Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy) (16 page)

“I don’t think it’s like that.”

“Sounds like you
think
a lot, but don’t know much of
anything.”

Charlotte was silent.

“What did you drink, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Evidently, loads and loads of tequila. I feel
like barfing.”  

“Yeah. That’ll happen.”

“So,” Charlotte said, rising to a sitting position. “You
have time for a makeover today?”

 “Oh, yes.” Fiona laughed. “Do you know how long I’ve been
waiting for this?”

“Since I arrived on planting day?”

“No, no, honey. Long before that. I’m talking years.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I mean, you know, no offense.” Fiona sighed, then flicked
her head toward the house. “You need some coffee. Come inside.”

***

Caleb sat in his car, staring straight ahead, still trying
to get a grip on what had happened.  She had pushed him out of the house. That
wasn’t a Charlotte thing to do. That was a Fiona thing to do.

Caleb shuddered inside. She had asked him to take her home,
to take her to bed. And then this morning… Like nothing had happened.

How could things have gone so dreadfully wrong? How could
she not see how important she was? How could the very fulcrum of his existence
just up and disappear?

All those years of coming home, of seeing her there, poking
at ground hamburger in the skillet or leaning over the kids’ homework. She
would smile and peck him on the lips and show him what was in the mail. Had she
been unhappy all this time? Had she been slowly dying, all this time, and now
it was too late?

And the idea of losing his daughters over this. Maybe, as
Rachael had said, it was time to talk to a lawyer. Just to talk it out. To make
sure there wouldn’t be a problem.

He could still smell her on his skin. His Charlotte.

***

In the kitchen, Fiona perched on tiptoes to fish a humongous
coffee cup from the far reaches of her cupboard. She filled it from the carafe
on the counter. “Here’s a venti, venti, venti. It might be almost enough to get
you thinking straight again.”

Then Fiona disappeared into the pantry, emerging a moment
later with her hands full. “Here’s some sugar. And a couple green liqui-gels.”

“Mmm. Ibuprofen.” The longer the morning went on, the more
wooly her head felt.

“So,” Fiona said, once Charlotte had taken a gulp. “Why
didn’t you tell me you almost died during your date with Leopold?”

Charlotte choked a little on her coffee and smiled. “It
wasn’t a date.”

“Did you tell Leopold that?”

“I don’t think I needed to.”

“Did he ask you to wear a dress?”

“No. He
told
me to wear a dress.”

“Then, it was a date.”

“Mercy.”

“So what happened? You choked and then you peed?”

“How did you know about the peed part?”

“Oh, honey. Everyone knows about the peed part.”

“I thought I covered that up.”

“Nope.”

Charlotte plunked her head on the table.

“You sure are giving this town a lot to talk about.” Fiona
said.

Charlotte popped her head back up, which made her dizzy.
When the room stopped spinning, she said, “Even more after I arrived than
before.”

“If that were even possible,” Fiona said, and she winked. “Miraculously,
something about the entire experience has made Leopold a little smitten with
you.”

“Ha ha.”

“I’m not kidding. He came by the salon yesterday, definitely
smitten.”

Charlotte laughed, because smitten rhymed with kitten and
because the world wasn’t making any sense just now. C’mon liqui-gels. Work your
magic.

“What is the deal with you two anyway?” Charlotte asked. “With
you and Leopold?”

“No changing the subject.”

“I think it’s on subject, actually.”

Fiona’s voice grew quiet. “Leopold helped me out of a dark,
dark time. In some ways, I feel I owe him my life. I’d do anything to help
him.”

Charlotte was quiet for a moment, considering.

“So what do you think of him?” Fiona wanted to know.

“He’s kind of…” What was the word she was looking for? “He’s
kind of arrogant, at times. Don’t you think?”

Fiona thought for a moment. “He is a bit self obsessed, yes.
But show me a man who isn’t.”

Charlotte thought instantly of Caleb and then of Special Ed.
She shrugged. 

“He said he was having so much fun with you, Charlotte. Why
didn’t you tell me how you two hit it off so well?”

“I was mortified. Really, Fiona. It was one of the worst
nights of my life. I begged him to take me home, but he wouldn’t.”

Fiona shrugged. “All I know is Leopold said he’d never had a
better conversation in his life.”

