by Barry Rachin
Fatally Flawed Women
by
Barry Rachin
* * * * *
Published by:
Fatally Flawed Women
Copyright © 2016 by Barry Rachin
This short story represents a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
* * * * *
Fatally Flawed Women
Every woman Ernie Summers ever dated was fatal flaw. A case in point: the previous winter the thirty-five year-old mechanic spent time with a woman of Chinese background. Maureen Kwong held a masters degree in education. When the vice-principal at Brandenburg High School left on maternity leave, Ms Kwong moved up to the administrative position.
"School committee meets tomorrow night," Maureen explained, "so we can’t get together." They were sitting at Starbucks down from the Emerald Square Mall sipping mocha latte cappuccinos. "The PTO is considering a car wash to raise money for the harvest festival dance. I suggested selling magazine subscriptions or a bake sale."
"What's wrong with a car wash?"
She scrunched up her bronze nose. "High school girls dress too provocative. The skimpy clothes and all that fleshy exuberance send the wrong message."
Ernie gawked at the woman but held his tongue. The statement made no sense. It was late October with temperatures dipping into the low fifties by early morning. Nobody would be prancing around in halter tops and cutoff jeans! And even if they were, it was a carwash.
"You see," Maureen pressed her point with brittle obstinacy, "parents lack common sense, and I constantly need to redirect their misguided energies."
The skimpy clothes and all that fleshy exuberance - it sends the wrong message. This from a woman who wore a low-cut blouse and stiletto heels when Ernie met her three months earlier at the Foxy Lady lounge!
Maureen Kwong had no compunction about cleavage, risqué small talk or casual sex on a first date but was worried half to death about middle-aged men getting erotically aroused at a car wash. Despite a master’s in education administration, the vice-principal seemed like the stupidest cow on the planet. Sipping his tepid drink, Ernie glanced about the coffee shop. A pimply-faced youth several booths down was ogling Maureen Kwong with a fawning expression.
"What about the graffiti incident?" Ernie asked shifting gears.
"I'm still working on it,” Maureen replied tersely. “These things take time."
The week following New Years, somebody decorated a stall in the second floor, boy's bathroom with an obscenity-laced poem. The first stanza read:
Roses are red
Lemons are sour
Open your legs
and give me an hour.
The janitor scrubbed the lengthy verse away but not before Ms. Kwong took a half-dozen digital photos of the raunchy musings. A week passed and a second somewhat shorter and more intellectually challenging poem appeared on the same spot. Both were scribbled using indelible markers.
Sex is like math
You subtract all the clothes
Add in the bed
Divide the legs
And Pray to god
You don't multiply.
The pithy verse was far too clever to be the work of an adolescent mind. Ms Kwong hypothesized that the writer plagiarized it from a collection of erotica, passing it off as an original creation. Needless-to-say, no one claimed literary credit. The vice-principal, who was in charge of disciplinary matters, grilled a handful of prime suspects, who pleaded ignorance; long after the metal walls had been scoured clean, the woman was still hard at work trying to solve the adolescent caper.
"A few dirty words scribbled on a bathroom stall," Ernie assumed a breezy tone, "it's a victimless crime - hardly worth getting your panties twisted in a knot."
"Maybe for you," Maureen's voice soured. "I’m having several photos enlarged."
"What for purpose?"
"So I can check handwriting against samples from some of our more troublesome students."
"That almost seems like an invasion of privacy." He no longer made an effort to mask his irritation. Ernie imagined Maureen Kwan brandishing a high-powered magnifying glass over the script, examining each verse for distinctive flourishes, embellishments, misspellings and grammatical inconsistencies, as a prelude to more extensive interrogations.
"Are the poems in bad taste? Yes, of course.” Ernie answered his own question. “Are they mean-spirited, vulgar and crass? Yes, again, but teenage boys - and I speak from personal experience - are like that."
"And you're not embarrassed to admit as much?"
Ernie leaned halfway across the table. "Not in the least. It's a quasi-degenerate stage most kids go through… a pubescent rite of passage."
Roses are red
Lemons are sour…
In the Starbucks Coffee Shop on a Saturday night in the middle of October, Ernie decided to pull the plug on Maureen Kwong, the newly-minted vice-principal of Brandenburg High School. Not that the autocratic, Asian woman was an anomaly. There were a million females out there just like her - well-educated, bright, sexy, professionally competent and dangerous as hell. You couldn't marry a woman like Maureen Kwong. Even as a casual date, Ernie could tolerate her eccentricities for no more than a handful of hours back to back.
* * * * *
Three months later while easing a corroded water pump out from under the hood of a Ford pickup, Ernie gingerly placed the damaged part on the concrete floor and wiped his grimy hands with a rag that wasn’t any cleaner than his fingers. Only when he stood fully erect did he notice the olive-skinned woman waiting patiently near the hydraulic lift. "Can I help you?"
She gestured with her eyes at a maroon colored sedan parked near the furthest bay. "My Toyota Celica... the air conditioner’s busted."
"Leave a number where you can be reached. We’ll take a look and call you in a few hours."
