Calendar Girl (September) Chapter 9:
Mia reminds us how urgently she needs to figure out what she’s going to do about Blaine. She also still hasn’t received more information about Wes, and Warren won’t take her calls.
Once Kathleen picked up and told me he was working on it and wouldn’t stop until he got some facts about Wes’s whereabouts. For now, though, he couldn’t listen to my broken voice and get anything accomplished. I understood that. If it were me, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done with a psycho, emotional wreck calling every five minutes for an update.
WOMEN BE CRAZY AMIRITE? I get that it probably would be unproductive for Warren to take all of Mia’s calls, but this seems like a shockingly callous reaction. “He couldn’t listen to my broken voice.” Jesus.
Mia tells us the situation “sucked…royally”, which also seems like a weirdly flippant way to describe her feelings about what’s going on. Also, unnecessary given we could probably have come to that conclusion ourselves.
We then get a recap of how Mia has called each and every one of her friends she made over the course of this series and the way they each react to what’s going on in her life. Be honest with me. Were any of you wondering how Hector and Tony would react to Mia finding out she has a brother or that her boyfriend was kidnapped by terrorists? Moreover, do any of you remember who Hector and Tony are?
Mason was not nearly as kind. He was pissed. Ready to skip out on the last handful of games in the season even though the Red Sox were killing it and he was their star pitcher. I remembered our call last night.
I really can’t get over how strange the details are in this chapter. We get it. You’re friends with a famous baseball player, Mia. She then remembers the call, and for some reason includes herself recapping the plot.
“…What he didn’t know about was Maddy, who as it turns out, is a full-blooded member of the Cunningham clan. Mom pawned off Maddy as my father’s.”
“Jesus. Your mom was wacked.”
Has anyone in this story reacted to anything in their lives before? Everything is so weirdly flippant this chapter.
Next was Anton and Heather.
I remember who Anton and Heather are…frantically flips through old blog posts.
Of course, Anton took the philosophical approach to everything, asking how it affected the big picture, how I felt about it.
Yes. Of course. Because I remember things about Anton as a character still frantically flipping through old blog posts.
Also, again, has anyone reacted to anything before? “How does your boyfriend getting kidnapped by terrorists affect the big picture, Mia?” Go to hell, Anton.
Continuing with our theme of utterly inappropriate reactions, enter Alec:
He had a way with words, and he told me that he was confident in my abilities to survive another day.
Oh, wow, okay maybe I was wro-
On the other hand, if I wanted to, he’d happily whisk me off to France where he’d ravish my body and fill my soul with light.
Mia, please cut all of these people out of your life immediately. “Hey my boyfriend was just rescued from terrorists.” “oh should i ravage your body?” NO NO NO, DUDE, NO!
But what about Tai, you didn’t ask?
I waited to call Tai until the very last. As expected, he did not take the news well. So much so that I didn’t even tell him all of it, because had I told him about Blaine, his threats, and the kidnapping, he would have been on the next plane with a half dozen giant Samoan men out for blood. Blaine’s blood.
Thank you for specifying it was Blaine’s blood. Otherwise, I would have no idea who they were blood thirsty for?
More importantly, why is Mia so confident that any of these men would immediately board a plane from Hawaii to Vegas to fight “goons, knives, and most certainly, guns” for Mia who 1) doesn’t even seem to know there names and 2) basically just hooked up with Tai for a month. At most I could accept they would politely say hi to her if they ever ran into her again.
Blaine wouldn’t stop until the entire Niko clan was dead and buried six feet under in a long lost section of the Nevada desert never to be heard from again. That was not going to happen to my sexy Samoan. No way, no how.
“That wasn’t going to happen to my sexy Samoan, but his family, who would apparently also come to my aid, be damned!”
Blaine interrupts our previously scheduled filler to remind Mia to again meet him today at the same restaurant he keeps taking her to. I relate to Blaine more than anyone in this series because I too prefer to keep going to the same restaurants because they’re known quantities, and it’s always such a risk to try a new place. Especially when you have to figure out where to station your obligatory goons!
Max insists on accompanying Mia, and I’m on his side on this one. Thank you, Max, for not allowing this to actually be A Thing because at this point in the story it really shouldn’t be when Mia has like 800 ways to pay off this debt and not sleep with Blaine.
So they get to the restaurant, and somehow during lunch on a Friday it’s completely empty, so Blaine’s goons can do this:
His goons pushed back their blazer jackets. The barrels of black .45s could be easily seen.
Mia tells Blaine she doesn’t have the money and also won’t be sleeping with him. He is not pleased. In fact he’s so upset, he’s not making any sense at all:
Blaine’s eyes darkened and he cut me off. “You better be telling me that you are accepting door number two, which leads to my bedroom, because excuses are like assholes, my pretty. Everyone has one, but not many want to get near one.”
Damn that…does not hold together. It’s so close. Similes are like children, they can be great, but not everyone should make them.
Anyway, Max steps in and pays Blaine, because that’s obviously where this was headed, and we all know Mia will be able to pay him off soon! Her debt is clear, so I thought this meant no more story, but she said she’s going to keep working because she now owes Max and Aunt Millie money, but I thought her inheritance would cover both those things. I can’t keep track anymore.
Blaine called her “my pretty.” I’m now picturing Margaret Hamilton playing Blaine in her full Wizard of Oz getup in the movie version of this book.
This has gone so far off the rails and I am loving every minute of it. She even included a flashback to every character we’ve met so far, and made it clear that they would throw down for this chick that they knew for 30 days.
I do think it’s interesting that of all the people from different walks of life she’s encountered, not one of them has said:
1) “Hey, I’ve got money.”
2) “Maybe you should call the damn police.”
3) “Oh shit I hired a woman who’s escorting to pay for her medically unstable father’s gambling debts it’s time for me to completely reassess sex work and why I pay for it.”
However, people should feel free to stop insulting her mother at any time.
I think Robot Mia forgot she and Alec/Tai are just friends now. Also she need to stop calling Tai “my sexy Samoan” (if someone calls me “my sexy latina” I would run without looking back)
“Blaine’s eyes darkened”
Okay, new theory: Blaine is an alien