Calendar Girls

by April Hill

  “I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” Callie remarked coolly as Matt helped her clear the dishes from the table. “Turning our children against one another that way.”

  “They can’t stand one another,” he responded cheerfully. “I couldn’t stand my sister either, at this age. And stop trying to change the subject. I’m still waiting to hear about how you bounced the mortgage check for the third time this month. Or the bad termite infestation they found in the attic.”

  “Very funny,” she said. “I’m going to load the dishwasher, take a hot bath, and go to bed early.” She pointed in the direction of the family room, where the nightly battle for the TV remote was in full swing, and growing louder. “Why don’t you go in and referee tonight’s episode of War of the Siblings, since you instigated tonight’s battle? And then, when the bloodletting is over, you can see that the combatants are bathed, and locked up for the night.”

  “You know what your problem is, kiddo?” he asked, planting a quick kiss on the tip of her nose.

  Annoyed by his teasing, Callie brushed the kiss away. “What, smartass?”

  He grinned. “You’re a bad loser.”

  Callie smiled.

  * * *

  Perhaps because he felt guilty about teasing her, Matt got the kids bathed and settled down, and then came upstairs to bed. Callie was facing the wall, so after he crawled into bed next to her, he leaned across and kissed her shoulder.

  “Sorry about the cracks I made earlier,” he said. “But it’s the first time I got you with an April Fools’ joke, and I couldn’t resist crowing a little.” He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck, letting his hand roam slowly up her hip. “Feel like making up? The kids are asleep, and there’s peace in the valley—for now, anyway.”

  “Go to sleep,” she said, pushing his hand away. “We have to be up early. We have a conference with Danny’s teacher.”

  Matt groaned. “Another parent-teacher conference? Please tell me this one is another April Fools’ gag.”

  “It isn’t,” Callie said. “He’s failing gym, or recess, or something.”

  “You can fail recess?”

  “Apparently you can, if you hide out under the bleachers and read a pile of comic books instead of showing the proper enthusiasm for jumping jacks. Good night, Dad.”

  She lay awake for half an hour, listening until Matt’s steady breathing assured her he was asleep. A glance at the bright green numerals on the bedside clock told her she still had close to an hour until midnight. Plenty of time to prepare the little scheme she’d designed for payback.

  It was simple enough, really, and took less than ten minutes to set up. One trip to the garage, a length of rope stretched across the hallway just outside their bedroom, and a hastily printed cardboard sign that read—in gigantic red marker: GOTHCHA!!! APRIL FOOLS!!!

  When the rope and the attached cardboard sign had been hung in place with two clothespins, Callie got back into bed, waited a moment or two, then gave Matt a sharp nudge in the ribs.

  “Matt! Wake up! I heard something!” When nothing happened, she pounded him on the back with her closed fists.

  This time, Matt woke up.

  “I heard noises downstairs!” she whispered frantically. “ Really loud! I think there’s a prowler in the house! Maybe more than one! I’m pretty sure there were two voices, and…”

  Matt shook his head sleepily. “It’s probably the damned dogs, breaking a few more of your priceless antiques. Go back to sleep.”

  “No!” Callie hissed. “I forgot to lock the front door, too, and Ellen Mackey told me the people next door to them were burglarized—just last week!” (Callie had always been very good at high drama—and at lying, of course.)

  Matt was a man, and as everyone knows, men think differently than women. A woman, being the more intelligent and practical member of the species, would have simply peeked around the bedroom door, shouted something like, “I know you’re down there you freaking creep, and I’m on the phone right now, dialing 911!” After which, she would barricade herself, the children, the turtles, and the three-legged hamster in the bathroom. The dogs would have to fend for themselves, maybe even do something to protect the family that fed and housed them, instead of running around all night, defecating on the carpet and breaking antique lamps. (The husband, of course, would still be soundly asleep.)

