“How much do I have to tell him?”
“Just tell him that there’s a single woman coming to this shindig that you and Sandy think he might like.”
“That’s all?” I asked, a bit suspicious.
“That’s it.”
“And you won’t say anything negative about Janet to him? Okay, you’re right about one thing. She does take some getting used to.”
“I won’t even mention it – or her,” Neil swore, raising his right hand. “Since he retired, I almost never see Charlie, anyway. I’ll refer any inquiries about this fabulous weekend back to you. How’s that?”
And so, it was agreed. I would suggest to Janet that I might be inviting an attractive, well-educated man I wanted her to meet. Someone I really didn’t know too much about, but who came highly recommended. A man of mystery. With Charlie, it was even simpler. If it became necessary, I’d just lie through my teeth and trust that an accidental mention of over-sized breasts and long, luxurious, auburn hair would do the job. By the time Neil found out about my deception, the budding romance between Charlie and Janet would be well underway, and the sore rear end I could definitely look forward to for all my hard work would be worth every yelp.
I had Sandy call Charlie that afternoon, and invite him for a skiing weekend – with she and Joe, and Neil and I. No mention of anyone else. And since Charlie accepted the invitation without inquiring about any other guests, it wasn’t a real lie, right? Not exactly, anyway. Charlie loved to ski, the weather channel was predicting clear skies and perfect snow on the mountain, and I had just purchased a new black satin nightgown that made me look ten pounds thinner – in the right light. A lovely time would be had by all. And to make my Valentine’s Day perfect, Neil’s mother had volunteered to keep our kids for the whole weekend. (She’d also vowed solemnly not to give them away to the first roving band of gypsies that wandered by, no matter what her adorable grandchildren did to her spotless home in our brief absence.)
Chapter 2
The first day of our fabulous Valentine’s Day weekend dawned slightly foggy, and a lot colder than the last few days. But the weather channel was still predicting clearing skies as Neil and I pulled out of the driveway, with Janet in the back seat, wedged between the piles of crap she was taking that wouldn’t fit in the trunk. Sandy had gone up several days earlier to get the house ready, and Joe and Charlie had driven up together the night before, bringing everybody’s skiing gear with them. Joe had assured Neil that it was only a three-hour drive to the cabin, but before we were even halfway there, it already seemed like more like eight, with Janet leaning over the seat every two minutes to suggest a better route or correct something about Neil’s driving. His turns were too slow, and he signaled too early, according to her. He drove under the speed limit, just like an old-fogey senior citizen. He allowed too much distance from the car in front of him, and let all the assholes and idiots on the road cut in front of him. Why didn’t he use the horn more often?
When I pointed out that Neil had never had an accident or a ticket in his entire life, Janet laughed.
“Don’t be so naïve, for God’s sake!” she hooted. “Cops don’t ticket other cops, dummy, not even for overtime parking. Even if it does happen, now and then, the stupid ticket gets fixed in a flash. Accidents are handled the same way, of course. Some loyal brother in blue is always on hand to change the report around before it goes to the insurance company and raises his pal’s rates.”
Neil didn’t open his mouth, but as he stared straight ahead at the road, I could swear there were small wisps of steam coming out of his ears.
In a desperate effort at keeping my husband from doing what I knew he wanted to do – slow down just long enough to shove Janet out of the car and headfirst into a snow-bank – I fought back with a steady stream of mindless chatter about anything I could think of that might distract her. Not an easy task, with someone who already knows everything there is to know about everything.
By the time we were halfway to the cabin, I realized with a sinking heart that Neil had been right. Janet was a gigantic pain in the ass. Janet was probably the most annoying human being in the hemisphere – maybe in both hemispheres. After the first hour, her whiny voice and phony eastern-seaboard inflection began sending shivers down my spine, like someone scraping all ten fingernails across a dry blackboard. Like the idiot I was, though, I continued smiling, and offering Neil endless cups of hot coffee, like what he really needed was more caffeine to jangle his already raw nerves. After that, I began praying for a convenient flat tire. Even better, two flat tires. Maybe a creek could overflow its banks and close the road. Maybe a blizzard could show up. Anything to stop us from reaching the cabin, and being forced to inflict Janet Kellerman on our best friends, and on poor, lonely, unsuspecting Charlie.
