Calendar Girl (May) Chapter 1:
Mia describes her stressful flight back the Vegas where she talked to an eight-year-old for the whole flight. For some reason, Mia recaps the child’s entire life story for multiple pages.
Chasity’s mom had very few friends and no family. The small child felt it was her role to keep her mother company. Because, “no one wants to be alone. People need people.” At least according to in-your-face, well-meaning Chasity.
When the pilot announced that we were twenty minutes from landing, I actually sent a little prayer up to the Big Guy that Chasity and her mother would find their way to a happy medium.
It sounds like Chasity and her mom need to hire a call-girl with the heart of gold to be Chasity’s nanny for a month and solve all their problems
After the flight, Mia is grateful for birth control because she is not ready to have a kid and raise someone else besides her sister:
The next kid I raised would likely be a hellion or a demon spawn. Best not to leave that kind of thing up to Lady Luck. As I’d already determined… a cold- hearted bitch, that lady. No need to ruffle any feathers unnecessarily.
I don’t understand. When Mia is ready to have a kid, how would her kid being terrible be any less up to chance? Whose feathers is she ruffling? What is she talking about?
Mia gets a message from Mason who tells her that he and Rachel are pissed they didn’t get a real goodbye.
Not the first time a client, or I should say “friend,” was upset with my style of good-bye. Wes seemed to anticipate my ninja-like departure. Alec went with the flow, and Hector cried. That gay Latino sent me a sobbing message about how I ruined the perfect good-bye. Something about seeing it on a movie once, and he’d had it all planned out, with flying doves and shit.
Stop and think really, really hard about the likelihood that even the most flamboyant gay man you know would have prepared to say goodbye to someone he knew for a month (because she was hired to be his boyfriend’s beard) with flying doves and then cried when this opportunity was taken from him. The only one I can think of is Jack from House of Night, which is not a good indicator of believability.
I don’t know. Tony must have grabbed the phone at that time and interrupted the message. He had added his own brand of irritation that I’d left him with a sniveling fiancé to deal with and that I owed him one.
Again, I just don’t buy that Mia’s departure had this effect on Hector.
Ginnelle picks Mia up from the airport, greeting her with a, “Word up, Biz-natch.” So we have a lot of great banter to look forward to between these two.
However, the nicest moment between them is the one with absolutely no dialogue:
Ginelle drove me to Maddy and Pop’s. She could tell I was contemplative and didn’t fill the car with idle chitchat, but she did glance over at me, grab my hand, and hold it against the console between us.
Mia tells Gin she loves her, and Gin is like, “I know.” This elicits a huge laugh from Mia when it deserves a fond chuckle at best.
Before they get home, Mia gives Gin an envelope of money to give to Blaine (or rather the hotel admin). I can’t remember if we already knew Gin was doing this for Mia. I have to say, that’s very nice of her, but this is very risky. The money is passing through a lot of hands. Who is this hotel admin? Can we trust him or her? I suppose this also means Blaine won’t be showing up again for awhile. He is really not seeming like much of a threat, and we’re already in May.
They go eat meatloaf with Maddy, and Mia informs us proudly that her sister’s boobs have grown. It’s a special relationship these two have. Everyone is very excited about Hawaii, and there is much merriment to be had…until!
“Fuck yes! I’ll sleep on the motherfuckin’ floor!” I groaned.
“Gin, cool the f-bombs around Mads. Jeez.”
“Oh please, I’m not a little girl. As a matter of fact… I’m officially a woman as of last weekend.”
Ginelle leaves so Maddy and Mia can discuss her first time.
She licked her lips and tipped her head. “It hurt. I bled a little, but he went so slowly. So much that he shook with the effort. He was afraid to hurt me, and really, it only hurt for a little bit.”
That sounds 100% like the way this scene would be narrated to us, but not at all the way someone would describe it out loud. Try it. It feels like a very unnatural thing to actually pretend you’re saying to someone!
Maddy asks Mia to come to dinner with her boyfriend’s family. I don’t think she has said his name yet this whole time. Not that it really matters, but it would be nice to just type a name.
After having a heart to heart with Maddy about Wes (just rehashing everything we already know), Mia messages Tony’s sister Angie:
We got close back in Chicago, and if anyone would know about dating and meeting the parents, she would.
I can understand why Mia might feel close to people she spent constant time with during these month-long jobs. For people who went to summer camp as a kid or worked at them as an adult, I get it, you do get close to people in these short, but intense, periods of time. But Angie and Mia hung out a few times – how can Mia possibly think they are close? And why would she specifically be the person she’d turn to about meeting the parents of her sister’s boyfriend?
Angie tells Mia it’s a big deal that the boyfriend’s parents want to meet the family. Mia decides that she has to call Hector tomorrow to tell her what to wear. These characters are being so seamlessly woven into the storylines.
The chapter ends with Angie telling Mia it sucks to be her. It seems a bit dramatic, but I wouldn’t want to go meet Maddy’s boyfriend’s parents either, so maybe Angie has a point.