Calendar Girls

by April Hill

  I moved closer to him. “No problem. I’m about to retire. By the way, whatever happened to that enormous lobster? The one that started all this?”

  He chuckled. “I took him out in the boat and dumped him back where I found him. He’s probably still there, making new little lobsters. How do you feel about babies, by the way?”

  “Human or lobster?” I asked sleepily. “My cousin Susan’s first baby looked sort of like a lobster, now that I think about it, and I was sure no beauty queen as an infant. Are you sure you want to risk that?”

  He leaned down and kissed me, again. “Maybe two or three, to begin with, and see how they turn out.”

  “And we’ll give all of them lovely, traditional Irish names,” I said. “What’s your mother’s name?”

  He smiled “Fionnuala.”

  I yawned. “Okay, so we’ll just have to do what we can to make boys.” I turned around to kiss him. “We can start whenever you’re ready, but you’ll have to get me out of this damned bunny suit, first.”

  THE END

  March—Lisa, in an Easter story, The Tale of Peggie Pie

  In which a Miss Piggie lookalike is ill used in the back of a minivan

  by a big bad wolf named Hank

  With apologies to Beatrix Potter

  I’ve always liked holidays. All of them. Probably because decorating is one of the few traditionally housewifely things I do well—as opposed, say, to cleaning house, cooking, and keeping even remotely ahead of the laundry. I do Halloween costumes, Christmas packages, and Easter baskets to perfection, but that’s pretty much the extent of my domestic skills.

  Which is why last Easter turned into a debacle of epic proportions, why I got almost arrested for assault and attempted battery on an Easter bunny, and why I got a spanking (also of epic proportions) in the back of a minivan—while costumed as Miss Piggie.

  It was all Sandy’s fault.

  Sandy, as you will learn, is not my favorite person. On the list of people I detest, she comes in somewhere just after the neighborhood drunk who keeps running over our garbage cans at four in the morning, and just before Jack the Ripper. (Okay, that’s probably not fair. I’ve heard that once you got to know him, Jack wasn’t really such a bad guy, so long as you kept him away from the cutlery drawer.) Sandy, on the other hand, has no redeemable traits that I’ve been able to detect. Not counting her brand new ass, of course, which kind of started everything.

  My husband Hank is a terrific but still struggling lawyer, and before I had two kids in as many years and became a reluctant stay at home mom, I used to be a freelance commercial artist, which is to say I lived in someone’s unfinished basement, painted plaster statuettes of saints and superheroes to sell at flea markets, and ate an unwholesome amount of canned tuna. These days, I’m back in school, trying to get my teaching degree, and living with Hank and our two adorable offspring in a condominium complex called Apple Tree Village. Isn’t that name cute? There’s no village, and not an apple tree in sight, but the address looks charming on our checks. Anyway, four years ago, just after we moved here, I volunteered to become the unofficial coordinator for all of Apple Tree Village’s holiday events. When I took the job, I saw myself as a party planner, but Hank, being a cynic, preferred to call me an “unpaid sucker.” Probably true, but my position often gave me an excuse to get out of the house and stick Hank with the kids and the dinner dishes, so what the hell.

  And then, the developer built Apple Tree Village II, and began selling units, there. Which is how I first crossed paths with Sandy.

  The high-rise units in Apple Tree II are about three times larger than ours, and about six times more expensive, so everyone living in the original units found themselves immediately demoted to being members of the lower class. Sandy and her husband Stan moved into Apple Tree II’s penthouse, and since Stan is on the Apple Tree board of directors, the darling couple began showing up at the monthly meetings. Sandy is (or was) an almost famous fashion designer. Stan is British, very upper crusty, and owns a bank or a small country, or something. They have two spoiled rotten children and a full time housekeeper. Sandy, incidentally, looks like Nicole Kidman, dresses like a fashion model, speaks fluent French, and on her worst day, makes me look like a hundred and twenty-six pounds (weight approximate) of pork sausage.

  She also has the personality of a barracuda—and far too much time on her hands, apparently. Because before I knew what was happening, she had herself appointed as the new party planner for both Apple Tree I and II.

