Miss Adventure

by Geralyn Corcillo

  I look at the clock by my bed. 2 p.m.

  I have less than three and a half hours to find something to wear, so I’m down to relying on underwear. I’ll need to get something like a girdle so I can squeeze myself into the dress. I know such contraptions exist. I saw that Emergency! episode where John and Roy had to cut a woman out of the girdle that was suffocating her. Plus, a few months ago, bridal-shop bitches all over the Southland were all but throwing body-sucking underwear at me.

  But are those things even still called girdles?

  Three hours later I squeeze into my brand new Flexees one piece. It’s like this strapless bathing suit that compresses me so tightly I would get the bends if I ever tried to swim in it.

  Plus I’d drown. You know, not being able to breathe and all.

  Next, I barely manage to get myself into a brand new pair of stockings. I should have put them on before the Flexees, when I could still bend and stretch, but it’s too late now.

  No way am I taking off the Flexees and then re-squeezing myself in. I have neither the endurance nor the will power.

  After the thigh highs are in place, I wedge myself into hellish biker shorts-ish underwear meant to shape my thighs into sleek gazelle-like limbs. My entire body hurts when I try to move or think.

  Finally, I slip the dress over my head.

  It glides over me! It doesn’t get stuck on my bumpy curves. I look in the mirror at the smooth line of my S-like figure. I’m sleek with cleavage.

  The doorbell rings, so I run-limp-gasp to the door. Thank God I put the dogs outside. If they got in my way now, I would tumble to the floor and wouldn’t be able to get up, just like snow-suited Randy. My underwear doesn’t allow for things like bending or calling for help. If I trip, I’m so dead.

  Thoughts of death by underwear evaporate as I realize that Jack is on my porch. Remembering that I’ll have to dance soon scares me so much I don’t even want to breathe. As I open the door to let him in, I peek into the mirror over the mail table to check myself out one last time.

  Wham!

  I slam the door in Jack’s face and turn fully to the mirror. Oh, my God! The top of my underwear is sticking out! The dress is too low cut! Movement of any kind causes my sleek-a-fying underwear to show!

  “Lisa?” It’s Jack, through the door.

  “Come in.” I scamper and wheeze my way back to my room. I hear him come through the front door just before I slam the door to my room.

  Oh God Oh God Oh God! What the hell?

  I want to scream and cry but I know I’ll never get enough oxygen to do that. Not to mention, Jack is outside, and I’m not about to be a woman who makes him wait a year while I get ready.

  Swiping the straps off my shoulders, I let the dress fall to the floor. I struggle out of my underwear, noticing the red dents in my flesh. I toss the Flexees into my enameled trashcan painted with flowers and leaves. I step once again into the biker-shorts contraption, trying to salvage what I can. On goes the dress.

  No good. Wearing just the bottoms of my flesh-compressing unmentionables doesn’t work. It leaves a big groove in the middle of my figure where the underwear ends and I burst out.

  I lift my skirt, pulling off the biker-like underwear which quickly joins the Flexees. I go to my dresser, find a pair of panties, step into them. I look in the mirror to see myself billowing out of the white, shimmery dress. I’m the fat caterpillar about to burst out of a frothy cocoon. And tonight I was supposed to be a butterfly.

  I go to my closet and rummage around, desperately looking for an answer. And there it is, wrapped around the printer that doesn’t work anymore.

  The white feather boa.

  I take it out of the closet and drape it around me. The plump snake of feathers distracts attention from the dress plastered onto my flesh. Hardly perfect, but on the up side, I can breathe.

  I sweep out of my bedroom and head straight for the front door, ignoring Jack. But he snags the boa as I breeze past him.

  “Hold on.”

  Drat. My plan was to keep moving so that he couldn’t get a good look at my figure.

  “Can I at least look at you?” He pulls me toward him by the boa.

  I turn around.

  Jack’s scrutiny is merciless. “That’s, uh, some dress.”

  I notice he doesn’t exactly compliment me. He knows the fit is awful.

  “Shouldn’t we get going?” I play all innocent, so he’ll feel really low when he tells me that my dress and I just don’t measure up.

