Two Sexy!

“Right,” piped in Joanna from the corner, who spent her lunch hours knitting scarves for Christmas gifts. “Those people have problems, just like the rest of us.”

“But they lead such exciting lives.” A faraway expression came over Kathie’s face. “Wearing gorgeous clothes, having men fall at your feet. Wouldn’t it be grand to live in a celebrity’s shoes for just a few days?”

Meg shook her head. “Kathie, you’re such a dreamer.”

“Yeah,” Sharon said. “Face it—we’re elementary school teachers in Peoria, Illinois. We gave up ‘exciting’ when we made our career choice.” The women laughed.

Except for Meg, who bit into a pickle, digesting the bittersweet truth of Sharon’s words. She truly loved teaching and working with children, but sometime during the last few years, her life had fallen into a serious rut when she wasn’t looking. Cabin fever, hormones, early-life crisis—she couldn’t explain her sudden restlessness. All she knew was that lately she was easily distracted from her evening routine of grading math papers, and ready to come out of her very proper skin. Perhaps she’d sensed Trey’s impending proposal, something she still wasn’t sure she knew how to handle.

Kathie scooted to the edge of her seat, her hazel eyes dancing. “This weekend I’m going to Indy for a fan festival. They’re supposed to auction off some wardrobe items from the set of Many Moons.”

Kathie’s favorite show. She’d even managed to get the three of them hooked on the weekly melodrama. Every Wednesday night they congregated at Kathie’s apartment and munched popcorn while watching the beautiful people make multi-million dollar deals, stab each other in the back, and steal each other’s lovers. Most of the scenes took place near or on the beach, which meant the costumes were one of two types—scanty or nonexistent.

Sharon scoffed. “What will you do with clothes from Many Moons? Wear them to the PTA potluck?”

They all laughed again, but Kathie shook her finger. “You just wait, my collection is going to be worth something someday.”

She turned to another page in the magazine that featured The Sexiest Outfits of the Season. Kathie pointed to a picture of Taylor Gee, the actress who played the curvaceous blonde vixen on Many Moons, wearing a transparent yellow gown. “This dress is my next conquest.”

“Is she wearing underwear?” Joanna asked, the knitting forgotten as she craned her head in for a look.

Meg pushed up her glasses and squinted at the telltale dark areas beneath the dress, stretched to the limit of its seams by the actress’s remarkable curves. “I don’t think so.”

“Ewww,” Sharon said. “You want to buy a dress she wore with no underwear?”

Kathie made a face. “I’ll have it drycleaned, idget. The point is, it’s going to be a collector’s item.”

“What makes you think so?” Meg asked.

“Taylor Gee is the closest thing to Marilyn Monroe this generation has ever known. And similarly, from the glazed look on her face, she’s going to burn up before she burns out.”

They all leaned in for a better look, but Meg saw only an impossibly beautiful woman in an impossibly scanty gown. Her head was turned and she was smiling at someone—the man who was cropped out of the photo? Only the sleeve of his black jacket remained, emblazoned with some kind of crest. Probably someone famous. The woman had been linked with every international bad boy there was, from rock star to rebel prince.

“I can’t believe she would go out in public wearing something like that,” Sharon said, shaking her head. “She’s already gorgeous. Why does she need to be so over the top?”

“So she’ll make the Sexiest Outfits of the Season list,” Meg pointed out.

“And so pathetic people like us will spend our lunch hour talking about her,” Joanna chimed in.

“Deep down, we all wish we could wear a dress like that,” Kathie insisted, tapping the page. “And turn every person’s head when we walk into a room.”

At times Kathie sounded more like a psychology teacher than a science teacher. She had a knack for zeroing in on people’s deepest, darkest urges. Meg had picked up the phone a couple times this week to talk to her friend about her general state of unrest, but she’d changed her mind at the last second. She couldn’t seem to zero in on what was wrong with her. Spring fever? Cold feet?

“Even if that was true,” Joanna said, flipping her head of carrot-orange curls, “we don’t all look like Taylor Gee.”

“Meg is beautiful enough to pull it off,” Sharon insisted, and to Meg’s chagrin, all eyes turned to her. Her neck and cheeks warmed, and she pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Take off your glasses,” Kathie urged.

“What? No.”

“Come on, humor me.”

Meg slipped off her glasses and sighed.

“I can’t believe I never noticed.”

“What, the hump on my nose?”

“No—you’re a dead ringer for Taylor Gee.”

Meg squinted in Kathie’s direction. “Maybe you should borrow my glasses.”

“Am I right, girls?”

Sharon hummed. “Well, if your hair was blond—”

“—and if your eyes were blue,” Joanna chimed in.

“—and if you painted a mole near the corner of your mouth,” Sharon continued.

“—and if you were coming out of your clothes,” Joanna offered, “then yeah, you’d be a dead ringer for her.”

“See?” Kathie asked.

Meg laughed and jammed the black rimmed glasses back on her face. “You three watch too much TV.”

Kathie grinned. “You have the face, but those baggy dresses would not get you on the Sexiest Outfits of the Season list.”

Meg frowned and looked down at her gray crinkle cotton dress. “I like my baggy dresses. They’re comfortable. And washable.” An important feature when working with seven-year-olds.

“Meg probably wears something more sexy for Trey,” Joanna teased.

She squirmed. In truth, Trey Carnegie liked the fact that she didn’t flaunt her body. You dress like a lady—you always make me proud to stand next to you. Too bad Meg wasn’t sure she wanted Trey to always treat her like a “lady.” She cleared her throat. “Speaking of Trey, I have an announcement.”

The room fell silent.

“Last night after the benefit dinner…Trey proposed.”

Sharon and Joanna squealed their congratulations, and even Kathie managed a little smile.

“Well, Mr. Three Piece Suit finally got around to it, eh?”

There was no love lost between Kathie and Trey, but Meg had stopped trying to figure out why her closest friend didn’t gel with her longtime boyfriend. Trey said Kathie was jealous because she didn’t have a boyfriend. But Meg couldn’t disagree with her friend on one point—Trey had taken his sweet time asking for her hand—five years. And Meg still wasn’t sure why she waited.

“What did you tell him?” Kathie asked.

“What do you think she told him?” Sharon asked a little sarcastically.