulgences had been set aside to make room for Kevin’s workout bench, bad 1980’s posters of women on cars, and his beer stein collection. 

Six months ago, Kevin had given him a story about the housing bust. He financed mortgages and when no one bought houses, he made no money. Now he was faced with the horrendous prospect of moving back in with their parents, and Dan had mentioned that, of course, he could stay with him until he got back on his feet. Kevin was more than on his feet now, but he was still living in Dan’s spare room and taking over his whole house like a slow creeping virus. In fact, Kevin was bringing home new DVDs, exercise equipment, had just installed a computer desk and home office in the spare room, and bought a new bed. On top of everything, Kevin didn’t even offer to pay rent.

Still, God, it was better than living alone.

Dan sighed and thought about Kim again. He still carried her picture in his wallet, the one of the two of them on the beach at Lake Michigan. His family’s cottage. They stood by a bonfire with the sun setting in glorious colors behind them. Dan had his arm draped over her blade-like shoulders. In the picture you could see he was losing a little of his red hair, and had a bit of a sunburn, and even a bit of a belly. Kim looked gorgeous. Hair pulled tight and perfect in a slick ponytail, dressed entirely in some kind of brown, like the color of sand.

He had the picture memorized.

He didn’t need to look at it.

Still, sometimes, when he was alone, he pulled it out of his wallet, smoothed out his creases and remembered. In the picture, you could tell he was happy. You could also tell that Kim’s smile was as breakable as glass. He’d never noticed that, never thought he was in love with her and she felt nothing. Funny how even your heart could lie to you.

“Dude! Get your ass off the couch and bring me a beer. The exercise will do you good.”

What could Dan do? He went to get his brother a beer. 

Easy Does It #9 "I don't want to date anyone whose name rhymes"

Chapter 9

I don’t want to date anyone whose name rhymes.

            It took them a minute (and another beer) to control their laughter and refocus on their goal. After a close-up of a man’s genitalia, the next email seemed comparatively harmless. Julie hated to admit it, but the whole idea of going on a date, any date, to purge Ronny from her system was, well, fun and a much better way to spend her Friday night than her usual Star Trek Marathon of uncut episodes. She read the message out loud:

                       Dear Easy Lady,

                       You look like my kind of sock.  Red, silky,

                       and luscious.  Just what I want to wrap

                       my feet up in. 

                        Yours,

                        Dan the Man

                        P.S.  Let’s make this real easy.  Meet me. 

                        Tomorrow.  Saturday night. 8pm.  Bella Vita,

                        where we can have a drink, some conver-

                        sation, and then a bella noche.

            “Do you have to work tomorrow night?” Eve asked.

“Nope. It’s my one solitary Saturday night off a month. Why? You’re not thinking I should actually meet this guy, are you?”

Eve nodded. “Hit reply. He’s a winner, which is, uhm, better than a wiener.” 

            “You think you’re witty, don’t you?”

            “Of course. I learned from you, cupcake.” 

            Julie shook her head. “Uh-uh. Look. He calls himself Dan the Man. I don’t want to date anyone whose name rhymes.”

“Yeah? You called yourself Easy Lady so I wouldn’t quibble over names too much.”

“Quibble?” Julie repeated.

“Yes, quibble. It’s a perfectly good word. Now, let’s hope this picture shows more than his package.” Eve clicked on his picture and they both watched as it appeared frame by slow frame. “Are you ever going to get DSL?” Eve asked.

“Who can afford it? Plus it makes downloading pictures so suspenseful.” They resumed watching the screen in complete silence as if watching the latest Saw movie. And then, there he was. Julie thought the guy looked pretty normal. He was a little soft around the middle, true, but he had a kind face. His reddish hair was spiky and he was wearing a bright blue shirt and a purple tie. His outfit was artistic, borderline bad, but it had one thing going for it: it didn’t match perfectly. A great sign that he was, indeed, heterosexual. Julie liked his smile. He had a soft smile, a smile that said “I like dogs and have a good relationship with my mother.” He looked handsome and, well, nice. In fact, his picture didn’t seem to match the email at all. He looked like the kind of guy that would help an old lady across the street and then invent a new traffic signal so she could do it on her own in the future without fear.

“Come on,” Eve prodded. “Just do it. He’s not that bad.” 

“Anything compared to a picture of a man’s, uhm, johnson…isn’t bad.”

            “Hit reply.”

            “You.”

            “No, you do it. You’re the one who needs the dating experience.”

