Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (15 page)

27

W
ednesday, I wake up in a bad mood and take Buster Loo for a walk down by the beach, hoping the fresh ocean air will lift my spirits, and I’m sorely disappointed when it doesn’t. I reluctantly get ready for work, then decide to leave Buster Loo at home today because, come hell or high water, I’m leaving that gallery at five and coming straight back to the house. I grab a Sprite out of the fridge and the whole bottle of Midol from the cabinet and head out the door.

I haven’t been in the gallery five minutes when the doorbell buzzes and I turn around to see Lenore Kennashaw and Sylvie Best.

“Where’s Ramona?” I ask.

“She had better things to do,” Lenore snaps.

“Too bad you didn’t,” I mutter, because I’ve got cramps and PMS and I’m not in the mood. Forget the covert ops and veiled insults. Today I might just kick that bitch in the face and be done with it.

“What was that?” she asks with a snip in her voice, and Sylvie stiffens up like we’re about to have a fistfight.

“What was what?” I say, walking around behind the counter, making her turn to face me.
Be nice, be nice, be nice
.
Or at least keep your smart mouth shut.

“I just stopped by to let you know that your application was reviewed, but you were not selected to be a featured artist for the West Florida Festival of the Arts.” She looks around the gallery with disdain, and even though that makes me furious, I just stand, stunned by what she just said. “Your work was found to be uninspiring, unoriginal, and lacking in talent compared to the other submissions.” She smiles at me and winks, and the black dog is tearing my brain out of my skull. With all my might, I summon the white dog.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, and then massive disappointment overpowers the rage, and before I even think about it, I blurt out, “I’ve been wanting be in that festival since I was in college.” The look of victory on her face makes me sick at my stomach, but I just stand there, defeated. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Of course not,” she says with a sneer and turns to leave.

Sylvie follows her to the door, then stops and looks back at me. “By the way,” she says, “how’s business?”

“Pretty slow,” I say, resisting the urge to walk over there and literally kick them out the door.

“Pity,” Sylvie says with a smirk, and she and Lenore walk out the door and get in Lenore’s silver Mercedes.

I go back to my office, slump down at the desk, and play solitaire until I’m bored out of my mind. Then I get my wedding notebook off the shelf next to my desk and carefully place it in front of me.

“So fucking what?” I say to myself. “I’m happy. I’m planning a New Year’s Eve wedding to the man of my dreams. So fucking what if I don’t get to be in that fucking art festival?”

I dig the Crown Royal out of my bottom desk drawer and look up the number for a pizza delivery. I go sit in the break room and drink Crown and Coke until the pizza arrives, then eat half of a mediocre-tasting large, after which I put my head down and squall for an hour. I go to the restroom, wash my face, give myself a pep talk, and walk back to my desk. I look down at the wedding notebook and sigh. Then I flip it open and start surfing the Web.

Wedding checklists, cake ideas, decorating projects—I print off everything I can find. I get a file box, fill it with hanging folders, and write
WEDDING
on the side. I make a to-do list and write out a schedule of when to get the to-do list done and then rewrite it all so I can read it. Then I organize and reorganize all of my wedding-planning paraphernalia, and that keeps me busy until Avery comes in at one. She’s got vegetarian pizza from some bagel shop, and while I’m trying to choke down a piece of that, I can’t help but think that the people who own Pier Six back in Bugtussle could make a million dollars if they opened a store down here in Pelican Cove.

“What happened?” Avery asks. “And don’t say nothing, because I can sense that something is very wrong.”

“Nothing,” I lie. “Having a bad Wednesday.”

She gives me a skeptical look. “Let me know if you want to talk about
nothing
,” she says and leaves the office.

“Thanks for the pizza,” I call after her.

“Anytime!”

I continue with my flurry of wedding planning. A few people come in late in the afternoon and don’t buy anything, but I’m already so depressed that I don’t even care. I go back into my office and look through my collection of wedding material again, pleased with the progress I’ve made, but all the happy thoughts in the world can’t shake the sadness and disappointment I feel about not being selected to participate in that art festival. The fact that Lenore Kennashaw took the time to drive over and tell me in person makes it that much worse. And why did this have to happen today, when I already felt like shit before she even walked in the door?

I wander out into the gallery and plop down behind the counter. I gaze at each individual painting and tell myself that I’m a great artist regardless of what any selection board thinks about my work. I try to rationalize the situation in order to drag my confidence up out of the dirt, but I can’t. I sit and think for a long time, then realize there’s something gnawing at my soul besides the fact that my rejection was delivered in such a shocking manner by such a dreadful person.

It takes me a while, but I finally figure it out. Deep down, I’m disappointed in myself for not unleashing the fury on Lenore Kennashaw and Sylvie Best, because they had no right to come into my art gallery today and treat me like a patsy idiot. Come to think of it, Lenore Kennashaw had no business waltzing up to me at
my
grand opening and creating an opportunity to insult me
and
one of my favorite paintings. And Sylvie Best certainly had no right to talk to me like she did the first time she came in here,
especially
after I had
just
donated two of my prized paintings for their stupid fund-raiser. And then Lenore came back in here last week just to terrorize me about my fat-ass mermaid and whorehouse picture? That’s ridiculous.

What really bothers me is the realization that I’ve been keeping my mouth shut, not because of my commitment to being a nicer person, but because of their threats. Lenore Kennashaw and Sylvie Best are nothing but bullies who expect people to step back and be nice while they run over everyone like a freight train.

When I moved down here, I really did want to start over and be a nicer person, but nowhere in that plan was a tolerance for bullies.
Be nice
. Some asshole probably came up with that concept to keep the dignified people out of their way. But I’m not dignified. And, try as I may, I’m not nice. I’m a fat girl with a bad temper, and no amount of wedding planning, painting, or pretending is going to change that.

