Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat
Page 41
I met my husband in 2002 and we married in 2005. Five years later we had a beautiful daughter. The psychic may have been right about a lot, but she was totally off when she said I’d never have a family. Right now, I’m a stay at home mom trying to make it as a writer. I’ve still never been drunk and I often relapse into frump and find myself in cardigans.
Evan and I never spoke or emailed or anything again, though once, right after I quit the Kittikat, I made the grave error of calling my old number again. A strange woman answered. She sounded old and I asked if she was Keisha. She said she was Evan’s mother-in-law and the grandmother of his child. In just a year after breaking up with me, he’d married and had a baby. It took me a long time to reconcile that and maybe I still haven’t. I occasionally google him or look him up on Facebook, but I’ve never found anything much. He sold my house and moved to the suburbs and as far as I can tell, he and Keisha are still married. I don’t wish them well. Sorry, I’m not Adele over here.
Rachel and I haven’t spoken in years either. Her sister and I are Facebook friends and apparently Rachel and her husband are adherents to a cult-like religion which seeks to bring back the Puritans’ way of life. Rachel wears long dresses and head coverings now and believes that music is evil. I tried to contact her and then gave up. We’re just too different, but that saddens me because once, she really was my best friend.
Once in a while I’ll talk to Merle and Merrilee, my old neighbors. They’re still in my old Atlanta ’hood and they’re Quiverfulls, giving the Duggars some competition. I think they have eight kids at last count and they had to buy a used bus to drive the family around. God bless them.
The kitten I found in the parking lot has been my faithful companion for well over a decade now. She’s still going strong and catching lizards. I love that cat. I love her for coming to me when I most needed something to love.
I’m also pleased to tell you that I no longer receive calls from the freak who played Meatloaf songs. This has been an enormous relief.
I suppose you’re wondering if I ever became a teacher. Eventually, I did, but it took me a while and several more adventures before I made it to the front of the classroom. I graduated quickly from community college and went on to a large, state university where I stayed through grad school. During my college years, I had to break down and get another job, a real job I thought, to support myself. It was an office job in the homeowner’s association of one of the largest and most prestigious country clubs in Palm Beach County, a place where the lawns were wide and the minds were narrow, but that, my friends, is a whole nother book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Fedden received her MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University in 2009. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her husband Mark, daughter Millie and the cat she found in the strip club parking lot. She writes the blog “Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds” which can be found at www.widelawns.com. Connect with Victoria on facebook or email her at vcf@victoriafedden.com. Victoria is currently working on her second memoir, an exploration of her relationship with her mother, as well as a collection of essays recounting a series of holiday disasters which have befallen her and her family.
Table of Contents
SONG ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
SONG TWO
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
SONG THREE
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
The Denouement
ABOUT THE AUTHOR