Jalena doesn’t say anything until we’re on the highway.
“I know you think we went and had sex today, but we didn’t.”
“Don’t put that in my buggy, sister, ’cause I am not buying it.”
She starts laughing. “Ace Jones, you are too much, girl.”
“I do what I can,” I tell her. “So what did you do if you weren’t off bumpin’ uglies?”
“He took me to his farm and we rode the Gator down to his lake.” She looks at me. “Does everyone up here have a lake at their house?”
“Nope,” I tell her. “Just the people with money. There was no lake anywhere around my house.”
She shakes her head. “I’m going to be honest with you for a minute,” she says.
“Go ahead.”
“You were crazy as hell to leave this place.”
“Well, I’m not head over heels in love with a certain farm boy that lives here,” I tell her. “Plus, there’s another side to life in that little town, trust me.”
“Who cares?” she says. “I love it.”
“Better than Frog Bayou?”
“I love Frog Bayou with all my heart, and I always will. That’s home for me, but I could see myself living in Bugtussle.”
“Are you serious?” I snort.
“Ace, I’ve been out with so many guys, so many worthless, self-centered pricks. I know men, and Ethan Allen is unlike any man I’ve dated or even met.” She glances over at me. “It’s going to be so hard staying down there in Frog Bayou until he asks me to marry him.” She laughs out loud, and so do I. “You’re going to think I’ve lost my mind when I say this, but when I was on that Gator with him and he was carrying on and cracking me up, I looked around and got the funniest feeling, like God put me on this Earth to find this man and live on this farm. I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life, and it was freaky.” She looks at me. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Not at all,” I tell her. “I think you are very, very lucky.”
“Well, we’ll just take it one day at a time and see how it goes.”
“I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna go well,” I tell her, and I only wish I could feel that way about my life. Not wanting to discuss my “is my situation shitty or am I just crazy” dilemma, I ask Jalena what she thought about Gloria Peacock, Birdie Ross, and Temple Williams.
“Wow!” she says. “That’s all I can say about that entire experience. Wow! They make getting older look so glamorous. Mrs. Williams is beautiful, that Birdie Ross is a damn hoot, and Mrs. Peacock is the sweetest, spunkiest little lady I’ve ever seen. It felt like I was surrounded by family.” She looks at me. “Ace, this whole weekend—the party Thursday night, going to Memphis and Tunica on Friday—it was all so much fun. And Friday night, I had the time of my life with Ethan Allen, and you know I had a fine ol’ time last night.” She giggles. “And today, it was just unreal. This whole weekend has been a game changer for me.”
“Game changer?” I say.
“As soon as I get home, I’m canceling all of my online dating accounts.” She looks at her phone. “I’d do it right now if I could figure out how.”
“Olivia is going to be so proud of you,” I tell her.
She starts laughing. “She will, won’t she? Hey, would you care if I call her?”
“Of course not,” I say.
She calls her sister and tells her all about the weekend, and when she gets off the phone, I suggest we have a snack. She reaches around and gets the pizza box off the top of her suitcase, which is where I had to put it so Buster Loo wouldn’t have himself a little dog pizza party in the backseat. When Jalena takes a bite, she can’t even believe how good it is.
“And it’s cold,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to stand it fresh out of the oven.”
We chitchat some more; then she gets quiet and I pop a CD in and we listen to Adele all the way to Meridian. When we get there, we stop at the same gas station we did on the trip up.
She falls asleep shortly after we get back on the road, so I go through my whole collection of Kid Rock CDs. She’s snoring when I pull up at her house and I wake her up; she can’t believe she’s already home.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says, and we haul the last of her bags in the front door. “Thanks again for everything!”
I pull out of her driveway and head home. Mason didn’t call or text all weekend, and I didn’t call or text him, either. It’s almost midnight when I turn into our neighborhood, and my stomach drops when I pull up in the drive. I leave my bags in the car and tote Buster Loo inside the house. When I put him down, he promptly disappears out the doggie door, and I stand in the living room and listen to see if Mason gets up. He doesn’t make any noise, so I decide to just sleep on the couch.
49
Monday morning, Mason wakes me up bright and early. He’s dressed for work and looks and smells dapper to the max. He hands me a cup of coffee and sits down across from me on the love seat.
“How was your trip?”
“Good,” I say. “It was nice to see everyone.”
“I understand Ethan Allen and Jalena hit it off.”
“I believe they did.”
“Do you want to move back up there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to move back?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” he says. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“So are you going to leave?”
“Would you come with me?” I look at him and he looks at the floor.
“You know I can’t do that,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “I just thought I’d ask.”
“Will you please just give me some time? I promise you that I can make you happy.”
“What if I wanted to start teaching school again?”
He looks surprised by that but says, “You can do whatever you want.”
“I love you, Mason. There is no one else in this world I want to be with.”
“I feel the same way,” he says, moving over to sit next to me. “Let’s make it work.”
Why does it have to sound like such a chore? “Okay.”
He kisses me on the cheek and gets up. “Well, you know what I’ve got to do.”
