NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
TABATHA VARGO
On the Plus Side
Copyright © 2013 by Tabatha Vargo
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manor whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events or real people are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
On the Plus Side/ Tabatha Vargo
Cover Art by Regina Wamba/Mae I Design and Photography
Editing Services Provided By Cynthia Shepp Editing
Formatting by Inkstain Interior Book Designing
ISBN-13: 978-1481870917
ISBN-10: 1481870912
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& Goderich Literary Management
For Matthew—
Thank you for making me feel beautiful every day for the last eleven years… even when I’m wearing the poodle puff and ugly sleep pants. I love you mostest!
“But, Dev, he hit me first… kind of,” Jenny said as she handed me a socket wrench. I was under the car, of course. Under the hood of a vehicle was my second home.
“It’s not my fault he didn’t protect his balls. You always protect your balls. Even I know that, and I’m a chick.” She bit her nails as she talked. I could tell by her muffled voice.
“That’s debatable. Me and Dad aren’t so sure anymore.” I chuckled as she kicked my booted foot, which stuck out from under the car. “Also, could you please not talk about balls with me? I’m pretty sure there’s like a rule about little sisters saying the word balls anywhere in the vicinity of their brother. If there isn’t, let’s just go ahead and put that rule on the books.” I released the old oil from the engine.
It splattered up from the oil pan and landed on my grease-covered shirt. I pulled the rag from my back pocket and wiped my hands so that I could get a better grip on the ratchet.
“I’m assuming the new rule applies to the word cock, too?” She laughed.
“Yes!” I said, a little too loudly. “That word is strictly forbidden.”
“Don’t be a little bitch, Dev,” she said as she slipped a new oil filter under the car to me.
“Watch your damn mouth, Jenny. Could you at least attempt to be a lady? Ladies don’t kick boys in their balls because they win a game of Halo. I’d be pissed if I were him, too. You need to call him and apologize. Josh has been your best friend too long—don’t let a stupid game ruin that.”
“First of all, he did not win and second, I was raised by two dudes. I’m pretty sure the lady train left the station when I was nine.” She popped open a can of soda and sighed. “Whatever, I guess I’ll run him over some gummy worms later and say sorry. He’s such a baby. It’s just balls. He smacked me in the boob once, and you didn’t hear me bitchin’ and moanin’,” she said as she left the garage and headed toward the back door of the house.
“You said balls again!” I yelled from under the car.
I couldn’t hear her response over the loud smack of the screened door.
I finished up the oil change, and then worked on a dent I acquired at the grocery store. Poor Lucy, my sixty-nine Chevy Camaro, didn’t stand a chance against the wayward grocery cart.
She was a gift from my dad. When I got her, she was just a big heap of junk, wouldn’t even crank. My dad wasn’t one for gifts, but being a mechanic had its perks every now and then. When a customer couldn’t pay for the new transmission my dad dropped in his truck, a trade for the cash was offered and I got Lucy. To me, she was worth every minute we put into that man’s piece-of-shit truck. Dad might not agree with me on that, but what can I say, I got the better part of that deal.
Lucy was the epitome of beauty. You couldn’t buy the kind of character that an old muscle car had these days, and Lucy had it in spades. I’d rather be out there, secluded in the garage with her, than any other place in the world. I’d spent hours overhauling my car and I’d spend every dime on the project, if I had a dime.
At my age, I should have had a steady woman in my life, but cars were better than women were. They were gorgeous, powerful, and they purred when you handled them. They did all that without the mandatory attachment that women required.
“Devin! Are you gonna stay in that garage under that car all day? I need ya to come in for a minute, boy!” Dad yelled from the back door of the house.
“I’m comin’!” I hollered back. “Is this man ever gonna give me a break?” I sighed to myself.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I actually made some money working in the shop with Dad. Since I made such a crappy paycheck, the least he could do was give me five minutes to dwell on my less-than-stellar life. Instead, he pushed me harder and harder every day. You’d think he’d appreciate the fact that I haven’t ran off and left him high and dry, but oh no… not Harold Michaels, aka, the town drunk.
If my dad could fix a car as fast as he could take out a six-pack of beer, I swear we’d be rich. Even drunk as a skunk, the man knew his way around an engine. That fact kept the people in our small town from caring that he did business with Budweiser on his breath. One of the plus sides of living in a town full of truck owners was the fact that once the good ole boys found a decent mechanic, they stuck with him. Who cared that he couldn’t stand up straight or speak without a slur as long as the job got done, right?
That was the biggest reason our small father-and-son shop stayed afloat. The other reason, of course, was because I was a whiz at the books. Last year alone, I saved Dad three grand in taxes. I should’ve stayed in school, and then maybe I could’ve gone somewhere else in this world.
