Fool That I Am
Authors: Paulette Oakes
Fool that i am
PAULETTE OAKES
COPYRIGHT © 2013 PAULETTE OAKES
COPYEDITED BY DEIDRE DAY
COVER ART BY STEVEN J CATIZONE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE
REPRODUCED, IN PART OR IN FULL, WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE
PUBLISHER/AUTHOR, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A
REVIEW.
ALL CHARACTERS APPEARING IN THIS WORK ARE FICTITIOUS.
ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. IF YOU
THINK YOU SEE YOURSELF IN ONE OF MY CHARACTERS, PLEASE UNDERTAND THAT IS A
PERSONAL PROBLEM OF YOURS, NOT MINE.
NOTES, DEDICATION, AND THANKS
I want to dedicate this book
to all the women who have suffered through disastrous divorces, bothersome
break-ups, heart-wrenching heartbreak, or too many Mr. Wrongs. Raise your
standards, learn to love yourself, and NEVER give up. I don’t know if there is
such a thing as Mr. Right, but there are many Mr. Will Dos just waiting for you
to come along. And if you’re lucky, you may just find Mr. Best Friend That
Loves You.
I also want to dedicate this
to my three daughters. Love is a complicated, messy, wonderful, and painful
part of life. Don’t get caught up in the myth of “soul mates” or “true love.”
Real love takes hard work, dedication, effort, and a lot of compromise. You may
get it wrong a time or two, but never give up on finding someone who will make
you laugh, take your side, overlook your annoying quirks, and will still think
you’re beautiful even when you wear granny panties. And if all else fails, just
remember that NO ONE will ever love you like your Momma.
And for MY Momma. Just
because I love you.
NETWORKS AND OTHER BOOKS
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OTHER BOOKS BY PAULETTE OAKES
THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EDEN
AMARA, INTERRUPTED
ONE
No matter how many times she tried, the numbers just
wouldn’t add up. Running her hands through her long, shiny brunette hair, she
flipped through the stack of bills and double-checked her figures. Maybe if she
skipped a payment on the hospital bill this month, deferred a car payment, and
got an extension on her cell phone bill, she might be able to make it work. She
reworked the figures again and felt marginally better about the outcome. If all
the details fell into place, she could pay the electric bill, mortgage, car
insurance, daycare, and still have about $100 left for groceries and gas. If
she was very careful, at which she had plenty of practice, she should be able
to make it to the next payday in two weeks.
With a grim finality, Billie Jean Hardesty slammed closed
the zippered notebook she used to record, store, and budget her monthly bills
and pushed her chair back from the scarred oak kitchen table. She sighed
heavily and her shoulders slumped as she absently retrieved the Minnie Mouse
sippy cup from the floor under the table and took it to the sink to rinse out
the dregs of chocolate milk before it could curdle. Her mind raced and worried
and brainstormed on how to raise more money in order to alleviate the stress of
mounting bills and less income.
Being a single mom of two awesome kids, Billie knew that she
had to do
something
in order to make ends meet, especially since she was
laid off from her job working in a large real estate office that went belly up
after years of recession caused them to file for bankruptcy. She had been
making a good salary there as office manager, even without having a college
degree, because her competence and efficiency had impressed the owner.
Unfortunately, real-life experience didn’t count for much without the degree behind
it, so she had been forced to take a position as a receptionist in a doctor’s
office for half the pay. She enjoyed the work and loved the people and patients
she worked with every day, but the cut in pay had been a serious blow to her
finances.
“Mommy?” a small, childish voice called from the kitchen
doorway. “I can’t sleep. There’s bad guys in my closet. We need the spray!”
A weary smile lifted the corners of Billie’s face, even as
she silently cursed her ex-husband in her head. Turning off the faucet, she
turned to survey the sweet face of her four-year-old daughter, Lola. She was
dressed in an old Spiderman Halloween costume of her brother’s and there was a
dried smudge of ketchup on her cheek. Her short, blonde curls stuck up in
disarray around her head like a disreputable angel’s halo and a ratty pink
blankie with ripped satin trim trailed from her left hand.
Billie quelled the urge to scoop her up and kiss her face
until it was raw and replied, “Okay, I’ll grab the Bad Guy Spray and we’ll
chase them away. But I promise that there’s no way that a bad guy would dare
hide in the closet of Spiderman. That’s what Bubby says and he knows about
these things.”
