Susan Hollings threw down her newspaper. "Why do they print this stuff?" The newspaper landed on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Susan always brought p-b-&-j for lunch, except every other Thursday when she ate leftover sausage pizza. "They offer facts like condemnations!"
I bit into my meatloaf sandwich, chewing slowly to make it last longer. I was younger than The Ladies by a decade or more. Male. Considered the outsider, even though I'd been teaching at Bison Trail Consolidated High School for the last eight years.
"What facts are you talking about?" Linda Lambe asked. Linda was wearing the Kelly green cable knit sweater with the large diagonal stripe that she thought was slimming. Linda had graduated from Bison Trail High School thirty-five years ago before it was consolidated. She captained the cheerleaders.
"This stupid article . . .," Susan fumed. She pointed to the newspaper. Susan stood five feet four inches tall, wore sensible shoes, and dressed like a nun. Her husband had been indicted for insurance fraud just before school started, but everyone in the English department pretended they didn't know.
Jean Schertz picked up the newspaper, carefully avoiding the oily smudge from the sandwich. Twenty years ago Jean married into the community. Her husband, Wink, owned the Chevy dealership and was part-owner of Tri-County Towing. "Do you mean the article on the average American woman?"
"Yes."
Jean wiped away a smear of peanut butter, licked her finger, and started reading, "Each day Mrs. Average sleeps 7.6 hours and watches 4.4 hours of television." Jean picked up a thin wedge of Cedarburg cheese from her paper plate and took a bite. "She drinks 105 cans of diet soda and eats twenty-one pounds of pasta annually. She laughs once an hour." Jean paused.
"I'm behind on the laughing," Linda commented. Given the man Linda married, no one was surprised. Her husband, Hank, coached the wrestling team, taught drivers ed, and held court every Friday night at the Tiddly Tap. On Tuesday he had withdrawn $1400 from their emergency fund to purchase a new hunting dog he named Tick.
"Mrs. Average thinks men should be kind, considerate, and patient. She complains that her husband hogs the bed and ignores the housework." Jean looked up from the article. "Mrs. Average is married to my husband's twin brother. Wink thinks that because dishes are purchased unsoiled, that is their natural state. He assumes they return to that condition while we sleep, and that I just store them in the dishwasher for convenience." The Ladies nodded in agreement. "Mrs. Average believes she's more honest than her spouse."
"Of course!" shouted The Ladies' chorus. I sunk down in my chair. I knew where this was going. I took another bite of meatloaf. I never speak in the faculty lunchroom. That keeps me out of trouble.
"Mrs. Average reads a book before retiring each night. She sleeps on her side." Jean paused, looked around the table, and then continued with heightened vocal inflection. "She thinks about sex five times daily. She frequently fantasizes about sexy men."
Natalie laughed. "How many times?" Natalie was my student teacher. She was barely five feet tall and typically dressed in jeans like most of our students. I wrote her a note to carry because other teachers kept demanding to see her hall pass. Today, though, Natalie was wearing a brown leather skirt cut several inches above her knees, a white satin blouse, hose, and heels. After school I was taking her out for drinks and a prime rib dinner at the Pleasant Valley Supper Club.
Jean consulted the article again. "Mrs. Average thinks about sex five times a day."
"It's only noon," Natalie smirked, "and I'm way ahead of schedule."
Linda lifted her head out of the large bowl of Caesar salad she had been grazing on. "How far ahead?"
"Way, way, way far ahead."
Several colleagues looked in my direction. I took another bite of sandwich. Natalie blushed. My relationship with my student teacher had changed recently.
Jean forged on. "Mrs. Average owns thirty pairs of shoes. She adds three new bras and one good friend to her life each year."
"Bras are lower maintenance than friends," Julia Novotny offered. Until recently Julia had been married to Big Bill Novotny, owner of a chain of lumberyards all across northwest Iowa. The divorce had put Julia back on the teaching staff as well as on the Bison Trail singles circuit. "And you can throw bras out when they don't support you any more."
Susan pensively nodded in agreement, indicating that she could feel Julia's pain.
Jean cleared her throat. "Mrs. Average would rather be curvaceous than athletic. She'd rather be happy than beautiful. She doesn't want plastic surgery." Jean avoided looking at Susan who recently had contemplated breast augmentation. "Mrs. Average considers her family her top priority and spends 114 hours a year cleaning up after meals."
"Hasn't she heard of paper plates?" Julia commented.
"She eats cookies and chocolate when she's depressed." Jean turned the newspaper around and pointed to the composite picture. "And this is what she looks like."
"I know her," Linda mused.
"I am her," Susan groaned.
"Thank god, I'm not." Julia laughed. Actually the laugh was a more of a chortle. "I've never been average, and I don't intend to start now." She deferred to Susan. "You can be the average one."
Susan looked startled. "I'm not that much different from you."
The Ladies held their collective breath wondering who would break the news to Susan. It was then that I broke my vow of silence. "People confuse you for twins." Natalie snorted Sunkist orange pop out her nose. Linda giggled. Jean looked away to keep from laughing. I took another bite of meatloaf.
"What do you mean?" Susan demanded.
I swallowed. "Well, Julia dresses like an ad in Cosmo, is five inches taller, and teaches Pilates. I'm too much of a gentleman to compare your breasts."
Jean turned to Susan. "You have to admit your breasts are rather small."
"Julia needs a crane to put on her bra," I commented. Natalie pinched my leg under the table. I'd already said too much, but I couldn't help myself. "Julia stops traffic when she steps out of her Miata. To stop traffic you'd need help from a crossing guard."
"Julia is a Greek goddess," Natalie intoned, "you're Amish."
Susan set down the peanut butter sandwich that had been poised at her lips. "When I said we were similar," Susan explained, assuming an attitude of moral superiority, "I was speaking of that inherent core female spirit inside us all."
"Rubbish. Mrs. Average has no more spirit than the dishtowel she uses to clean up after supper," Julia proclaimed. "Let her drink her 105 cans of Diet Coke a year. I can drink five martinis a night, and still whip Joe's butt in pool."
The room chilled. "Joe," Natalie asked, turning to confront me, "when did you play pool with Julia?" Her question was neither conversational nor rhetorical.
"I wasn't playing with Julia. I mean I did play pool, but . . .." No one rushed in to bail me out. "I went to My Broker's for a drink. Julia challenged me to a game while she waited for Manly."
"Manly?" Linda cooed. "Manly asked you out?"
"He did." Julia smiled.
"Oh-h-h-h-h, Manly Crocker!!!" The Ladies' chorus responded. Manly was the chief custodian, a wiry man in his early forties with muscular arms and a full head of curly brown hair. He'd been wounded in Iraq while serving in the Marines. Even with a slight limp he'd been voted the county's most eligible bachelor in the plus-thirty category.
Linda turned to Julia. "I believe Manly is your third date in the last week. Or is it four? Should we count Joe?"
"It was just a pool game," I said pleading with Linda while Natalie tapped her foot beside me.
"All right, Julia," Susan huffed, "you win. You have assets I lack." Susan stood and picked up her red lesson plan book. "But, average as I am, at least I have morals." She exited, leaving behind the newspaper article and the remains of her sandwich.
I looked around. Natalie glared. Julia was fuming. Jean seemed amused. Later Linda would tell everyone I'd made Susan cry. I took my last bite of meatloaf sandwich. I hated lunch with The Ladies.
Paul Lewellan’s stories have appeared in South Dakota Review, Big Muddy, Porcupine Magazine, and others. His unpublished novel, No More White Houses, is about the clash between white privilege and race on a college campus. Paul is an Adjunct Professor of Speech Communication at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.
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