“Go to work.” I smile at him because I really do love him with all of my heart. “Have a good day.”
*
I go upstairs, get in the bed, and sleep for two more hours. I wake up at eight, take Buster Loo for a quick walk, then come home and make another pot of coffee. I’m exhausted from the trip and sore from sleeping on the couch, but I take a shower, get ready, and head to the gallery. I leave Buster Loo at home because I feel like he needs some rest after all that traveling.
*
I take the sign off the front door and go upstairs to my studio. I sit down in front of my easel and feel about as creative as a tax accountant on the sixteenth of April. I walk down to Avery’s studio and open the door, only to find that everything is gone. The room looks just like it did the first day I showed it to her. I go downstairs and call her, but it goes straight to voice mail. I don’t leave a message.
I sit behind the counter and stare out into the parking lot for a while. No one comes in all morning. At lunchtime, I lock up and go get a sandwich, then sit down at my desk and look up the Florida Department of Education’s Web site again. I print out the application, read over it, and then set it on the corner of my desk.
Avery calls at twelve fifteen, and when I ask her if everything is okay, she seems confused.
“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” she says. “Are you home?”
“Yes, I’m at the gallery and I just went upstairs and saw all of your stuff was gone.”
She starts laughing and tells me that she and Rob and several other local artists have decided to rent a storefront downtown and form a community gallery.
“Yeah, I was going to
tell you before I moved everything out, but you’ve seemed so troubled lately that I didn’t want to stress you out more. I can still work anytime you need me.”
“Avery, I don’t need you to work, but I would love to have the company if you ever just want to stop by.”
“Great! I will, because I’ve missed you.” She tells me their big plans for the community gallery and I tell her it all sounds great. Because it does. I wish her the best of luck and tell her to call me if there’s anything I can do to help with the project.
Later that afternoon, the phone rings and it’s Tia. “Well, hello!” I say when I answer.
“Hi, Ace Jones,” she says sweetly. “So, I heard you took Jalena on a little road trip and she found herself a Mississippi man.”
“We did and she did.”
“So are we having Girls Night In this week or what? I want to hear all about it.”
“Yes!” I exclaim. “As a matter of fact, we should have a special celebration in honor of Jalena deleting all of her online-dating profiles.”
She laughs about that and we chat for a minute and she carries on like everything is perfectly normal, so I do the same. When we get off the phone, I text Jalena and tell her I heard from Tia and Girls Night In is on this week. She texts back a few minutes later and says that she will be there and so will Olivia. I text Avery and she says that she’ll definitely be coming but that she might be a little late. After about a hundred more text messages, we decide that everyone should just pick up whatever they want for dinner on Thursday and we’ll eat together in the break room.
I decide to leave an hour early, and on my way home, Mason texts me and tells me that Allison is bringing a home-cooked meal to the conference room tonight. After inviting me to join them, he sends me another text immediately and says he will completely understand if I don’t want to come. I decide to go, not because I want to, but because I want to make it work between us. I go home, take Buster Loo for another short walk, then drive to the law office of J. Mason McKenzie.
Allison acts supremely nice to me when I get there, and she and Connor seem to be getting along a lot better. After a dinner that tastes almost as good as warmed-over cafeteria food, Mason walks me out to my car.
When he gets home later, I hug him as soon as he walks in the door, and we sit in the living room and chat for a while. He tells me Allison leaving at five o’clock has made the work environment much less toxic, and I tell him that there seemed to be a lot less tension. I tell him all about my trip to Bugtussle, and then we start discussing ways to make things better between us.
“I don’t want you to feel that you have to eat dinner in that conference room five nights a week,” he says. “You need some time to hang out with your friends.”
“Maybe if I come up there on Mondays and Wednesdays,” I say. “And then we’ll have the weekend to be together. Or at least Saturday night and Sunday.”
“Then you could hang out with the girls on Tuesday and Thursday,” he says. “Do you think you could live with that for a while? I promise it won’t be this way forever.”
“Yes,” I say and honestly feel that I can.
We go upstairs and have some makeup sex, after which he starts snoring so loudly that I have trouble falling asleep.
On Tuesday, I sleep late and don’t get to the gallery until eleven. I walk into my office, get a pen, and start filling out the application for a Florida teaching license. When I finish, I put it right back on the corner of my desk. Tuesday night, I have a nice dinner with Jalena and Tia at the Blue Oyster. Wednesday, I make a casserole to take to the conference room, and Thursday, I stop by Bee Bop’s Burgers and Shakes on my way to Girls Night In.
When I get to the gallery, I go inside and turn on all the lights. At just after seven, Jalena comes in with a bag from Bee Bop’s as well. We’re laughing about that when Tia comes in, and she’s carrying a Bee Bop’s bag, too.
“We should’ve just met at one of the picnic tables at the drive-in,” Jalena says as Olivia comes through the door with a bag from Bueno Burrito. “Oddball!” Jalena calls out.
“What are you talking about?” Olivia says, looking at our bags. “What can I say? I think outside the bun.”
