Calendar Girl (August) Chapter 9: Maddy Shows Up and Everyone Acts Super Weird

"True Blood Confused Look From Bill"

Calendar Girl (August) Chapter 9:

Mia tells Max off for having revealed the truth of their relationship without first telling Mia privately.

I couldn’t back up or flee as his arms bracing me in against the hard metal of the truck prevented further movement. “Mia, I’d never willingly hurt you. That wasn’t supposed to come out like that. I didn’t know Sofia was going to ask all those questions, and it all happened so fast.”

Matthew has pointed this out before, but it’s so creepy how all the usual romantic indicators are used between the siblings, as though Carlan can’t figure out how to write any relationships without sexual overtures. Or maybe we should marvel at the consistency of it all. I mean the Mia/Maddy dynamic has been consistently creepy, so what better way to prove that Max and Mia are siblings than to have the inappropriate dynamic echoed here.

“…When I saw your picture on that site, looking exactly like my mother… I knew it was all going to come together as it should. That finally, I wouldn’t feel alone.”

I think Max initially hired a private investigator and then found the escort website, but it still doesn’t make it any less weird that his reaction was to decide to hire Mia rather than to contact her like a normal person would.

Mia asks why Max has never used his resources to find their mother, and he says that it was clear she didn’t want to be found, but Mia isn’t so sure.

He definitely made sense, but the lingering feeling I had about the way Mom left, especially after recalling it in the dream last night, made me consider another alternative.

“Do you ever think that maybe she wanted someone to come running after her?”

"True Blood Confused Look From Bill"

…What? That would be a really weird game for Mia’s mom to be playing. Like why would you want to run after someone who abandoned her young children multiple times…Max’s dad did come after her and she rejected him, so who exactly did she want to come after her? Mia’s father? Her children when they were adults who may or may not have the means to hire a private investigator? I don’t understand.

“When someone is used to screwing up, a lot of times they don’t want that trouble to taint the only good things they have in their lives.

Maybe she loved us more than we ever thought possible.”

I don’t follow this line of thought at all, but apparently this is enough to convince Max they need to track down their mother.

Later, Maddy and Matt arrive and Mia reacts accordingly:

The moment the limo door opened and my sister’s blond hair went flying in the breeze, I lost my ability to breathe.

She tells us how sexy Maddy looks, and then she also quickly realizes how identical Max and Maddy look. Cyndi and Max realize it too. They also react accordingly:

“Jesus…” Max whispered.

Cyndi gasped a throaty,  “Oh. my god.”

I turned to Maddy. “They’re usually not so weird…”

What is Mia talking about? These people have been almost exclusively weird.

Cyndi spoke first, but what she said wouldn’t make any sense to Maddy. “She looks… Jesus, she looks exactly like you.”

Yup. Par for the course with these guys.

Matt kind of addresses how weird they’re being, but this gets forgotten quickly when Max and Cyndi’s young child starts talking to Maddy and everyone is like, “AWWW.” As Mia is observing Maddy with Max and his family, she realizes that Maddy looks exactly like Max and nothing like their father. Hm. I think we’ve got some more foreshadowing ahead, people.

Maddy chuckled and stood, putting out a hand. “Happy to meet friends of Mia’s. And thanks again for sending a plane and a limo. It’s the first time I’ve been in a limo!” She grinned.

I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s really weird Maddy took these people up on their offer to fly them out in their private plane. It’s also super weird she hasn’t reacted at all to Max and Cyndi’s bizarre behaviour, but okay.

They head into the house to have dinner, and Mia frets about how she’s going to reveal the truth to Maddy. Even though she’s excited about having a brother, she’s worried that with all the other crazy stuff going on in their lives, Maddy will be overwhelmed by the news. Then she gets distracted by Maddy’s beauty and starts thinking about how she could “rock a few Shakespearean sonnets of my own” about it. Da fuck?

She watches Maddy and Max talking and starts to get increasingly angry with their mother:

Meryl Colgrove-Saunders, my mother, had committed the worst sins a woman could.

Broken the hearts of two men, shattering their belief in love after her.

No, like I feel murder is still worse than this. And why is this specifically the worst sin a woman can commit? Oh excuse me, there’s more. It’s sins. 

Abandoned her three children.

Denied her children the love of their siblings.

Yeah that shit is bad, but I’m sticking to my murder comment above and the fact that this is sexist AF.

Mia is determined to find her mother and get some answers, so I guess that’s going to be our big finale? Is Mia going to seriously continue being an escort after all this? I don’t understand anything anymore.

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8 comments

  1. Madeline Reply

    It’s so jarring to see my name as I normally spell it pop up like this. When I opened my email and saw the title I wondered where I went and who was there.

    • 22aer22 Post authorReply

      Don’t you remember meeting your long lost brother and his wife???? They acted so strangely upon your arrival!

    • matthewjulius Reply

      yeah, I always feel more than a little weird writing about how much matt sucks

  2. callmeIndigo Reply

    ““…When I saw your picture on that site, looking exactly like my mother… I knew it was all going to come together as it should. That finally, I wouldn’t feel alone.””
    I’m sorry but when did this become a horror novel

    • callmeIndigo Reply

      Like, not to be dramatic, but at one point in Dragon Age 2 [is this a spoiler. Does anyone here care about Dragon Age] someone kills your character’s mother so he can put her face on the zombie he’s constructed to replace his wife, and this is…basically his justification for it also?

  3. Andreas Reply

    “That finally, I wouldn’t feel alone. … by the way, that’s my wife. Hey, darling, why do you look so grumpy? … so where was I? Oh right, my neverending loneliness.”

  4. Lya Reply

    “had committed the worst sins a woman could. Broken the hearts of two men, shattering their belief in love after her.”

    Looking at this weird and sexist family, I can understand why this woman leave them. Mia’s mom, stay where you are.

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