Happily Ever Madder : Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (9781101607107)

by Mcafee, Stephanie

  I stumble out into the hallway, disoriented by the sudden exposure to daylight. I start walking toward the lobby, and the doorman follows me. I head for the beautiful cut-glass façade, picking up my pace with each step. I put my hand on the door and the man behind me starts shouting that I missed the ladies’ room. I run out into the parking lot past rows and rows of cars until I finally get to mine. I get in and drive home, extremely unsettled by the entire experience.

  Mason is in the living room when I walk in. He’s back from his workout and fresh out of the shower. “Hey, baby,” he says. “You look beautiful. How was church?”

  “I think I need something a little more low-key,” I tell him.

  “Hey, you wanna watch some football?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say. “Just let me change clothes first.”

  I put on some old cutoff sweatpants and a T-shirt and go join him and Buster Loo on the couch. We watch football all afternoon, cook shrimp and crab legs for dinner, then a have bottle of wine on the back porch at sunset. The only time Kevin Jacobs crosses my mind is when I realize that I haven’t thought about him at all. I lean my head on Mason’s shoulder and smile because today was a good day. Except for that fifteen minutes I spent at that weird church.

  35

  Monday morning, it’s back to reality, because Mason is gone when I wake up and I know I’ve got another full week of conference-room dinners to look forward to. I tell myself to think positive as I roll out of bed and get dressed. I take Buster Loo for a walk on the sidewalk that runs next to the beach and I’m happy when the sight and sound of the ocean lift my spirits once again. After a steaming-hot shower, I put on some new clothes and head to the gallery feeling good.

  Buster Loo really loves his new gig as Gallery Dog, and it makes me happy to have him there with me. I give Gloria Peacock a call to see if she and Birdie Ross might be able to come down for the charity ball, and she tells me that she’s got some doctors’ appointments lined up that would take months to reschedule.

  “I’m so sorry, Graciela,” she says. “It sounds like my kind of adventure, and I do hate that I’m going to miss out. Birdie’s going to hate she missed it, too, because that kind of thing is right up her alley.” I tell her it’s okay and she asks when I’m coming to see her. I promise her it will be soon. I hang up the phone sorely disappointed that part of my plan didn’t pan out.

  When Avery comes in at one, she carries on about how nice I look to the point where I start wondering how bad it was before I went shopping with Jalena. I ask about her date and she tells me about Rob and all the creepy-sweet things he did over the weekend that ushered them from the “just talking” to the “hanging out” phase.

  Turns out Rob comes from a wealthy family also, and Avery thinks that, should they graduate to the “seeing each other” phase, at least she won’t have to worry about him dumping her because she has money. She shows me a picture of him, one with her in it, and he doesn’t look as bad as he did in the one she showed us at Girls Night In. She shows me another one of him with his hair laid down instead of spiked up into a Mohawk and painted blue, and he actually looks really handsome.

  “Bring him in here sometime so I can meet him,” I tell her.

  “You wouldn’t mind?” she says. “I told him all about this place, and he thinks we have a very cool arrangement.”

  “As do I,” I tell her. “Bring him in anytime.” Then I start worrying that they might start sneaking in here and having sex on the couches. “Where is he from?”

  “Biloxi, originally, but he’s been living in Pensacola for the past few years.” She looks at me. “He rents a room in one of those awesome historic homes downtown. I think I mentioned that I would love to live in that area.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “I remember you saying something about that.”

  “Yeah, his place is awesome. The common area has really cool red leather furniture and the kitchen has all updated appliances. It’s fabulous.”

  And so I stop worrying about my couches.

  Just before closing time, Jalena texts me and tells me she’s on her way to the meeting at Caboose Charity and asks if I want to meet her at Credo’s later for a drink. I think about that for a second and, confident I’m over my crush, tell her I probably will. I call Mason and ask if he needs anything, and he tells me that Allison is taking care of dinner tonight. He asks me if I’ll come eat with them and I tell him Jalena invited me to Credo’s. He tells me that he doesn’t blame me for not wanting to have dinner in the conference room all the time and encourages me to go ahead and meet up with her. The guilt monster really gets after me, but I text Jalena and tell her I’ll meet her there at seven thirty.

  I take Buster Loo home, and he retires to his doggie bed as I lie on the couch and watch the most recent Saturday Night Live. At twenty after seven, I flip off the television and head out to Credo’s. When I get there, I see Jalena’s Jeep in the parking lot and go inside to find her sitting at an indoor table off to the side. I sit down and take a quick look around, and she says, “He’s not here.”

  “Good,” I say. “Not that I wouldn’t want to see him, but you know, the less temptation the better.” I smile and she laughs and tells me I’m not right.

  She talks about the charity ball meeting and then pulls a folder out of her purse. She opens it up and pulls out a stapled stack of papers and a very fancy program brochure.

  “These,” she says quietly, pointing to the program, “are all stacked up in the hallway outside the main office, so I think the ‘leaflet’ idea is going to be easy to pull off.”