My standing with the Almighty apparently wasn’t all that good, though. Probably because of all those Sunday mornings when I lied to my mother about going to Sunday school, then skipped out to the Quik-Shop, instead, to sit on the floor and browse the newest scandal magazines. Whatever the reason for my fall from grace, though, my heartfelt prayers went unanswered. The last fifty miles to the cabin were tortuous, with heavy snow, ice on the road, and visibility falling like a rock. The whole time, Janet was giving unwelcome advice, virtually without pause. Driving slowly in the fog was more dangerous than driving fast; someone could rear-end you. Deer weren’t stupid enough to just stand there and let you run them down. They’d move at the last minute, if you simply called their bluff.
Two hours late, we finally arrived safely, having run down no deer, and avoiding rear end collisions. We pulled up in front of the cabin mere seconds before I lost it completely and dumped a Thermos of cold coffee over Janet’s head, ruining the winter hat of “genuine, first quality Russian sable” that she’d boasted about buying at a “real steal” on one of her “most recent” trips to Moscow. The stupid hat looked like what it was – a highly dead animal laying on top of the head of the sort of person who’d slaughter a beautiful, innocent creature to wear it as a hat. The hat had these cutesy little earflaps that made Janet look like a portrait I’d once seen of Ivan the Terrible, and I was trying to think of the rudest way to tell her that when I noticed that Joe’s Cherokee was parked in front of the cabin, between Sandy’s little yellow Honda and an old, green pickup. It was too late to turn back, then. All of the clowns were in the center ring, now, and the circus was about to begin.
While Neil unloaded our luggage from the back of the car, grumbling audibly the whole time, Janet and I started up the short, icy path to the cabin. Janet was still yammering, now about how dumb Joe and Sandy had been to waste money on a tacky, isolated log cabin so far from the main highway, when they could have invested in a new condo in the towers, instead, close to shopping and the ski runs. What I was thinking as we trudged through the snow, though, was how much I wanted to stuff Janet’s big, stupid hat into Janet’s big, stupid mouth, between her surgically puffed lips, and how the hell I was going to ever be able to apologize to everyone inside the cabin for the long, hideous weekend I had planned so carefully.
But then, just when I thought God had forgotten about me, He gave me something to really worry about. A sudden gust of icy wind and sleet hit us in the face, and behind me, I heard Neil swear explosively as the trunk lid slammed down on his hand. The blizzard I had been praying for was announcing its arrival, which meant that the hideous weekend was going to be even more hideous than expected. We were all going to be snowbound, now, in a shrieking blizzard, with Janet and my husband at one another’s throats. The weekend was also going to be a hell of a lot longer, and from the sound of my husband’s growl as he staggered up the path after us, I knew I might not be sitting down for most of it.
We had barely gotten up onto the porch when Sandy flung open the door to greet us. I guess there was something about my expression, or maybe it was the string of expletives emanating from Neil, but something warned her that all was not right, a
nd the smile on her face faded quickly.
“Oh, my God!” she cried. “Is everything okay? You’re so late; we were beginning to get worried. My God, Neil! You look terrible. Did anything happen on the trip up here? An accident or something?”
Janet pointed in Neil’s direction and rolled her eyes. “Ask Old Man Moses, there. He was the one poking along at ten miles an hour, afraid of his own shadow. God! And they talk about women drivers!” When she asked where the bathroom was and disappeared down the hall, I sank onto the couch and watched Neil dragging in the luggage, most of which was Janet’s. My sexy little black nightgown was crammed in my overnight bag, along with the three changes of clothes I’d assumed would be plenty for two nights.