            “No I don’t. I’ve changed my mind,” Julie said emphatically.

            “Okay, freak. Then I’ll do it.” 

                        Dear Dan  Eve typed.

            “You forgot to write The Man,” Julie said. 

            “Right. Dear Dan. The Man,” Eve continued and returned to typing.

                        Dear Dan The Man,

                        I would love to meet you.  8pm it is.

                        Easy Lady

            “That’s not very interesting,” Julie said. “It doesn’t really sound like Easy Lady.”           

“And how does Easy Lady sound?”

            “I don’t know. Easy.” Julie scooted her chair over so that Eve was forced to move over and let her at the keyboard. “If I’m going to do this, I may as well do it right, right?”

            “Right.” Eve walked behind her chair, crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

            “And don’t forget you owe me a dollar,” Julie said.

            “I’ll have to mortgage my house.”

            “You live in a condo.”             “Then mortgaging a house may prove difficult,” Eve conceded.

            Julie rolled up her sleeves and began to type. She didn’t actually roll up her sleeves; she didn’t need to.  All she did was unlatch her lemon bumble bee robe revealing her red teddy. Doing so allowed Julie to channel her inner Easy Lady and write the following:

                        Dear Dan The Man,

                        You sound hot.  Real, real, hot.  I love the part

                        where you said “bella noche”.  I’m a sucker for

                        a man who speaks German.  I will meet you at

                        Bella Vita.  I’ll be the one in red wearing only

                        one sock.

                        Easy

Eve took a long look at Julie and smiled. “You’re brilliant,” she said. 

            “I’m drunk.”  Julie tried to wink, but could never do that feat while drunk. Instead she did an exaggerated blink. “I’m a brilliant drunk.”

            “Even better.”

            “You know what this reminds me of?” Julie asked.

            “What.”

            “This reminds me of college. Remember that apartment we had? Remember Drunken Tequila Night when we did all those shots and somehow that entire fraternity ended up coming over? That was fun. This reminds me of that.”

            “Do you remember why they came over?” Eve asked and tipped the last of the potato chip bits from the bag into her mouth.

            “No. They were hot though.”

            “No. You were hot. The fraternity came over because you were drunk off your ass and sweating. You took your shirt off and called out to the parking lot that if anyone wanted a ‘hot tamale’ there were two in apartment 3S.” Eve watched Julie and waited for Julie to remember. “So,” Eve said. “Are you hot now? Is that what reminds you of that night?”

            “Didn’t we pass out after all that drinking?” Julie asked. Her words were starting to slur. “ ‘Cause it’s the passing out thing that I was thinking about.”

            “You wanna pass out?”

            “Yes, please.” 

            “Okay,” Eve agreed. She sat back down next to Julie and she rested her head on Eve’s shoulders. Julie’s hair was a mop of brown and bits stuck to Eve’s lip-gloss. As Julie drifted to sleep she thought there was no where she’d rather be right now than exactly where she was.

Easy Does It #8 "She looked like a bumblebee in heat"

Chapter 8

She looked like a bumblebee in heat.

            Julie opened the door and Eve gasped—really gasped.  “Oh my God,” Eve said. “You look like a bumblebee in heat!” And then she laughed. She couldn’t even enter the door she was laughing so hard.

            “Oh, really,” Julie said. “I don’t look that bad.”  She tugged her bathrobe closed. 

            “What are you wearing underneath that? What’s that?” Eve flicked at a piece of red lace and tried to get Julie to open her robe.

            “What? Nothing!”             “That’s the red teddy you got at Victoria’s Secret, isn’t it? Let me see!” 

Julie looked both ways to see if any of her neighbors were stumbling in from the bar. No signs. She quickly opened her bathrobe, gave Eve a flash, and then tucked the bathrobe firmly closed. 

            “Not one word. Not one word, Eve Geary!” Julie grabbed Eve by the shoulders and pulled her in. Julie knew she must look awful, but it was four o’clock in the morning so who cared, and yet, Eve, Eve looked perfect. Absolutely perfect. Her blonde hair was perfectly in place. It swung just below her shoulders and it was streaks of honey and wheat and sunshine and all the wonderful colors one could purchase for a small fortune at the nearest Aveda salon.

            “I’ve brought bubbly!” Eve purred and handed Julie a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

            “This is bubbly?”

            “It’s as bubbly as you’re going to get at this hour.  Only place open is Quick Stop. I almost bought some beef jerky too just to, I don’t know, live on the edge or something.”

