A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  “I eat a perfectly fine diet, Mom,” I mutter as the machine begins to hiss. Or maybe that’s me. It’s hard to tell.

  She waves a perfectly manicured hand dismissively. The nail polish matches a thin line of mauve that runs as a single stripe through her shirt.

  “Not for you. For the man you’ll entertain! He can’t see that. That’s not wife and mother material. No woman who makes a good wife keeps a pantry like that!”

  “Last week you were Feminist Crusader Mom, telling me how proud you were that I finished my degree and support myself!” This is a well-worn argument. Since she turned fifty a little more than two years ago, and as her friends are all getting to Momzilla their way through their daughters’ weddings, Mom has become zealously devoted to finding me A Man.

  Not just any man, though.

  A man worthy of a Farmington Country Club wedding.

  Mom’s phone rings. “You Sexy Thing” fills the room and Chuckles makes a disapproving sound eerily similar to my mother’s. I seize my chance.

  “Gotta wash the toilet water off my arm!” I call back as I pad to the bathroom and turn on the shower, drowning out whatever comments she peppers me with. Stripping out of the pajamas I’ve been wearing for far longer than their shelf life feels like shedding a skin.

  The tiny, hot pinpricks of escapism give me ten minutes to cleanse myself and to think. Or not think. Mom chats on the other side of the bathroom door, blissfully unaware that I am not listening. Or commenting. Or responding in any way, shape, or form.

  That doesn’t stop her.

  I turn off the shower spray and hear her shout, “And so that’s how Janice’s daughter found out her and her husband’s toothbrushes had been shoved up the robbers’ butts.”

  Whoa. As I towel off, my reflection opens its mouth and closes it a few times, wondering how I am expected to respond to that.

  Some things are best left to the unknown.

  As I open the door, a plume of steam hits Mom. “My hair! My hair!” she shouts. I inherited her limp hair and Dad’s eyes, which is so totally backwards. Dad has lush hair that my sister, Amy, got—perfect spiral curls that rest elegantly in auburn tendrils against her back. And Mom has those blue eyes.

  I look in the mirror and Declan’s name runs through my mind, planted there by my subconscious. If I say a word about him to Mom then she’ll be planning the wedding and have him in a headlock, demanding a two-carat ring before he can say “Hello.”

  I walk into my bedroom wearing a towel, and stop short. Clothes are laid out on my bed for me.

  “What am I? Four?” I mumble. Then I grudgingly put them on, because Mom does have good taste. The adobe shirt she pairs with navy pants and a scarf I never use looks more stylish than I want to admit.

  “I can color code your wardrobe for you, Shannon,” she shouts from the hallway as I dress.

  “You should start a clothing line. Garanimals for Adults. It would be very popular!”

  She takes my comment at face value. “What a great idea! I’ll ask Amy what she thinks. Maybe we can do one of those crowd-funding things to raise money for it like Amy does.”

  Amy is an intern at a venture capital company. So not the same thing as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. I don’t correct Mom, because it’s about as useful as correcting Vladimir Putin about the Ukrainian/Russian border.

  “Who was on the phone?” I ask.

  “Amanda. She wants you to call her. What’s wrong with your phone?”

  “I dropped it in a toilet on a shop this morning.”

  Mom’s face freezes in an outrageous O. “You didn’t…retrieve it?” The only thing Mom fears more than never marrying off a kid at the Farmington Country Club is germs.

  “I stuck my hand in the toilet in the men’s room and saved it, even as I flushed!” I say with glee.

  She glares at me. Chuckles leaves the room, clearly outclassed. “Men’s room?”

  I smile. “Where do you think I’m meeting men?”

  “Oh, Shannon,” she groans, reaching for the espresso I made for her before the shower. It’s likely tepid by now, but that’s how she likes it. “Have you become so desperate?”

  “I know the men’s room is a bit—“

  “No—the men’s room is ingenious, actually. No competition, except with the gay ones.” She drinks the entire espresso in one gulp and slams the cup down like it’s a shot competition during Spring Break in New Orleans. “I mean, really? On a mystery shop?” She says the last two words like Gwyneth Paltrow says the word divorce.