Giving her a disbelieving look, Lola responded, “Mommy, you
are so silly. I am not a Spiderman. I’m a Spidergirl!” With that record set
straight, she turned and flounced down the hall toward her bedroom.
Billie chuckled lightly to herself and grabbed the bottle of
fabric freshener spray off the top of the fridge. It had been decorated and
colored to proclaim “Bad Guys B Gone!” and it had worked like a charm to
convince the little girl that it kept bad guys out of her closet. Ever since
her ex-husband, Chad Hardesty, had taken the two kids to see the latest
superhero flick, Lola had been terrified of “bad guys.” She had crashed in
Billie’s bed for two weeks until the tired mom had searched the internet to
find solutions and stumbled upon this idea. It had worked like a charm with the
bonus side effect of fresher-smelling clothes for Lola.
Leaving behind all thought of finances and bills, Billie
followed her feisty progeny down the short hall to her bedroom. Even though her
rent house was small, it still contained three modest bedrooms and two baths
with a charmingly petite backyard complete with a privacy fence, concrete back
porch, and a discount swing set. It even had a tree big enough for her
eleven-year-old son, Derrick, to climb. She was lucky to have found a rental
house within her budget, even in a small town like Rineyville, Kentucky. Since the
town was adjacent to Elizabethtown and just ten miles down the road from Ft.
Knox, it was difficult to find affordable rentals that weren’t sandwiched into
a building with a hundred other apartments. Besides, the elementary school was
excellent and the quiet and privacy more than made up for the extra money she
had to pay.
She slipped into the little girl’s room and made her way to
the cramped closet that glowed softly through the slats of the wooden door.
Pulling open the door, Billie made a big show of peering through the hanging
clothes, peeking into the corners, and spraying the lavender-scented spray
several times into the closet. The round, adhesive-backed lights that she had
purchased at the dollar store dotted the walls and illuminated the recesses
valiantly, even if they only lasted for a few short weeks before going dark.
Stepping back into the pale pink room, Billie turned to face
the worried little girl huddling under the Tinkerbell comforter on the twin
bed. “Okay, doodlebug, no bad guys in your closet! Time for all superheroes to
go to sleep.”
“Do under my bed, too, Mommy!” Lola insisted, pointing
demandingly toward the floor. Obligingly, Billie closed the gap between them
and spritzed several times under the bed until her little angel was appeased
and lay back down on her pillow. Billie kissed her baby’s cheek, breathed in
the smell of strawberry shampoo, and tucked her in tight before turning out the
light and making her way to the next bedroom.
The sound of deep breathing greeting her ears as Billie made
her way toward the twin bed where her son had fallen asleep reading a book.
Very carefully, she slid the battered copy of
Harry Potter and the Goblet of
Fire
out of his fingers, marked his place with folded piece of paper, and
placed it on the bedside table next to his glasses where he would see it when
he woke up. Tenderly, she brushed a lock of light brown hair away from face and
leaned down to kiss him while she could get away with it. At the manly age of
eleven, he thought he was too old for Mom to kiss and hug him, but she was able
to get her fill when he was sleeping soundly. While she was bending that close
to him, she rested her ear on his chest to listen to him breathe. No wheezing,
thank God. After the terrifying four-day stay in the hospital two months ago,
she had been even more diligent than usual in monitoring his asthma. Satisfied
that he was breathing normally, she turned off his lamp, and dodged dirty
clothes, plastic video game cases, and tennis shoes until she made it safely back
to the hall.
Even though it had already been done once, Billie made the
rounds again to ensure that all the doors were locked, windows latched, and
strategically-placed lights were still glowing softly. Finally, she made her
way back to her own room where she could perform her nightly beauty ritual and
slide into bed.
Staring into the mirror that hung above the sink in her
bathroom, Billie studied her face carefully for signs of aging. Even though she
had just turned thirty years old and looked like she was still in her twenties,
she felt like an old woman most of the time. Most people thought she was
beautiful, but Billie didn’t believe the good press. Years of listening to Chad
belittle her and critique her for every aspect of her appearance had taken its
toll on her self-image and it was hard to see what others saw when they looked
at her. Her body was lush and curvy in all the right places with a narrow waist
line, full hips, bountiful breasts, and a stomach that was only softly rounded
even after two kids. Her skin was creamy and smooth with only the faintest of
worry lines forming at the corners of her arrestingly pale green eyes. Her
hair, by far her favorite feature, was thick, wavy, and deep brunette. It hung
in layers to kiss the bottom of her shoulder blades.