Instead, here I was, twenty-two years old, stuck with Renee, a wannabe girlfriend, who drove me nuts, and a father who was a slave driver. Let’s not forget my fifteen-year-old sister, Jenny, who should’ve been born a boy. I guessed things could’ve been worse; I could have been all alone in this big bad world.
I pulled myself out from under Lucy and stood there for a minute before running out of the garage and across the yard to the house.
The screened door snapped back, making a loud slamming noise when I walked in. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through a massive stack of bills. He shook his head in disgust. For as much business as we made at our little shop, it never seemed to be enough. We barely kept our heads above water.
The last couple of months had been the worst we’d had in a long while though. A new mechanic shop just opened on the outskirts of town. Even though I knew all the customers would come back once the new place got old, I couldn’t help but worry about us until then.
It happened in our line of business. Some new shop with bright paint and fresh tools would pop up and stay open just long enough to make us financially uncomfortable. Another advantage to living in a small town… people didn’t like change. They always came back to what they knew, and the people in Walterboro knew my dad.
“What’s up, Pops?” I said as I tapped the top on a cold Mounta
in Dew.
“Son, we got ourselves a bit of a problem. It seems we’re a little behind on some loans. We gotta come up with some cash, fast.”
“Okay. Which loans are we talking about and how much?” I pinched my lips together like a disappointed mom.
I knew exactly which loans we were talking about, or maybe I should have said which loan. The one we were talking about was the loan on the house and the garage. Back before I started taking care of the books for Dad, he’d gotten so deep in debt with the IRS that he actually had to take a loan out on anything he had of value. From the look on his face, I could tell the amount was going to chap my ass.
“What’s the damage and what can we do?” I asked impatiently.
“Well, it’s along the lines of eight grand, and there’s nothin’ comin’ to mind. You got any ideas?”
Eight thousand dollars! I switched out my Mountain Dew for a beer.
“How long do we have?” I sighed.
“The final notice says ninety days. I don’t see how we can come up with eight grand by then. I just hope somethin’ comes up.”
It pissed me off that he kept saying “me” and “us” like I had something to do with it. He was the one who let it get this bad. He was the one that needed to go back to school and learn basic math, not me!
I stared back at Dad for a minute and let the last few sentences he uttered fill my brain and make sense.
“Dad, I’m gonna take a drive and try to figure some stuff out. You want me to grab you anything while I’m out?”
“No, don’t be gone long, though. Morgan’s bringin’ over that Ford that’s been tickin’. I want you to look it over for me,” I heard him say as I walked back out the door—the screened door snapped back and made an even louder banging noise.
All the work I put into this stupid shop trying to save it, and all the time I spared in the garage with him, were a waste. I could have had a real job somewhere far from here. I could have had my own place and taken care of myself. I had always been a hard worker, and I had always hated the fact that I was stuck here, going nowhere fast.
I had been working in Dad’s garage ever since I was twelve or so. I used to come home from school, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and then head straight out back, where I’d spend the rest of my night under the hood of something. That was back when Mom was still around. She left when Jenny was six.
The year I turned thirteen was the hardest year of my life. Not only was I officially a teenager dealing with all the new hormones and growth spurts, but also my mom left me like I was nothing. You’d think she would have at least stuck around to see Jenny grow up. What kind of woman left a six-year-old girl behind with two males? Leaving me with Dad could almost be excused, but a young girl needed a mom to teach her girly stuff.
My mom was a beauty and apparently, every man in town thought so. I could still remember the nights my mom and dad would argue. I always wondered why he would let her run around on him like she did. If I knew as a boy what was going on, then you know everyone in town knew. My dad must’ve looked like a dumbass.
There were some happy times when they were together, but most days, I’d sit back and watch as Dad tried everything to make her happy. The day she left, she didn’t even say goodbye to Jenny and me. I could hear Dad begging her to stay and telling her how much he loved her.
At one point during the conversation, he asked, “What about the kids? You just gonna walk out on the kids?”
I couldn’t hear her response, but apparently, we didn’t matter too much. She gave up on us, and you never got over the pain of losing a mother. It would’ve been easier if she had died. I wouldn’t hate her as much for leaving if it wasn’t by choice.
I haven’t been the same since she left, and I’ve always blamed her for my fear of attachment. Though I’d never talk about it, deep down, she was the reason I had trust issues. She was the reason I refused to bind myself to anyone. The fear of feeling the way I felt the day she left was unbearable. I would never put myself in the position to get hurt like my dad did. I’d never even had a serious girlfriend.
Jenny was the reason I stuck around here. I’d die before I walked out on her. She was the only reason I still worked at Dad’s shop—the reason I’d do almost anything to get this money and save our home.
“Shit!” I said as I pounded my hand on the steering wheel.
Eight thousand dollars! Where in the hell was I going to find that kind of money so fast? I could always rob a bank. Bank robbers always got caught, but maybe I could hide the money somewhere for Dad and Jenny to find, like in one of those awesome action movies.