“That’s ironic because I hardly said a word. He was talking
about himself mostly.”

“Alright, I already conceded that he’s a little self
absorbed.”

Charlotte took another swig of coffee. When she spoke again,
her tone was quieter. “This is not where your Transformation Pact was expected
to go, was it?”

Fiona snorted. “Sure it is. You are definitely hitting
Number Five pretty hard. The clause about the men….And you must be hitting
Number Three pretty hard, too. The fun clause. I mean, I can hardly wait to
hear what people are going to tell me each day. All the ways you are going to
surprise me.”

More shards of memory from the night before. The brightly
lit restaurant. Too bright, and Caleb’s kind, kind eyes. And then what? What
had happened? She suddenly wished she remembered. The whole thing was a
blur…order margaritas, yadda, yadda, wah, wah, best sex of her life, bleh, bleh,
she sent Caleb sprawling out the front door. She really shouldn’t drink.
Really, really.

“So what do you think about Leopold?” Fiona tucked her hair
behind her ears and then shook her head so it fell again, in perfect layers, around
her face.” About going out with him again?”

“Did you just ask me out for your friend, like in seventh
grade?” Charlotte looked down at her thumbs, wrapped around the coffee cup. Her
cuticles were ragged.  “Because I just got out of bed with my husband.”  

“Yeah, but he’s your
husband
. He’s not a fling. I’m
talking about Leopold.”

She stared down at the table, not wanting to meet Fiona’s
eyes. “I just, don’t think I could date him. You know, with the line of work
he’s in.”  

“What’s wrong with it?  He helps women feel better about
their bodies. He teaches women how to use them. To gain strength and skill to
go out into the world without him. It’s perfectly respectable.”

 “But does he fall in love with any of them?”

“Evidently,” Fiona said, gesturing toward Charlotte.

“But I’m not a client.”

“Of course you are.”

“No. not like that. Not that kind of a client.”

“Oh, I see. You are saying that I am the client.” Fiona’s
chin gave a tremble.

“Kind of,” she said. Maybe she shouldn’t be talking about
this when she was feeling so out of it. “All I mean is, you are paying the
bills.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Fiona said, “Well,
I think you should give Leopold a chance. Not to marry him or anything. Just
for a good roll in the hay. Or the forest. Or the meadow. Or whatever. He’s a
good man. Inside there. Past the chauvinism and the self-absorption. Plus,” she
whispered. “He has skills.”

“Skills?”

“You have no idea.”

Suddenly, Charlotte very badly wanted to go home.

***

“We bought this for you last week, with Aunt Fiona,” Hannah said,
waving a strappy sundress in Charlotte’s direction as she walked through the
great room. The boys were, apparently, going in costume. They were already dressed
in brightly colored polyester suits and matching facemasks, ready to defend the
universe against any of a number of cosmic threats. Just now, they were
wrestling under the glass coffee table.

Fiona clapped her hands together, “Oh yes! We were going to
surprise you with it one of these days, and we never got around to it. What a
perfect day. Go put it on!”  

Charlotte held the dress out and up to her. It was cut just
above the knee, some kind of cotton blend in black with tiny red roses.  And it
dipped low in the front.

“Ah, a boob sling top,” Charlotte said. “I needed one of
these, apparently. Someone told me this.”

Maxwell, who was applying a headlock to his little brother
near her feet, said. “Did you say boob?”

“Ha Ha. Aunt Charlotte said ‘boob.’” Maddox sang. He had
just wriggled out of the chokehold and was fighting to stand.

“What is wrong with you, mom?” Gracie gave her head a shake
and turned away from her.

“No offense,” Fiona continued, “but you have kind of a
farmer’s tan, Charlotte, so we bought you some airbrushing spray, too.”

“Is this like a spray tan?”

“Kind of. The girls have been using it, so they’ll show you
how it’s applied.”

“The girls have been using it?”

“Well, you won’t let us go in the tanning bed.” Hannah said
and crossed her arms.

“It’s no big deal, Charlotte,” Fiona said. “It just covers
up all their little skin doodads and imperfections.”

“They don’t have skin doodads and imperfections. They are eleven
and thirteen.”

“It just makes them look tan and glisten-y.”