“Dump Janet’s stuff in the room at the end of the hall,” Sandy said to Neil. “I put you guys upstairs, at the back. It’s the quietest room in the house, and the most private.” She gave him a playful poke in the ribs. “After that much time in the car with Janet, you’re going to need it, right?” From the look Neil gave me as he stalked by, I suspected I was going to appreciate all that privacy. It wasn’t just the wind that was howling outside. There was a storm brewing on my horizon, as well.
“Where are the guys?” I asked, when Neil was upstairs.
“They’re outside, prowling for wood. I hate to drop bad news so soon after you check in, but we’re having a little problem.”
I groaned. “How little?”
“The furnace went out this morning, so we may all freeze to death. And if this storm sticks around, we’ll be drawing straws to see who gets eaten first,” she said cheerfully.
“I say we start with Janet,” I growled.
“Yeah,” Sandy commiserated. “I got the feeling you guys had a bad trip.”
“Were we both blind when we thought this up?” I asked miserably. “Not to see how awful she really is?”
Sandy shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe Charlie will be dazzled by her new chest. Doris Walters says she paid a fortune for it. Do you think real boobs even come that big? What’s wrong with Neil? He looks like he wants to strangle someone. Janet?”
“I’ll be first, then Janet, actually. And you’re probably third in line. Watch your step. He always carries a nine-millimeter Beretta in the glove compartment. Cops aren’t allowed to go anywhere without it.”
I was explaining about Neil’s sidearm when the door flew open and Joe and Charlie stumbled in, shedding snow everywhere. “We’re going to need that gun,” Joe quipped. “When the frozen pizza runs out. Did Sandy give you the good news about the furnace?”
Neil came down the stairs, still scowling. “You can’t actually hunt with a pistol. Lousy accuracy at long range. Maybe your thermostat’s screwed up,” he said, looking directly at me. “Women don’t know how to deal with thermostats.”
“I never laid a finger on the damned thermostat,” I snapped.
“Nah,” Joe said quickly, obviously trying to smooth the troubled waters. “There’s something wrong with the oil line. Dominic’s out back now, working on it. He’s the furnace guy, from town.” Joe glanced out the window. “Looks like he could be staying with us, for tonight, anyway.”
“Oh, goody,” I said sweetly. “Maybe Dominic would like to bunk with me. I simply adore furnace guys. Just ask my husband.”
Neil opened his mouth to say something, but just then, Janet came down the hallway, wearing a pure white spandex ski outfit with white fur trim that fit like her own skin, only tighter. With her newly augmented chest preceding the rest of her by a good eight or nine inches, she reminded me of a huge, white ferry boat, bearing down on a cluster of helpless rowboats.
“Which way to the slopes?” she exclaimed. “Am I the cutest snow bunny you’ve ever seen, or what?”
I would have chosen the “or what,” but before anyone could come up with a snappy retort, Charlie emitted a little sound like a deflating air mattress. He’d been standing quietly through all the merriment, but when Janet arrived on the scene, his jaw dropped and his eyes kind of bulged out, like Elmo, one of our kids’ pop-eyed goldfish. When I looked over at Janet, I realized that she had stopped in her tracks, with her mouth wide open and her face turning sort of purplish.
A moment later, she began screeching. “Where the hell did you come from?” she screamed. “You goddamned, fucking pervert!”
It wasn’t the kind of question that required an answer, and in any case, she didn’t give Charlie a chance to reply, before she started snatching things and hurling them at him. Sandy and Joe had purchased the cabin fully furnished, and unfortunately for Charlie, there were a lot of breakable, colonial knickknacks within reach. The first early-American missile, a diminutive china bust of George Washington, struck Joe in the shoulder, and then crashed into the fireplace, but Janet got luckier with her second shot, and a hefty coffee table book about Switzerland found its intended mark. Charlie grabbed his forehead, groaned once, and went down like a half-ton of bricks. Always the cop, Neil leaped forward, got Janet around the waist, and wrestled her to the floor, while the rest of us just stood there and stared. Sandy dropped to her knees next to poor Charlie and checked for a pulse, the way she’d seen them do on Scrubs and E.R.
“He’s okay, I think,” she breathed. “But jeez, what a lump he’s going to have!”
