Calendar Girls

by April Hill

  I’m not sure if the human buttocks can blush, in the genuine sense, but I could feel the cheeks on my face flaming. It took every ounce of will power I had not to stand up and try to get away. Maybe it was knowing I’d have to make a run for it with my ass aglow and my jeans tangled around my feet was enough to keep me where I was, Or maybe I was simply frozen in place by the sheer mortification of knowing that all of me and all of my flaws, from waist to ankle, were completely exposed to a man I barely knew. The one thing I know it wasn’t, was courage. I was shaking in my bare feet, and about to throw up again.

  I read a list, somewhere, of the ten most painful things that can happen to you—medically, at least, and kidney stones and unmedicated childbirth topped the list. I’d like to add having your bare ass smacked for twenty straight minutes with someone’s callused hand to that list. Okay, so maybe not in the top ten, but number twelve or thirteen, absolutely. O’Flannery told me later that I owed women in labor an apology. It was nowhere near twenty minutes. Maybe sixty seconds, from his first swat to my final screech. Okay, so maybe he was right, but it was still unmedicated.

  When he dumped be back on my feet, I swung at his head with the first thing I could get my hands on—which happened to be a ball peen hammer I grabbed from the toolbox.

  He disarmed me easily, tossed the hammer back into the toolbox, and landed two more scalding smacks to my still bare, very sore butt.

  “Okay, that’s lesson one and two,” he said cheerfully. “Never try to murder the Captain, and always stow your tools properly.”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  He grinned. “Does that mean you want lesson number three?”

  “Don’t swear at the Captain?” I inquired with a sneer.

  “No. The third rule is never drop your knickers when the Coast Guard is coming up fast on your stern, if you’ll pardon the pun. I’m guessing that mooning them is a criminal offense.” He pointed, and sure enough, a white cutter was just behind us, rocking slightly in our wake. I grabbed my jeans and tried to get them back up, but got my feet tangled, and made for the cabin, instead. As I stumbled below, I could hear the two men on the other boat roaring with laughter.

  “None of that was funny!” I shrieked up to O’Flannery, who was waving to the passing cutter.

  He came down the short ladder into the cabin, carrying the hideous boots. “Oh, I don’t know. The laugh I got was almost worth what it’ll cost me to replace that lost pot. Besides, it’s your own fault for wearing that garb on a working vessel. But I do apologize for giving those fellows such a terrific view. Have you got something against wearing underwear?”

  “It is underwear!” I cried, in defense of my admittedly brief undergarment, now twisted uncomfortably inside my jeans. “It’s called a thong. Do you live under a rock, or what? Excuse me that was a dumb question. You do live under a rock.”

  “Well, it’s true that I don’t get around much,” he said, grinning. “Fishermen usually prefer warmth, over fashion.”

  “I could sue you, you know,” I sniffled, pulling my jeans into place. “Not only was it assault and battery, but it probably breaks a lot of Irish labor laws, too.” I rubbed my rear end, which had begun to ache with cold in the unheated cabin.

  “Yes, you’d need to file an official report, and allow pictures of the area in question, and…”

  “Just shut up and drive the boat, Skipper. I’d like to see this day over, if you don’t mind.”

  “So, does that mean you don’t want to keep the job?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I demanded. “To see me fail at this? To just give up? I’ll keep the job, thank you very much, and never lose another of your fucking precious lobster traps!”

  He chuckled. “I certainly hope not.” He paused or a moment, and rubbed his shoulder. “I think I may have pulled a muscle.”

  * * *

  Mercifully, the rest of the day went without difficulty, and when we finally tied up at the wharf, I had more or less accepted the fact that I’d been pigheaded and stupid. But when O’Flannery apologized, I misunderstood his meaning at first.

  “I owe you an apology,” he began.

  “You bet your ass you owe me an apology,” I shot back. “And wages for six hours and fifteen minutes, too. “

  “I’m not apologizing for spanking you,” he said firmly. “You had that coming. But aside from losing the pot, you did well, today. Tomorrow, I may even give you a raise.”

  Okay, I’ll admit it. I was proud. “A promotion, already?” I yelped. “So, tomorrow, do I get to drive the boat?”

  “Over my dead body. You’re still a lowly sternman, but you’ll be making a bit more an hour. Fifty cents.”

  “Not much of a raise,” I grumbled.

  “Join a union. How do you feel after your first day of honest work?”

  “Like I’ve been run over by a speeding bus. Thank you for asking.”

  “Are you too tired to run over to the Harbour Inn for dinner?”

  “Do I have to actually run? Can I like, stagger?”

  “Get there any way you want to, as long as I don’t have to carry you. It’s around a mile from the cottage, though, and I’m afraid the truck is stuck in the mud, again.”

  “Why don’t we just go by the fish and chips place on the docks?”

  “I’m trying to cut down on grease and hair in my diet. But you will have to dress a bit more formally.”

  I glanced down at my stained sweatshirt and torn jeans. “How formal?”

  “Didn’t you bring a dress with you from New York?”

  “Here? Are you kidding me?”

