“I’m sorry,” I say in a tone that’s more sarcastic than apologetic. “Maybe I’ve just had too much time on my hands lately.” And I get up and walk back upstairs and get back in bed. Buster Loo creeps in a second later and burrows under the covers with me. I hear Mason’s truck leave and I cry until I fall asleep.
When I wake up again, Mason is sitting on the end of the bed.
“I’m sorry I said I was ashamed of you,” he tells me. “But I think you owe me an explanation.”
“I do,” I say and sound like I’ve got cotton balls shoved up my nose. He goes downstairs and brings back a Sprite with cherries and some aspirin. “Do I look hungover?” I ask, but he’s not in the mood to joke.
I go in the bathroom, where I slick my hair back into a ponytail, wash my face in freezing water, and then brush my teeth. I wet a washcloth and press it down against my eyes. I go back into the bedroom, where he’s still sitting with a cup in one hand and an aspirin bottle in the other. He hands me the drink and two tablets, and I lie back against the headboard and tell him all about the evil, wicked Lenore Kennashaw.
Then I tell him what Sylvie Best said to me, and then I tell him how Mrs. Adday treated me at the Beach House Bed and Breakfast, and he hangs his head and looks at the floor.
He looks back up at me and says, “Do you think you create a lot of your own problems because of your attitude?”
“Are you serious right now?” I ask.
“I’m dead serious,” he says. “Ace, when your career requires constant interaction with the general public, you have to bury your attitude and present yourself as an unbiased professional. It’s not always easy.”
“Let me ask you something,” I say. “How hard is it for you to be nice to Mrs. Collins across the street?”
“It’s not hard at all. What kind of question is that?”
“How hard is it for you to be nice to Margo?”
“I’m not nice to Margo because she’s a fucking idiot,” he says.
“My point exactly.”
“You don’t have to get all wrapped up in their idiocy,” he says. “Did you see me out there trying to jump on Margo about that ridiculous sign she put up at the entrance to our neighborhood? No, you didn’t.”
“Nor did you see me do that.”
“Ace, sometimes you have to let stuff go. Just let people be who they are and don’t worry about it.”
“Maybe you need to let me be who I am, then, and you don’t need to worry about it.”
“I can’t not worry about it when you were involved in something like what happened last night. I have an excellent reputation in this town, which I have worked very hard for and intend to maintain!” He looks at me and I take a drink of Sprite because I’m starting to feel very sick. “And that station wagon? Don’t I remember that from a little incident at Bueno Burrito?”
“Yes, you do,” I say. “Her husband is fixing my bumper. I told you the truth about that.”
“I cannot believe you!”
“You want to know what I can’t believe?” I say and decide that if he’s not going to give me a break, then I’m not giving him one. “I can’t believe how well it all worked out. I’m actually quite pleased with myself.”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”
“I guess we will,” I say. “Thank you for the Sprite.”
*
Jalena calls me at two o’clock and reminds me that we need to get that station wagon out of the parking lot, so I roll out of bed and get into the shower. She arrives at my house thirty minutes later, and I put on my shades and walk out the door. I don’t acknowledge Mason sitting on the couch, and he doesn’t say a word to me.
On the drive over to the Downtown Inn, Jalena expresses some concern about being seen because she heard that Lenore is on the warpath trying to find out who was responsible for last night’s shenanigans.
“Several people from the charity have called me this morning,” she says. “Some are pretty upset because of what happened; others are relieved.” She looks at me. “I think most people are relieved.”
“How could they not be?” I say.
“Anna Simmons called me a few minutes before I left the house,” she says. “She thought the whole thing was really funny and she told me that the board is sending all of the paperwork to an accountant for an official review of the donation records, so that’ll finish her off with that organization.”
“Good.”
“And nobody has any idea who might’ve done it. Anna said that people are speculating it was a disgruntled employee or maybe a really dissatisfied customer. So it looks like we could make out like some bandits on this if we can just get that station wagon out of there without getting caught.”
“Lenore Kennashaw knows who did it,” I say. “She has to. And you can drop me off around the corner from the parking lot. I’ll get the car and then take the long way back to the garage and meet you there.”
“Are you not worried she may be watching the car?”
“I hope she is.”
“Are you not worried about Mason finding out?”
“He already knows.”
“Oh no,” she says. “How’d that happen?”
“Well, I left my notebook on the table yesterday and he found it this morning.”
“So you haven’t had the best morning?”
“Not by a long shot, and I was just getting to the point where I thought we were going to be okay.”
“You might still be,” Jalena says. “He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t think so.” I look at her. “He told me I was going to have to apologize to Lenore.”
“Aw, hell no,” she says.
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”
“Just hang in there,” she says. “I still think y’all are gonna make it.”
“I’m glad somebody does,” I tell her. She gives me the keys and I make her drop me off three blocks away from the parking lot, and then I double back and walk two blocks out of the way to make sure no one sees me and her in the same vicinity. I stop on the edge on the parking lot and look around, but I don’t see anyone. I walk out and get in the car, nervous because I’m not in the mood for a confrontation.