  “Great,” I say. I have a moment’s hesitation when I realize that we could really go through with this, and then I think about Lenore getting my application tossed from the art festival submissions and get mad at her all over again. I get my notebook out of my bag, put it on the table, and open it up to a clean sheet. I write the words “Special Addendum” at the top.

  Jalena opens the program, then turns it around to where I can see Kennashaw Home and Garden listed in the five-star category.

  “How does she do that?”

  “She has one hundred percent control over the production of this program.”

  “How did she manage that?”

  “It’s something she volunteers to do and it’s a toilsome task that no one else wants.”

  “Right,” I say and think about Margo the HOA president. “It’s funny how much control people can accumulate by volunteering for things the rest of us are too lazy or busy to do or are just plain not interested in.”

  Jalena looks at me and says, “Why did I start thinking about politicians when you said that?”

  “Why indeed?” I say. “And speaking of elected officials, does that organization not have a secretary?”

  “Yeah, that’s Sylvie Best,” Jalena says, giving me a wry look.

  “Of course,” I say, looking down at the program. “Well, there’s Sylvie in the five-star as well. Is that legit?”

  “I don’t know, but I can see when we get those records,” Jalena says. “Her husband owns a couple of car dealerships here in town, so it could very well be.”

  “Maybe it won’t be and I can add her name to this little notice,” I say, tapping my notebook.

  Jalena laughs and we start discussing what exactly the memo should say.

  “It needs to be professional and polite,” Jalena says. “Like someone is trying to make a serious clarification. It shouldn’t sound mean or hateful or judgmental.”

  “Bummer,” I say and start doodling in the margin.

  After a lengthy discussion and two pages of drafts, we finally decide the notice should read:

  Caboose Charity greatly appreciates each and every dollar donated to our organization, and we strive to protect the privacy of our benefactors while adhering to the specific guidelines stated in our bylaws. In a recent audit of our records, it was discovered that a mistake has been made in one particular area of categorization. Correction is as
follows:

  Frank & Lenore Kennashaw (Kennashaw Home and Garden)—One Star

  Thank you, and we apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

  “Are you sure we should list her as a one-star, even though she’s really a two?” Jalena asks, eyeing my chicken-scratch writing.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “Think about how much more that’ll get people stirred up. That’s what we need. We need people to start asking questions.”

  “We cannot ever let anyone know we had any part in this,” she says warily.

  “Covert ops,” I tell her. “We just can’t react at all if people start talking about it.”

  She puts the program back in the folder, then slides the other papers to my side of the table. “Seating arrangement,” she says. “Lenore and Frank are at table twenty-two on page three.”

  “Do you know what the place cards are going to look like?” I ask, looking over the names.

  “No, they change that up every year,” she says. “But I have a plan.” She smiles at me. “Set-up starts on Wednesday, and they asked everyone to pick one night to come in and help, so I picked Friday.”

  “Okay.”

  “Each table is a ten-top, and most have two or three open seats in case people show up at the last minute or someone brings a date they didn’t RSVP or someone important or high-profile comes in or something like that. So my plan is to try to swap Lenore and Frank’s place cards out with a pair of blank cards at a lesser table.” She looks at me. “I’m going to look it all over Friday night and try to pick up two extra place cards, because blank ones are usually lying around everywhere. I’m going to wait until Saturday to actually attempt the switch, because everyone will be running around like crazy, so I think that’ll be my best bet in terms of getting away with it.”

  “That sounds like an excellent plan,” I say.

  “It’ll be an excellent plan if it works,” Jalena says. “Now let’s talk about that station wagon.”

  “I’m going to call Mr. Pettigo on Wednesday and ask if I can bring my car in on Friday or Saturday,” I say. “If he offers to let me drive it, we’re good. If not, we’re shit out of luck, because that’s the only clunker I have access to. Let’s just say he does, though. Are you sure we’ll be able to get that old jalopy to the curb instead of her Mercedes?”

  “The hotel doesn’t have valet parking unless there’s an event at the conference center,” she says. “They just hire temps and it’s all pretty lax because this is one of those deals where everybody knows everybody and they’re more worried about people feeling special than about someone stealing a car. So if we get the station wagon, then we need to take it over there and park it at the very back of the conference center parking lot. It’s just a big open lot across the street. The parking places are numbered, so I’ll have to know what spot the paddy wagon is in, in order to execute my switcheroo plan.” I nod and she continues. “Since I’m on the set-up committee, I’ll be one of the first ones there, so I’ll just keep an eye out for Lenore, and when I see her, I’ll slip out the door and walk out to the parking lot and see what her parking space number is. Then I’ll wait until the valets are really busy, pull one of them to the side, and explain that I left my purse in my car and my husband has the valet ticket and I can’t find him anywhere, and I just need to borrow the keys for one quick second to unlock the door. I’m just going to talk until he gives me the keys, and I’ll be all dressed up, so it’s not like I’ll look like a common criminal. When I get the keys, I’ll step aside and pretend to press the unlock button, but I’ll really be snapping the valet clip off. At that point, I’ll piddle around for a few minutes and let a few more people drive up, and then when I return the station wagon keys with Lenore’s valet tag attached, I’ll casually mention the parking space number of the station wagon.” She looks at me. “And I’ll make sure to be flashing plenty of boob during all of this.”

