CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

AISLE SIX

CATHY FED MRS. BEASLEY then heated up a Lean Cuisine. It was only four thirty. Dinners were starting to get earlier and earlier and she feared that she was slipping into spinster syndrome. Season one of Downton Abbey was already in the DVD player. She looked out the window. A red Mini Cooper pulled into Lawrence’s driveway and a blonde got out. Cathy’s ex-fiancé Rob called again and left a message. This time he was crafty, using his mother’s hip operation as an excuse, and she almost fell for it. But instead of taking the bait, she did something more proactive and called Sean. She wasn’t sure if he was her soul mate or not, but did her last memory of sex have to be the sight of Rob’s paunch and black dress socks? Maybe Beatrice was right: what was the harm in taking those dogs for a walk? Willing to risk listeriosis, she put the Lean Cuisine back in the freezer and drove to Rite Aid.

It had been awhile since she’d had sex, and just the thought of it felt like she was about to parachute into enemy territory. Luckily, she knew where she was going, which aisle the feminine products were in, so she didn’t have to ask. And phew! Instead of the leering manager who always looked her up and down like a lollipop, a mousy woman in a red uniform was hunched at the register.

With the aisle to herself, Cathy began discreetly filling her basket with the essentials—sprays, douches, probiotics, deodorizing powder, and depilatories—with the purpose of making her more feminine by stripping her of all evidence of her natural physical state. We wouldn’t want to offend Romeo’s sensibilities with the taste of a real woman.

She pretended to be looking for antiperspirant when two twenty-somethings joined her in aisle six.

“Nah, Astroglide’s too viscous,” a tall brunette with an artfully messy chignon said as she scanned the shelves. “Tried this? It heats up.”

“My gyno gave me a sample but it made me feel like I was microwaving a Hot Pocket in my hooha.”

“How about these?” the brunette asked, holding up a box of horse-pill-sized gel capsules. “These will keep you wet and ready for up to four days.” Cathy had seen the product on an episode of The Dr. Oz Show, and anything Dr. Oz recommended was the modern-day equivalent of what the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval had been to her mother, with the exception of neti pots, which frankly seemed unsanitary.

The second woman waved it off. “I’m sticking with extra-virgin olive oil. Plus, if Justin is lucky he gets his daily dose of omega-3s.”

After they finally walked away, Cathy debated buying the gel capsules. If she prorated it, she could almost rationalize the cost. She’d just have to make the effort to get her money’s worth. The Love Book was twisting her arm through her pocketbook now.

When she brought her basket to the register, mouse woman was gone. The manager smirked as he slowly scanned each item, even calling for a price check on the Liquibeads.

* * *

When she pulled into her driveway, the red Mini Cooper was gone. Lawrence, wearing his stupid tasseled loafers, was on the roof adjusting his satellite dish and trying to disengage some wisteria that was smothering the antenna. Hopefully he’d disappear before Sean showed up in his big red truck to put out her latest conflagration.

Her newly purchased potions on the vanity, Cathy drew a bath and “lit” a flameless candle. Once submerged, she closed her eyes, but no matter how many affirmations she did, she was unable to erase from her mind the image of her father and his home care nurse in her mother’s sewing room. The huge pink posterior, the bobbing head, and Mr. Soul Mate-to-be’s blue robe!

The annoying whir of Lawrence’s bushwhacker further distracted her from finding inner peace. Poor wisteria! Why can’t men have any decency? Typical Lawrence; he’d sacrifice beauty for television reception.

Mrs. Beasley nudged the door open and, after dipping her paw into the water and shaking it off, pretended she could still fit on the narrow windowsill, and began making birdcalls.

“Mrs. Beasley, you haven’t caught anything in your sixteen-plus years on this planet, what makes you think you will today?”

Something pinged against the screen. Too early for acorns. A neighborhood kid with a sling shot? Cyrano?

Then another ping and another. Beetles!

Mrs. Beasley batted the screen. Sadly, she had already been declawed when Cathy adopted her from Bideawee and couldn’t even catch a dead potato bug.

The feminine cleanser had a pleasantly clean fragrance with hints of something unmistakably familiar to any young American girl. Essence de Barbie Doll, that irresistibly alluring and unattainable ideal of femininity. No wonder this stuff flew off the shelves!

All depilatorized, powdered, and sanitized, her pH balanced, her pheromones neutralized, she inserted the amber-colored Liquibead into what looked like a miniature rocket-propelled grenade and, with the target in sight, cocked the weapon and pulled the trigger. But somehow the gizmo malfunctioned and instead of the Liquibead going where it was supposed to, it shot out and ricocheted off the medicine cabinet.

She adjusted the prorated cost then reloaded. Channeling Dirty Harry, she squeezed off another shot. This time, the projectile hit Mrs. Beasley who, still engaged in a game of beetle badminton, barely flinched. She vowed to cut her losses if the next one also went AWOL, when Mrs. Beasley started gagging. A trickle of amber liquid dripped down the side of her mouth.

God was punishing her for even contemplating having sex!

“Mrs. Beasley!” she shouted, dropping the applicator and the third precious Liquibead, which rolled behind the radiator.

Trying to open the cat’s mouth like the vet did was easier said than done. Mrs. Beasley hissed and squirmed away, backing up until the screen bowed from the weight of her hindquarters. A little more gagging and frantic scrambling and the screen fell completely off. Mrs. Beasley was now half in and half out the window, more out. Cathy froze. Should she let the cat find her own equilibrium or grab her by the tail, possibly frightening her, or worse, causing her to plunge from the second-floor window to certain death? She prayed for divine guidance from all sources, God, the universe, and St. Gertrude of Nivelles, the patron saint of cats, before making her decision. But Mrs. Beasley was gone!

As fast as a firefighter, Cathy pulled on her magenta Love Stinks skunk scrubs and climbed out onto the roof. The pitch was steep and the tar shingles were sticky. So much for her spa pedicure. Every so often a furry tail was visible snaking along the rain gutter.

Lawrence, still on his own roof, turned off his weed whacker. “Don’t move,” he called over, “I’ll be right there.”

A few minutes later, he appeared at the top of a ladder with a cat carrier. Mrs. Beasley cowered under the eaves, but with Lawrence’s gentle prodding she was eventually coaxed into the box. Cathy put her foot on the first rung. “Mrs. Beasley! Are you okay?” she shouted. In the distance, an approaching siren could be heard.

Lawrence laughed. “Just like on Leave It to Beaver.”

But he wasn’t laughing when the fire truck stopped in front of her house and Sean jumped down from the cab. Cathy smoothed her hair and tucked her shirt into her skunk scrubs.

“Thanks again, Lawrence,” she said. “You saved the day.”

He turned to go. She hoped it was the weight of the ladder that was making his shoulders slump. Walking toward Sean, Cathy felt as if she had been struck by a giant tuning fork. Every cell in her body was vibrating, awake. Sean took the carrier from her hand and let her lead the way to the house. “Nothing sexier than a woman in scrubs,” he said.

When he lifted her in his arms as if she didn’t weigh a thing and carried her upstairs, quoting Shakespeare—“Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow / As seek to quench the fire of love with words”—she was glad she’d remembered to close the curtains. The sight of Lawrence with a power saw would have definitely ruined the mood. And this time, when she excused herself to give the Liquibead one last try, she hit the mark.

Ten minutes later, there was a crash that sounded like metal garbage cans being knocked over by raccoons, and then a call for help. She peeked through the blinds.

Lawrence! He was lying on his back on top of the garbage cans. What did the guy expect? Who in his right mind wears tasseled loafers to work on a roof?