Hot Wheels and High Heels

by Jane Graves

  “Temporary insanity. Why did you cash it all in for a return trip to Wal-Mart?”

  She gave him a chastising look. “John. How else am I supposed to teach you the value of a dollar?”

  She turned and walked back to her desk, and John felt something shift inside him, and suddenly he was filled with a new kind of awareness he hadn’t expected. She’s more than you thought she was. A whole lot more.

  “Oh,” she said. “I almost forgot.”

  She pulled something from a small sack on her desk and tossed it to him. He caught it on the fly.

  A package of weed eater line?

  Darcy met his gaze for a moment, cracked a tiny smile, then sat down at her desk to get to work.

  John knew the moment she found another rich man, she’d be back to her old habits again, dressing in outrageously priced clothes. But just for now . . .

  She would have looked like a million bucks in those clothes from Amaryllis, but somehow, in the clothes from Wal-Mart, she looked like a million and one.

  When Darcy had worn expensive clothes and her hair had been just the right color, all John had ever done was grump at her. Now that she was wearing cheap clothes and had hair only Morticia Adams could love, he seemed pleased. She wasn’t sure she understood that completely, but she could tell that her second trip to Wal-Mart had changed the way John looked at her, and she was surprised at how good that made her feel.

  Tony showed up about eight-thirty, coasting by with his usual grin and cheery “Good morning.” He went to his desk, took out his phone, and had a hush-hush conversation with a person who was clearly of the opposite sex. Tony was one of those men a woman couldn’t help liking, and Darcy could only imagine how many broken hearts he’d left in his wake.

  Amy arrived next and complimented Darcy on her new clothes, because that was what nice women did whether they liked what you were wearing or not. Then her gaze drifted up to Darcy’s hair, and a look of distress came over her face.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she whispered. “What happened?”

  Darcy closed her eyes. “Is it that obvious? I thought since John and Tony didn’t say anything, maybe it didn’t look so bad.”

  “Men are oblivious. Did the color kick in a little too much?”

  “A little? I look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.”

  “Did you try to do something about it?”

  “I can’t afford to have somebody fix it.”

  Amy smiled. “Don’t worry. I know how to fix it.”

  Darcy brightened. “You do? How?”

  “Last year I dyed my hair auburn. Or, at least, I thought it was going to be auburn. I ended up looking like Raggedy Ann. So I got on the Internet and found some stuff that’ll lift out permanent color. I still have some left.”

  “So it really works?”

  “Like a charm.”

  “Can you bring it in tomorrow?”

  “Sweetie, this is a crisis. Come home with me at lunch. We’ll fix it today.”

  When noontime came, Darcy and Amy dropped by Taco Hut to pick up some burritos, then went to Amy’s apartment. It was a small one-bedroom, but it was in a nice complex near the mall with a fountain out front, a clubhouse, and a nice swimming pool. A few months ago, Darcy would have thought it was painfully modest. Given where she was living now, it felt like heaven on earth.

  True to Amy’s word, the stuff to fix Darcy’s hair worked. After only five minutes, it lifted out most of the color she’d put on, but the gray was still mostly masked. It was still darker than her natural color, but at least she no longer looked like a creature of the night.

  “Your hair must pick up color really easily,” Amy told her. “Next time get a lighter shade and don’t leave it on so long.”

  Darcy nodded. Lesson learned. Now that she knew of something that would fix any goofs she happened to make, she wasn’t so afraid of doing her hair herself.

  With the hair-color crisis averted, they reheated the burritos and sat down to eat. Darcy wouldn’t ever have thought it, but she really enjoyed being with Amy. She was smart and cute and down-to-earth, one of those sunshiny women for whom the glass was always half full. When Darcy thought about how few people in her life fit that description, she realized how much she’d been missing. Carolyn was meek and neurotic, and the rest of the women she knew were either sarcastic or conceited, sometimes both at the same time.