I put the key in the ignition and it won’t turn. I look around and see a few cars driving by, so I lie down in the seat. I pump the brake a few times, then the gas. I have no idea why I’m doing that, but it seems better to stomp on the pedals as opposed to doing nothing. I put my hand on the key and try to wiggle it, but it won’t budge. I sit up and, in a state of full panic, start shaking the steering wheel and trying to turn the key and stomping on the pedal, and finally, after I pitch the cussing fit of the millennium, the key turns and the car cranks right up.
I see traffic on the road, so I lie back down in the seat after turning the air conditioner on full blast. When the coast is clear, I pull out on the road and think for a minute that I might get away without being seen. Then a red convertible Thunderbird pulls up behind me and I know I’m in trouble. I glance in my rearview mirror and see two women wearing large shades and scarves tied around their heads.
“F me in the A,” I say to myself. “Why did I think she wasn’t going to be up here waiting to see who got this car?”
I pretend not to see them and proceed to drive around town, slowing down to fifteen miles an hour from time to time, but they stay on my bumper. I call Jalena and tell her what’s going on, and she tells me that she’s parked in a deserted parking lot behind the garage and she’s out of sight. I think about going to Walmart or somewhere like that, but then I’d either have to engage in a bitter cuss fight or whip her ass, and I’m not in the mood to do either. Not today. Not after she tried to ruin my life to the point where I just took over and did it myself because she was driving me crazy. No, she’ll not get the pleasure of cussing me out today. And I’ll not get the pleasure of blacking both her eyes.
After another fifteen minutes of riding around si
de streets with the Thunderbird on my bumper, I come up with a plan. At the next red light, I do a Google search for the number to the Pelican Cove Police Department and give them a call. I glance up at the street sign, then tell the police dispatcher that I’d like to report an aggressive driver on the 1300 block of East Zaragoza.
“She’s about two inches from my bumper, and I can’t help that my old beat-up car doesn’t go very fast and I really don’t want to get run over by some woman in a shiny red convertible Thunderbird,” I say, trying to sound as pitiful and country as I can.
“We’ll have someone check it out, ma’am,” the lady says politely. “Thank you for the call. Drive safely.”
When the light turns green, I ease forward and they stay right behind me. I go a few more blocks, and I’m starting to think the police might have better things to do today when I see a patrol car, which does a U-turn in the street; then the Thunderbird has to pull over. I roll down my window, flip them the bird, and mash that accelerator all the way to the floor. Which eventually gets me up to forty-five miles an hour.
A few minutes later, I turn into Sam Pettigo’s garage on two wheels. I lock the doors and stick the keys in my pocket and then speed-walk around behind the garage. I have to crawl through some creepy-looking brush with lots of briars, but I finally make it to the deserted parking lot where Jalena is parked.
“You better take me home, and then you better head home quick,” I tell her. “I called the law on them.”
“For what?” Jalena asks, very amused.
“Aggressive driving,” I say, and she laughs and says that was brilliant.
When we get close to my subdivision, I tell Jalena to drive on up the road a bit and let me out.
“Do you want to drive on up the road a little bit more and see if Kevin Jacobs is home?” Jalena teases.
“No, thank you.”
She laughs and pulls into a cul-de-sac that backs up to my neighborhood.
“Here is good,” I tell her. “Call me tomorrow.”
“Hey, Ace,” she says before I get out of her Jeep. “High five?”
I slap her hand. “High five, sister.”
43
Monday morning Mason wakes me up before daylight and asks me if I want to take him to work and keep his Escalade. I tell him I don’t and go right back to sleep. When I wake up again, it’s almost eleven o’clock. I look at my phone, and no one has called needing to see anything in the gallery, so I roll back over and go to sleep.
Avery calls me at one o’clock, wondering where I am, and I tell her I’m taking a few days off. I ask her if the CALL ME sign is still on the door and she says that it is. I tell her she can spend as much or as little time as she wants there. She sounds concerned and a little sad, but she doesn’t pry and I appreciate it.
Monday afternoon, Jalena calls and asks if I need a ride anywhere, and I tell her that I’ll need a ride to the garage in the morning. I don’t go to work on Tuesday, either, and I’m not surprised at all that no one calls about the gallery for a second day. Jalena picks me up Tuesday afternoon and takes me to my car. She invites me out for a drink, but I tell her I’d rather go home and sleep, and that’s exactly what I do.
I don’t go to any dinners at the office all week long, and if I’m not asleep when Mason comes home, I pretend to be, and I do the same thing every morning. I cancel Girls Night In, and when Jalena calls me Friday morning to check on me, I lie and tell her I’m fine. Mason and I are civil to each other over the weekend but don’t do anything as a couple. I expect an apology that I don’t get, and I suspect he feels the same way.
The next week, I meet Jalena at Credo’s Monday night, and when Kevin Jacobs shows up, I flirt with him like there’s no tomorrow. We go back on Tuesday night, and I get so drunk that Jalena has to help me into her Jeep, out of her Jeep, and then into my house.
