“You are most welcome.” He turned to Paulie, who appeared stricken. Colleen pointed to her own face and smiled, then made the sign for talk by opening and closing her hand. Paulie’s face flushed purple, but bless her, she looked up (way up) at Droog. “How’s it hanging?” she asked.
Oh, dear. Well. Brave attempt.
Colleen steered Mom, who was cowering like an abused dog, to the classroom in the back. Easels had been set up in a circle.
“Is it warm in here?” Mom asked, starting to flutter her shirt.
“You’re having a hot flash,” Colleen said.
“I don’t think so,” Mom said. “It’s just hot. Wow! They must’ve turned up the heat. Make them turn it down, Colleen.”
“Mom, it’s menopause.”
“You always think my problems are menopause.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace, get my mom on some estrogen, please.”
“So?”
“So God better reward me for this.”
The instructor came in—Debbie Meering (strawberry margarita), who had painted Still Life with Grapes #15 out in the gallery.
“Welcome!” she cried, flinging out her arms and hitting Droog on the back of the head. “Let’s start by taking a few cleansing breaths...in...and out!...and in!”
“In case we’ve forgotten how to breathe,” Colleen said to her mom, who rolled her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’ve decided to embrace Art with a capital A!” Debbie said. “It’s changed my life! No, it has. I’ve found a side of myself heretofore hidden—”
“That’s a word you just don’t hear enough,” Mom said, and Colleen felt a rush of affection for old Momster. She had her moments.
“Everyone should feel free to tap into their inner gods and goddesses,” Debbie continued, “and set free their muses and let their chakras flow! There is no right or wrong here, just Art! With a capital A! And of course, our fellow single people! Let loose your true selves, people!”
The students glanced nervously around; Colleen was quite interested to see what the true selves would be like. The Hulk? Wolverine (please, God)? Voldemort? Nope, everyone seemed like their regular selves. Ah, well.
Except for Orange Tooth, Droog the Vampire and a man so old Colleen wasn’t quite sure he was alive, everyone here was female. The usual, Colleen knew.
And that was the thing. All the women here were attractive enough. Clean, at any rate. They’d made an effort. Granted, the Thneed choked off much of Paulie’s appeal, but still. She was trying. The point was, normal, honest, decent women with good hygiene were always willing to go to these types of events, whereas the normal, honest, decent men seemed to be anywhere but.
“So let’s get started by going around the circle and telling everyone why you’re here and what you’re looking for in a relationship. Bert? Get us started, won’t you?”
Bert, the elderly man, was fast asleep in his wheelchair, drooling. Colleen grabbed a paper towel for when he woke up.
“Okay, then, Colleen, why don’t you get us going?”
“Sure,” Colleen said. “I’m Colleen, perpetual flirt, here with my mom to find me a stepfather.”
“And are you looking for love?” Debbie asked.
“Can’t say that I am, Deb.”
“Her first boyfriend just came back to town,” Mom offered. “He broke up with her years ago, and she’s still not over him. She wants to find someone. A beard. Is that the right term?”
See? Just when she was feeling warm thoughts about Mom, this happened. “Wow, thanks, Mom. I’d deny that, but I’m reeling from the fact that you’re so willing to blurt out my personal—”
“And you, Jeanette?” Debbie asked.
“Colleen made me come.” Mom looked around at the others in the circle. “My husband left me for a whore.”
“Same here,” said a woman who had to be eighty if she was a day and was eyeing Drooling Beauty. “An actual prostitute. He said if the dwarf on Game of Thrones could do it, then so could he.”
“I see. And you, Paulie?” Debbie said, completely unfazed.
“I, uh...well, there’s a certain someone who... He... I wouldn’t...” Her face blossomed into the fascinating mottled purple. Mom started shirt-flapping in sympathy. “It’s a case of, um, unrequited love.”
“Unrequited at the moment, that is,” Colleen said, giving Paulie a smile.
“Young luff!” chortled Droog. “How wonderful! Eh heh heh heh heh!”
“I... Is my turn over?” Paulie asked.
“It is if you want it to be,” Deb said.
“Then it’s over.” Paulie wiped her forehead with the tail of the Thneed.
The rest of the class took their turns, saying more or less the same thing—“I’d like to meet a nice person for a special friendship, possibly more.” So Match.com.
“Okay! Let’s get started,” said Debbie. “Stanley? Come on in.” A man came in, barefoot and wearing a pink terry-cloth bathrobe. “Stanley’s our model today, people. Make yourself comfortable, Stan.”
Stan stood in the center of the circle, turned so his back was to Mom and Colleen, and let the bathrobe drop to the floor.
Colleen and Mom recoiled in unison.
She hadn’t known it was possible for a man to be so...so...hairy.
And so naked.
And so, so hairy.
As in, pelt. As in, he could donate his back hair to Locks of Love.
“I think I found my stepfather,” she whispered.
“You are not funny, young lady. I’m telling Connor about this.”
“It may kill him.” Colleen hunched behind her easel, torn between the urge to pee in terror and hilarity. “Okay, time to make art,” she whispered to her mother. “Take a good hard look, Mom.”
“I can’t. I’ve been struck blind.”
“In my country,” Droog said, his tone conversational, “back hair is sign of virility.”
“Then, Stan, you must have twenty children,” Mom answered drily.