  “You sure know a lot about valet parking,” I tell her. “Let me guess—you used to date a valet.”

  “No,” Jalena says with a chuckle. “Me and another girl had to work the valet stand one year because a few of the temps got caught smoking weed behind the hotel.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Naw, but we only had to do it for like an hour. Just until they got two more guys to come in. It’s a process you pick up on fast because it’s so repetitious.” She looks at me. “What else?”

  “Well, the station wagon probably won’t have keyless entry,” I tell her. “That thing is a real piece of crap.”

  “I’ll be sure to hand the keys back to a different guy, then.”

  “Good idea.”

  “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out something.”

  “You mentioned boobs,” I say.

  “There’s always plenty of that.”

  “Okay,” I say, laughing. “So, let’s review. Phase one: Switch around the place cards. Phase two: Put inserts in some of the programs. Phase three: Valet service with a station-wagon smile. Wait—what are you going to do with Lenore’s keys if you’re able to get the tags switched around?”

  “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “They need to find their way to the hotel lost and found, and then maybe it’ll all look like an accident,” I say. “Or something.”

  “I can make that happen,” she says. “What about your little-old-lady friends?”

  “I called Gloria Peacock today and she said they wouldn’t be able to make it,” I tell her. “Bunch of doctors’ appointments and stuff.”

  “Okay, then,” she says and starts digging around in her purse. “Well, here are your tickets to the ball, my friend.” She hands me a small white envelope. “And the night of the charity ball, I don’t think we should be seen around each other.”

  “Excellent point,” I tell her. “So, when are we going to break into the office?”

  “I was going to say Thursday, but they might move the boxes to the conference center before then, so …”

  “So?”

  “So how about I type up our little announcement tomorrow at work? I’ll put four to a page, print ’em out, and cut ’em up, and then we go tomorrow night and put ’em in the programs? No one will move anything until Wednesday, and, honestly, I think the leaflets could be the only part of our plan that might really work, so I want to make sure we get this done.”

  “Great,” I say, thinking that’ll get me out of another conference room dinner.

  36

  Tuesday turns out to be fairly boring and I end up taking a short nap on the sofa in the gallery with Buster Loo after lunch. My phone starts buzzing, and it’s a text from Jalena that contains a picture of our big announcement.

  “Looks great,” I send back. Buster Loo stretches, and I go get his leash and take him for a walk around the parking lot. It’s unseasonably warm and the sun is out full force, so it doesn’t take him long to set his sights back on the gallery door.

  I go upstairs and think about painting but ask myself what the point of that would be since all I’m doing is basically running a museum anyway. I have plenty of paintings to swap out with the ones on display, but I really don’t see the sense in doing that when hardly anyone even comes in to see the ones I do have hanging up. I sit down in my studio and stare out at the bay, wondering how I ever thought this was what I wanted to do with my life.

  I go back downstairs and surf the Net until Mason calls an hour before closing time to tell me all about his busy day. He says they’re working through dinner and asks me if I want to come eat with him in his office or if he should just have Allison pick him up something. I tell him I’m hanging out with Jalena again tonight, but I promise him I’ll bring dinner tomorrow night.

  “You know what?” I say to quell my guilty conscience. “I’ll take off a little early tomorrow and go home and cook. How about that?”

  “Oh, man, that would be great!” Mason says. “I would appreciate it
so much. What are you going to fix?”

  “I was thinking lasagna,” I say, knowing that’s his favorite.

  “It makes my day today knowing I’m going to have your lasagna tomorrow,” he says, and I smile because at least I’ve got my love life back on track.

  I hang up with him and look up the Florida Department of Education Web site. I read over the guidelines for applying for a teaching certificate, and apparently all I have to do is send in my Mississippi teaching license and a couple of hundred dollars. When I think about being back in the classroom, part of me recoils with dread, but another part of me gets very excited.

  “Slow down, Bessie,” I say to myself. “I was one hundred percent excited about this art gallery before it opened up, and now look where I am.” Instead of downloading the application, I click the button that takes me back to Google. I look down at Buster Loo, who is snoring away in his dog bed. “Oh, to be so happy and content,” I say, and Buster Loo perks up and looks at me. “I have got to get my mind right, Buster Loo.”

  I waste a few more minutes online; then Buster Loo and I check out thirty minutes early. Since I have his leash, we get out at the house and head straight for Pelican Trails Park.

  I see Margo out in her yard, and when I wave, she just stares back at me, and that really pisses me off. I mean, if someone waves at you and you don’t want to wave back, that’s fine. But don’t stand there like a dipshit and stare. Turn your head or something. Jeez. I can’t help myself; I yell out, “Hey, Margo, what happened to the shitbag sign? I kind of liked it.” She scowls at me and I just keep walking.

  When we get back, Jalena is parked on the curb, and I scare her to death when I walk up and tap on the window of her Jeep.

  “Where have you been?” she asks when she rolls down the window. She looks down at Buster Loo. “Oh, walking, I see. Hey, Buster Loo!” she calls out, and he starts bouncing up and down like a basketball with too much air.