  So, in the time it took him to come fully awake, Matt went from believing his wife was imagining things to an absolute certainty that a pair of crazed felons were roaming around his living room, bent on God knew what. Matt was a cop, and in the downstairs hall closet—always securely locked—he kept a holstered .38 caliber police revolver; but like any other average suburban bedroom, Matt and Callie’s bedroom was short on firepower. So, in the defense of his home and family, Matt was forced to settle for a lesser but still potentially deadly weapon, used properly—one of the antique, foot-high brass bookends on his desk—in the shape of a seated Abraham Lincoln.

  “This ought to do it,” he whispered grimly, hefting the statue of Honest Abe in his right hand. “Stay where you are, and call it in. I’ll check on the kids, then slip downstairs and see what’s going on.”

  With that, he disappeared into the hallway, while in their darkened bedroom, Callie smiled to herself.

  A moment later, the silence was shattered by a series of loud thumps, followed by a thunderous crash, followed by a string of unusually colorful obscenities, followed by a maniacal chorus of howling dogs. Callie leapt from the bed and dashed into the hallway. Where she discovered the rope and its attached sign lying on the floor near the stairs. There was no sign of Matt.

  Danny appeared on the lower landing, obviously thrilled by the unexpected excitement.

  “Dad just fell down the stairs,” he called up.

  “Ohmigod!” Callie screamed, rushing past her son and down the stairs.

  “So, tell me again,” Danny asked irritably. “Why is it okay for Dad to use words like that when I get grounded for it?” (This was an apparent reference to the torrent of expletives still emanating from his father, who was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, wearing nothing but pajama pants, holding his left side, and groaning in pain.)

  Callie dropped to her knees beside Matt, and touched his arm gently. “Are you all right?”

  “Define all right,” Matt mumbled. “No prowlers that I can find, but I think I’ve busted a couple of ribs. Damn!” He pointed up the stairs. “It felt like I tripped over something—up there.”

  Callie blanched. By this time, Danny had flicked on the light switch on the upper landing, and now, he was holding up the length of rope and the April Fools’ sign that had fallen down, and over which Matt had obviously stumbled before tumbling down the stairs. “What’s all this crap supposed to be, anyway?” Danny asked.

  Callie looked at her injured husband and attempted a weak smile. “April Fools, sweetheart. It’s still eighteen minutes ‘til midnight. Pretty funny, huh?”

  The look on Matt’s face suggested that he didn’t think it was pretty funny.

  Moments late, Matt got to his feet and inspected his side, again. “Well, that’s good, at least. I’m pretty sure nothing’s broken. It still hurts like hell, though, so do me a favor and call the precinct back. Maybe they’re still time to call the guys off before they waste a trip out here.”

  For a long, moment Carrie said nothing, and didn’t move from where she was. “Actually, darling,” she stammered finally, “I didn’t…well, the thing is, you see, I never called 911. What I mean is that I…I knew there was no reason to…you know. At least they won’t be making a wasted trip, right?” In Callie’s mind, not having called 911 and involving the police in what had transpired was a good thing—maybe the only good thing about the entire misbegotten night.

  Matt gave her a long, hard look, which made it clear to Callie that he had put together the whole picture. “And what if there had been a break-in?” he asked. “I’d have been down here alo
ne, with no backup, and armed with nothing but a stupid statue of goddamned Abraham Lincoln.” Matt was normally a very logical person, and a fairly patriotic one, but when Callie pointed out the lack of logic in what he’d just said, and the disrespectful manner in which he had referred to a greatly loved and cruelly assassinated national hero, he took the criticism badly.

  “I don’t have to be logical,” he grumbled, “ or patriotic, either. I’m the victim here, remember?”

  A bit later, when the chaos had dissipated and the kids were back in bed, Callie tried to explain.

  “The rope must have fallen down…broke, or…you were just supposed to see the sign hanging across the door, and then come back to bed. At least you didn’t really break any ribs,” she added quickly, hoping to put at least a silver-plated lining on the very big black cloud that was coming her way. “That’s great, right?”

  “Not that great,” he said. “For you, anyway. The one great thing for me is that when I wallop the living daylights out of you, I can do it with minimal pain.”

