Cookie Cutter

by Jo Richardson

  “Fffffffuck! Mother. Shit!”

  He shouts out a few more obscenities while he rubs where I’ve injured him but at least he backs away so I can wrestle with my hair to try and free it from the filing system. I definitely lose a clump in the process.

  “What the hell, Iris?” Mark pampers his balls and I wipe the slobber from my face.

  I mentioned ew, right?

  “What the hell Iris? I should be asking you that, Mark. In fact, I think I will. What. The hell?”

  He’s angry at first. His face turns beet red and his brow pulls together so deep I think his forehead is going to crack in half. And it’s like this is my fault, somehow. After a split second of thought, he calms himself down and right there, on the floor, he starts to cry. Again. My head falls back and I roll my eyes all the way up to the ceiling.

  “Oh for the love of God, I don’t have time for this. Get yourself together and go home!”

  I leave him to go pack my things up from my cubicle.

  “But what about the presentation?”

  “Do it your damn self,” I tell him. Then I swing my purse over my shoulder, out of patience for the day and leave.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  I don’t know how many times I repeat those words as I pull out of the parking lot of the Maximum Copy building. And I don’t know if I’m referring to my boss, or me when I make that accusation. Was he wrong? Yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt in my mind.

  Am I going to press charges? No. I don’t think so. Probably not, that is.

  I’m brand spanking new to the working world again. I have zero experience needed to get a decent paying job and therefore, for now anyway, I need this one. All of which is an afterthought of course, to the fact that:

  Yes, Mark is a complete ass, most of the time.

  Yes, he completely overstepped his boundaries today.

  And yes, he deserves to be reported.

  I can’t help but think, this is his first offense and being that his wife just left him (and I can at the very least, empathize with how someone leaving you can affect both your mental and physical being) and I was very frank with him about the situation, plus, I think I scared him enough just now to keep him from doing anything like that again, that maybe, I should cut him a break.

  A very small, short break. One he’ll take advantage of if he knows what’s best for him.

  I’m half way home, feeling slightly resolved about my decision, when I notice the blue and red lights flashing from behind me. At first I think, there’s no way he’s following me. I check my speed; I’m not over the posted limit, and I’m not driving erratically, despite my recent office mayhem. But as he closes in on me, it can’t be anyone else. I’m one of maybe fifteen or twenty cars on the road right now. None of which he’s trying to get around me to go after. So I safely pull over as soon as I can, turn the car off and I wait. He sure takes his sweet time getting out of his cruiser and I check the time every five seconds or so obsessing over how ridiculously late I’m going to be if my evening continues on like this.

  Finally, when I hear the tap, tap, tap on my window, I roll it down and look up at him with the best smile I can come up with.

  “Hi.”

  “Afternoon, ma’am.”

  He stands there for a moment, opening up his ticket book. No no no no no.

  “Did I um, do anything wrong, officer?”

  “License and registration please?”

  I huff, but I do as he says. The last thing I need is for him to think I’m being uncooperative and arrest me – and then I’m on the ten o’clock news with all of Spangler looking on. Ugh. I find the tiny scrap of paper that is knows as a registration and pull my license out of my wallet. I hand them to the nice police officer with a smile, which is not returned and then I’m back to waiting. A few . . . maybe ten minutes later, he’s back. He looks down at me over his sunglasses. An intimidation tactic, no doubt. I keep smiling, which hurts.

  “Did you know your tags are expired, ma’am?” he asks politely.

  And now, I’m confused. First of all, could he stop calling me ma’am? I mean I’m only thirty . . . something. And secondly . . .

  “Are you sure? I know my husband just paid that.”

  I cringe when I catch myself calling James my husband. I promised myself I’d stop doing it but it turns out it’s a hard habit to break.

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am,” he informs me. Ugh!

  “You see even if they’d been paid,” he explains as he flips a piece of paper over the top of his pad. “When I call it in, the system would show they were up to date. Yours aren’t.” His pen meets paper and he begins to write something down, ignoring me all together, now.

  Dammit. I know James paid this. It’ll be fine, I tell myself in an attempt to calm down. I’ll call him later and we’ll find proof of payment, then I’ll go over to the DMV sometime this week to straighten it out. For now, I just need to get home and get to that committee meeting I called. I look up at the man, currently writing me a ticket, and go for a Hail Mary of sincerity.

  “I’m truly so sorry, officer. I swear I thought it was paid. I’ll take care of it as soon as I get home.”

  He holds the pad out for me to take.

  “This is a ticket for expired tags,” he says.

  “No, wait --”

  “You have the right to protest the ticket in court, however, I am gonna need you to sign right here.”

  He points to where he wants my signature and hands me a pen with his other hand. I have half a mind to protest it right here and now, on the cusp of what happened with Mark, but I’m behind as it is and so not in the mood to get tackled to the ground for my behavior so I sign. He rips off a page from his pad and hands it to me.

  “You have thirty days to pay or protest. Have a nice night ma’am.”

  “I’m thirty . . . something, you know,” I finally tell him as he walks away. “Not eighty.” For Christ’s sake.

  He points to my bumper as he passes it. “Get your tags up to date.”