She pursed her lips and stared at a mound of gashed, punctured, crushed and otherwise ravaged tires heaped in the far corner of the repair bay. “I work over at the library in reference and am on a rather tight budget."
"I'll see what I can do."
After replacing the defective water pump, Ernie did a brake job, junking the scarred rotors on a late model Subaru. Around eleven he pulled the Toyota into the bay and raised the hood. Twenty minutes later he called the library. "Your compressor’s shot… completely dead."
"Oh dear!"
"New units cost a small fortune, but I can scare one up at salvage for a fraction of the cost. Even though it's used, we’ll warrant the part for a year just in case anything goes wrong." He wasn’t quite sure why he said that as the garage never offered warranties on used parts.
There was a short pause. "That sounds fair enough."
When he hung up, Buddy Evers, who pumped gas and did odd jobs, stuck his head in the garage bay. "Are my eyes playing tricks on me or was that Jillian Crowley stopped by earlier?"
"Where do you know her from?" Ernie asked.
"Attended high school together. The guys called her the 'Virgin Mother' ‘cause she was such a prude. Jillian always treated me swell, even though I never moved in her circle."
"Which circle?"
"The straight 'A', goody two-shoes set.” A rusty van pulled up at the self-service pumps. “You still dating that Chinese teacher?"
Ernie grimaced and shook his head violently. "That blockhead?"
"Thought she had a half dozen sheepskins hanging on the wall."
"Just one - a PhD in foolishness," Ernie muttered. "What else can you tell me about Ms Crowley?"
“Her parents br
ought their Chevy Cavalier here for oil changes but moved to Florida a few years back. She shares an apartment over behind the fire station with a younger sister."
"What's the sister like?"
"Abigail?" Buddy flashed him a queer look. "Nothing like the Virgin Mother!"
"Which tells me nothing."
*****
Three days later, Ernie visited the library on his lunch break. "How's the air conditioner?"
"Wonderful! I can't thank you enough."
"Anything goes wrong," Ernie added magnanimously, "you bring it back to the garage and I’ll set things right." He shifted back and forth on the heels of his feet. "I was wondering if you could recommend a good book." His original intent was to ask the librarian out but his mind got hamstrung.
Jillian folded her hands together on the desk. "What type of fiction do you prefer?"
"I don't know… nothing too demanding. Since high school, I mostly favor hot rod magazines."
She led the way across the room to the stacks and in the first row pulled a slim volume down from the top shelf. "Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson... it's an American classic."
"Anything else?"
"No, I think that about does it," Ernie replied meekly. Jillian stood quietly with her delicate fingers laced together, the nails polished with plum colored lacquer. "He sold paint," Jillian muttered as an afterthought.
"What’s that?"
"Sherwood Anderson... when he wrote Winesburg, Ohio, which is generally considered his greatest work, he was writing advertising copy and working days for a paint factory." Uncoupling her fingers, the supple hand drifted down to her hips. "It's just a bit of literary trivia that I thought you might appreciate."
Ernie promptly went home and read the novel. He liked it well enough but wasn't terribly sure that he understood the half of what he had read. Winesburg, Ohio - it was sort of like Jillian Crowley. The woman was an enigma, confounded his sensibilities. But if Buddy Evers said she was a decent sort that's all Ernie cared about. Buddy had been married to the same woman since a year out of high school. He coached Little League, never drank to excess or fooled around. Buddy mentioned that it was no great surprise Jillian, who was always shy, became a librarian.
The only mystery was why such a pretty woman was still unattached.
* * * * *
The following Tuesday Ernie returned to the library. "Which story did you like best?"
"The one about the middle-aged school teacher."
"Yes, that one’s terribly sad but beautifully written," Jillian agreed. "Are you looking for more books?" Ernie nodded. Again he trailed her across the slate blue carpet to adult fiction where she gathered up an armload of hardcover offerings.
"I was wondering," Ernie screwed up his courage, "if you might like to go out for dinner this Saturday… maybe catch a movie."
"A date?" She handed him the books.
"I don't mean to -"
"I live with my sister, Abigail." Jillian scribbled her name and telephone number on a scrap of paper. "Usually one of us is home in the evening." She suddenly reached out and pulled the topmost book from the pile. "This Alice Munro novel is grossly overrated. Let me suggest something better." Several rows over, she pulled a tattered volume off the shelf. "Read the third story then go back and take a look at the others if you like."
"The third story?" Ernie opened the volume at random. The pages were yellowed and frayed. He thought to ask why he should skip over the first two offerings but thought better of it.
Thursday evening Ernie called Jillian at home but she was out. "Could you tell your sister Ernie called?"
"Bernie?"
"No, Ernie… from the garage. I'll pick her up around seven this Saturday night." There was no immediate response. "Around seven." After waiting a discrete interval he added, "Could you make sure Jillian gets the message?"
"Yeah, whatever." The line went dead. The following day he called Jillian at the library. "Did you get my message?"
"What message?"
Ernie felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that quickly fermented into blind rage. "Your sister didn't mention that I called?"
"Abigail's a bit scatterbrained… not good with directions, but Saturday's fine," she replied. "Did you read Turgenev?"