  “Work has been interesting today,” Amy said.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Something’s different between you and John.”

  At that out-of-the-blue statement, Darcy’s heart skipped. “What makes you say that?”

  “You weren’t sniping at each other this morning.”

  “We weren’t? Oh. Well, I’ll have to make a concerted effort to be more sarcastic this afternoon. It is part of my job description.”

  “It’s part of John’s, too, but he sure is falling down on the job. When you gave him the morning report, he actually smiled at you.”

  “Did he? I must have blinked and missed it.”

  “He watches you all the time, you know.”

  Darcy rolled her eyes. “I know. Tony’s the same way. A woman walks by, and their eyes follow. It’s a man thing.”

  “Nope. There’s more to it than that.”

  “Amy? What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing, really. I’ve just never seen my brother act this way around a woman. John’s very methodical. His eyes don’t generally go wandering around of their own accord. But lately they’ve had a life all their own.” She paused. “So have yours.”

  “Amy!”

  “Okay, okay. So don’t tell me what’s going on. I’ll get the scoop from John.”

  “John won’t tell you a thing.”

  “So there’s something to tell?”

  “No!” Darcy huffed with irritation. “Tell me the truth. Have you ever seen two people more wrong for each other than John and me?”

  “It sure does look that way, doesn’t it? But sometimes two wrongs do make a right.”

  No. They were oil and water. Fire and ice. Night and day. Immovable object and irresistible force. Two vastly different people who would only end up making each other miserable.

  Wouldn’t they?

  Yes. Of course they would. And there was nothing more to be said about it.

  As they finished lunch, Darcy found herself looking around Amy’s place with an advanced case of apartment envy. She thought about the perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke in her parents’ house that was sending her mother down the road to lung cancer. She thought about the blaring NASCAR races her father watched. She thought about Pepé peeing on the rug and her mother shouting. But most of all, she thought about how living with her parents was a horrible reminder of what she was going to become if she didn’t get out of there, and fast.

  “Do you like living here?” Darcy asked.

  “Yeah,” Amy said. “It’s nice.”

  “How much is a one-bedroom apartment?”

  “Seven hundred a month.”

  Darcy’s hope sank. “That much? How can you afford that?”

  “I saved up money before I quit my full-time job to go back to school. Are you looking for an apartment?”

  “Not at that price.”

  “Don’t worry. This place has a lot of frills. That’s why it’s kinda expensive. You can find an apartment cheaper than this.”

  “How much cheaper?”

  “Depends on where the apartment is.”

  Darcy had a terrible feeling that meant east Plano.

  She had a paycheck coming on Friday. With luck, that along with the money she had left after pawning her wedding ring would probably pay her first month’s rent and a deposit on a modest apartment. Probably an extremely modest apartment. But it didn’t matter. Anything that wasn’t her parents’ house would seem like a dream come true.

  Come Saturday, she was going to find herself a new place to live.

  Chapter 12


  Darcy had no idea how difficult finding an apartment was going to be. She had to immediately strike at least a dozen complexes from consideration because they were just too expensive. Those that were left weren’t exactly beautiful, and even they had standards she was having a hard time living up to. She’d worn some of the clothes from her old life that she’d taken with her to Mexico, trying to look like a woman of means, but to her surprise, her designer clothes and accessories hadn’t impressed a single one of the apartment managers.

  Loreli Apartments pointed out her stunning lack of credit, since not one credit card in fourteen years had been in her name. Woodlawn Village said her lack of employment history was a problem, but after she’d been on the job for six months, they might be able to rent to her. One particularly creepy assistant manager at Forest Villa suggested that if they became very close friends very quickly, maybe he could persuade the manager to overlook the deficits in her application. She informed him that she’d rather sleep in her car than sleep with him, a remark that became even more deliciously scathing when he looked out the window and saw what lovely condition that particular car was in.

  Creekwood Apartments was just about her last hope.