  It’s only now, when he’s gone, that I look at the price tag on this event. “A hundred and twenty-nine dollars?” And that’s on top of what it’s going to cost me to pay for my tag renewal.

  As the officer pulls away, I wave and smile, and when he’s far enough away that I know he won’t turn around and ticket me again, I flip him the bird. What traffic there is, flies by while I sit there in an attempt to let the anxiousness from my run in with the law dissipate. After a few minutes, I fold the ticket up, put it in my purse, start the car up again and head home, glad that Ally had tutoring after school today and wasn’t present for that debacle.

  As I pull into the driveway at home, I call James. I want to get this straightened out as soon as possible. Preferably before my thirty days are up.

  “Hey,” he says, just like he has since the first day I met him.

  “Hey, I thought you paid the registration on the cars, James.” I blurt it out, there’s no other way to make this a nice conversation. I grab my things and struggle to get out of the car with it all. The phone is pressed between my ear and shoulder.

  He laughs. “That’s not a very nice way to greet your ex, Iris.”

  “Come on James, I just got a ticket.”

  “Oh-ho-ho!” he booms from the other end of cyberspace. “Nice, Iris, livin’ large!”

  I roll my eyes. “James.”

  “I did pay it Iris,” he assures me. He’s more serious now. “But that was last year. I told you to write it on the calendar.”

  I manage to unlock the front door and let everything but the phone drop. I think back. Then I walk over to the Spangler High calendar that hangs on the kitchen wall. A year ago is a long time. If he had told me to put it on the calendar, you bet I would have put it on the . . .

  “Dammit.”

  “It’s there, isn’t it?”

  I am not dignifying his attitude with an answer.

  “Iris, if something’s wron
g . . .” He lets it hang out there like an overripe tomato, waiting for me to cry on his shoulder.

  Well I’m not falling for it. “I’m late for a meeting, James, I have to go.”

  “Okay th--”

  “Bye.”

  I hang up and stare at the note I wrote to myself a year ago, reminding me about the tags. I don’t understand how I missed that but then, I’ve been missing a lot of things lately. I check the time. I’m so late. But I need to take care of this, so I get behind my laptop and log in to the DMV website to pay the bill and get it over with. When I get my license out to verify who I am, I notice, it’s going to expire in three days.

  “For the love of . . .”

  I breathe and ignore the fact that there is no way I got my renewal form and forgot about it. No. Way.

  “It’s okay, Iris,” And now I’m talking to myself. Maybe I am losing it. “Just pay to renew that too, like you always do, and it’ll all be over.”

  I finish the tag renewal and put it on the credit card because my bank account has paid the price of this divorce like no other bank account ever has, and then I begin the process of renewing my license, only, I get an error message.

  Please bring proof of residence, along with your original social security card, original birth certificate, and original marriage and or divorce agreement to your local DMV for assistance.

  As I read the instructions, the blood rushes through my veins faster and faster because this is just another errand I have to run in a world where I just don’t have time. For the third time today, I find myself begging the question, what. the. fuck? I have to deal with this one later. For now, I have a meeting to get to. Of course, as I scrape the store bought potato salad into a bowl for the committee, I can’t help but think about Carter Blackwood and his smug face when he asked me about those damned fingerlings. Who screws up the word fingerlings? Me, that’s who, but only if I’m standing face to face with adorable looking, half-charming, half-infuriating temporary neighbor who flips houses to make a quick buck for a living. Apparently. And he had some nerve acting all nice and neighborly after avoiding me yesterday.

  I push his distracting smile right out of my mind and get going before I have to call someone to delay the meeting, which would not go over very well seeing as I’m the one who called for it. Without another thought, I’m out the door. Everything is tucked away safely in the back seat when I text Ally to make sure she’s safe and sound somewhere. I let her know I’ll be home by nine. I make a special effort not to speed and get another ticket on the way. Because of this, I’m definitely late to the meeting, which is roughly, fifteen minutes early for me, which isn’t technically late but for me, it is.

  The situation wouldn’t be that bad, honestly, except for the fact that as Candice Morgan calls the meeting to order a few minutes early, and introduces the bidders for working our carnival next weekend, which we don’t need, I see none other than Carter Blackwood staring at me from the back of the room. When he struts up to the table and stops right in front of me, handing over the bid I had no idea he even knew about, I admit I’m speechless. Tack on the fact that everyone in this room, even the other bidders, seem to be caught up in this guy’s charm and gracious attitude front, and I’m officially having the worst day ever.

  “Candice,” I start, after much ado about Carter’s helpfulness over at the fairgrounds the other day. “We still have the children’s playground to think about later on this year.”

  She gives me a blank stare accompanied by her fake smile, telling me she doesn’t even look at the reports I turn in every other month.

  “In December? We were going to surprise the Lakewood community with a playground because they can’t seem to raise the funds on their own?”

  “Oh.” She laughs. “Right, right, right.” Then she shrugs and waves her hand at the air. “Well, they didn’t know about it anyway, we can always do that next year.”

  And I am at a loss for words. No, scratch that. I am not at a loss for words, I’m at a loss for respect. “You’re serious?”