            They didn’t waste any more time.

            Eve followed Julie into the living room and popped open the beers. They both sat at the computer and Julie typed in her password. “You’re not going to believe this, but I’m majorly popular! I thought we’d just look at the email responses. There are about a hundred video responses but I just don’t have the stomach for it. Check this out.” Julie motioned to her computer like she was a showgirl.

And there it was.

A mailbox filled with potential soul mates looking for their lost hooker-sock. Julie couldn’t help but sigh. With that video and that drunken plea the chances there was even one email from a nice guy were still pretty slim.

“Let’s get cracking!” Eve said, and for emphasis cracked her knuckles.

“That’s really gross,” Julie replied as she opened the first message.

“What can I say? You bring out my inner thirteen-year-old boy.”

With that they clicked beers and began reading.

hi lady you look really hot why don’t we get nakey?

            “Oh my God, Jules! This guy wants to get nakey with you. He wants to get utterly nakey!!” 

“No way. I don’t even get nakey with myself.”  Julie shook her head, pressed delete and went on to the next one.

                        Dear EASY LADY

                        My name is Sam.  I am single now.  I am good

relationship material its just that my wife died. 

Suddenly. 

My son is the light of my life.  He needs a mother. 

You seem like a nice, mothery type.

I like the red thing.

Please call me.

                        Sam

            “This is just too good. This is better than HBO.” Eve was laughing so hard she was holding her side. It was either because the emails were so awful or because the Pabst beer was particularly heady. 

            “That just makes me sad. Look!” Julie said, pointing to the underlined Easy Lady. “Do you think he even read my ad?  It looks like he just inserted EASY LADY into a regular email.”

            “No, he references your ‘red thing’.” Eve laughed. “Your red thing. That sounds gross.”

            “You’re gross.”

            “I know. I think you look good in your lingerie.” Eve nudged Julie away from the mouse and clicked on Julie’s ad.  Julie’s picture sprang up once again revealing Julie sprawled on the couch as if she were a B movie star posing for a career-jumping spread in Playboy. “See! Now if that isn’t the motherly type, I don’t know what is.”

            “Stop it.” Julie took a deep swig from her beer and kept clicking. “This is stupid,” she said. “The only people who’d respond to this ad are going to be creepy and weird.  I’m not going to find anyone this way, you realize that, right?”

            “You said you wanted to do something spontaneous, and I think your lingerie ad counts. Besides, you could think of this whole experience as a prime opportunity.” 

“A prime opportunity to what?”

“An opportunity to break your dating curse, and purge Ronny from your life forever!”

“I thought you said I wasn’t cursed.”

“I lied.” Eve ran her hand through her hair and tucked a shiny blonde piece behind one ear. “Look, Julie, maybe you should just meet one of these guys, go out, and live it up. You could totally pretend you’re this Easy Lady character you’ve created, only without, you know, being easy. You’ve always wanted to be a temptress, so why not pick a harmless guy and give it a shot? For one night. You could consider it an opportunity to really live on the edge for once. You could go on a date and pretend to be anyone. Think of it as practice. Or improv. Or a way to get a free dinner. Maybe it will get all of your bad dating karma out of your system. You have the freedom here to have the worst date ever, and then when your real ad goes up, you’ll have a clean slate.”

            “Clean?”

            “As a whistle.”

“You know,” Julie said, “whistles aren’t really clean.  People put their lips all over them.”

Eve ignored her. “I just don’t think you ever get over an ex until you have a date with someone new. It’s a ritual. A way to exorcise Ronny, and Ronny is G-O-N-E. Get him out of your system for good. So, pick one of these weirdoes, a harmless weirdo, and be Easy Lady. Just for a night. Just for dinner. Just for fun. Then when you meet a real nice guy, someone who isn’t Ronny, this nice guy will look all that much better to you.  Come on! This will be fun.”

            Julie shifted in her seat. “This will be complicated.”

            “And fun,” Eve insisted.

            Julie was nervous. Whenever Eve wanted to have fun, someone ended up drunk or married or both. Julie wasn’t convinced. Since she’d spent most of the past twenty-nine hours intoxicated, she was feeling a need to detox on fiber cereal and mint tea and above all avoid things like alcohol and men. Going on a blind date, an Internet date, and pretending to be someone else sounded….dangerous.

            Julie shifted in her seat.