  “So let me understand, Mom. Trolling the men’s room is a clever way to meet a man, but doing so during a mystery shop is debasing?” She quickly pulls my unruly hair into an updo and bobbypins appear in her mouth like she had them shoved up her nose the entire time, waiting for the perfect moment to correct my hairstyle.

  “It’s just…” She sniffs. “What kind of man will you meet at a burger joint? Or a car wash? Getting your oil changed or buying a bagel sandwich?” Her face perks up. “Is there an elite level of mystery shopping? Who are the secret shoppers for Neiman Marcus, or the Omni Parker House? What about Tiffany’s?” Her eyes glitter. “Now that would be one way to meet the right kind of man.”

  “The right kind of man.” I can’t keep the disdain out of my voice, but an image of Declan flashes through my mind. That smile.

  “You won’t meet him on your eighth bagel sandwich dressed like a college student on the fourth day of exams with a bad case of lice,” she adds.

  “I don’t have lice!”

  “Well, honey, you looked like it.”

  “Mom.” I steel myself. “This has been great. Really. But I have to go.” I grab my purse and throw a few cups of white rice in a baggie, then shove my phone in it. “But I need to get to work.”

  “We need to talk, Shannon—”

  “Bye! And change Chuckles’ litter box for me, would you? He looks like he’s about to go in the zen rock garden.”

  And with that, I run down every one of those twenty-seven steps, grateful for my escape.

  Chapter Five

  The drive to the office gives my body a chance to settle in to the day. Awake since four a.m., it is screaming for some kind of break.

  Or maybe that is my inner thighs. They begin to spasm and ache, and not in that stretchy-groany kind of way after a long weekend of incredible sex.

  Squatting on the toilet has, apparently, led to a fair amount of injury. Great. Add this to the growing list of occupational hazards.

  If only Declan had been responsible for this burning ache in a decidedly more delicious way. Daydreaming never hurt anyone, right? I let my mind wander, wondering what he looks like out of that suit. In bed. Under bright white sheets on a crisp spring day, windows open and gauzy curtains billowing with the breeze, the air infused with the scent of sensual time.

  Would he be a patient lover, taking every curve and valley of my body with a slow touch that built to a crescendo? Or an intense, no-holds-barred bedmate, with fevered kisses and unrestrained hands that need and knead, fusing us together in sweaty promises of nothing but oblivion?

  A new kind of ache emerges between my thighs, and it’s closer to the kind I wish I’d had with him.

  For the first time since our meeting a few hours ago, I let myself laugh. Really giggle, with belly moving, abs engaged, and chest whooping with the craziness of it all. Was he laughing, too? I feel a blend of incredulity and shame inside me, too, but there’s a lot more amusement. Never one to shy away from self-effacing humor, this event will be reshaped and I’ll retell it to my friends, crafted in a way that makes everyone think, That silly Shannon.

  Is Declan even thinking about me at all? The laughter dies inside fast. Maybe I’m just some whacko woman he humored as he now tells scathingly nasty stories to his work buddies about the chubby chick he found squatting on the men’s room toilet, fishing her phone out.

  Am I the butt of jokes? Does he describe me with vicious derision, using
me as a quick one-off story, the office equivalent of a viral BuzzFeed link that makes people pause, point and laugh, and move on?

  A lump in my throat tells me I care way too much about what he thinks. Why am I fantasizing about a guy who trapped me in a toilet stall while I was on a mystery shop?

  Because you’re that desperate, my mother’s voice hisses in my head.

  I throw an imaginary cat at her.

  The company I work for, Consolidated Evalu-shop, Incorporated, is in a building as nondescript as the business’s name. If boring had a name, it would be Consolidated Evalu-shop. The building is made of block concrete. The interior steps are concrete as well. No carpeting anywhere, leaving the hallways to echo. If Stalin’s army had designed an office building, this is what it would look like.

  Fortunately, our actual office has carpet. Cheap industrial carpet that is about as thick as a gambler’s wallet the day after payday, but it’s carpet. It pads our feet and keeps the floor warm. I open the main door and walk into the office. There is a reception area the size of two or three graves shoved together without any chairs, and then to the right a long hallway, with three offices on either side. At the end of the hall is something the owner, Greg, calls a “kitchen” but I call it a supply closet with a sink in it.

