Georgia on Her Mind(18)

“Oh, no way,” I agree, taking my place on the couch as if I’d never missed a Tuesday.

“Let’s see them create the Average Jane series.” Tamara gives Lucy a high five. “One hunky man choosing among twenty very average women.”

“No one would watch,” Adriane drones, her hand still waiting for that cigarette. “No one, not even women, want to watch or read about a homely girl. She has to be beautiful.”

“Oh, come on, Adriane, you’re kidding?” Lucy digs through her shoulder bag for something. “What kind of message does that communicate to teens and young women?” Lucy slaps the table with her notebook.

I sense a story in the making.

Adriane looks right at her and says, “If you aren’t beautiful, you’d better be smart. And if you aren’t smart, you’d better be funny.”

“And if I’m none of those?” Lucy challenges. She flips open the pad and jots a few notes with a House of Joe’s pen.

“What do you mean? You’re all of those,” I interject. Lucy is sickening. She’s beautiful in a Julianne Moore kind of way. She’s smart, funny and logical. I feel like sticking my tongue out at her.

She looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “I don’t mean me. I mean women in general.” She jots a note. I stick out my tongue.

“What is it about the human race that makes us desperate for beauty?” Adriane waxes philosophical. It’s what we love about her. Yet what annoys us. Who can answer that question? But there she sits, waiting for one.

“I think God made us to desire beauty. But I’m learning we have to first find our beauty in God.” Lucy sips her coffee, glancing around at each of us.

I nod, feeling far away from that reality. I chew on my stir stick, meditating on her words.

Tamara bobs her head at me. “All right, out with it. What happened with Chris?” Her lips are puckered with attitude and her brown eyes are wide. As a corporate accountant, she likes details.

“He fell in love with someone else.” I meet her gaze and am happy to say the words didn’t sting at all.

“Just like that?” Tamara snaps her fingers over her head.

“Just like that.” I mimic her snap. “I didn’t know there was someone else until two weeks ago.”

“How could you be so naive?” Adriane clicks her tongue in disgust.

“Right,” I retort. “Who here had a gay boyfriend?”

“Hmm-hmm, that’s right.” Tamara points at Adriane.

We stifle our laughs behind our mugs. We can’t help it. The expression on Adriane’s face is comical, yet oddly disturbing.

“I wasn’t a Christian then.” Adriane defends herself. “I had absolutely no discernment.”

“So what’s your excuse, Macy? Why didn’t you know what was going on with Chris?” Lucy pokes me in the side with her finger. How annoying. I frown at her. How can someone so beautiful, so smart and funny be so annoying?

“The ringing,” I say, sipping my latte.

“The ringing?” Tamara echoes, looking at Lucy and Adriane.

I nod. “My biological alarm clock was going crazy. Ringing and ringing.”

Tamara slaps her knee. Lucy laughs and Adriane smirks. They know.

“Anybody know how to turn that thing off?” I glance at each of them.

“No,” says Adriane, the oldest among us at thirty-four. “Best you can do is hit the snooze button.”

“There’s a snooze?”

Tamara asks, “Well, I for one would like to find the Men-of-God tree. I’m tired of waiting.” She’s only thirty-one, but anything over thirty feels like the Terrain of the Desperate.

Adriane turns to Tamara. “Haven’t you found it yet?”

“No, but at least I’m looking. Not pining away for four years like this one.” Tamara jerks her thumb toward Adriane.

“Don’t drag me into this. I’m focusing on my writing and my relationship with God. I don’t have time for men.”

Lucy takes this opportunity to reveal secrets from our Monday-night shopping spree where I downloaded the Dylan details. “Macy knows someone she could pluck from the Men-of-God tree.”

“Hold it!” Tamara holds up her hand. “I’ll be right back. More coffee.”

I eye Lucy as Tamara scoots over to the coffee bar. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing to tell.”

She makes a face. “Please, there’s plenty to tell.”

Tamara returns, breathless, sloshing coffee on the table. “Okay, now tell me. Who?”

“Dylan Braun,” Lucy reveals like she’s announcing the Oscar for best actor.

Tamara curls her lip. “Dylan? That guy from your high school?”

I give Lucy an I-told-you-so face. “Yes, my sisters, Dylan from high school. Move on, there’s nothing to see here.”

“He told her she was pretty.”

I laugh. “Lucy, can you be any more junior high?”

Adriane has a faraway look on her face. “All my best love stories begin with the hero calling the heroine beautiful, or pretty.”

“Well, fine and dandy, but this is my life, not a romance novel. He said was pretty, past tense.”