            Eve was right. It also sounded fun. If she chose a busy restaurant, disguised herself…if Eve went with her and she never used her real name…what harm could there be?

            “All right.” Eve continued, still pushing. “I’m going to click on this guy’s picture and you promise me whoever it is, whatever he looks like, you will promise to meet him.” Eve wiggled her eyebrows at Julie. Julie hated it when she did that. She looked like some blond Groucho wanna-be.

            Julie shook her head, her brown locks flipping around her face. “No way!” she said. “What kind of deal is that?  First off, I posted an ad so that means I’ve already lived on the edge. In my book, that’s enough. If you want me to go out with the next guy we click on then I want something for it.” 

            “All right then,” Eve said. “You give me no choice.  I’m going to make you an offer you cannot refuse. If you go out with whoever this guy is that I’m about to click on, I will give you…” Eve paused dramatically. She was very good at building drama. “One dollar.”

            Julie couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed whenever she was around Eve she laughed a lot. “You will give me one whole dollar if I go out with the next guy you click on?”

            “Yes. In cash.”

            Julie thought for a second. “Okay,” she said. “Deal.”

            Eve pressed the mouse. They waited for the picture to download. Julie’s computer was old, and everything took forever to download. It was very suspenseful. The picture slowly started to emerge, revealed line by line. At first all they could see was a line of brown and then… “What is that?”  Eve pointed to the screen. Julie leaned in to stare. They waited for another line of the picture.

            “Is that…No. No! That’s not what I think it is!” They both leaned in, their noses almost pressing against the screen. Before them, in Technicolor, was a close-up of a man. A man’s penis. Just his penis. And some hair.

            “Bah!!! Hahahahahah!” Eve couldn’t breathe. “Oh. My. God. You’re going out with…”

            Julie pressed the close and delete buttons. She stood up. “No way. No no no no way on God’s good earth am I going out with that…”

            “Dick!” They both said together and screamed.

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 #6 'Changes To Your Ad Will Be Reviewed'

Chapter 6 

Changes to your ad will be reviewed! 

            Julie watched the video again. 

She could not believe it. 

Did she do that? No. She didn’t. Wait. Maybe she…She remembered her epiphany about socks and men. She remembered writing the ad and then thinking it worked better as a script. She remembered drinking a glass or two of wine to gain the courage to push the submit button. And now she was vaguely seeing herself setting up her cell phone and trying to figure out how to get the blasted thing to record a video. 

Julie looked down and saw that she was wearing a red negligee that she’d bought on sale at Victoria’s Secret a year ago. Eve told her that if she felt sexy on the inside she’d emanate sexiness on the outside, so Julie bought the lingerie. She’d worn it once, for an hour or so, and waited to emanate sexiness, but the feeling she emanated was closer to itchiness as the lace chafed the inside of her thighs. And now look at her, sitting at her computer drinking wine and wearing a red teddy. She might as well be posed on the couch looking like a…

Wait! She had posed on the couch and recorded a video. And her thighs were chafing.

            Frantically Julie signed into her account and scrawled a new ad to replace the hideous fiasco of Easy Lady Requests Guy with Two Socks. Since she was now sober, or relatively so, Julie thought she could delete the video, write something a simple non-offensive ad, something that would capture who she was really looking for, and forget about last night entirely.

            And what (or who) was she looking for exactly?

            She was looking for someone to make Ronny jealous. That was all.

            And so she wrote an ad that said the truth:

                        Hi there. I’m a nice, sweet down-to-earth girl

                        looking for someone to get to know over time.

                        I like reading and writing and cooking and

                        going for long walks on the beach.  I appreciate

                        fine wine, fine food, and fine conversation.

                        In five years I want to own a house and start on a family.

God. Was Ronny right about her? Was she boring? Predictable? Was this the ad of a woman who sucked the marrow from life? Julie shrugged. Maybe it wasn’t exciting, but it was the truth…except for the part about going for long walks on the beach. She liked to read at the beach, but not walk. And she should have mentioned that she was obsessed with cooking, and not a good cook. And she should have put in there a little bit about her affection for the world of Star Trek…from the polyester 1960’s series to the dark Deep Space Nine. In Star Trek, at least, there was a code people lived by. And no one was a rock star.

She hit Edit Ad and tried to delete the video. It wouldn’t delete. She tried to post her new written ad to replace it, but something wasn’t working. Ah, the submit button. She submitted, she really did. She pressed the button. A message popped up onscreen that, if it had a voice, would no doubt have that perky cheerleader type voice she so hated:

Thank you so much!  Changes to your ad will be reviewed!