  “That sucks!” she cried. “You played a stupid trick on me, and I got you back. Why doesn’t that make us even?”

  Patiently, Matt began to enumerate the reasons. “Because I could have broken my neck. Because I might have actually had a weapon on me, and ended up shooting someone. Maybe even one of the kids, or an innocent hamster, for God’s sake! It was pitch dark, and the dogs were going berserk. I could have…”

  “And none of that happened,” Callie said cheerfully. “Wasn’t that lucky?”

  Matt shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  Callie did get it, of course. She just wasn’t ready to admit it. Not when admitting it would probably make what she was going to “get” even worse.

  Matt’s next words weren’t a surprise. He pointed to the den and said, very quietly, “In the den. Now.”

  Callie was not pleased at being directed to Matt’s spacious, beautifully decorated den. She regarded the den’s décor as close to perfect, since she had done it herself, in hunter green and burgundy. She’d used an absolutely stunning tartan fabric on the couch, and the deep-red leather wing chair was outlined with hand-forged brass studs. The dark, heavy furniture had cost a small fortune, and the walls were adorned with antique hunting prints and beveled mirrors. While Callie thought it all looked very masculine and Sean Conneryish, Matt said it looked like a pub—or the headmaster’s study at a pricey English school. Still, they both agreed that if they ever did decide to sell the house, the den would be a good selling point.

  The den was at the far side of the house, very private, and it even had a separate entrance. The massive mahogany desk didn’t get used often, since Matt preferred to work at the small corner desk in their bedroom. Both the desk and the big leather chair did get used, though, on occasion—occasions like this one, for instance. How many other couples, Callie wondered grimly as she walked the last few steps to the den, were fortunate enough to have a special room for such festive occasions? A private, quiet room, and a room so well equipped?

  Matt closed the paneled door behind them. “Couch, chair, or desk. Your choice. Just drop your pants and bend over. All the way over. I don’t want to be accused of landing a swat in the wrong place.”

  “You’re a prince,” Callie growled. “So once I get my pajama bottoms down, bent over in some grotesquely humiliating position, are you going to start laughing at me and yell April Fools?” she asked hopefully.

  Matt shook his head. “In your dreams, kiddo.”

  Callie sighed. “I didn’t think so, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask— no pun intended, of course.”

  She chose the couch, primarily because the arm was wider and because, as Callie had excellent reason to know, the leather on the lovely wing chair felt really cold on a naked stomach.

  There was another problem with the den, though, aside from the wealth of spanking-accessible furniture it provided for the convenience of a prospective spanker. From her own disagreeable experience as a spankee, Callie also knew that the small top drawer in the mahogany desk held the most dreadful potential spanking implement in the entire house—up to and including her wooden hairbrush and Matt’s belt. The dreaded implement was a huge wooden ruler—an advertising giveaway from a long defunct feed store, and another of her antiques. Though Matt normally used the ruler as a sort of oversized paperweight, Callie suspected that he was now considering a second use for it. So, when he opened the drawer and pulled forth the infamous ruler, Callie groaned.

  “Matt!” she cried, lifting her head. “Not that thing! Please!”

  “Why not? Or are you about to complain that my ruling isn’t fair?” With a smile, he slapped the ruler against his open palm, and winced. “Wow! I gotta tell you, babe. This sucker really smarts.”

  “Okay. I’ll say it,” Callie moaned. “It’s not fair. All that happened was…”

  “Remember all those years back, when we had that little talk about poor judgment?” he inquired affably. “Your poor judgment?”

  Callie sniffled. She was doomed, and she knew it. Matt tapped her on the rear end with the ruler. “By the way, kiddo, since you’re the one that bought this priceless antique, do you remember what’s written on it?”

  “No,” she lied. “I don’t remember, damn it.” Actually, Callie remembered very clearly what was written—or printed—on the humongous ruler. On the day she bought it, she had even thought it was funny.