It takes me all day Wednesday to recover from that, and on Thursday I load up Buster Loo and go to the gallery just to get out of the house. I’ve been there about five minutes when I see a silver Mercedes pull up in the parking lot. I scurry over and lock the door, then hide behind the counter and watch Lenore Kennashaw walk up to the door. She raps on the glass with her fist, then cups her hands around her eyes and peers in. I’m seriously entertaining the idea of filing a restraining order against her when she finally walks back to her car. I watch her pull out her phone, and a second later, mine starts ringing. When I don’t answer, she drives away.
She calls back six more times, and I call the phone company and have a block put on her number. Then I decide that what I need to do is go home. To my real home. I call Jalena and ask her if she wants to go to Bugtussle with me, and she says that she has to work.
“Take off!” I tell her. “Can’t you take off whenever you like when you work for your dad?”
“Uh, you obviously don’t know my dad,” she says. “When do you want to leave?”
“This afternoon,” I say. “If we leave by two, we can be there by seven thirty or eight and you’d only have to miss a day and a half of work. C’mon—being spontaneous is fun!”
“Let me talk to Daddy and I’ll call you right back,” she says, and when she calls me back ten minutes later, she tells me she’s on her way home to start packing.
I call Avery to let her know I’m going out of town for the weekend. She doesn’t answer so I leave her a voice mail telling her she’s welcome to hang out at the gallery as much as she likes.
I make another sign that says the gallery will be closed until Monday, tape it to the door, and leave before I start getting sentimental. I go home and pack up all of my nice, new clothes and a good supply of old ones. Then I pack up Buster Loo’s dishes and bed and a few of his favorite toys. When I walk out the door with all of my bags, Lenore Kennashaw is standing on the sidewalk in front of the house.
“Going somewhere?” she asks, like I should be afraid of her. She walks through the yard and stops at the foot of the steps. “You’re very clever, Miss Jones. I’ll give you that,” she says. “However—”
“Hold on,” I say. I drop my bags and get my phone out of my back pocket. I walk to the top of the steps and look down at her. Then I turn my phone around so she can see the number pad. I punch a nine and then a one.
“What are you doing?” she snaps. “There’s no emergency here.”
I hold my finger over the one. “No, but there’s going to be if you don’t get the hell out of my yard and away from my house.” I look at her and she doesn’t move. “Do you want to try me?” I ask her. “Do you really want to try me? Think about what I did to you at the charity ball.”
“What’s going to happen if you press that one?” she asks in her usual condescending tone. “Besides you getting arrested for misuse of the emergency system?”
“What’s going to happen after I press this one is that I’m going to lay this phone down on the porch, and then I’m going to walk down these steps and beat the shit out of you until the paramedics and/or police arrive and make me stop.”
“And then I’ll file assault charges and sue you,” she says like a real smart-ass.
“No, and then you will be lying on the ground with the shit kicked out of you,” I say. “You didn’t ask what would happen after I stomped your ass, after the ambulance takes you to the hospital, or after you get released from the emergency room. You asked what would happen after I press this one. Let’s not get the cart before horse here, Lenore.” She looks around and I can see that she’s getting nervous. “I’ve been to jail,” I tell her. “And it didn’t scare me at all.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“Somebody you can’t push around,” I say.
Lenore Kennashaw gives me one of her finest smirks and then turns and walks away without a word. I pick up my bags and continue packing up my car. Then I go back inside, leave Mason a note, and walk out the door with Buster Loo trotting along behind me.
44
I pick Jalena up at her house, which
is an adorable cottage about a hundred yards from her daddy’s marina on Frog Bayou. She has twice as much luggage as I do, and I packed enough for two weeks. We get it all situated and she gets in the car and Buster Loo promptly nestles himself into her lap.
“Hey, thanks for inviting me,” she says. “It’s not every day someone invites you to Bugtussle, Mississippi.”
“Don’t get too excited,” I caution. “So have you talked to Tia?” I ask. “I’ve called her two or three times, but she hasn’t called me back. It kind of hurts my feelings because I thought we were friends.”
“She’s fickle like that,” Jalena says. “I’ve only talked to her once, and that was after I left her a message about Girls Night In last week. She told me she was working all the time and that she went to see Afton last weekend.” She looks at me. “I think it’s over between her and Kevin.”
“Did she say that?”
“Nope, he did when he came in for lunch today.” I glance at her and she’s shaking her head. “He hasn’t heard from her in weeks, so he’s concerned, you know, that he made her mad,” she says, and I start feeling like a dirtbag again. “He was asking me all these questions, because you know how a guy will push you away until you start walking, and then they get worried that you won’t come back.”
“Right,” I mumble, thankful to be driving in the opposite direction from my drama.
“I told him that I couldn’t help him. All I know is she’s working a lot.”
“I miss talking to her,” I say.
“She’ll come back around,” Jalena assures me. “She’s always been like this. She’s gone weeks without calling me before when nothing at all happened. I’m sure she’ll be at the Halloween party weekend after next. No matter what’s going on, she won’t miss that because she rustles up a lot of business at these big get-togethers in town.” She looks at me. “Are y’all going to that?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” I say.
“Oh, you have to go,” she says. “After this little trip, you and Mason will kiss and make up, and then you can start planning the costumes.”
Happily Ever Madder : Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (9781101607107) Page 25