Calendar Girl (October) Chapter 4: Mia Accidentally Got A Writing Job On TV

Calendar Girl (October): Chapter 4

Mia gets dressed for her first day at her new gig with on a celebrity doctor daytime tv show. There’s a whole scene where she’s trying to leave the house but Wes can’t stop feeling her up because she just looks so good, ya know? Classic Wes. It goes on insufferably long, but it does give us Mia referring to her own butt as “Mia bum”, which I can’t knock:

“Cut it out!” I giggled […]
He hummed, holding a handful of Mia bum. “I can’t.”

Seriously, we’re on book ten. We don’t need Wes to praise Mia’s body this much.

“Yeah, [Dr. Hoffman is married to] a young supermodel. Stick thin. Believe me.” He thrust his hips, ran his hands up my sides, and cupped my breasts. “When he gets a load of these curves, he’s going to wish he hadn’t settled for a popsicle when he could have had the double decker sundae.”
I snorted into his neck. “Did you just compare me to a dessert?”

We get it, Wes.

He laughed and growled. “You taste like the richest delicacy.”

Go away, Wes.

Significantly, Mia pays lip service to the fact that the series’ high-end escort premise is donezo. As much as we’ve torn into Calendar Girl for being one of the most ridiculous and illogical stories we’ve ever done on the blog… I think it’s far and away had the most actual development and ambition too. It’s a good thing we’re on book 10 of this story and it’s almost unrecognizable from book 1. The characters in this story actually move on, and the story didn’t just tread water the whole time. (cough cough Fifty Sh… actually, nah, basically everything we’ve read, really)

Even if it still makes exceptionally little sense:

• “Turns out that the show didn’t exactly pay my escorting fee the way I had imagined. A famous production company wouldn’t sign a check to a company called Exquisite Escorts.” Yet none of the other legitimate businesses that hired Mia previously seemed to have an issue with this
• “Millie had drawn up a separate official contract listing herself as my agent and charged the same […] fee […] It tickled me to no end that Millie had the business sense to manage this new side of our arrangement.” In which Mia is surprised that her aunt is capable of doing the same job she’s done this entire time, I guess
• “[Money] I needed to pay Blaine. Money I’d now be paying to my brother. Max had looked at me as though I had four eyes when I suggested monthly payments.” Why get rid of the monthly payment narrative arc just because it’s irrelevant now that Mia will come into actual millions in inheritance in a few months? We’ve been through so much together!

Mia checks in on how Wes actually plans on doing something with the rest of the day before she heads out the door, since Wes is, you know, recovering from a gunshot and PTSD. She points out to the reader that Wes has no enthusiasm for getting back to work, and that it’s hard seeing Wes hurt while she has her own issues to deal with, so she thinks about talking to him about therapy. Nah, jk, they’re still really codependent.

I knew he needed help, and it was up to me as his life mate to get him what he needed.

NOPE NOPE NOPE someone else’s mental health is not “up to” you. You can show them the door, but they gotta walk through it.

Later on that evening, I’d research some therapists.

THIS IS NOT SHOWING HIM THE DOOR, MIA. I’m not surprised since the “love” these two share is just telling each other what’s best, but it sucks that Mia doesn’t just plan to talk with him about the idea first. This is shoving someone into a closed door.

Anyway, ready for things to get wacky again? Mia gets to the studio and meets Dr. Hoffman’s assistant, Shandi. I’ll let you know if she ever does anything interesting.

She meets Dr. Hoffman and it sure is just another textbook client meeting for Calendar Girl. He’s impossibly attractive?

at six feet tall in a dress shirt that nipped in delectably at the waist and a pair of slacks that formed to every curve, I could see exactly why people swooned over the good doctor. He was hot. Plain and simple.

CHECK. He’s creepily flirtatious but Mia doesn’t see it?

“Extraordinary.” He held out a hand. […] “You are far more beautiful in person than your pictures,” he gushed.
I tipped my head and took in his form. “You aren’t too bad yourself, Doc.”

CHECK. Mia can’t meet a new person without talking about them in terms of their fuckability?

