Calendar Girl (October) Chapter 7:
Everyone just loves Mia’s idea to do a segment on stay-at-home moms. The only problem? Where’s a gal like Mia supposed to find a stay-at-home mom??? Why at the grocery store the next day, of course!
Mia starts following this woman around the store until she sees her stop to water and prune some plants that have appeared out of nowhere.
“What are you doing?” I asked her while pretending to sniff some daises. You couldn’t really smell them, but it didn’t stop me from using them as my cover.
“These needed more water or they’d die. And these, if you don’t pluck the dead leaves off, it could harm the rest of the plant’s growth process.”
“How would you know that? Are you, like, a gardener or something?” I asked.
Instead of removing herself from the situation, the woman continues to indulge Mia.
She shook her head and her cheeks pinked up. “Nope. Just a stay-at-home- mom.”
…because all stay-at-home-mom’s are experts on plants? What a weird reason to announce you’re a stay-at-home mom. Of course, Mia immediately convinces this woman (Heidi) to be part of her segment.
Mia brings Wes with her to film in Heidi’s home. The book lays it on really thick how incredible Heidi is. So attentive to her children, multi-tasking like a pro, flirting with her husband, maintaining a perfect garden, bringing flowers from her perfect garden to patients at the nearby hospital. It reads weirdly like propaganda. Like this:
Once father and son left together, Heidi proceeded to clean up the entire breakfast. After all that, she ate only a slice of toast. A meal fit for a king for her family, yet she only had time enough for a dry slice of bread and a sip of coffee.
WHAT A SAINT.
I mean, it starts when Mia first arrives in the neighbourhood and starts looking at the houses there:
Some were two levels, others one story, but they were definitely built as part of a master community with tract style design, perfect for families and suburban life.
Has some sort of brochure protocol been activated in Robot Mia?
There’s also a strange tangent where Mia marvels that there’s a paper boy.
As I exited the car, a paperboy riding on a BMX bike tossed a paper, which landed perfectly on the Ryan’s front stoop.
I hooked a thumb at the kid, who continued to blow me away with his mad paper throwing skills.
[…]
“Do we have a paperboy on a bike?” My eyes lit up thinking about it.
It reads like Mia is super horny for this paper boy. This whole weird is so weird and amazing.
Anyway, this also gives Mia a chance to reflect on how she wants to have kids with Wes someday and how it would make him soooo happy to have a baby.
Hell, if I didn’t watch out, he’d have me married, barefoot, and pregnant before the year was up.
Please tell me that’s not how this series is going to end. Please.
The filming goes smashingly, and the next day Wes comes with Mia to work to help her edit the segment. There’s a whole editing team there, and I’m surprised they’re not the slightest bit irritated by this.
Then Dr. Hoffman shows up with a woman who I guess is supposed to be his date? It’s super unclear why she’s there except to generate pages of slut-shaming filler.
On him like a cheap suit was a blond popsicle stick with outlandishly large boobs. I knew how big they were because they were practically falling out of a skimpy lace-trimmed camisole.
You get the picture.
Whoever this woman is, she’s also a hero:
“Ooh, I like your new girl. She’s sexy. With all those curves, I’ll bet she tastes like birthday cake. Can we play with her, Doctor, please, pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top?”
The woman cooed, her pink, glossy lips puckering on each consonant. Blondie shook her chest in front of his face making sure to jostle them in a way that was clearly practiced and had worked many times before, and I noticed Drew’s eyes seemed to dive into her ample cleavage.
Mia breaks up with Wes right away and runs off with this woman, Brandy, who actually just has a really great sense of humor and is Mia’s true soulmate. Brandy finds out that Mia doesn’t taste like birthday cake because that makes no sense and is impossible but loves her in spite of this.Brandy continues to shimmy and shake her boobs with abandon, and Mia begrudgingly respects her for it. They live happily ever after in Texas, probably, because we all know Max is going to force everyone to live near him at some point.
Drew suddenly realises who Wes is and is flustered:
“Weston Channing the third, famous movie writer…”
I love this so much. Drew is supposed to be fairly famous himself, but he’s still describing someone else as “famous movie writer”. AND he says “Weston Channing the third”. It’s incredible.
“Awesome! Oh my God, I like love, love, love your movies. And you’re so hot!” The bimbo clinging to the good doctor shimmied in her spiked heels.
Fuck yeah, Brandy. You keep shimmying, girl.
Drew makes some hella stupid and tactless comments about Wes’ kidnapping and then leaves. Everyone returns to editing sadly. I have no idea what was going on with the editing team, but presumably they’ve just been watching this unfold the whole time without saying a word. They are the unsung heroes of this chapter.