  He rips his eyes off the offending dress to look at my face. “Yeah, I guess. Look….” He stops talking.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that I think you should take off the dress.”

  “I knew it!” I stomp my foot as I flounce my boa. “You said a nice dress! And now you want me to change?”

  “No,” he says slowly. “I want you to take. Off. The. Dress.” He looks at me, his gaze steady and hot.

  Oh.

  We’re not even on the same planet.

  “Listen,” I say, backing away. “If you want to have sex with me, you can wait until after my death-defying dancing. Because honestly, I just can’t get in the mood without that intense hit of adrenaline.”

  “Oh, no?” And then he’s on me, hands in my hair, kissing me. A long, slow, wet kiss.

  But I’m not about to let it last three days. “Unh-uh,” I say as I break away from him. I open the front door and walk out first, trying to ignore the tingles all over my body. “Close the door behind you,” I toss over my shoulder.

  But before I can even take two steps, he’s right behind me, hands on my arms, lips on my neck. “I’m not playing games,” he whispers, then bites my ear.

  I turn, putting my hands on his shoulders to keep enough of my own space. “I’m not either, Jack.” My voice is level enough to show him that I mean it. “Jack, you can’t kiss me like this then expect to have sex with me like it doesn’t even count.”

  His lips part in surprise, just a little bit, and he looks at me. He doesn’t say anything.

  At all.

  Turning away from him, I look toward the street. “What’s with the car?” A long black Mercedes sits at the curb. “Does it run on vegetable oil?”

  “It’s not a diesel.” He hooks my arm to lead me down the path. “I was thinking of you. Thought you might not want your dress….” he reaches out to tweak my boa “….or your feathers, to smell like egg rolls.”

  I slide him a glance. “Sure you weren’t thinking about yourself?” Jack looks incredibly lithe in a dark suit, white shirt, no tie. And no tie means I can see his neck and his throat. I look away. “No tie, I see.” I say this like it’s an accusation, like he’s bringing me down.

  “Stepping out for a night once a year to see my parents is one thing. Wearing a tie for them is entirely another.”

  He opens the passenger side back door of the car for me.

  “Huh?” I say, peering into the car. “A driver? You got a driver?”

  “Renting a luxury car at the last minute on Saturday didn’t leave me with a lot of options.” Jack shuts me in then walks around to the other door to join me in the back seat.

  “Hi,” I say, scooching up to address the driver. He looks like he’s in his early twenties, and he’s not wearing a uniform.

  “Hey,” he says, turning his head slightly to acknowledge me.

  “This is Chick,” Jack introduces.

  “Lisa,” I say.

  “Hi, Lisa.”

  “Hi, Chick.”

  I sit back into the comfy seat. “Nice.”

  “I figure I’ll ease you into my parents’ world,” Jack says, “one toe at a time.”

  “So a party with them is like getting into a really hot bath?”

  “More like a really cold pool.”

  I inch forward again to talk to Chick. “How come you’re not wearing a uniform, like in the movies?”

  “Mr. Hawkins requested I didn’t.”


  “Mr. Hawkins? What does Jack’s dad have to do with anything? Wait. You mean Jack?”

  “I mean Jack.”

  I look back to Jack.

  He shrugs. “I can take only so much. A uniform was pushing it.”

  “You look good,” I tell Chick, then flop back into the seat.

  “Thanks,” he says. “You, too.”

  I beam. “Thanks.” I look at Jack. “So, off to the OC?”

  “The Ritz Carlton Laguna.”

  “Sounds very bling bling. What’s all this for?”

  “Darcy and Simon Kitzmiller just had a baby about four months ago. Fourth of July, I think.”

  “So there’re going to be kids there? And, like, balloons and stuff? What was it? A boy or a girl?”

  “No idea. And no, no kids and probably no balloons. This party has more to do with Darcy showing off her red-hot after-baby figure. It’s not really about the baby at all.”

  “You know Darcy?”

  “Not really.”

  “You nailed her in high school, didn’t you?”

  “I nailed everybody.”