  She drove into the parking lot, wondering where that name had come from. There was no creek, and there were no woods. Creepwood might have made better sense, judging from the people she saw loitering around. Or just plain Crapwood.

  She pulled into a parking space between a red Chevy that had a couple of dented fenders and an ancient Lincoln Continental with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Where, exactly, did one go to buy a pair of those?

  Darcy went into the manager’s office, a dreary place with dollar-store art, fake potted plants, and glaring fluorescent lighting. A large, unpleasant-looking woman sat slumped behind the desk wearing a pair of navy-blue stretch pants and a smock top. Her chair was turned around so she could see the portable television on top of a nearby file cabinet, which was tuned to a Brady Bunch rerun.

  She turned around as Darcy approached.

  “Hello,” Darcy said. “I’m looking for a—”

  Darcy stopped short, stunned into silence. She knew that face. At least, she had twenty years ago.

  Charmin Brubaker?

  No. It couldn’t be. The Charmin she remembered from high school may have been a screaming bitch, but she’d also been bone-thin and knew how to dress. This woman had hair like a Brillo pad, wrinkles like a bloodhound, and a 3X body stuffed inside 2X pants. No way could this be Charmin.

  But it was.

  In the blink of an eye, Darcy was transported back twenty-two years to high school, an era that hadn’t exactly been known for its sweetness and light. Charmin had never liked anyone prettier or more popular than she was, which meant she had really hated Darcy. The bickering and backstabbing escalated over the years to culminate in the ultimate showdown: the race for prom queen their senior year. Darcy had taken great delight in winning that battle then. She only hoped Charmin wasn’t going to take great delight in denying her an apartment now.

  “Why, Charmin!” Darcy said with a bright smile. “It’s been such a long time! Imagine running into you!”

  As soon as recognition registered in Charmin’s eyes, her lip curled into a subtle sneer. “Yeah. Imagine that.”

  Darcy had hoped Charmin’s looks were gone because she had traded them in for a pleasant personality, one that had allowed her to let go of any lingering grudges she happened to be holding on to.

  No such luck.

  Charmin eyed her up and down. “What are you doing here?”

  Darcy wanted to say she’d lost her way in a bad neighborhood and had stopped to ask directions, but the truth was all she had.

  “I’m looking for an apartment.”

  Charmin drew back suspiciously. She knew something was up. And the last thing Darcy wanted was to delve into what that something was.

  “You want to live here?” Charmin said. “Why?”

  “Well . . . why not?”

  There were about a hundred reasons why not, but since Charmin probably lived there herself, she couldn’t voice any of them without admitting she lived in a dump. She sat back in her squeaky chair, steepling her sausagelike fingers together, her eyes flicking to Darcy’s left hand.

  “Heard you married some rich old guy. What happened with that?”

  “We’re no longer together.”

  “Hmm. Too bad. What did you do? Blow the whole settlement?”

  Darcy lifted her chin a notch. “Do you have an apartment available or not?”

  Charmin narrowed her lying eyes. “No.”

  “The sign out front says you do.”

  “I might have one unit left. But it’s only one bedroom.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “It’s by the pool.”

  “Good. I love to sunbathe.”

  “That’s where all the loud parties are.”

  “Not a problem. I like a festive atmosphere.”

  “There’s a registered sex offender in the same building.”

  “I have pepper spray.”

  “Rumor has it the tenants next door are running a meth lab.”

  Darcy drew back. “And you haven’t reported them?”

  Charmin shrugged. “No grounds for a search warrant yet. And they pay their rent on time.”

  Darcy waited for Charmin to add that somebody had been murdered there in a satanic ritual or that the tenant upstairs was a suicidal pyromaniac. Finally, though, she pushed her considerable bulk out of her squeaky chair and grabbed a key from a board on the wall behind her. Darcy followed her out of the office.