  “You’ll be my number one assistant, of course,” she cooed when the word came down that my services were no longer needed. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to be relieved of all that extra work, especially after having to run around after those…ah…those boisterous little ones of yours, all day. I’ve never seen anything like it. They’re just so…so into everything!” Okay, our kids can be a handful, but Sandy was making them sound like a species of feral rodents

  “Explain to her that’s only when the moon is full,” Hank suggested affably, when I told him about Sandy’s insult to his adorable progeny. “The rest of the month they only bite when provoked. Let her have the damned job, and be happy. You can use those extra hours to study. Last semester’s grades could have been better, you know.”

  Hank’s last remark was delivered with a slightly raised eyebrow—an implied threat that I recognized all too well. He was right, of course. My tuition was costing us a fortune, and since I wasn’t always the most attentive student, I sometimes paid for my lack of diligence in a somewhat peculiar manner, for a married woman who thought of herself in the same league as Gloria Steinem. Now, if you give me your most excellent promise not to reveal my tawdry secret, I’ll explain what’s meant by peculiar. Okay, then, in words of one syllable—at times, Hank spanks me.

  Once upon a time, you see, there was this pair of impoverished but very happy newlyweds. Like all newlyweds, though, they did have their little differences. One member of this impoverished but very happy couple was an even-tempered, tidy, well-organized individual with his/her core values and priorities in order, and his/her life firmly on track. This member not only kept his/her underwear drawer neat as a pin, he also chose wholesome, healthy meals devoid of empty fat calories, exercised regular, didn’t smoke, and scrupulously avoided consuming an excess of alcoholic beverages.

  I was the other member.

  When the very tidy member of this happy couple began to notice that the very untidy member’s bad habits were resulting in disagreeable little notes from creditors, bounce notices from their bank, and various other unpleasant occurrences, the tidy member called an emergency family conference to discuss things.

  The discussion didn’t go especially well, since the untidy member regarded herself as a free spirit, and disliked being told what to do—even by the handsome fellow she’d sworn to love, honor, and obey. She hadn’t caught that obey stuff until the words were already out of her mouth, actually, and the word didn’t seem all that worrisome, at the time. After all, the fellow had all of the other traits the untidy member valued most highly in a man—like a terrific sense of humor and a remarkable appreciation and ability in sex in all its multiple and colorful variations. Thus, when the tidy member finally threw up his hands in frustration and threatened to start “paddling the living daylights” out of the untidy one unless she “cleaned up her act,” she simply assumed he was joking.

  But he wasn’t joking.

  Anyway, the whole spanking discussion was forgotten for a while after that, until my smoking habit and my temper once again became issues. Up until that point, Hank had been fairly patient about both, but one morning, I came down to breakfast and announced that I wanted to get pregnant. Possibly because I had a cigarette in my hand when I made this announcement, Hank wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as I had hoped.

  “Babies shouldn’t have to breathe second-hand cigarette smoke, and they shouldn’t have to hear their parents screaming at one another,” h
e advised grimly. “So, if you want to have a baby, all that stops—now.” With that, he picked up my current pack of cigarettes, crushed it into a lumpy ball, and tossed it in the wastebasket.

  My first mistake was laughing at what I regarded as a silly, macho gesture—and then telling him to fuck off. My second mistake was having come downstairs in nothing but one of Hank’s pajama tops and a pair of cotton panties. A fetching outfit for some purposes, but one that offers no protection at all for what happened next.

  Let me be very clear about this. My very first spanking at Hank’s hand was probably not precisely consensual, but I did ask for it, in a way. When he looked me straight in the eye and warned me that if I used that word again he was going to—and I quote—“set your ass on fire”—I enunciated the forbidden word again, very clearly, and a whole lot louder. And then, risking certain disaster, I stuck out my tongue, just like I used to do when I was a little kid. A double dare, and a dangerous one, as it turned out. I suppose my third mistake was being in the kitchen at all, since the average kitchen is chock full of potential spanking implements, like wooden spoons, rubber spatulas, etc.