  “Even Simon?”

  “And his mom.”

  “Right.” I move my butt so I’m not sitting on my boa. “Jack, why are you going to this? A baby party for a bunch of people you barely know?”

  “Much less dangerous than a wedding or any kind of luncheon my mother can devise.”

  I turn to him. “Why go at all? Why dip into your parents’ world if you don’t want to? It’s like going swimming when you’re not even hot.”

  A deep ridge appears between his brows. “You’re saying I’m not hot?”

  I catch Chick glancing into the rearview mirror.

  “What do you think, Chick?” I ask on a laugh. “Is Jack hot?”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  I look back at Jack. “So, Jack? Why?”

  “You know what it’s like, Lisa. Living in a different world from your parents.”

  “Yeah. But I don’t visit.”

  “But I do,” he says. “I decided a long time ago that I couldn’t blame them for not knowing me and my life and who I am as long as I stayed on my side of the line. So, every once in a while, I visit them in their world. I don’t accept every invitation, but I accept some.”

  “How ‘bout them? Do they come visit you on your planet?”

  “Not so much.”

  He says it all casual, like it’s no big deal.

  “But wait,” I say, as if I know his life better than he does, “your mom was at Into the Wild. That’s where I met her.”

  “She stops by the office once or twice a year to tell me to take her to lunch.”

  “That’s something.”

  “It is.”

  Hm. I cannot think of what to say to that. “Do they ever come to your house?” I ask instead.

  “No.”

  “Never?”

  “Not once.”

  But you still try.

  I am so amazed by his fortitude in the face of parental disapproval that I cannot muster the will to speak. It occurs to me in the silence that I’m about to dance through his family drama. Well, better his family drama than mine, I suppose.

  At least I like what I’m wearing now that I’ve got the boa.

  * * * * *

  “Whoooaaa,” I breathe, a giddy warmth wafting through me as we stand in the doorway. The Ball Room. An actual ballroom. Miss Flyte, in the ballroom, with Jack.

  Gauzy fabric drapes the walls, crystal sparkles on every table, and a small orchestra softly plays songs so classic that I feel like I’ve slipped into an Ernst Lubitsch movie. Could life be any sweeter?

  “Shall we?” Jack offers his arm.

  I take it and smile up at him. A deep breath, then we get set to glide into the gala. Suddenly, my muscles lock. I refuse to move.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  All the women in the ballroom wear slick, short, snappy cocktail-casual clothes. Black. Some glitter. Denim. Tight pants. Little skirts. Even the older members of the crowd try to look hip and pull it off with chic panache.

  I look like a prom queen thrust into the dark glare of The Viper Room. What I wouldn’t do for a bucket of blood right about now. “You did this on purpose!” I hiss.

  “What? Lisa, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

  He has the nerve to sound concerned. After what he’s done. “What I’m wearing!”

  He looks me up and down. “Huh?”

  I growl.

  “What?”

  “Look at everyone else!” I screech in a strangled whisper. I feel myself turn to stone, except for the angry tears welling up. “How could you do this to me?”

  Jack takes me by the shoulders. “Do what?”

  “I don’t look like everyone else!”

  Jack looks around. “Why would you want to look like everyone else?”

  “Because!” Is the man dense? “Wearing the wrong thing is worse than wearing no pants!”

  “I did tell you to take off the dress.”

  A tear leaks down my face.

  Jack moves to me then, cupping my face in his hands, wiping away my tear with his thumb. I feel his fingers run along the back of my skull and settle on my neck. He looks right into my eyes. “Lisa, I want you to walk right in there and pull this off.”

  He is just so intense. So intense. And blue. His eyes are really blue. I close my own eyes, but I still see the blue through my lids. Oh, God. I’m wearing the wrong thing, but the cutest guy in the whole world still believes in me.

  It’s better than a John Hughes movie. At this moment, my life is better than a John Hughes movie. I open my eyes and look right at Jack. “I’ll do it.”

  We turn to face the ballroom, but before Jack can even take my hand, I’m off.