The question caught Ernie unawares. It had been a rough week at the garage. He single-handedly pulled a drive train on a Chevy truck, which backlogged the scheduled repairs. Since the beginning of the week, he hadn't closed shop much before seven. There was no time or residual brain power for intellectual calisthenics. And anyway, he was far too excited about the date to worry about musty, nineteenth-century Russian literature. "Yes, I read it," Ernie lied.
"Did you like the message?"
"Oh," he was getting flustered now, "I'll tell you all about it Saturday night." The response seemed to please Jillian immensely and they ended the conversation on a happy note.
Later that night, Ernie took an early bath and climbed into bed with the bearded Russian. Reading the story required almost as much personal investment as pulling the drive train! Each time his mind wandered off from the printed page Ernie lost the gist of what the author was saying and, more often than not, the writer spoke on several different levels at once.
A young Russian girl from an aristocratic family had fallen under the influence of a crazed, religious zealot. Her life was ruined. The Turgenev story - it was a stupid, stupid, stupid bit of literary fluff! Putting the tattered book aside, Ernie killed the light and lay on his back in the dark. He ran a thumb over a scab on his index finger where an errant wrench had opened a deep gash earlier in the week. Momentarily turning the light back on, he gazed at the formidable stack of books on the bedside table. All that unfettered truth and wisdom - it felt like a talisman, an omen of good things to come. But why had Jillian insisted that he read such a crappy tale?
* * * * *
Saturday evening Ernie arrived around quarter to seven at Jillian's apartment. Abigail let him in. "You're the grease monkey?"
"Mechanic," he corrected.
The younger girl wasn't nearly as pretty as her older sister. She had the same dark hair and burnished Mediterranean complexion, but that's where similarities ended. Scrawny and disheveled with a wide, mannish jaw, she wore raggedy jeans below a wrinkled T-shirt with no bra. Abigail’s hazel eyes flitted distractedly about the room as though she couldn't wait to be rid of him. "You don't seem like my sister's type."
Ernie coughed self-consciously. "Jillian's not here?"
"Director called a last minute staff meeting at the library. She's running late and asked me to entertain you in her absence." Flinging herself down on the sofa, her unencumbered breasts swung lazily from side to side.
"Do you work locally?"
"I'm between jobs." She teased a piece of lint off her jeans and deposited it on the rug. "I was employed over at the Dairy Mart until I had a disagreement with the assistant manager. Now I'm thinking of going into business for myself."
"What did you have in mind?"
Abigail shuffled over to a computer tucked away in the far corner of the room. "Ever heard of bawdybodies.com?" Without waiting for an answer, she typed an address into the search engine and brought up a screen.
Ernie leaned over and read through a raunchy doggerel. "You're gonna sell sexual toys and herbal supplements?"
"Hell no!" Abigail seemed genuinely miffed at the suggestion. "This smutty crap is just a lost leader." She tilted her head at an angle and smirked impudently. "You know what a lost leader is?"
"Something a businessman gives away to encourage customers to shop their store." Ernie was getting aggravated. He wanted Jillian to rescue him from this crazy woman.
She wagged a forefinger at the computer screen. "Over to the right... what do you see?"
"A bunch of naked women in erotic poses."
"Correctamundo!" Abigail scrolled down the menagerie of topless females until she reached a slightly pudgy b
londe with sclerotic legs and a strawberry birthmark on her inner thigh. "That's Bethany Garret."
"Name doesn't ring a bell."
"Beth was a year ahead of me at Brandenburg High."
"Not necessarily the valedictorian." Ernie was feeling light headed.
"When some horny guy clicks on this racy photo," Abigail positioned the cursor over the blonde’s left breast, "the hyperlink transports him directly to Bethany's personal website where, for a small fee, he can view more photos and steamy videos."
"How far along are you in your start-up venture?"
"I need a professional camera." She reached for a cell phone resting on an end table. "All I got for now are these grainy nudes I shot with -"
"Sorry I'm late." The door flew open and Jillian burst into the room. "We had this spur-of-the-moment staff meeting and then I got stuck in traffic.
"I just been bringing Ernie up to speed on my latest business venture." Edging closer to the computer, Abigail flipped a switch and the monitor faded to black. Lifting up on her toes, she kissed him on the cheek. "He's a real peach of a guy."
"Business venture?" Wiping the wetness away with the heel of her hand, Jillian clearly had no idea what Abigail was talking about. "We're already ten minutes late, but I do appreciate your keeping him company in my absence.
* * * * *
"You sister's got a wild streak." Ernie and Jillian were hunkered down at the Cathay City Chinese Restaurant with a pu pu platter and pot of Oolong tea.
"Abby's all bluster and false bravado." Jillian maneuvered a pair of wooden chopsticks over a nugget of Colonel Tso’s chicken. The supple fingers moved with a ballet-like precision as she effortlessly lifted the food. "At some point my kid sister has to grow up."
"I read the Turgenev story."
"Yes, you told me." Jillian's eyes, which normally were opaque, sparkled with a rich luster. "And did you understand it?"
What was there to understand? A religious kook hoodwinks an unwitting admirer. "I lost focus and had to go back and reread certain passages."