  “I thought it was a reasonable question. I’m the guy, so I’ll wear a suit and tie. You’re a girl, so…”

  I finished the sentence for him. “You’ll take me to dinner in a clean sweatshirt, or settle for fish and chips.”

  “How much do you weigh? Approximately, I mean?”

  “Well, before today, I’d have said one hundred ten. Now, it’s probably closer to one hundred. I threw up all morning.”

  He put one hand on my shoulder and turned me in a circle.

  “I make it around one hundred twenty-two. Maybe one hundred twenty-five. In pounds, that is. Close?”

  “I hate you,” I growled.

  “There’s a scale at Jimmy’s, if you’d care to…”

  “Fuck you,” I mouthed.

  He grinned. “Could be, but only if you wear a dress. The former tenant left some things in the bedroom wardrobe.” He gave my rear end a pat. “There’s one of those long, gypsy looking skirts that used to be popular, and several blouses. Of course, those might be a little snug, here and there.”

  “Did I mention that I hate you?” I asked sweetly.

  “I hear the steaks at the Harbour Inn are two inches thick, and the salmon is…”

  “Okay, just shut up, “ I snarled. “I’ll wear the stupid skirt.”

  Maybe it was the wine, or the wonderful night air on the mile long walk back to the cottage, but by the time we reached the front door, I was feeling very mellow, and quite smitten with Connor O’Flannery—until he brought up the story I was working on, that is.

  “How’s the story of my life as a fugitive coming along?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure where to start,” I admitted.

  Connor chuckled. “That should be simple enough. Start at the end. That way you’ll know where you’re going.”

  “Is that really, truly stupid, or am I too drunk to get the point?”

  “I’m not the story, Cathy. You are.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that this entire thing has been about you. I was just a convenient excuse to run away.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said smugly. “And I didn’t run away. I know you think I’m an idiot, and that what I do—or did—for a living isn’t worth respect, but if you still don’t like who I am, that’s tough.”

  “Did I say I didn’t like i
t?” he asked quietly. “And you’re not exactly over the hill, yet. What? Thirty-two, thirty-three, maybe?”

  “Thirty-four,” I said sullenly. “I’m tall for my age. Or maybe it’s the crow’s feet I’m developing in all this lovely Irish sunshine.”

  He touched the tip of my nose. “It seems you’re getting a few freckles, too.”

  “Thanks. Any other flaws and blemishes you’d like to point out?”

  “I’ve always liked freckles on a woman. They’re cute.”

  “I wasn’t going for cute.”

  “Too bad.” And with that, he pulled me against his chest and kissed me. It was a long, deep kiss, and by the time it was over, I was breathing hard, and thinking that maybe cute wasn’t so bad, after all.

  We skipped dinner and went back to the cottage, to make love on the couch, and then in the bedroom, which made me wish there’d been a second bedroom, or even a third. No question about it. There’s just something about sea air, and the smell of fish entrails.

  * * *

  We didn’t go out fishing the next morning, but stayed in bed all day, except for the time we spent feeding sheep and chickens, and my learning to milk a very bad-tempered cow. I was turning into Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, or maybe Colleen of County Conemara. By the time we’d finished the chores, made dinner and eaten it, it was time to go back to bed, naturally enough. Which was fine with me. Aside from its obvious other attractions, bed was the only place I could get warm.

  I woke up less than an hour later, after making love twice, drifting to sleep in Connor’s arms, and a weird dream about a pair of lobsters biting my toes.

  A moment later, Connor sat up in bed and glanced over at the clock. “Can’t you sleep?”

  “I’ve never been so cold in my whole life!” I wailed. “I can’t feel my toes.”

  He lifted the quilt and fingered the lace-trimmed sleeve of the very pretty nightgown I’d put on after our last exertions—partly for his benefit, but mostly because I was cold and it was the only sleeping garment I’d brought with me to the cottage. I normally sleep naked, or make do with torn t-shirts, and leave Carrie and her Sex and the City playmates at work, where they fit in better.

  “No wonder, you’re freezing,” he complained. “Is that thing all you’ve got to sleep in?”

  “This thing, as you call it, is brushed flannel! French brushed flannel. I paid a hundred and twenty bucks for it at Nordstrom’s, and the only reason I bought something that cost more than the new transmission in my car is because the saleswoman told me it was the warmest thing they had.”

  “Flannel, my ass,” he growled, pushing back the quilt to get out of bed. “It’s a damned negligee.”

  While I huddled under the covers with my knees drawn up to my chest, Connor began rummaging around in the antique armoire in the corner of the room. Finally, he threw back the quilts, took me by the ankles, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. He was holding what looked like a deflated human being.

  “Thermal underwear,” he explained. “Heavy wool. I always wear them under my clothing when I’m on the boat. Put them on. These, too.” He handed me a pair of the thickest, heaviest, ugliest socks I’d ever seen.

  I shook my head. “They look scratchy.”

  Connor rolled his eyes. “They are scratchy. You won’t notice it after a while. Better than freezing your ass off.”

  When I didn’t make a move to don the deflated person suit, he took matters into his own hands, stripped off my pretty nightgown, and began stuffing my feet into the legs of the woolen underwear.