  I can hear Simple Minds playing a triumphant soundtrack in my head as I sashay into the room, flicking my boa off one shoulder. I surge through the milling people like a supermodel on her runway. As the band plays “Fly Me to the Moon” at background volume, I can see people turning to stare, so I smile with cool amusement.

  I strut right onto the empty dance floor, and I–

  I’ve got nowhere to go! I’m going to run out of room soon. Then what do I do? Hit the wall then stride back like a swimmer doing laps? Where’s the bar? I can dock at the bar, toss back my hair, and order a Scotch. But like a quarterback who just can’t deviate from the play to find the open man, I can see nowhere but straight ahead of me. End of dance floor. Wall beyond. But there’s a door to the right. Kitchen, maybe? I could offer to help. That’s it. I’ll detour to the kitchen.

  But before I can tuck my boa around me like an apron, Jack is in front of me, at the edge of the dance floor. In one fluid movement, he sweeps me into his arms, and before I know it, we glide out onto the middle of the parquet floor, floating along to the ambient strains of the band.

  Jack looks down at me with a hint of smile, as if we’re simply tripping the light fantastic and he didn’t just save my ass.

  …what life is like on Jupiter and Mars…

  He dips me. Everyone is watching. He swings me up with confident flair.

  “You’re pretty good at this,” he says, pulling me close.

  “I think you make me look good.” I twirl into his embrace. “And anyway, this kind of dancing isn’t scary. It’s fast dancing, alone on the floor, that freaks me out.”

  “You weren’t doing so bad on your own.” He spins me away from him but doesn’t let go of my hand. “That was a hell of an entrance you made.” He folds me back in to him.

  “How’d you get to the other side of the dance floor so fast?”

  “It was like running through a roomful of statues,” he murmurs in my ear. “Everyone was looking at you.” He swings me out then pulls me into him as the song ends. Next, he kisses me on the forehead.

  I step back but we’re still holding hands. “Thanks for the dance,” I say look
ing up at him.

  “Drink?”

  “I’m jonesing for a Coke. Let’s go.”

  We walk toward the bar, where it’s surrounded by potted palms and flanked by a fountain shaped like a champagne glass. I’m so fascinated by the fountain I almost plow right over Jack’s mother. She’s standing with a balding man who must be Jack’s father.

  “Hello, dear,” she says to me, standing back to look at me in all my snow-blinding impropriety.

  I steel myself for her imminent cattiness.

  “Don’t you look charming,” she says instead. Her smile sparkles as much as her black and copper top. “Frank,” she says to the man peering at me over his glasses. “Isn’t she sweet?”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” he says, falling in line. “I’m Jack’s father,” he says to me. “His, uh, dad. Daddy, really.”

  Daddy?

  I look over at Jack and he’s staring at his parents as if they’ve started speaking Klingon.

  Edna looks heavenward, then looks back at Jack. “Wasn’t it nice of you to bring your little friend. What center did you say she was from again?”

  “Center?” I echo.

  “Yes, dear,” she says, looking tenderly at me, still all smiles and charm. “Where you and Jack met.”

  I look at him.

  “Are you talking about HEYA?” he asks.

  “HEYA,” she says. “That’s it! They do good work, don’t they? Look at you,” she says, turning back to me and pinching my cheek.

  Pinching my cheek!

  “You are just so precious,” she says.

  I look wildly back at Jack. But his eyes are bugging out as much as mine are. He’s doing the George-Bailey-has-just-realized-he-doesn’t-exist look.

  Shock. Utter stupefaction.

  Terror, even.

  “Mom?” He sounds like he’s checking to see if she’s dead or merely asleep.

  She turns to him, her dark hair swinging as she takes a sip of her cocktail. “Is it okay that she’s not wearing her helmet?”

  In stereo, Jack and I say, “Helmet?”

  Edna laughs with such airy delight it has to be fake. “Relax, Jack. You need a drink, but just a small one so you can get your little friend home safely. Frank, go get him some Scotch. And something for his little friend, but probably nothing with alcohol or caffeine in it.” She adds the last part in a loud whisper that I can totally hear.