It’s the end of the second Calendar Girl book! Fun fact: this is the only question that has been asked about this book on its Goodreads page.
We’re taking next Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, but when we come back I assume everybody’s interested in checking out the next installment? Should we do March, or should we march on?
I’m sorry, it’s been a long week.
Calendar Girl (February): Chapter 10
Mia wakes up early the next morning, summarizing how the rest of the art opening went.
Once the last picture was revealed, spectators started connecting the dots. Newspapers and other media professionals interviewed me, took pictures of Alec and me together, overall making a big fuss.
So let’s assume that this isn’t awkward and everybody finds this situation totally normal (where “this situation” is “famous artist hired a model for the express purpose of having sex with his subject” – let’s be honest, that’s what this book was). Isn’t someone eventually going to figure out that she’s the same girl from that other famous artist’s big project a month ago? Sure, there she was the namesake for a character in a movie, so it’s not totally the same thing, but this is a weird pattern. What if in the client in the next book invents a new type of Italian food and names it after her and then some reporter starts connecting those dots?
ALSO WHAT IF WES FINDS OUT ABOUT THIS ART EXHIBIT AND GETS JEALOUS? I actually can’t tell if Calendar Girl is clever enough for that! The suspense!
Calendar Girl unintentionally gives me the greatest ending it possibly could: no more Alec!
Before I’d gotten ready yesterday, I’d packed everything up and had it hidden in a corner downstairs. My flight was early, and I wanted to slip away unnoticed. As with Wes, I couldn’t bear the thought of having to say good-bye to Alec face-to-face.
Seriously, Mia decides that leaving without saying goodbye in person is just, like, her thing.
I pulled out my special stationary and a pen. It was that time.
It’s like Calendar Girl‘s version of the part of each Harry Potter where Gryffindor wins the House Cup.
I scanned his sculpted face and body. Stunning and completely dead to the world. He’d had quite a bit more of the bubbly than I’d had and chased it with some fancy French drink I’d never heard of before. Then, he’d taken me to bed, fucked me to within an inch of my life, and passed out while still inside me.
On the plus side, WE GET TO SAY GOODBYE TO ALEC.
Alec, my beloved Frenchman,
Well, this is already all wrong. Fuck this noise.
I’m sorry to leave you like this, but it’s best if your last memory is of us making love. Because that’s what it was, making love. I should have said it to you yesterday. I don’t know why I didn’t. I do, you know? Love you, Alec.
Ok, I have a question. Why the fuck does she talk like this? In disjointed sentences. How the narration is too. It’s all like this. Distracting. Do you see? What I’m doing? It’s annoying. Reading like this. In sentence fragments.
In our way. The best way.
Just write one. A sentence. A whole sentence. Please. For the love of god.
Through you and your art, I was able to see how a loving relationship could be if both partners are completely honest. You never lied, never led me on, you always told the truth.
He did force you to model naked in situations you explicitly said you weren’t comfortable with, but I guess we’re just ignoring that because that would complicate the moral of the story.
Thank you, Alec, for showing me that it is okay to love, to give love freely and accept the love given to me, even if it’s for a short time.
…so here’s the thing. I don’t hate this! Sure, it ham-handedly fumbled how it told this story with a creepy, self-obsessed dude who only ever treated Mia like she was a prop, but what she just wrote isn’t a bad message at all! Especially for a 12-novella series that – if we’re being honest – is already stale by the end of book two. I was concerned this was basically gonna be an empty love-’em-and-leave-’em James Bond situation, but this is a genuinely good lesson to learn about love and sex? They knew it wasn’t a serious thing, they were honest about it, and they just let it be fun until it ran its course. And Mia learned that’s a totally ok experience to have!
Maybe sometime over the next ten novellas she can also read a book about feminism though.
My phone buzzed in my front pocket. I pulled it out and [saw a message from Ginny]:
Can’t wait to see your ugly mug. Now Mads is yelling at me for calling you ugly. Sorry, skank. 😉
Was Maddy reading over Ginny’s shoulder while she was writing this, or…
Mia notices that Alec has hidden an envelope in her purse! Just like Wes hid a present in her backpack! So we’re two for two where Mia wrote a goodbye letter to her client while he was gone, but then she found a secret parting gift that he hid in her bag, that she didn’t find until after she got on an airplane. Again, I really hope this trend continues. Maybe in the next book her client will sneak a whole lasagna into her coat pocket!
I opened the card, and out spilled a handful of pictures. Photos of the paintings, along with the one of us he’d taken himself. The selfie I’d made fun of him for. […] It was the perfect ending to a beautiful month. He hadn’t written anything in the card. His pictures said all that needed to be said.
Like Wes, I’d never forget my time with Alec.
Ew, vom. Let’s ogle the client in the sequel instead.
I sifted through the e-mails about my new client sent from Aunt Millie. I clicked on the picture icon. Holy moly. Another hottie. This was one definitely Italian. As in, Italian stallion. Where does she come up with these guys? Hotties-R-Us?
Real talk, how long do you think it takes to write one of these novellas?