  “These are awful,” I said sullenly, shoving his hands away. “Why don’t you just put another quilt on the bed? I’m going to look like a bag left on the curb for the Salvation Army.”

  “You know the one truly great thing about these?”

  “They come with a lifetime guarantee of virginity?” I suggested.

  He turned me around, reached behind my back, and did something or other in the general area of my butt. A second later, I felt a distinct draft, and a second after that, I felt a sharp, not especially gentle slap on my rear end.

  “Drop seats,” he said solemnly. “Very convenient—for a variety of things, actually.”

  I reached around and tried to button myself back up. “I may have to learn to sew, after all.”

  He grinned. “No alterations, please. I borrowed this pair from a friend of mine.”

  I glanced in the mirror. “Just out of curiosity,” I asked, a bit wanly. “How much does your friend weigh, or should I just pretend that they shrank in the wash?

  Dressed in the woolen underwear, I was pretty sure I looked like a stuffed sausage, or an eighth grader in a toddler-sized bunny suit, so I climbed into bed as fast as I could, and pulled the covers up to my neck. When Connor reached for me, with what were obviously lascivious intentions, I shook my head a bit sadly. “No way, Skipper. That ship has already left port. The crew is exhausted, and freezing her tail off. You could make a fortune, though, selling these gruesome things, by the way. A sure-fire method of birth control.”

  Suddenly, I felt his strong, warm fingers between my thighs, and soon, the fingers began doing something very pleasant inside my bunny suit. Finally, I sighed, and gave up. My defenses were already weak, and in the ancient parlance of the sea, my rear hatch had been breached.

  * * *

  I woke up again just before dawn, nestled as close against Connor’s chest as it was humanly possible to get, and then rolled away a few inches to watch him sleep. Maybe he felt me watching him, because he woke up.

  “Still cold?” he asked.

  I motioned toward the closed window. “The sound woke me up. I’ve never slept anywhere where I could hear the ocean all night. It’s hypnotic.”

  He smiled. “Nature’s white noise. It lowers the blood pressure and heart rate, as well.”

  “It sort of drags you with it,” I agreed. “It’s hard to think about anything else.”

  “You get used to it, but yes, once you begin listening, it’s better than liquor or sleeping pills—and you don’t wake up with a hangover.”

  “Is that why you like it here?” I asked softly.

  “One of the reasons. It makes you realize how small you are. Not unimportant, just small, like everything and everybody else in the world. You begin to understand your place in the scheme of things. You might be surprised to know how gratifying it can be to simply sleep and eat and put in a hard day’s work; then, at the end of the day, to have a cold beer with friends, and go home to supper and a warm bed—and make love. And then, when morning comes, you get up and do it all over again.” He leaned down to check my reaction to what he’d said. “Boring, I imagine?”

  I shook my head. “Not boring, exactly, but except for that part about making love, maybe just a little monotonous.”

  “It helps to enjoy the work you do,” he said, “and to believe that what you do is important. The kids rarely stay, of course, once they’re old enough to know what’s out there. Some of them, perhaps, but mostly, they leave and don’t come back, other than to visit.”

  “You came back, “I said quietly.

  “Yes, I did. And I’ve spent every day since then trying to pay attention to what’s really important. At the end of the day, I usually go to bed feeling I’ve accomplished something worth doing, even if nobody else would agree with me—or even knows I still exist.”

  He laughed. “It’s not for everyone, of course. There’s not a lot of time to worry about politics, or shopping, or what’s new at the movies. In New York, I went to the movies at least twice a week. Now I wait until they show up on DVD, which can take months.”

  I sighed. “I’ll miss that. Movies, I mean.” The astonishing thing was that I didn’t realize the significance of what I was saying until the words were already out of my mouth. But Connor hadn’t missed a thing.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “I’ll give it a few weeks, but I think so. It’s weird, though.
I feel like the fog just lifted, and I can finally see a long way down the road. Dumb, huh?”

  He leaned down and kissed me. “Not dumb. And I wouldn’t worry about the movies. Sometimes, we rig a sheet across the back of the pub and show the films they have at the library. Mostly old John Wayne westerns, I’m afraid, and Annette Funicello musicals—things like that. For St. Patrick’s Day this year, it’s a double feature. All mock Irish. The Quiet Man, and Finnian’s Rainbow. The popcorn is free, though, and we’re allowed to bring our own beer—one of the cultural advantages of life on a very small island.”

  “Good God,” I moaned. “What am I getting myself into? What do you people do for fun?”

  Connor smiled. “Well, there’s always this,” he suggested. “What we’ve been doing pretty much non-stop for the last two days. Some of us even find the time to write a book, of course. You might even want to try that, yourself—when you’re not occupied shearing sheep or fishing for lobster, that is.”

  I sat up in bed. “What book?” I demanded.

  “Two of them, so far. Completing the Round Tower trilogy.”

  “So, you’re going to be rich and famous, again,” I breathed.

  He chuckled. “I’ve no problem with being rich, but if I end up famous, with my face in a New York gossip rag, who do you think will get her butt blistered for it?”