  They walked through the complex, Darcy sidestepping cracks in the sidewalk so large they could swallow a small child. And through it all, she could feel the loathing rolling off Charmin like sweat off a prizefighter. But at the heart of it was nothing more than a bad case of envy. She quite simply hated the fact that she had a face full of wrinkles and a butt the size of Wisconsin and her old nemesis didn’t.

  Suddenly a door across the parking lot opened, and a large woman appeared wearing a bright purple peignoir. She had Texas big hair, teased and bleached to within an inch of its life.

  “Charmin!” she shouted. “You gonna get my garbage disposal fixed, or what?”

  “I told you the repairman will be out tomorrow!”

  “That’s what you told me two days ago!”

  “He’ll be there when he gets there!”

  The woman rolled her eyes and slammed her door.

  “Well,” Darcy said, a little horrified, “she seems like an interesting woman. Lovely peignoir.”

  “Evidently she’s working today.”

  “Working?”

  “She’s a massage therapist. How much money she makes depends on what a man wants massaged.”

  “She’s very . . . large.”

  “That’s because Georgette used to be George.”

  A transsexual hooker. Now Darcy had heard it all.

  Charmin turned into the breezeway of one of the buildings, where a pair of broken flower pots sat beside a rusty bicycle.

  Ignore that. They’re outside your apartment, not inside.

  Across the breezeway, Darcy heard a door creak open. Turning, she saw a tall, gangly man wearing a pair of tattered gym shorts and no shirt. He had several days’ growth of beard and probably hadn’t showered in recent memory. A cigarette hung from his lower lip, burned almost down to the filter. He peered through the crack, shifting his eyes back and forth between her and Charmin as if he were following a Ping-Pong match.

  “Nothing to look at here, Bob,” Charmin said curtly. “Go back inside.”

  His eyes moved madly for a few more seconds, then locked onto Darcy’s. She’d seen eyes like those before. On America’s Most Wanted. Finally he shut the door again and locked it.

  “Who was that?” Darcy said.

  “Crazy Bob.”

  “Why do you call him Crazy Bob?”


  “Because he thinks government satellites are reading his mind.”

  “Is he the sex offender?”

  “Nah. He’s a school teacher.”

  School teacher? Well, at least that explained why Johnny couldn’t read. Courtesy of Crazy Bob, though, Johnny could probably spin a hell of a conspiracy theory.

  “I assume he’s harmless?” Darcy asked.

  “Nothing yet,” Charmin said. “But you might want to hang on to that pepper spray until he gets his meds straightened out again.”

  Charmin pushed open the door to apartment 827, and Darcy followed her inside, hoping for the best but ready to accept the worst.

  And there it was. The worst.

  The disinfectant smell in the air said that someone had at least attempted to clean the unit, but lack of a spit-polished sparkle was the least of its problems. The kitchen, just off the short entry hall, had marble-patterned laminate countertops dotted with cigarette burns, and the stainless-steel sink had lost its luster years ago. The appliances looked like the ones they gave away on The Newlywed Game in the 1960s. They were that color they called avocado. They should have called it bile. And she guessed she had a linoleum allergy, because the moment she felt that ugly crap beneath her feet, her eyes teared up.

  “All the appliances come with the unit,” Charmin said. “Even the washer and dryer. You don’t get those every day.”

  And most particularly not ones like these. Dented, dinged, and decrepit.

  They went into the living room to find banged-up woodwork and miniblinds hanging askew. The green carpet was so ratty it looked as if a cat had clawed up a miniature golf course.

  Charmin led her down the hall to another room.

  “Well,” Darcy said, “this is a nice closet.”

  “It’s the bedroom,” Charmin snapped.

  Charmin was sarcasm impaired. Always had been. Darcy had spent four years in high school messing with her mind, during those few times when she could find her mind to mess with it. It had been wonderful recreation back then, but somehow over the years the fun quotient had slipped a little.

  And then there was the bathroom. More ugly linoleum, cigarette burns, and beat-up blinds. Dear God, I can’t live in this place!