If accepted, your changes will appear in 3-5 business days.

Happy hunting!

Three to five days? Three to five business days! Julie quickly did the calculations: it was Friday night. That meant her ad would remain as is until…Monday. Until next week!

            An instant message chimed on her screen. It was Eve. 

            LadyEve:            Nice video. 

            Julie1976:            Oh god. You’ve seen it.

            LadyEve:            Me and about 300 others.

            Julie1976:            What?

            LadyEve:            It’s on YouTube. How many responses you get?

            Julie1976:            I hate my life.

            LadyEve:            Must be a lot.

            Julie1976:             My life is a shipwreck.

LadyEve:        It’s hysterical.  My favorite part is the bit about your knockers.

Julie1976:             What if someone I know sees this?  How can I go to work with

Bud knowing what I look like nearly naked and drunk off my ass?  What if I’m walking down the street and some guy gives me a sock and asks me for a quickie?  I never should have listened to you….I hate….

At that point, Julie’s cell phone rang.  She answered by completing her previous thought: “I hate my life and right now I really hate you for getting me into this.” She could hear Eve laugh on the other line. 

            “I did not get you into this. It’s all you, sweets. In fact, I warned you not to drink and operate heavy machinery.”

“I thought that meant don’t drink and drive.”

“It also means don’t drink and operate a camera. Ever. So. What’s the damage? How many emails did you get?”

            Julie moved her cursor over to her mailbox. In spite of herself, her heart did a quick skip. “One hundred seventy-eight.”

            “Holy shit, woman! You’re a movie star!”

            “Yeah.  And that’s up from only a hundred and fourteen like fifteen minutes ago!”  Julie couldn’t help but smile.  She’d never had so much attention in her life. True, it was a completely misleading ad and she probably wouldn’t want to talk to the kind of person who would respond to it, but…still. Nearly two hundred men found her interesting.  Titillating. Over the course of one night, Julie had transformed herself into a vixen. She sort of liked becoming someone she wasn’t, especially since no one online was exactly who they said they were anyway. It reminded her of her college days when she and Eve were in the Dracula Musical together. She’d been really good in that, she remembered. Eve had played Mina and Julie had been a remarkably believable maid.

            “You’re smiling aren’t you?” Eve asked. “I can tell you’re sitting there feeling all happy. I told you you’d get a response! See! Who needs Ronny?”

            Eve was right. Since she’d posted her ad, Julie hadn’t thought once of Ronny or his orgasm face or how miserable she was without him. In fact, she hadn’t thought of Ronny at all. “Come over,” Julie said. “I need you to help weed through these. This could be fun. We’ll see how many whackos are out there.” 

Playing With Myself---But Not In A Naughty Way

I'm starting to get that tingle again. Not in any sexual way, though I suppose if some Freudian were analyzing me they'd think it was exactly in that sort of way.

Well. Okay. Maybe it is 'exactly that sort of way' too.

Here's what is happening: I'm emerging.

It's that simple. Something is changing in me and I feel like I'm just starting to wake up again. I don't want to go into too many details here, but I've recently moved into an apartment. It's beautiful. It's a wee bit vintage and a whole lot girly and it's mine. The kids love it too. Beyond that, something else is happening. I want to write again. I went for a run this morning, on my own, a cool morning where my arms felt numb. For the first time in a long while, new characters were introducing themselves. I was a bit annoyed because I was trying to run and it's very hard to focus on breathing when your mind wants to focus on writing...but I managed.

So. Something is changing, stirring, tingling....starting. And I feel like I'm starting to play again. To have a little bit of joy all to myself. There is one woman I met this morning (a new character) that I'm excited to get to know. Her story is a lot like mine right now, with a few notable differences: she's a lot better talking on the phone and she doesn't drool when she's nervous. Hell. Wait a minute. Now that I say that, I think she probably does drool when she's nervous. Well, maybe she's a blonde instead of whatever hair color I have. I don't know yet. 

You may meet her soon. Apparently, she wants to be in a book called "Playing with Myself: A Femoir". 'Femoir' being either fiction/memoir or a memoir for the ladies. We'll see. And if she doesn't come out to play, I'm okay with that too. Because, yes, I'm having a whole lot of fun playing with myself right now.

You can take that to mean anything you like. 

Cheers.

SciFi Story -- The Greening

Here's something a little different. A scifi story I wrote last year. Let me know what you think.