  Hank chose a rubber spatula, and within an astonishingly short time, I came to understand that quaint expression he’d used— about setting my ass on fire— was not just a quaint expression.

  I have no way of knowing if you’ve ever been bent over a kitchen sink with your underwear around your ankles and spanked so hard on your bare behind with a rubber spatula that you’re absolutely positive that you’ll never sit down again without yelping, but in my house, that’s what it means to have your ass set on fire.

  Afterward, while I was still feeling genuinely remorseful and mildly cooperative, Hank and I struck an uneasy bargain. No smoking, unbridled spending sprees, or expletive-laced temper tantrums—or no baby. And since Hank held all the cards in the baby-making department and was threatening to withhold them, I agreed—a bit sullenly—to the following arrangement:

  Every time I broke the rules—and it was just sort of assumed that I would break them—Hank would remind me of the rules by delivering a highly memorable spanking. Since this spanking business was new to both of us, and since I’m only five foot one and Hank is six foot four, we further agreed to have a safe word or phrase between us—a sort of contract to ensure that I could call a halt the proceedings if I simply couldn’t handle it. Hank is not a savage, after all, and while I may not be a lawyer, like him, I was not born yesterday. We also agreed that I would have to consent, in advance, before the fun began. Once it had begun, of course, there was still the safe word.

  Agreeing to the so-called safe word was Hank’s first mistake.

  For several years, everything went well. We did have a baby, and then another. I got spanked now and then, and I was always suitably contrite for whatever I’d done. Afterward, I allowed a remorseful Hank to make it up to me—in the nicest possible way. He seemed happy. I was happy. I was especially happy, though, because I had a little secret I was keeping to myself.

  * * *

  Okay, now back to last Easter.

  At first, I didn’t especially mind losing my position as unofficial and unpaid holiday coordinator. Sandy was right about one thing. The job had been a lot of work, and it often interfered with my night classes. If Sandy hadn’t been Sandy, and gotten grandiose ideas, everything might have gone along swimmingly, as her husband liked to say.

  “I’ve planned something really, truly fabulous for this Easter,” she bubbled to me one afternoon on the phone. Sandy was given to hyperbole when expressing herself about herself. “Instead of that tacky, oh-so-boring egg hunt we’ve held in the past…” (Thanks, Sandy, I thought irritably.) “…this year’s festivities are going to be just positively thrilling! I’ve already spoken to the management office at the mall, and they’ve agreed to let us put up an Easter Bunny photo booth—for charity. Isn’t that simply awesome? My Stan will be the Easter Bunny, of course, and all we girls will dress up as his assistant bunnies and chicks. Isn’t that simply too cute?”

  Awesome and cute. What more could a bunch of overage bunnies and chicks ask for?

  “But what about the Easter egg hunt?” I asked forlornly. “The littler kids always look forward to that part.”

  There was a long pause. “Do you think we really need something like that? Easter egg hunts are just so…so old.”

  When I insisted, Sandy finally agreed to the egg hunt—reluctantly, and with one major change. The egg hunt would take place at the mall’s enclosed kiddie playground—on bright green Astroturf.

  “We’ll need around twelve dozen hand-colored eggs,” Sandy explained cheerfully. “That will be your department, of course. Just try to make them pretty, this time, will you?”

  I swore under my breath. Damn! And here I was, planning to make them grossly ugly, the way I always do.

  But the worst, as is so often the case, was yet to come.

  * * *

  Hank and I were up until four on Easter morning, boiling and hand-coloring twelve dozen eggs—one hundred and forty one, actually, allowing for the three cracked ones I ate. Predictably, Hank emerged from the egg production line bleary-eyed, but with no stains other than a few pale blue fingertips. I, on the other hand, resembled a lesser-known work by Jackson Pollock.

