blink or click my heels to send myself to Kansas, Nana whips out her phone, opens her camera roll, and shoves the device in Lisa’s face.
Here we go.
She’s like that moment when you press the spoon against the seam in your Pillsbury cinnamon rolls with the perfect white icing. You know it’s going to pop, but it still makes you jump every single time. Nana gives new meaning to the phrase ‘free spirit’. Sometimes I swear I’m the adult and she’s the child. She’s going to give me my first gray hairs.
“Wow,” Lisa says, crinkling her nose as if she smells a dead fish.
Blaine’s words float through my mind. “Well, it’s not erect, so that makes it smaller than normal.” Not that I want to touch the faceless man’s penis, but I’m just so curious about it. Seeing it in a textbook or on the internet isn’t the same. This is the first time I’ve met an adult penis in the wild that up close and personal. One that I can study at my leisure, not like that time in college when Jack Starr pulled his pants off and jumped naked into the fountain outside Richardson Hall. As it grows those few inches to become erect, what does it feel like?
I shake my head to clear it of those naughty images all in the name of wanting to know more as Lisa hands the phone back. “Sorry I missed all the excitement. Who do you think sent it? Any ideas? It has to be someone who has access to all the names and contact information for Broads of Barb’s. But that’s a lot of people. We don’t keep that information private here in the store since everyone is welcome to knitting circle Tuesdays, I’m afraid. I just hope it’s not one of your sons. Or grandsons. That would be embarrassing.”
The bell jingles and Nana’s best friend, Roxie Manor, breezes through the door. She looks impeccable as always. Her graying hair is swept into a French roll and she’s wearing a wool pantsuit in a rich plum color without a wrinkle. Perfectly applied makeup and a sparkling cardinal brooch complete her look.
And we’re just going to eat at Applebee’s.
I stare down at my yoga pants and oversized tee with a dinosaur that says, Teaching is a walk in the park—Jurassic Park and exhale. I wonder how long it takes a woman to look so elegant—so alluring—so damn put together.
Even on prom night, I didn’t look like Roxie. And oh, how I wanted to. Because Blaine was there with his date who looked like a cross between Britney Spears and Jessica Rabbit. I had to watch him all night wearing my baby-pink, satin, cake-topper dress with shoulder pads bigger than my boobs. Holding her. Touching her. By the end of the night when Blaine and all his pals headed to the hotel for the after-party, all I wanted to do was go home and lick my wounds in my white granny panties.
I guess we hold on to what we’re good at and let go of the rest. While I’ll never be like one of Blaine’s fancy puck bunnies, I’m one hell of a second-grade teacher, daughter, granddaughter, and friend.
And that has to be enough.
“Hi, Roxie,” I say, leaning in for a hug, almost afraid to smudge her with my frumpiness.
“Cora, my little love, it’s so good to see you. I can’t wait to have some chili cheese fries. Will you share with me?”
Since I’ve never met a carb I didn’t want, I nod as she hugs Nana who still has her phone clenched in a vice grip.
“You know what, Lisa?” Nana says, pursing her lips. “I’ve been on my computer for hours searching the interwebs. I had to learn how to turn off the safe search, because at first, I couldn’t get what I needed. But once I figured it out, I saw so many dicks my head started spinning.”
“Why on earth are you looking at members, Blanche LaCoste?” Roxie admonishes, clucking her tongue and fingering her brooch. “That is not what a classy lady does in her spare time.”
“Because I was trying to figure out if our dick pic-er was a porn star. That would make the most sense, and I just had a hunch that this person is a public figure of some sort. But I never did find a picture of one that even looked a little bit like the one that got send to BOB.”
“Who in the hell