After driving around aimlessly for an hour, I ended up in front of Renee’s house. I was in need of a good dose of stress relief.
I spotted her sitting on her front porch, gossiping on her cell phone. She ended the conversation and smiled as soon as she saw me.
She was a pretty girl—tall and lean, the way I like them. I wouldn’t call her beautiful, since most of the attractive things about her were fake—box-dyed blonde hair, false nails, and a rigid smile. It would suck to find out that her blue eyes were contacts.
Physically, she was not perfect for me, since I liked natural girls better, but emotionally, she was my exact match. She was aware of my limits, which made things comfortable. No expectations made for an easy ride.
Thanks to her reputation for being a freak in the sheets, some guys called me lucky to have her. I knew differently. Her self-centered nature made her active in bed, but as for being a freak… not so much.
Slamming her slender body against mine, she wrapped her arms around my neck. I leaned down and pecked her on the mouth.
“Is that all I get? I swear, Devin, I don’t know why I bother with you.” Her deep southern twang stabbed into my eardrums. “I guess it’s too much to ask for a flirty phone call every now and again? I wish you would’ve called to let me know you were comin’ by. I have a nail appointment, and then Nicole’s coming over for a movie night. Oh! I almost forgot, I talked to Matt the other day… Did you know that Cassie’s brother went to Afghanistan?” She rambled on and on until finally she realized I wasn’t talking and stopped. “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.
I imagined myself choking her to death and laughing hysterically like one of those crazy scary movie psycho freaks. I almost laughed out loud at the thought. My dad would kick my ass for just thinking a thing like that. I was raised to never put my hands on a female.
“You talk too much. Let’s go inside and do this,” I said flatly.
There was no need to bullshit her into thinking I was there for any other reason but to get laid.
She leaned in and kissed me, slipping her tongue into my mouth. Before long, we were in her small, two-bedroom house, falling over things, trying to make it to her bedroom. Mindy, her roommate, was nowhere in sight, thankfully.
Afterward, I sat back in her bed, surrounded by fluffy, pink pillows and lace. She was definitely the girly type, nothing like my little sister Jenny. I’d probably die if I saw anything pink in her room. Renee quietly slept with her legs wrapped around mine. I felt so much better. Sex was what I needed; sex was the main reason I keep her around. Shit, she used me, why the hell shouldn’t I use her? I looked over at the pink alarm clock on the side table. It was getting pretty late. I really needed to head home, and I seriously needed to find eight thousand dollars… fast.
With that final thought, I quickly and quietly got out of Renee’s bed. Slipping on my clothes, I slid through the house to the front door. The evening air rushed through my hair as I slammed the door behind me. The entire way home, my thoughts were on money. There had to be a way; there was always a way.
Yesterday, at a charity benefit my mom pretended to be interested in, a miniature man on a massive stage was trying to get everyone to donate to a multitude of charities. I was usually the biggest donator, mainly because the people who run those things knew me so well—they preyed on my con
science and made me feel like a monster for having money. Once they pulled out the slideshows of starving children, I was done for. I left with at least a hundred grand missing from my bank account.
Anyway, this little man said something that made me really evaluate my world. He asked the group of multi-millionaires what they’d be willing to give up to make a difference in someone else’s life. It made me think of the things that I’d never give up. Money wasn’t really a problem, especially for me, but what in my life did I hold dear?
My list was pretty pathetic for a twenty-year-old woman. Really pathetic!
There were few things in my life that you’d have to pry from my cold, dead fingers before they were ever taken from me. The first thing was my Spanx. Which, in my opinion, were the best man-made contraptions ever, better than electricity or chocolate. The creators of those life-changing pieces of cloth should be put on a pedestal for all the chubby girls of the world to worship. Spanx, the body-shaping devices of the fatty-girl world… I bow down to you.
I didn’t know what they were made of, or who came up with the fantastical idea, but they were a godsend. If it weren’t for my Spanx, every fat roll I owned would spill forth like frothy, white volcano lava. It kept the back fat to a minimum, too. Everyone with extra poundage could appreciate that. There was just nothing like walking around feeling like you had an extra pair of double Ds strapped to your back.
The second thing I held dear was my paid for, but not really nice anymore, ninety-seven black Honda Accord. Yes, I had money to purchase a new car. Yes, I probably should have purchased a new car, but my car had been with me through thick and thin. Well, not really the thin, more like the thick and thicker. Referring to anything in my life as thin was just wrong in so many ways.
Finally, the third thing that I couldn’t live without was ice cream. As far as I was concerned, ice cream could heal broken bones if applied directly to the skin. Think about it. If you considered how many broken hearts ice cream had mended, it wouldn’t really seem that outlandish. Not to mention, ice cream was full of calcium.
On the Plus Side (Chubby Girl Chronicles Book 1) Page 1