The Greening

by Tanya Eby

The Extinguishers were coming. She could already hear the horses. ``It is Beautiful. It is Beautiful. It is Beautiful.'' Triva quickly whispered the mantra. Maybe she would believe it soon. Maybe it was even true.

            By the sounds of the hooves on her gravel driveway, she counted at least five horses, though there may have been more Extinguishers on foot. Attracting attention during the Change was unwise, but she still wanted to see. Her smooth fingers parted the blinds less than a breath apart. There, by the barn, illuminated in the cool blue of hazard lights, stood a group of men clad in woolen grey suits, working with a crowbar at the door. The women, in the same woolen grey suits, held the torches. Now that The Greening was happening, she found she had to see everything, if only for a moment. She pushed the blinds aside.

            One of them saw her and scowled. Triva could feel the quickening of her heart. Perhaps though the man was not scowling; if she were lucky it was just a squint. She recognized him. It was Dinesh Janpouri from three doors down, who used to design computer networks. Triva worried he would point her out to the others, but instead, once he knew it was her, he smiled and waved. It was a small wave, a wave of the fingers only, but still. There it was. There may have been sympathy on his face, but she couldn't be sure; his emotions were masked by the blue of the remaining lights and the shadows inching in around them. Triva was careful she showed no sadness. They both silently nodded their acceptance for The Greening, a time when they would lose all connection to technology and enter a world of darkness.

            ``It is Beautiful,'' he mouthed.

            "Beautiful," she said. She wondered if either of them really felt that. Dinesh returned to his work.

            A young boy standing near the men, hair cropped unevenly short, about eight years old, held the yellow and grey flag. Triva did not need to see the flag to know that it read: Return to Darkness! Return to Freedom!; and the omnipresent reminder, the words everyone in town had been repeating for weeks to prepare them: It is Beautiful. Triva had been saying it from the moment she woke up every morning, hoping that the truth of it would grow into her. Sometimes she thought that perhaps it had started to, but then she would listen to the coffee maker drip and think, ``Never again,'' and become very sad.

            She closed the blinds and went back to her leather couch. She pressed the triangle on the cd player and adjusted the volume. She wanted to hear Van Morrison one last time. She wanted to hear him softly, barely a whisper, telling her that it was a marvelous night for a moondance. In this way she could close her eyes and imagine her husband Will in the kitchen, singing to himself as he spread rhubarb jam on his morning toast. It had been two weeks since his last toast, and Triva knew that eventually the remaining jam would go bad.

            It was hard for her to picture Will in the fortress city he'd fled for, but Vegas was the closest one, and if you wanted to live somewhere still bright and humming, your options were scant. Probably, he hadn't even made it. Names of the Extinguished were posted all through towns and cities, drawn on printing presses with uneven lettering. Or even if he had made it, they probably hadn't let him in. Being college friends with a low-level city administrator was not going to be enough to get him in. If the Extinguishers had gotten a hold of Will, then he was at one of their Freedom Camps, marching, plowing fields, memorizing slogans and working until he was so exhausted he believed. She wanted to understand his choice, but she did not. It was so much easier to stay, wasn't it?

            ``I can't live like they want us to,'' he had told her on his last night at home.

            ``Neither can I,'' she'd said, ``but I'm going to. They say The Greening is just a transition. After that, it’s beautiful, Will. Maybe it is.''

            ``I suppose,'' he'd said, looking out the window at the gray afternoon. He wiped his hand across his brow as if trying to erase something.

            "I have things to offer them," she'd said. "I can protect us. The Extinguishers are trying to learn the old ways from books, but I...we possess something infinitely more valuable. Practical experience. I can teach them. Winter is coming, you know. Everyone is afraid of the first winter of the New Life." He shrugged, and shook his head.

            Will knew her secrets. He loved her rhubarb jam and ate canned peaches in December that were as sweet as July. Their table was covered with material she'd created. Triva thought he would stay. Not because he was starting to believe in the Movement, or was even willing to try, but because he loved her. He would stay. Of course he would.

            "You already sound like one of them," he mumbled. Triva knew at that moment he was already gone.

            When the time came, she would show the Extinguishers' her mother's things and what she'd learned as a girl. She would show them the canning jars and how to preserve their harvests. She would show them how to turn wool into thread with the spinning wheel, how to be careful to keep it even or the thread would clump in places and be thinner than a hair in others. She would teach them to warp her mother's loom that was now her loom, how to warp it so tight you'd think the threads would ring with music if plucked. She would teach them the difference between warp and weft, how to dye, how to tend. She would teach them how to survive in a world without light. But not yet. Power came from waiting for the perfect moment, when they needed her the most.