Did I want to hop on him and ride him till morning? No, not even a little bit, but just because my heart and sex drive belonged to Wes, I wasn’t dead or unaffected by a damn fine specimen of the male variety.

The bank has verified that sufficient funds exist in the account and set them aside and handed over a certified CHECK

Dr. Hoffman confirms something we’ve suspected about the plot since like the third book of Calendar Girl: Mia has absolutely gotten the media’s attention since she keeps doing all this high-profile stuff.

“The media have really taken a liking to you, especially after the Latin Lov-ah’s video went viral. You are quite the sought after celebrity.”

If this weren’t Calendar Girl, I’d applaud the subtly hilarious joke that this out-of-touch old white dude doesn’t quite know it’s just “Latin Lov-ah” and not “The Latin Lov-ah”. But it is Calendar Girl, so I kinda suspect Carlan just forgot how she named her own characters.

“I’m not popular.” […]
He walked over to a table and spread out several smut mags and a few newspaper clippings. “What say you about this then?” […]
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Are you sure there’s nothing you can recall from the past nine months that might shed some light on this?

Then things get even wackier when there’s a totally crazy misunderstanding. See, Mia thought she was going to act on this show, but Dr. Hoffman thinks she’s going to write her segment on the show! Claaaaaaaaassi- Wait what the fuck?

“What do you mean? I haven’t been given the script.”
His head jolted back and his eyes widened. “You mean your agent didn’t tell you?”
My eyebrows rose on instinct. “Uh, tell me what?”
He chuckled and slapped his knee. “Darling, you’re supposed to write the entire segment for Living Beautiful.”

Ask literally anyone who tries to make a career out of writing how believable this is and they’ll probably just start screaming and throwing things and then you’ll definitely get kicked out of Starbucks.

“our research showed a segment driven by you and what you feel is relevant as it pertains to beauty would resonate with our audience.”

“Therefore, we paid you six figures for a writing gig even though nobody knows if this is something you can do or not. Our audience demands the unfiltered opinion of someone who’s never made a single public statement, so ghost writing from the writing staff we already have is definitely out of the question. I guess we don’t have corporate sponsors for you to shill in this televised segment either. I have no idea how we make money.”

Ok, now, quick aside. It’s important to note that none of these issues are actually important. This isn’t a story about the entertainment industry. This is a light-hearted-ish story about Mia’s personal growth over a year of wild and crazy misadventures. It doesn’t really matter that Mia just happened to land a completely nonsensical gig. What really matters is that the story gives Mia an opportunity to rise to the occasion.

A shimmer of excitement and dread rippled through me? Could I do this?

The risk, of course, is that your mileage will vary, since it’s absurd if you think about it, like, even a little bit:

Was it possible that I could come up with something millions of people would find interesting enough to want to watch it every week on the Dr. Hoffman show?

But it’s up to you if you think the nonsense is still fun or not.

Mia also realizes that Wes could probably help her out, and that might actually be good for him too and help him find his creative passion again. That said, she of course still calls Aunt Millie to chew her out. Millie gives as few fucks as ever.

“I’m not seeing the problem. Don’t be obtuse, darling. Get to the point.”
I sighed. “Millie, I have to write the segment. From scratch, every week.”
“And how is this an issue? You’re smart, beautiful, and creative. This should be a piece of cake for you.” […]
“It would have been nice to know what to expect.”
“Sweetie, I sent over a copy of the contract. It detailed out what your role was. you signed it. I’m sorry you didn’t read it.” […]
“You’re my agent. You should have given me a heads up.”
“You’re blaming me because you weren’t prepared? Dollface.”

Can we appreciate that Aunt Millie makes a way better antagonist than Blaine ever did?

“I wouldn’t have agreed to the contract if I didn’t believe this as the right move for you. As good an actress as you are, you’re not the best. Let’s face it.”

I just realized that we’ve never gotten one single scene of Mia – aspiring actress – ever acting ever. So, uh, guess we have to take Millie’s word for it that this is a true thing about the main character in a book about her developing her career around this point.

The chapter ends with some bullshit with Mia coming home and thinking she’s walked in on Wes and Gina DeLuca fooling around, which is so obviously a fakeout cliffhanger it’s like Goosebumps never left us.