She rushed through her routine quickly by washing her face
and brushing her teeth before wandering back into her bedroom to change into a
lightweight nightshirt. Even though it was only 10 pm on a Sunday night, Billie
was exhausted and just wanted to lie in bed and read a few chapters of a book
before falling asleep. However, after reading the same paragraph over and over
without absorbing a word, she finally gave up and turned off the light.
Even though her body was weary, her mind continued to labor
with worry about where she was going to get the extra money she needed to keep
her little family afloat. Since Chad worked at his uncle’s windshield glass
repair shop for cash, he only had to pay her $250 a month for both kids. Even
getting that paltry sum out of him was like pulling teeth and definitely
nothing she could rely on to pay her bills. She had sold everything she could
in yard sales, on Craigslist, and at the pawn shops until she was down to the
bare bones in her home. Her Mom and Dad helped her when she needed it, but she
loathed having to ask them for money. Not because they made her feel bad about
it, but because she made herself feel bad about it. As a grown woman, Billie
felt like it was her responsibility to support herself and her children without
having to rely on help from her parents.
Then there was Sam. Just the thought of him made Billie’s
heart squeeze with longing. Sam Garrett was a tall, broad-shouldered, gentle
giant of a man with laughing blue eyes, strong arms, and long, thick legs
topped off with a perfect behind that made many a grown woman cry. Chad and Sam
had been best friends since third grade, so it was only natural that they all
became thick as thieves when she and Chad had started dating during their sophomore
year in high school. Sam, naturally, had stayed in their lives and was at their
house more often than his own over the years. Much to her amusement, her
children even called him “Uncle Sam”. Over the years, her friendship with Sam
had solidified while her marriage to Chad crumbled. During and after the
acrimonious divorce, Sam had refused to take sides and still spent time with
both of them. It was a delicate balance, but he made it work.
In her secret heart of hearts, Billie knew that she had
started falling in love with Sam years before her divorce, even though she had
refused to acknowledge it for a long time. Her love for Chad had died a little
more each time he had received a secret phone call, mysterious texts, and
unexplained absences from the home. She knew he had been having affairs, but
stubbornly held on and held out for that elusive American dream that she had
been promised by books all her life. She had refused to admit that she had
failed until shortly after Lola’s birth when Chad’s apathy and indifference to
the birth of their surprise daughter killed the last spark of affection for him
in her heart.
But Sam had always been there. He was there for her
when Chad “forgot” to show up for the ultrasound and gave her hand a sweet kiss
when she found out it was a girl. Sam laughed good-naturedly when Lola spit up
on his shoulder or drooled all over his shirt. When Chad was too busy to pick
Derrick up from academic team practice, Sam dropped everything to go get him
and run him through McDonald’s for a burger and milkshake. And, he was there
for Billie, too. He was the first one to show up to help move boxes and
furniture in his truck to Billie’s rental house when she and Chad split and he
insisted on installing better deadbolts and motion-sensor lights. Boxes of
diapers had mysteriously appeared on her doorstep, her gas tank would go from
empty one night to full the next morning, and her landlord would call to
thank her for paying her rent in advance even though she never wrote a check.
Nothing she said would ever deter him from helping her.
Even after three years of being single, she still had yet to
date anyone seriously. Regardless of whom they were or how great they seemed,
they were all found wanting when weighed in the balance against Sam. Every man
paled in comparison to her friend. On the few occasions that she had slept with
someone, she pictured Sam’s face in her mind and wished it was him. Billie was
caught in a hell of her own making; she was in love with a man she could never
have. His kindness and generosity never even hinted at anything more than
friendship and she knew he would never betray his friend by taking up with his
ex-wife, even if he were interested.
So she settled for what she could have: fantasies.
Elaborate, sexy, and naughty fantasies starring her and Sam…and sometimes
handcuffs. It was the only thing that seemed to take her mind off her problems.
Every night, she fell asleep thinking about him and longing for someone she
could never have and each morning she woke up knowing she would make it on her
own.