            She was torn between admiration, sorrow, and fear when she realized that maybe her mother was right about Will. And if one-tenth of the rumors about the ultranew technologies percolating through the fortress cities were true, once he was living there his life would become unimaginable to her. Of course, there were no new technologies. Technology was dead, as dead as gods and goddesses, as dead as fairies and nymphs. Technology was a myth spontaneously invented by a despairing populace; the Extinguishers said it was so. So it was.

            Triva hummed a little, but it didn't help her nerves much. She could still hear the cracking of wood as they tore the doorframe loose. How much easier it would have been if Will were outside instead of their neighbor Dinesh. This was just a pointless wish: the fantasy of a child. The world could not keep dreamers any more.

            It was better, she thought, to keep her eyes closed through this, even though later, when there was no more light save the flickering of a candle, she would miss the electric glow. Maybe some day she would stop missing it. This was what the tracts all promised.

            She breathed. The refrigerator hummed. Van Morrison sang, and her pumping heart accompanied him. Van the man. She would never hear him again. Something told her she would never hear Will again either, but she shook the thought away from her as if trying to warm a chill. It was sad, but this was not the kind of thing you could admit, not out loud.

            How long would it take them to destroy a generator? Would there be explosions painting the night and burning for days, weeks, like they'd had in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles? Would they use explosives like they did on the White House? No. Of course not. Those were tools of technology, used before The Greening. Now, they would use something more in keeping with their ideals of ``getting off the grid'' and returning to a simpler, better life. In days past, revolutionaries used muskets, swords, even rocks, depending how far back you went in time. Crowbars and brute strength then, she thought. That's all they needed to turn the world around. And brute strength was effective.

            All in all, it was a surprisingly quiet act.

            A horse whinnied. The gravel crunched. And then there was the soft pop, like a gum bubble bursting. She opened her eyes in time to see the lights flutter and then go out. Van Morrison had stopped mid-song, but if she tried, she could hear Will's deep voice calling to her, finishing the last sad chords.

            She did not light the candles. She simply sat in the darkness, listening to the ticking of appliances that would never run again. She listened to her own breathing and the sound of the horses and men marching on to the next house. After a time, she got up, walked blindly to her bedroom and thought, so, this is what it feels like to be free.

            It is Beautiful. It is Beautiful. It is Beautiful. She tried to make this her only thought. Every time, it felt like a lie.

                                                                        *

            She slept. She did not know for how long because of the deepness of the dark around her, but when she woke, the world was purple either with dark setting or the dark lifting. It was peculiar not knowing which. She thought she should feel something beyond emptiness, but that's all there was to her.

            Maybe it would take a while for her to feel the beauty. Her only other option was to bemoan what she still saw as her loss, and if she did this, she would live and die bitter. She lay in the corner to pet her cat, who didn't seem to notice anything different, and wait and hope for the beauty to begin, the return of nature and, with it, happiness. In her mind, Van was still singing. ``The leaves on the trees are falling...'' She prayed this singing in her mind would never fade, but knew that when some day she sang this song to her child, it would be in her own voice, not his. It hurt to think that, but she comforted herself that children seldom like the same music as their parents anyway.

            The song went on, but it wasn't Van Morrison any more. It was Will, and Triva was stunned at how real the sound of it was in her mind. This was a rumor about the Beauty. When there was nothing electronic to turn the senses toward, they became more vivid, and that included the inner senses. It was starting already, and she stopped feeling sorry for herself long enough to be fascinated by the change, and to wonder how it would affect reading. So many dusty books in the basement. She would be spending a lot of time with them now. Maybe it would be all right.

            ``Triva!'' The voice was too vivid, startlingly so. She heard static, then distant beeps and muttering crowd voices, and the Will in her mind said it again . ``Triva. It's me. I'm in Vegas. Triva! Triiivaaa!'' More static. Then his bearded face started to form in her mind's eye, looking as frustrated as it always had when the TV or the computer would act up, and he was called upon to fix it. ``Is this thing working?'' he said, then another voice said something she couldn't hear and Will said, ``Oh, got it, okay, thanks.'' He looked down and did something, and there was a satisfying beep. In the lower left of her mental field of vision, bright flashing neon letters came into view: ``Message From: MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV.'' Will nodded, and looked up at her with a look of intense concentration, smiling now but sad too. She thought she could hear a slot machine paying off in the background.