So I’m throwing in the towel on the
be nice
campaign because the only people it’s hard to be nice to are the ones who are assholes anyway, and they don’t deserve the courtesy. From here on out, if Lenore Kennashaw and Sylvie Best want to pick a fight with me, they damn well better have their gloves laced up. Consequences be damned, I’m done with tolerating the two of them. I know that’s not what Jesus would do and I hope he can forgive me for this, but I can’t be nice anymore, because it’s driving me crazier than I already am.

“Ace,” I hear. “Are you okay?”

Avery is waving a hand in front of my face.

“Avery!” I say, snapping out of it. “I’m sorry. I went into some kind of rage coma there for a minute.” Avery starts laughing. She hands me her phone and I watch myself, staring off into space, mumbling and gritting my teeth, my face getting red.

“I thought I’d better stop you before you turned green and ripped off your shirt,” she says, laughing. “Don’t worry.” She taps the screen of her phone. “It’s deleted.”

“You keep that phone handy, because the next time Lenore Kennashaw and Sylvie Best come in here, you might have to call 911.”

“Okay, what’s going on?” Avery asks, taking a seat in one of the chairs opposite my desk.

I fill her in on Mrs. Kennashaw dropping by, and Avery—sweet, tree-hugging, yoga-practicing Avery—completely loses her cool.

“Avery, really, I think you need to calm down,” I tell her, but she’s not listening. “Why don’t you do, I don’t know, a downward-facing dog or something?”

She continues her tirade, and I realize this is the first time I’ve ever seen Avery angry. And I don’t know if she’s really getting
that
loud or if it just seems that way because up until today, I’ve only heard her speak just above a whisper. Finally, I say, “I’m okay, Avery. I’m not three years old and this certainly isn’t the first big disappointment that life has handed me. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. Let’s just move on.”

“Oh no, we’re not moving on! You can sit there all day long and tell me everything is okay, but we both know it’s not. We both know this is not right.” She starts drumming her aqua blue nails on the arm of her chair. “This is what was bothering you when I came in today, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Avery, and I appreciate your concern—”

“You should call them,” she says.

“Call who?”

“I don’t know.” She picks up her phone. “Whoever is in charge of submissions. You should call and tell them something like, I don’t know, you just found out you weren’t selected, but wanted to thank them for the chance to apply.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“If you don’t, then I will.”

“Go ahead,” I tell her. “It’s not going to make any difference.”

And so she does.

After fiddling with her phone for a few minutes, she puts it up to her ear.

“Yes, ma’am, this is Graciela Jones,” Avery says, speaking very slowly in a mock Southern accent that cracks me up. “And I jus’ wanted to thank y’all for allowin’ me the opportunity to apply to y’all’s art festival. I’m real sorry I didn’t get picked, but I just wanted to tell y’all how much I appreciate gettin’ a shot at it.” I cover my mouth to keep from laughing, and Avery puts the phone down on her shoulder and hisses, “Stop it!” She picks up phone and says, “Why, yes, ma’am, I can hold,” she looks at me and smiles.

“I do
not
sound like that!” I tell her.

“Yes, you do,” she whispers. I shake my head, and then she gets back to being me. “What? Yes, I did apply for this year’s festival.” Her eyes light up and she says. “Oh, really? So what you’re sayin’ is that whoever told me I wasn’t picked for the festival was tellin’ me a lie?”

I stop sniggering and sit and stare at Avery.

“Who told me that? Well it was Lenore Kennashaw, that’s who it was, and she wasn’t very nice about it, either.”

“And Sylvie Best,” I whisper.

“And Sylvie Best.” She pauses. “Okay, my application number, well let me look that up here right fast.”

I shake my head at her atrocious Southern dialect while I look up the application number online. I scribble it on a notepad and slide it across the desk.

“Five-five-four-three-three-six-seven.” Another pause. “Why, no, ma’am, I did not withdraw and/or cancel my application. Can you please look and see who did? You can’t tell me? Well, why not?” A pause. “Privacy protection?” Avery scowls at me. “But, ma’am, you ain’t runnin’ no doctor’s office, and this is
my
application we’re talking about here.”

Avery carries on for a few minutes and says, “Well, can I reinstate it?” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “Well, why not? I didn’t want it canceled to begin with!” She loses her grip on that faux country twang but quickly recovers and gets back to rolling her vowels out long and flat. “Did my fee get refunded?” I shrug my shoulder because I don’t know. “I don’t know.” She pauses a beat and says, “Did you refund it to me?” Another pause. “Well, if you didn’t then I guess I didn’t get a refund, now, did I?”

I shake my head, thinking that if I wasn’t already out of the running, they would certainly disqualify me now for being so redneckish and rude. She wraps up her hillbilly dialect and then places her phone in her lap. I can see she’s upset, so I try to make light of the situation.

“Avery,” I say, “you think I sound like that. Really?”

“What? I watched
The Beverly Hillbillies
when I was a kid.”

I start laughing and tell her she deserves an Oscar for that performance, insulting though it was. She finally cracks a smile and we discuss what was said, and she tells me that my application was marked as a cancellation, but they wouldn’t tell her who did it.

“Well, we know who did it or had it done or whatever, so that’s fine.”

“I’m so sorry, Ace. The judging is over, but they haven’t started the official notification process yet.” She looks at me. “Lenore knew exactly when to come in here and tell you this. She had to know it would be too late for you to do anything about it.” She sighs. “That lame-ass lady on the phone said that Lenore and Sylvie’s misconduct would be ‘duly noted.’”

“I’m sure it won’t be, but who cares?” I say, even though I really do. “Avery, it does make me feel a lot better to know that my submission wasn’t even judged. I mean, that’s way better than sitting here thinking they didn’t think it was good enough.”