  Want coffee? Get it from the donut shop next door. Same if you need to respond to nature’s call. Greg doesn’t provide fancy fringe benefits like bathrooms, microwaves, coffee machines, or even pens. He uses the freebies he gets at the bazillion marketing conventions he attends (on the company dime, of course).

  To be fair, we get plenty of freebies in this line of work, too. You go to enough mystery shops at banks and open a new account, you get to keep your free pens, notepads, water bottles, can cozies, toasters, smartphone cases, and other assorted swag that you receive.

  Greg is super-cheap about outfitting the office, but he doesn’t skimp on health insurance. I might make slightly more than a full-time assistant manager at the Gap, but I have one hundred percent employer-paid health insurance, so I’m not complaining.

  Plus, he pays mileage for all our driving. Which adds up, fast. You drive a piece of junk like I do and you need the fifty-five cents for each mile to feed the hamsters that keep it going.

  “Oooh, someone got lucky last night. You’re walking like a woman who got what she needed and then some,” Josh says, winking as I limp into the office. Josh is the company tech expert, which means we all think he’s a little bit shaman, a little bit magician, and mostly a nerd.

  My glare should make him spontaneously combust, or at least turn into a hedgehog with a profound case of psoriasis, but no such luck. “Not even close. I hurt my inner thighs sitting on the toilet this morning.”

  His eyebrows shoot up and disappear into his disappearing hairline. “You need more fiber.”

  “I need a lot of things, Josh.” Limp. Limp. I feel like I’ve been riding a Shetland pony for three days. At least I don’t have saddle sores. But Josh’s original idea, of having a man do this to me in bed…Mr. Sexy Suit comes to mind. Not the pompous ass who made me flush my own hand and cell phone, but the one I turned into Mr. Dreamy before The Great Toilet Fiasco of 2014.

  I have the second door on the left, sandwiched between Josh and Amanda. My office smells like pine and vinegar, which means it must be Thursday. The cleaning crew came through the night before. I hang up my purse, pull out the baggie with rice and my phone in it and put it in my windowsill to bake in the sun, and flip my computer on.

  Amanda’s left a note on my desk: Leave it for two days in a baggie full of rice. If it doesn’t work, we’ll get you a new one. Greg won’t be happy, but too bad. Hope your hand doesn’t fall off from germs.

  It’s so nice to have a friend who really gets your OCD phobias. Or who understands your mom. Or both.

  “Shannon? I recovered your data,” Josh says, scaring the hell out of me. He moves like a vampire, suddenly behind you in your office. I think he likes it. Office sadist.

  But I forgive him, because what? “You recovered my shops?” Hope springs eternal.

  “It’s all in the cloud now, so thank me for setting that app up and forcing Greg to spend money on something worthwhile. Everything is in there but the last one, because you didn’t hit save.” I get a scowl that makes me think Chuckles is more evolved than most humans. Josh looks like a lamb pretending to be mad.

  “I was perched over a men’s toilet trying not to watch a man whip it out. Don’t you dare shame me.”

  “The only shame is that you didn’t try to look when he whipped it out,” Josh says, eyes twinkling.

  “You recovered all eight shops?” I’m incredulous. This is making my day already, and it’s only 11:37 a.m.

  He nods. I throw my arms around his neck and hug him. “I would French kiss you if you weren’t gay,” I murmur.

  “You keep this dry spell up and you’ll start French kissing me even though I am gay,” he mutters, shaking his head. “If the only action your inner thighs are getting is while hiding from a hot guy in the men’s room of a shop, it’s time for a lifestyle evaluation.”

  “Let’s mystery shop Shannon’s life!” Amanda squeals, appearing at the perfect moment. The perfect moment to go through another episode of Let’s Dissect Poor Shannon’s Failed Love Life, that is. My mother would emcee it.

  We’re on season three, episode five by my count. Netflix should pick this one up. People could binge watch and point to the TV as they laugh, feeling a sense of relief while thinking, At least I’m not as bad as Shannon.

  I could provide an important public service.