  When I arrived at the mall, balancing my cardboard boxes of eggs on my multi-colored forearms, Sandy and the other neighborhood girls had already congregated in the small tent behind our booth, trying on the costumes Sandy had rented for each of us. Laura Kowalski and Carol Manning were to be adorable bunnies, Laura in pale lavender, and Carol in pink. Helen Rawlins was a curly little white lamb, and Sandy—naturally enough—was the most winsome of all. While all of the other costumes she’d chosen for us were heavy, covering every square, sweating inch of our respective bodies in fake fur or feathers, Sandy was dressed as a fluffy white Easter chick—in an embarrassingly brief, ruffled tutu and white satin corset-like affair that pushed her boobs up almost to her chin. To this frankly erotic ensemble, she had added gold mesh stockings and gold high-heeled pumps. The only thing remotely chickenish or sweet about her was her white feather tiara and the white marabou boa she’d wrapped around her throat to hide the wrinkles.

  “Where on earth have you been?” she cried. “It’s almost time to open. Did you bring the eggs?” she inquired, looking directly at the twelve boxes of colored eggs I had just set carefully down on a pink velvet bench. When I removed the lid of the top box, Sandy went pale.

  “Plastic!” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Did I not explain to you quite clearly that you were to bring plastic eggs?”

  For a moment, my heart sank. “No, you did not,” I said, my temper rising with every word out of my mouth. “What you asked for, also quite clearly, was twelve dozen hand-colored eggs. I do not do hand-colored plastic eggs. Besides, we’ve always used real eggs.”

  I was still trying to remain calm when what I wanted to do was belt her in the mouth and stuff a dozen boiled eggs down the front of her freaking chicken costume.

  Sandy merely rolled her eyes, and then began calmly dumping the egg boxes into the tall trash bin the mall management had thoughtfully provided, though they probably hadn’t intended it as a repository for a hundred and forty-one broken eggs that would start smelling very soon. The sound of all those hard-boiled eggs being squashed into mush was sickening, but Sandy didn’t seem to notice.

  She turned to Carol. “Rush down to the drug store and buy twelve dozen plastic eggs,” she ordered in an imperious tone obviously intended for my benefit. “If you hurry, we may still be able to save the day from this fiasco.”

  Next, she turned to me. “And you,” she said coldly, “still need to get dressed. Here’s the costume I selected for you. If it’s too small, you have no one to blame but yourself.” She gave a small, unpleasant laugh. “Or am I expected to believe that you weigh only a hundred and twenty pounds, as you said you did.” (Okay, so I lied by a lousy six pounds�
�maybe just a tad more, because of it being that time of month.)

  I could have told her to screw herself, of course, and then storm out. In retrospect, I should have. But Hank and the kids would be here in a few minutes for the Easter egg hunt. So, I bit my tongue, swallowed what was left of my pride, and dragged my costume out of the box.

  Evidently, I was to be a pig. A fat, hot pink pig. In eight inches of foam rubber, a gigantic, leering pig’s head with a humongous snout. And long, blonde curls, like Miss Piggie. It was a sad and garish insult to a legend, and a great lady of the theater.

  * * *

  Hank, of course, thought the whole thing was funny. He dropped the kids off inside the enclosed Easter bunny compound, then joined me as I walked around the enclosed kiddie play area, handing out chocolate marshmallow eggs. I preferred not to think too much about how he was able to recognize me, dressed like an enormous pink pig.

  “Would you like to know what happened to the eggs we spent close to sixty bucks on?” I growled. “And all night decorating?”

  “I ran into Carol while I was dropping the kids off,” he said. “She told me what happened. She said they all wanted to strangle Sandy—and that you took it like a real trouper.”

  “Trouper, my ass, “I snarled. “I’m going out later to smear those eggs all over her fucking Mercedes convertible.”

  Hank shook his head. He knew me too well to think I was kidding. “No, you’re not. You’re going to remember where you are, knock off the expletives, and forget it. It’s nothing but a bunch of eggs. Sandy’s a bitch, and now, everybody’s got her number.”

  “Did you know that this so called egg hunt is competitive this year?” I asked.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that every one of those stupid plastic eggs has a number inside. The kid who gets the winning number wins a four-foot high Easter rabbit and a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Toys R Us. I’ll give you one guess whose kid will find the winning number. The fix is in, Hank, I know it.”