Neil had Janet face-down on the braided rug now, with his knee on the small of her back, but she was still flailing her arms and snarling obscene insults, a lot of them having to do with the size of Charlie’s penis. When Neil finally threatened to handcuff her if she didn’t shut up and calm down, Janet’s tantrum began to wane, slightly. He helped her to her feet, but I noticed that he kept one wary hand on her upper arm, just in case she went bonkers again and made a second try for Charlie.
“What was that all about?” Joe asked, when no one else had the guts.
Charlie sat up and touched his head. “Janet and I have issues,” he said simply. He sounded so wistful that I knew that I’d been right. Poor Charlie really needed a woman. Not this woman, apparently, since she had now begun running up and down the stairs, pausing now and then to describe in grotesque detail and at the top of her lungs how she hoped Charlie would meet his end. Colorful and bizarre methods, all of them, and each preceded by her personally removing Charlie’s male apparatus with a rusty salad fork. You had to give Janet her due. She had a real way with words.
Charlie sighed deeply, and rubbed gently at the growing lump on his head. “We were married once, you see, when we were both eighteen. For six days.”
“Six days?” I repeated. The married part hadn’t really sunk in yet.
“Maybe three. I guess it depends on how you count the time in jail.”
“She had you put in jail?” Sandy cried.
“The other way around,” Charlie moaned.
Janet looked like she was about to start foaming at the mouth as she left off her stair aerobics, and I noticed Neil regaining his grip on her arm. “He’s a lying scumbag,” she hissed. “And a filthy, fucking pervert.”
I wasn’t especially proud to admit it, but I was getting really interested in hearing Janet’s side of the story. Maybe there was something in her tortured past. Something horrible that Charlie had done that had turned her into what she was today – a rabid, foul-mouthed, screaming bitch – and a woman I admired tremendously. But at that point, Janet broke free of Neil’s hold and stalked off, down the hall. A moment later, the door to her room slammed hard enough to make the wall tremble.
“She was always a little touchy,” Charlie said.
Finally, Sandy found a couple of dusty tranquilizers at the bottom of her purse, and we managed to get them down Janet’s throat – and not a moment too soon. Charlie had gone out on the back porch, and was sitting on the steps in a blizzard, talking to himself. It took Joe and Neil together to drag him inside, where Sandy and I, working as a team, persuaded him to tell us the whole story.
“I guess we were both just too young,” Charlie began. “I didn�
�t know anything about women, back then. I still don’t.”
“Can you tell us why you had her put in jail?” Sandy pried, while she bandaged the swelling on Charlie’s forehead.
“So I could get away,” he said simply. “I took a Greyhound bus and went as far as I could. All I had left was nine dollars, so it wasn’t very far. She’s still beautiful, isn’t she?”
“For a lunatic, maybe,” Joe agreed, shaking his head. “But, why does she hate you so much, Charlie? Can you tell us?”
“I’m not sure I can,” he murmured. “It’s awful, what I did.”
So, there we were. All of us. Charlie’s dearest friends. Waiting, half-holding our breath in anticipation, hoping that poor old Charlie would spill the beans and tell us the good part. The juicy stuff. Hey, what are friends for, anyway?
“I spanked her once,” he said quietly.
A moment of silence.
“That’s it?” Sandy asked, shaking her head. “You spanked Janet? That’s all that happened?”
“My God!” Charlie said with a groan. “Isn’t that enough? She kept calling me names, and when she hit me with a full pint of half-and-half, I lost my temper, and just pulled her over my knee and started spanking her. It wasn’t hard, or anything like that, but she told me later that it ruined her life. Made her hate men. I think it made her what she is today, guys.”
For a moment, no one in the room said anything. Joe and Neil exchanged a furtive glance, and I found myself wondering for the first time if Joe and Sandy had an arrangement similar to Neil’s and mine. It’s funny, the things you sometimes never know about your best friends, isn’t it?
And then, I started to laugh. Hysterically. Yep, you can always count on yours truly to be the insensitive one.
Heart Song Anthology Page 12