            ``Honey,'' he said. ``I made it.''

            It was a dream. It had to be. But she was awake. Maybe this was a side effect of the stress of Blackout, the last mental spasm of her desire for all the things she would never see again: electric light, computer technology, her husband, fun. She had never been to Las Vegas, never especially wanted to go, and found it odd that this was the form her dying desires had taken.

            "Triva," he said. "Hello? Hello?" He laughed. "Come on, aren't you glad I'm okay?"

            Go away, she thought. You're not real. But he didn't seem to hear her. The look on his face was one of frustrated but hopeful listening. He scratched his beard, and looked like he was going to laugh. "You wouldn't believe this place," he said, shaking his head. "You'd hate it. Or you'd love it. I hate it or love it too."

            Will! She tried to think it as loudly as she could, but he still showed no sign of hearing her. Wiiiiiiiillll!

            His face started blinking on and off, and he said, "Crap. It's going to cut out. Triva! Damn it, damn it, damn it. Open this message! It'll give you instructions! Open it, and..." He said more, but the static was louder than his voice, and she couldn't make out one word, and his face was obscured with a fizzy wavering scrolling diagonals.. Then, abruptly, the sound and the hazy image stopped, leaving her whole field of awareness feeling eerily dark, moist, and quiet, especially her head. It was a relief, as if a dangerous invader had finally left her alone. She could hear and see and feel her body, the world, and a cooling layer of sweat between them.

            She had a message. She didn't know she knew this, but she did. It was already stored somewhere in her mind. All she needed to do was feel around for it with her attention, and it would come forth. It would come forth. And with the message, perhaps Will, perhaps an escape to his new life, to lights and sound and comfort, perhaps it would all come forth. She would not have to sit in silence. She would not have to show the Extinguishers her knowledge. The loom, the canning, could sit and gather dust, and she would not help them. She would not help them go on.

            Her house was quiet.

            She had never known such quiet.

            She walked out onto her porch and breathed deeply. This was what The Greening felt like. There were no more telephone poles or wires lacing the trees. No more traffic or airplanes. She could hear the birds and the wind as if the earth herself were breathing. Her life had become one of loss, one of ‘no mores’. She had Will, could feel his message rumbling in her mind, but everything else, everything she knew was gone. With the loss, though, came something else. Something new. A quickening within her. A thrum. An energy.

            She closed her eyes. She thought deeply, wiggled the message with her mind until for a brief moment she saw a flash of red in front of her eyes: MESSAGE DELETED. And then slowly, as a flower unfurling in the first rays of the sun, she felt her mind shift and the words floated out of her as if someone else were speaking, as if they were words born from her, for her, and she said into the cool morning "It is Beautiful", because it was. 

I Kissed A Girl...Blunder #2,507 Age 8

Here's a true story. The story of my first awkward love. I was 8. I was an extremely ugly little girl. If I'd been a boy, I would've been handsome. In fact, with my feathered hair and paint-spattered Michael Jackson t-shirt, people thought I was a little boy. It seemed all the girls in Mrs. Welch's class had boyfriends. Ian and Missy spent their recesses making out. Cathy flashed her frilly underpants at every boy who passed. I dug holes in the dirt and wondered if earthworms felt pain.

And then I met Aaron.

My mom signed me up for a summer class in creative writing and how to make jewelry from egg cartons. It was great. And there he was. Blond hair, blue eyes, Aaron staring right at me. "Hey," he said, "Hey," I said. We wrote together. We made matching necklaces. We held hands and sang the duet from Grease "Summer Loving." He was my destiny. At the end of the day, our affair was over. I didn't want it to be over! I wanted to be like Missy on recess sucking face. I deserved to suck face!

"Will you write me?" I asked. "Sure," he said. We wrote down our names and addresses. And then he leaned in and kissed me. Right there, in front of everyone, he kissed me! I couldn't believe it. 

Then I read his note. He spelled his name weird. Not "Aaron" like I thought but "Erin". 

"Your name's Tanya?" he said. 

"Your name's Erin?" I said. 

Wait a minute. My first love was....A GIRL!!! And she thought I was a boy. She was just as homely as I was. We were both cute boys, but as girls, man, class A woofers. We both took off running.

I never saw her again.

You know, though...it was a nice kiss.