I text Avery to see if we need to wait on her, and she says she’s on her way, but she’s already had dinner, so we dig into our fast-food bags and we’re almost finished by the time she arrives. At this point, Jalena points out that we don’t have any alcohol, and then we collectively decide that staying sober will be just fine. We leave the break room and settle into the couches, where Jalena wastes no time cranking out tales about Bugtussle.
“I’m so happy for you!” Tia exclaims.
“I’m happy, too, but I’m afraid she’s gonna move up there if she gets the chance,” Olivia says.
“I can tell you right now that I will,” Jalena says, smiling.
“It’s all so bittersweet!” Avery says.
“Well, how’s your love life going?” I ask Avery.
“It’s great,” she says with a smile. “Rob actually met my parents last weekend and, wow, did they ever love him.”
“Even though he’s an artist?” I ask.
“Oh, they love that he’s an artist,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know what got into them!”
“Seein’ their baby girl happy, that’s what,” Olivia says, and Tia agrees.
“Well, that is great!” Jalena proclaims. “So who’s going to the Halloween Festival next weekend?”
Everyone, apparently, so we start discussing costumes, festivities, and the best and worst Halloween decorations we’ve seen so far this year. At nine o’clock the conversation winds down, and fifteen minutes later, I’m on my way home.
50
Friday, I take Buster Loo out for a long walk on the sidewalk by the sea. When I get home, I shower, fix my hair, and put on some nice clothes. Buster Loo shows no interest in leaving the house, so I take off and get to the gallery thirty minutes early.
I go upstairs to my studio, get out my brushes, and paint a large portrait of Buster Loo sitting on a sand dune with the ocean in the background. When I finish, I go downstairs and stare at the Florida teaching-license application.
“I have got to make a decision,” I say aloud.
Just after lunch, a few people come in and look around, but no one buys anything. I leave the gallery a few minutes after three and find Buster Loo snoozing in his doggie bed. I change clothes and decide to take a walk on the beach.
The white sand is warm, but the water is cloudy and way colder than I expected. It takes a minute for me to get used to it, but when I do, I wade out knee-deep. I stand there and think about what Jalena said about feeling like she belonged on that farm with Ethan Allen. I wish I could feel that way about Mason, but I guess when you hang on to the same person for almost twenty years, that fanciful newness becomes a permanent fixture in a distant past. I tell myself that there has to be an upside to that somehow. There has to be some reward for “hanging in there” and “making it work.”
I wade out of the water, sit down on the sand, and wish that life could be a little less complicated. After a while, I get up and walk slowly back to the house. When I open the gate to the backyard, Buster Loo leaps out the doggie door and starts going nuts. A second later, the patio door opens and Mason steps out onto the back porch.
“You’re home early,” I say, genuinely glad to see him.
“I got you something,” he says, smiling. He holds up a white envelope.
“What is that?”
“Two tickets to Key West,” he says. “Are you interested?”
“Hellz yes!” I say.
“Well, go get packed. We leave in two hours,” he says.
“What about Buster Loo?”
“I’ve got that taken care of,” he says. “Allison agreed to dog-sit.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I say. “You know how he likes to hump soft things, and from what Allison says, she keeps PoP
o all primped up and fuzzy.”
“I warned Connor about that,” he says, laughing. “They’ll be here in thirty minutes to get him.”
“Oh, Buster Loo,” I say, picking him up. “I’m going to miss you so much. Please don’t make PoPo your girlfriend while we’re gone.” He starts wiggling and squirming, so I put him down and he takes off and starts running around in circles in the yard.
“See?” Mason says. “He’s excited.” He hands me a ticket and I see that we’re flying back on Monday. I look up at him.
“I’m all yours until Tuesday, baby,” he says, giving me a hug, and I am literally so happy I could cry.
Three hours later, Mason and I are sitting on a tiny plane bound for the Florida Keys. It’s almost midnight when we check into our cottage on Sunset Key, and I’m too excited to sleep, so we take a late-night stroll on the beach. When the sun comes up the next morning, I walk outside and can hardly believe my eyes.
“Mason!” I say when he joins me on the patio. “This place is so beautiful it doesn’t even look real.”
“I know. Isn’t it great?” he says, smiling. “Let’s go grab some coffee and track down breakfast.”
I have the time of my life hanging out with him all day on Saturday. Then at breakfast on Sunday, he puts down the newspaper and tells me that there’s something he wants to talk about. I start smiling because I think he’s going ask me what I think about something he just read, but he doesn’t.
He tells me that he wants me to think about apologizing to Lenore Kennashaw.
This leads to an argument, which leads to us spending the remainder of the day on different sides of the resort, which leads me to think that if two people can’t enjoy being together in Key West, Florida, then hell, what’s the point? We hardly speak during dinner, and the trip home on Monday is more of the same. After unloading the Escalade, Mason leaves without saying a word and comes back an hour later with Buster Loo, who is the only one in the house displaying any remote semblance of happiness.
Happily Ever Madder : Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (9781101607107) Page 28