  “Really, Iris, don’t make this such a big deal.”

  I scan all three bids we received tonight, including Carter’s.

  “He’s a hundred and fifty dollars over the other two bids.”

  “He’s got great references,” she says but I know what’s going on here. We all know what’s going on here.

  “He’s got a great ass you mean,” I tell her before I can think about what I’m saying. My intention was to call her out but now that it’s out there, I’m thinking I just called myself out. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except, he’s standing there with his great ass, in the back of the room, watching me as I go all ape-shit on Candice.

  I want to reel the words back in like they’re a fish at sea, unable to escape my hook and line. I want to hit the rewind button on everyone’s brain right now. I want to die.

  Really, really badly.

  But I can’t. And now everyone in this room knows I think Carter Blackwood’s rear end is divine. Including Carter Blackwood.

  Crap.

  Laughter emerges, Candice begins her rebuttal and the entire board gets fidgety about what say next when out of nowhere, Carter’s hand goes up.

  “Actually,” he says. “She’s got a point.”

  I won’t lie. I’m stunned. Is he saying I have a point about the money, or his ass?

  I narrow my eyes at him. If he is talking about the money, there’s got to be a catch here.

  “I’m sorry, Carter, did you say something?”

  I’m concentrating hard as I glare over at Candice; trying to ensure she gets the telepathic message I’m sending her.

  Screw.

  You.

  Then I notice Carter, watching me.

  He taps the bottom of his chin with the back of his hand and it takes me a minute to realize he’s telling me to close my mouth. I do. Then he continues his conversation with Candice.

  “You don’t really need a professional at the carnival,” he says, confirming he’s referring to our money situation. “Now, would I like the extra cash? Sure, who wouldn’t? But I don’t think I could sleep too good if I knew I was taking money away from kids who can’t afford their own playground.”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing coming out of his mouth.

  “I’m withdrawing my bid,” he says, then steps past the few people standing next to him and out into the lobby area. I watch him the whole way out.

  “I’ll take the bid,” a man next to him shouts out. But now that Carter’s put that out there, there’s no way Candice will go forward with her plan for extra, extremely un-needed, help this year.

  She calls the room to order but I can’t sit here anymore. I have to know why he did that. Why he would pass up on money when he’s all about the money. I make my way to the back of the room while Candice requests a vote on this year’s Halloween committee. Once I’m in the lobby, I see him pushing his way out the doors.

  “Carter, wait.”

  He stops, but his hand is still on the door.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did you just give up the easiest five hundred dollars for three hours’ worth of work that you’ll probably ever make?”

  He lets the door go and when his eyes look down at me, he’s not just looking at me. He’s looking into me. He shrugs and that boyish grin is back. “You were right.”

  This man is unbelievable. Three simple words. Not even close to what you’d think would take someone’s breath away but that’s exactly what he does. I smile and mentally note this as the best what the fuck moment. Ever.

  Carter’s brow dips a tad. “What?”

  “Nothing.” My face flushes but I try desperately to hide it by shaking my head.

  He crosses his arms and studies me for a moment. “Why do I get the impression you don’t hear that very often?”

  Right into me.

  “Lately?” I have no idea why I feel the need to confess my fru
strations with him. “Let’s just say you’re my first in quite some time.”

  Tears make their attempt to be seen. I try to swallow them down but I can’t seem to hold them back. I can blink them away though. He could say something completely insensitive right now. Tell me how silly I’m being. Maybe a sarcastic, “you’re welcome” but he doesn’t. Carter just smirks and lifts one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

  “Your first huh? That’s some privilege.”

  A giggle escapes me unexpectedly and I let it out. It’s like a release of some sort.

  “Wow.”

  His eyebrows lift and his smirk blossoms into a full on smile.

  “What?” I’m only a tiny bit embarrassed.

  “I dare say, that’s the best laugh I’ve heard in a long time.” Carter’s easy explanation and sincere tone makes me feel like everything that’s gone wrong today was leading up to this one, single right.

  “Thanks.” I push some hair behind my ear to keep my hands busy and the focus off of the heat in my cheeks.

  He nods. “You’re welcome, Iris.”

  What feels like a millennium passes. I swing my arms from front to back and clap my hands in between the action.

  “Well.”

  Swing, clap. Swing clap.

  “I guess I’ll . . . let you go,” I say in an awkward attempt to keep this moment from turning ugly.

  Swing. Clap.

  But when I go to head back inside and get my things, he stops me by wrapping his hand around my wrist, gently. I look down at our hands then up at him and I hold my breath. Why am I holding my breath?

  “Can I walk you to your car?” he asks.

  “Um.”

  There, I can breathe again.

  “It’s only four away from yours,” he insists.

  I know this isn’t a date. This is the furthest thing from a date that anything could be, but I feel like he’s asking me on a date.

  “I guess that would be okay,” I finally agree and he lets go of me so I can run and gather up my things.

  I forget all about the potato salad. It’s only deli brand anyway. I hope Candice chokes on it. And when I catch up with Carter, it’s quiet between us for a few strides. I’m not used to us being on “friendly” terms like this so I have no idea what to say. Luckily, Carter does.