  “What about Hot Guy? Did he ask for your number?” Shannon and Mom had clearly connected.

  “I’m sure he hits on all the women he meets who have their arm flushed down a toilet in the men’s room.” Does he? Because if he’s met more than me that way, then it’s really not me. It’s him.

  “Sample size of one!” she chirps. “You stand out from the crowd.”

  “I’m the only one who could give him E. coli by feeding him grapes!” I look nervously at my hand. It looks the same.

  “You didn’t catch his name?” Josh asks.

  I freeze inside. Declan McCormick is on the tip of my tongue, but I keep it behind my teeth, like a candy you savor and suck on. Heat creeps up my chest and neck as I think about things on Declan I could suck.

  I shake my head hard, like a dog after a swim. “Nope. Just really rich, really confident, and enough of an asshole to make me want him.”

  All three of us wistfully sigh in unison.

  They believe the lie. They should. We’re all really good liars. You kind of have to be in this business, because you spend so much time pretending to be something you’re not, all while evaluating the surface level of people.

  It’s a cold job when you think about it that way. Now I frown and Amanda looks at me with concern. Then I realize she has black hair again. Fourth color change in four months.

  “What did you do?” I ask as she follows me into my office. Yesterday she was a blonde, and the shift is jarring, like she’s gone from looking like a beach bunny to a dominatrix.

  “Carole flaked on the hair salon shop, so I had to go to yet another color, cut, and style,” she says sadly. She touches the ends of her hair. “I look like Morticia Addams.”

  I snort. “You look like Katy Perry.” Amanda is the cheerleader type. Was in high school, still is. And yes, I’m lying a little, because Amanda actually has near-zero similarity to Katy Perry other than black hair and red lips. In fact, right now, she’s staring at me in a creepy way with that new hairdo, like that woman on the Oddities San Francisco show.

  Like she either wants to tell me a secret or stick me in a jar with preserved three-headed piglets from 1883.

  “You got all your shops in?”

  “Eight out of nine.”

  She looks at the wall clock in the hallway. “Twenty-three minutes to get the last one in and we get credit for
exceeding client expectations.”

  “But—um—hello? Toilet water? Dead phone? Hot guy?” I can’t catch a break.

  “Hot guy or no hot guy, we have that big meeting at four today with Anterdec Holdings, and if we get this all in on time it makes it much easier to land a client so big Greg will have to start turning the heat up over fifty-five in the winter.”

  “You know how to improve company morale. Don’t tease me,” I say, pretending to fan my face. “Next thing you know you’ll tell me we’re allowed to turn the overhead lights on after sundown.”

  “Don’t push it,” she says in a fake flat voice. But with the new hairstyle she makes my abs tighten with fear. I flinch. She sees it and frowns.

  “You look like something out of a BDSM novel,” I explain.

  One corner of her mouth hitches up. It’s half adorable and half chilling. “Really? Too bad I’m not dating anyone right now. This is just going to waste.” Her hand sweeps over her face.

  “Ha.”

  “Twenty-one minutes! Hurry! Once we have all the shops in the system we can do a quality-control check and go to this big meeting with an unblemished record. And then maybe they’ll give us the Fokused Shoprite account.” Amanda says this with a triumphant grin.

  My jaw drops. “We have a shot at sniping one of their accounts?” Fokused, or Foked, as we call them, is our archenemy…er, competition. Consolidated and Fokused are the biggest consumer experience and marketing firms in the city, and the rivalry is strong.

  If my little toilet-hand fiasco had cost us this account, I would have not only cried, Greg would have sold my office furniture out from under me and spent the $17 it was worth on coffee for the rest of the staff out of sheer anger.

  My computer boots up and I log in to the website interface, a zing of thrill flooding my extremities as I see all complete shops from this morning, except that red ninth one.

  Incomplete.

  Incomplete this, sucker. Ten minutes later, I am stuck with one final question.

  “Is the bathroom aesthetically pleasing?” I let my mind drift to Declan, remembering those smoldering eyes, the tightly muscled jaw, how his cheeks dimpled when he laughed. The snug cut of his tailored jacket across those broad shoulders and how strong and sure his hands had been on me, making certain I didn’t fall.