“I don’t think I want them looking tan and glisten-y.”

“It’s just a spray, Mom. Not a big deal.” Gracie said,
flicking her eyes toward the ceiling. 

“What if you walk through sprinklers or you sweat or
something. Does it come off?”

“You
would
worry about that kind of thing.” Gracie
said, in a low voice.

“Yes. Because I’m the one it would happen to. People are
just watching and waiting for me to do ridiculous things in this town. I’m
going to fall off a curb or a stupid crow is going to flutter right into the
back of my head and knock me out. Seriously. Things like that just seem to happen
to me here.”

“Nonsense.” Aunt Fiona was sucking in her stomach and
turning sideways, regarding herself in the mirror. Behind her, Hannah did the
same.

“Today I’ll probably sweat my tan off and my boob will fall
out of my new dress.”

“Aunt Charlotte said ‘boob’ again!” Maddox slapped his
forehead and giggled.

Charlotte surprised herself by laughing with him. Boob
was
a funny word. And, through the headache and the nausea that she was managing to
hold just at bay, she had to admit that she felt a glimmer of something. That
the night with Caleb had made her feel loose in the limbs, made her breathe
deeper, even as it complicated her life beyond words.

***

Once they arrived at the salon, Charlotte caught sight of
her reflection in the enormous mirror that stood leaning against the entry
wall. The mirror’s frame was silver and scrolling, and it reflected Charlotte’s
strawberry blonde hair, which tumbled down her back today in loose natural
curls. Caleb loved her hair. He loved playing with it. Burying his hands in it.
Yanking on it. She got another flash of the previous evening. And then this
morning, shoving him out the door.  She winced. What the hell was she doing?
How could she be so old, such a mother, so responsible, and yet so terribly, so
enormously confused?

 “So what are you planning to do today?” Charlotte asked,
her voice tight. “To my hair?”

“Something a little edgy,” Fiona said. “More modern. A bit
more bang. Streamline all this stuff.”  She pulled up Charlotte’s hair in the back
and flopped it back and forth in her fingertips.

Why did hairdressers always make you want to feel unattractive
before they started? If she were a hairdresser, Charlotte thought, she would
start by making the person feel like they looked amazing. Because it was the
person inside that was really being nurtured, the whole time she sat in the
salon chair.

“No offense, but you desperately need me to do this for
you,” Fiona said. “So you’d better not be chickening out.”

“I don’t know.”

“Mom,” Hannah pleaded. “Come on. You promised.”

“I love my hair. My look. Just the way it is.” Tears surged
to her eyes. “I don’t think I want to change it.”

“Mom. Good grief.” Gracie said. “You’re crying about your
hair now? What is wrong with you?”

Hannah bit her lip. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll go instead. Make
me over, Aunt Fiona. Do it edgy. And modern. And do Gracie, too.”

Gracie moved toward Fiona with a little skip to indicate her
consent, and the three disappeared, Fiona clucking her tongue.

She took a deep breath and turned to face her nephews.
“C’mon, little monkeys. Aunt Charlotte is taking you to the candy store.”

***

While they waited, Charlotte and the boys strolled the
entire Main Street, ate three chocolate bars and half a pound of gummy bears,
and then headed to the park where they played chase, hide and seek, hot lava, pirates,
and cops and robbers. Charlotte wasn’t accustomed to playing such games in a
dress or a skimpy top, but she managed just the same.

After a few hours, they returned to the salon. Charlotte
sank into one of the cheetah-print chairs in the waiting room and flipped
through an issue of
FanFair.
Maxwell plopped in the chair next to her
and leaned in close.

“Aunt Charlotte? Are you named after Charlotte the spider,
like in Charlotte’s Web?”

“No, Max, I don’t think so.”

“Because I really liked that movie.”

“It is a good movie. A good book, too.”

“I haven’t read the book, but I really liked the movie.” He
poked a finger into his bellybutton, which appeared as a dark shadow in the
center of his nylon suit. “It’s sad. Charlotte dies at the end. Do you remember
that?”

Charlotte nodded. “I do remember that.”

“Wilbur loved Charlotte. And I loved that Wilbur.”

“You’re right, Max. Wilbur does love Charlotte. And he
always will.”