Coll glanced over to Paulie, who was giving off light, she was so red in the face. She was on the other side of the circle. The front side, God bless her, which meant she had to see the...parts...of Stan, Stan the Hairy Man. Lorelei sat next to her, chatting away, drawing without a care in the world.
Stan struck a pose, sort of a Mercury pointing to the heavens, and Colleen had to pretend to check her phone to hide her laughter.
“Colleen?” Debbie asked, leaning over her easel. “You haven’t even started yet. Is there a problem?”
“Nothing that a week of waxing won’t solve,” she managed.
“Okay, that’s rude,” Debbie said. “Bodies are all beautiful, all miracles of a higher power, all representative—”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll get started.”
Debbie gave her a disapproving look—no inner goddess for you!—and moved on.
Colleen took a breath and risked another look at the wizened bu**ocks and scrawny legs of Sasquatch. A breeze came through the window, ruffling the tufts of hair on Stan’s shoulders, and Coll bent down to hide another surge of wheezing laughter.
For the next half hour, Mom Catholic-sighed and sketched and gave Colleen censorious glances. Colleen herself drew several rather adorable stick figures, complete with tufts of hair, trying not to look directly at Stan, specifically at the fronds of armpit hair, which hung down like human scalps. The skin under her eyes grew raw from tears of silent laughter.
“Stanley, thank you,” Debbie said at long, long last. “Class, one of the things you may not know is just how physically taxing nude modeling is. If you’d like to tip Stanley, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
“I think he should pay me for having to look at that,” Mom muttered, fishing out a dollar bill. Colleen, unable to make eye contact, handed him a twenty.
She went over to Paulie. To her surprise, Paulie had drawn a pretty good picture of Stan, capturing his beady eyes and balding head, and hunched, criminal posture. “Nice, Paulie,” she said.
“Once I got over the shock, it was fun.”
“Your first na**d man?” Colleen whispered.
“Well, my first in real person. I’ve watched a little p**n .”
Colleen bit her lip. “I see. Listen, I’m sorry there aren’t more men here to practice on. You never can tell with these singles things.”
“No, that’s okay! It’s nice to do something different.” Paulie smiled up at Colleen so sweetly that Coll’s heart tugged.
“So I was thinking Bryce should see you on your home turf,” she said. “You interested in throwing a party?” The Petrosinsky home was gorgeous, if, er, unusually decorated.
“Sure!” Paulie said. “Yeah! My dad would love that.”
“Great. We’ll invite everyone.” Colleen smiled, squeezed Paulie’s rock-hard biceps, reminded herself to work out more and went to find her mom. She was talking to Orange Tooth, who wore a pair of Uggs similar to Colleen’s own, though she wore them only in the winter, like a normal person. Colleen overheard Mom say the phrase “lapse in judgment” and rolled her eyes.
“Lorelei, do you know Gerard Chartier?” Colleen asked, figuring she’d scatter a few seeds.
“Oh, sure,” Lorelei said. “Kind of a man-whore, right?”
“Mmm-hmm. He needs a good woman to reform him. And I know for a fact he loves your coconut macaroons.”
Suddenly, there was a commotion in the corner. Orange Tooth had fallen to the floor, clutching his chest. “Call 9-1-1,” he gasped. “I’m having a heart attack and need sixty milligrams of Oxycontin and a bolus of morphine.”
“Anyone else thinking prescription drug abuse?” Colleen murmured.
Ten minutes later, the guy (whose name was Calvin) was being bundled into an ambulance. He was talking, sucking hard on oxygen and clutching Mom’s hand. Gerard and Jessica Dunn, who was a volunteer firefighter, were talking reassuringly to him.
“Speaking of the heroic man-whore, right?” Colleen said to Lorelei. “Nothing like a guy in turnout gear.”
“Absolutely,” she sighed.
“Colleen!” Mom barked. “Calvin wants me to go with him. Follow me to the hospital so you can drive me home.”
Fifteen minutes later, Colleen got out of her car and walked into the E.R., a place she’d spent many happy hours as a kid, watching Connor get sewn up from his various injuries.
“Heya, Calvin,” the intake nurse said. “Back to visit us again?”
“Get me some Oxy, stat,” he said. “And not the generic crap. I want the real deal.”
“You’re grounded, young lady,” Mom said as they wheeled Calvin away. Since he still hadn’t let go of Mom’s hand, she had to go, too, which was cute in a serial killer kind of way. Colleen waved merrily. As Paulie said, it was good to do something different.
But Mom would be really nice to Calvin because Mom was really nice, if a little obtuse. As for Colleen, having to wait here in the E.R. with nothing to do, or read...
Maybe she’d call Faith. Nah. It was after nine, and Faith was a newlywed and probably shagging Levi this very moment.
A sweet needle of envy pricked Colleen’s heart. Not that she begrudged the happy couple. It was just that everyone seemed to be pairing off these days. Even Connor had a girlfriend, and one important enough to sneak around with. So far, the nanny cam she’d put on his bookshelf had captured nothing.
Honor Holland and the lovely Tom Barlow had hooked up pretty fast, too. The first night Tom had come into the bar, Colleen felt a tiny spark of interest; how could she not, with Tom’s blue-collar British accent and goofy smile? But the spark fizzled for no good reason. Just like with Jack. Just like with Greg the waiter from last summer. The damn spark always fizzled.
