Calendar Girl (April) Chapter 6: Rachel Puts The Fun In Fundraiser

Calendar Girl (April): Chapter 6

The second half of the book kicks off with Mason’s breast cancer fundraiser, which I assumed was going to be the climax. Mason and Mia are “dressed to the nines”, but guess who the real knockout is!

Rachel made her way from the back of the room. She wore a soft-pink satin strapless number that came down to her knee but had a slit up to the hip, giving the ultimate sex appeal with a sweetheart neckline that showed off her breasts. Her hair was down in the old Hollywood fashion style they wore back in the day. […] I did not expect her to look the way she did. She was a pin-up girl slash classy dame.
Mason stood in silence, watching her approach. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were blazing hot. He’d never looked at me like that before.

“By the end of the page? Haha, Matthew. Very funny.” Okay, yeah, but it takes all of two more paragraphs before Mason is already acting much less professional than usual. Even by Mason’s standards.

Mason looked her up and down, grabbed her by the waist, cupped her cheeks, and looked deeply into her eyes. She didn’t say a word, just allowed him to manhandle her, and I knew why. Because it was alpha, it was smokin’ hot, and when a man like Mace grabbed you and handled you that way, you just took it and thanked the mighty Heavens that it was happening.

Now, sure, some people like a more assertive partner. Nothing wrong with that at all! But maybe the best way to word that saying that “[he] manhandled her” is “smokin’ hot” and so “alpha” that all women everywhere should “thank the mighty Heavens” about it. Just maybe???

Mason and Rachel continue to be not remotely subtle.

 “Every man here is going to want you.”
“There’s only one man I want,” she responded with full confidence.

They flirt with each other for a little while longer, then go on to do their various duties for the fundraiser. Rachel fills Mia in how successful the fundraiser is.

“Yep, we have four hundred people confirmed RSVPs for tonight’s event, all who make seven figures a year.”
“Damn, I didn’t think there were that many rich people in the world.”

…seriously. Mia didn’t think there were four hundred millionaires in the world? Seriously?

Rachel tells Mia that the fundraiser will almost certainly make at least a million dollars. This gives Mia pause because the overarching plot of Calendar Girl – which you actually might have totally forgotten, because Calendar Girl – is that Mia’s paying off her dad’s one million dollar gambling debt.

“Unbelievable,” I gasped.
Her hand came up to my shoulder and squeezed. “Different type of lifestyle. Don’t worry. They can afford it.”
“I guess so. At least it’s all going to a really good cause.”

Mia doesn’t explain her comment (because occasionally these books do assume the reader doesn’t need everything explained to them like they’re five), but it’s definitely gotta be her lamenting why she has to raise a million dollars. It’s subtle, and I like it.

Later, of course, things are less subtle and I don’t like it.

The auctioneer we’d hired (As opposed to the auctioneer they didn’t hire? Why specify this?) came up to a long stage and stood off to the side by a podium. “Tonight, we have a special treat for the ladies out there. Seeing as this is a charity for women, we’re going to give the women something to bid on. Men, come on oooooouuuuuuut!”

This is when the participating baseball players come out to be auctioned off for a four-hour date for charity. A lot of them even get kinda into taking off their shirts and prancing around on stage. It’s playful and fun in a way that the rest of this book series about getting naked and living life a little bit somehow isn’t at all.

So that’s not the part I don’t like, obviously. See if you can guess what it is:

“There are some seriously rich, horny chicks here,” I said to Rachel while clicking a pic of Jake and forwarding it to Gin. Instantly, I got a response.
To: Mia Saunders
From: Skank-a-lot-a-Puss
I fucking hate you. Keep ’em coming… which is what I’d like to do to that piece of hot male action.
I laughed and showed Rachel what Gin said. She shook her head.
“I can’t believe you have your best friend in your phone as ‘Skank-a-lot-a-Puss.’”
“Why not? It’s funny.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.”

SURPRISE. GIN AND MIA’S FRIENDSHIP IS STILL ANNOYING.

Granted, on the one hand, it’s nice that there’s finally someone else in this story who’s just not amused by Gin. But Rachel’s entire characterization is that she’s sort of a fuddy duddy, so this may not really be a challenge to how funny Gin’s one-note, over-the-top, actually-pretty-weak-pun-game shtick really is. (“Skank-a-lot-a-Puss” isn’t even a pun. Where’s the joke part of the joke?)

Unfortunately, this part of the chapter is a fucking “isn’t it so funny how Mia’s best friend is so crude” showcase, like Calendar Girl got hijacked by Family Guy for a few pages.

• “I’d take such a giant bite out of that chocolate ass. I wonder if he’d melt in my mouth and not in my hand.”
• “That ASS! Have mercy on my slutty soul.”
• “I’d let him catch me, throw me, bat me, tag me, as long as he did it naked and fucked me stupid.”

It’s kind of impressive that it took Gin four tries to not come up with a baseball-themed sex pun.

Surprising exactly no readers, Rachel throws in the winning bid for Mason.

“Did you just buy me for a quarter of a million dollars?” he asked in awe.
I was right there with him. I couldn’t believe it either.
“The company told me how much I could give.”

Let’s ignore how that immediately went from grand gesture to horrendously unromantic and instead focus on the implications of that: Rachel had to have had a meeting with her employers and tell them that she wanted to bid on her client, Mason, for a charity date with company money. That meeting sounds way more interesting than this book.

The fundraiser ends with Mason giving a speech about his mother, his pride to help “the women who have yet to be saved”, and that they’ve raised $1.3 million dollars. Or, as Mia puts it:

I felt like a modern day Mother Teresa in fuck-me pumps

Thanks, Mia.

Later that night, they go back to a hotel suite near where they hosted the fundraiser. After a long bath, Mia goes to say goodnight to Mason but notices (through the door that for some reason isn’t closed) that it’s not just Mason in there.

“Fuck yeah, so tight,” he said. […]
Rachel. Sweet, professional Rachel was pressing her perfect little ass back into Mason while he plowed into her over and over. […]
“Mine. You’re mine now, Rach. I’m going to take this sweet pussy every day for the rest of my fucking life,” he roared.
Rachel screamed, “Yes, God yes. Mace, so good. I’m gonna, I’m gonna… Oh my God.”

For the life of me, I have no idea why every single erotic novel we read for the blog features a man shouting “so tight!” during sex, but does not feature a woman immediately running out of the room.

I knew I should go, that I shouldn’t stay and watch, but they were so beautiful.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all, but, again, “fuck yeah, so tight”.

It was like watching art, truly capturing the act of love.

Unlike the second book, which was literally about art capturing the act of love and was never alluded to again, I guess.

The chapter ends on an unexpectedly poignant note, with Mia going back to her room to masturbate but realizing how badly she wants to find what Mason and Rachel just found, and how far she is from it.

Quickly running back to my room, I shut the door and flung myself into bed. I didn’t want to do what I did next, but I couldn’t help it. I pulled out my phone, brought up the pictures I’d taken of Wes and Alec, and scrolled through their naked beauty. And then I touched myself. It took no more than thirty seconds, and I was crying out […]
It felt good while it lasted, but then lying there in the quiet of the room, the overwhelming feeling that hummed just under the surface was an unbelievable sense of loneliness. For the first time in my life, I was by myself, truly and utterly alone.

We still have four more chapters of this novella to go and the plot’s seemingly played all its cards already, so this could go totally off the rails, but for once I’m actually sort of intrigued to see where Calendar Girl is going.