  Matt chuckled. “McDougal’s A-l Horse Liniment,” he read, a bit too cheerfully for Callie’s taste. “Prevents and Soothes Saddle Sores, Raw Spots, and Blistering.”

  And then, to Callie’s horror, he began to quote from that familiar little jingle kids recite to memorize the number of days in each month. “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and…” He stopped. “Okay, it’s past midnight, so I’ll give you a break and make it twenty-nine. That many good hard swats ought to get the point across pretty well. If you try getting up, or start calling me any of the names you usually do, though, I may have to go ahead and add May, for good measure. I always have trouble remembering, but I think May has thirty-one days.”

  The first scorching thwack, apparently representing the second day of April, struck dead-center, managing to land across both sides of Callie’s quivering backside with equal force, and an unbelievable heat. No surprisingly, the victim howled, and reached back with both hands. Matt promptly removed her hands, and held them behind her back. “Careful, there, kiddo. Keep pushing your luck, and you could end up into the first week in June.”

  Twenty-eight agonizing swats later, Callie pulled up her pajama bottoms and went upstairs to bed. Tomorrow morning, she and Matt were due at school for Danny’s parent-teacher conference, with all those hard wooden chairs. She fell asleep on her stomach, wondering if McDougal’s A-l Horse Liniment was still available in stores, if it really worked all that well, and if she could buy it at the local feed store—if there was one around, somewhere.

  On thing she knew for sure, though. April Fools’ Day was a highly overrated holiday, with nothing at all to recommend it. What was it, she wondered as she drifted to sleep in Matt’s comforting arms, that had ever made people think a stupid holiday like this one was worth celebrating?

  THE END

  May and Cinco de Mayo—Carrie in: Maxed Out In Mexico City

  Carrie hefted the enormous straw bag over her shoulder and hurried across the hotel lobby to the front entrance. She’d purchased the grossly ugly bag at the airport, on the theory that its voluminous size and depth would simply things by letting her carry everything she could possibly need for an entire day’s sightseeing. The bag itself was flimsily made, and weighed almost nothing, but “everything she could possibly need” felt like a couple of hundred pounds, even without the seven Mexico City guide books she’d stuffed in at the last minute. Her shoulders and back already ached, but it was too late to return to her room and change purses. She’d booked this city tour the previous ev
ening, and then forgotten to leave a wake up call, and even as she stepped from the elevator, she heard her name being called over a loud speaker, announcing that the driver was about to leave without her.

  Carrie swore under her breath and walked faster. Terrific! A full day of clambering on and off some suffocating tour bus crammed with gawking tourists and doddering senior citizens, and schlepping a tacky purse the size of a file cabinet. Why the hell hadn’t she just rented a car? Or remember the vow that she’d made to herself that this time, she would travel light. She pushed through the hotel’s smudged glass doors and looked around. A block from the hotel, a large green bus was lumbering down the street, its rusted tail pipe belching clouds of sooty smoke. Carrie dropped the bag and sank to the front steps, muttering. Her first full day in Mexico was off to a fabulous start.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” a voice said. “Is your name Caroline Foster, by any chance?”

  Carrie glanced up. A man was standing in front of her, holding a hand-printed sign with her name on it. Not just any man, either, but a tall, dark and handsome man. Things were beginning to look up, after all.

  She tapped the corner of the sign he was carrying. “That’s me,” she confessed with a sigh. “And yeah, I know the drill. I still owe you for the tour, even though I missed the bus, right?”

  For a moment, he seemed confused. “What bus?”

  Carrie pointed down the street. “The one that just caught on fire,” she said. “Looks like this is my lucky day.” The green bus had stopped in the middle of the intersection, with thick black smoke pouring out of its battered backside. The two-dozen or so annoyed passengers that had poured from both exits were milling about, berating the bus driver.

  The handsome tour guide chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s not actually on fire— just your typical Mexico City bus. So, do I understand that you didn’t book a car and driver with Vega Tours?”

  “A car and driver?” Carrie repeated. “What I booked was supposed to be a bus tour.”