Martha Stuart: Ugly Girl
To the reader:
Story length: Approximately 3300 Words
.
Most neighborhoods have one: A little girl who is simply misshapen, who grows to become a just plain ugly ten-year old, who, not understanding what she's doing to the human race's averages, grows to become a butt-ugly teenager, and who appears bound to spend her adult life searching for a guy willing to marry a grotesquely, ugly wife.
Martha Stuart (soon after high school she went by Marti) filled that characteristic slot for our neighborhood.
The guys repeated the quip she was so ugly she had to sneak up on a glass to a drink of water. (Some professional comedian used that bit, I think.)
Now that Martha had turned eighteen, there was the suggestion about putting a flag over her head and fucking for
Old Glory
.
Or the quip about her having been offered a job as poster child for birth control prophylactics.
We used to say our family bulldog had a face so ugly face only a mother could love it. I don't think our dog's mother could have found anything attractive about Martha's face.
Then there was the quip about her parents having to tie a bone around her neck so their puppy would play with her.
The sad part? It wasn't Martha's fault, not one bit. No, the fault lay with that speeding, drunk driver who crashed into her family's car late one night, sending it off a roadside cliff, and causing it to burn with Martha trapped inside. During her recovery, the hospital and surgeons tried their best, but barely kept her alive. That was back in the days before plastic surgery had made much progress; they couldn't fix her horribly deformed, four-year-old face.
You've seen pictures of WWII fighter pilots who survived a fiery plane crash? Martha made them look handsome. Her severe limp only reinforced her already ugly appearance.
Myself? I was one of the guys who failed my high school's popularity contest and everyone assumed I'd never overcome that defeat. Therefore, since that assumption also included someone having to take Martha to the early spring Sadie Hawkins Dance, and since I probably would have stayed home otherwise, it was perfectly okay for her to draft me.
Truth was, I didn't really mind, except I felt sorry for Martha because there wasn't a student or a faculty member who wouldn't look upon this whole situation as a charity date. Martha didn't deserve that, and I hated being part of it. But my parents pressured me for it, even before her actual invitation manifested itself, so I had little choice.
Although I started out with a rather poor attitude toward the evening--I would much rather have taken Becky Johanson, but there was little chance of that because she had the image and status that gave her a good chance if she asked the football team's captain, who just happened to be between girlfriends. So I made the best of it with Martha, and it turned out reasonably well.
Mid-week, Mom handed me a note with a phone number on it. No name, just a phone number. So? Was this a neighbor wanting me for some paid farm work this weekend? That might mean money, so of course I called.
Martha answered, and immediately my heart sank. No weekend work and a date even my paltry ego couldn't gather much enthusiasm for.
Someone must have coached Martha, though. Unlike, as I had come to expect from attending three years at the same school, our conversation quickly drifted away from awkwardness of the moment to some level of pleasantry. She began with every young boy's favorite subject: Cars. In our case, my car.
And it wasn't a merely a superficial 'How's your car?' as you might have expected. This side of her--if it were a 'side'--had never surfaced before. It was almost as if her father raced cars or something. Or maybe she had pit-crewed for him? By the time we'd talked ten minutes, my apprehension over our impending date had eased considerably. I guess you could say I reached a certain 'tentative level of comfort' about the whole idea.
So, by the time we'd covered several topics about cars (my car in particular) and we'd delved somewhat into three of my other favorite topics: mini-hydroplane boats, shooting, and flying, the underlying purpose of her call surfaced. By now, I was somewhat looking forward to an evening with Martha. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
I'd seen her parents with her at many of our small high school's ball games, so I knew who they were. I never thought much about them; they were just pleasant people who knew my folks 'peripherally.' I supposed that's why Martha chose to 'draft' me for the Sadie Hawkins Dance.
They also stood on significantly higher financial ground than my family, not way up there, but definitely higher. So, with normal first date jitters, I took note as I drove up to their place, of how much fancier their house was than ours, probably blowing that factor way out of proportion.
At the front door, her father and mother met me as 1
st
date protocol required in our community.
"Martha will be ready in about five minutes," her mother assured me. "Let me run in and help her. Meanwhile, Frank, why don't you get Jerry a Coke or something?"
So she disappeared and after a few seconds her father had put a Coke in my hand. I also learned he was a machine design engineer--a career that interested me--so I supposed that was from where Martha had assimilated the automotive information she'd used on me during our get-a-date phone conversation. So? What the heck?
Five minutes had grown to ten by the time Martha and her mother reemerged. Had I not long ago acquiesced to enjoying our up-coming evening, I'd have been more surprised by what greeted me as I stood up from their sofa.
But as I was, I directed myself to look at everything but her disfigured face. Medium tall (even without those heels), blonde, slim, and a crooked smile that welcomed in spite of the wreckage surrounding it. But her slight limp seemed missing tonight, too.
"Very nice outfit," I said, nodding to her mother.
A quick look flashed across her mother's face before it settled to 'I'm glad you like it.' I guess I could have phrased that better. Or preambled it better.
I reached to the table at my right side and picked up the box holding Martha's corsage. Someone had told me orchids were what a gentleman bought his dance's corsage, so that's what Martha received.
I took it out and then fussed about where to pin it to her strapless top. Although Mrs. Stuart stood right there while I fussed, she made no move to help me out. Finally I 'boldly' slipped a finger inside, just at the bottom edge of Martha's left breast exposure.
"Sorry," I said.
"No need to be," Martha said. Her voice tone hinted, 'You may do that anytime.'
In a moment I had it where it looked good to me. Of course looking good may have had a lot to do with how good her breast looked behind it. Her beige dress looked like an ice cream cone, with her beautiful flesh being the vanilla ice cream filling its top--and if she bent just right, everything above her dress top might pop up and right out.
I turned away to see if her parents thought I'd committed a faux pax, but got a 'well done' signal.
"Thanks, Jerry," Martha said in a tone that hinted, 'Anytime you wish, my big man.'
I don't know if her parents caught that, but I suppose they did.
Martha and I said our good evenings to her parents, Martha completing hers with, "Have a good time at the casino, Mom--you, too, Daddy." Okay, I supposed they could afford that; my family couldn't, not with four of us kids to help through college. But otherwise, our Stone Family managed quite well enough on our farm.
As we walked to their concrete driveway, I noticed Martha walked with no limp tonight, in spite of her heels.
