Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (2 page)

2

“O
h. Wow. That was some speech,” Lilly says, pressing her lips together like she does when she’s trying not to laugh.

“I don’t even remember what I said,” I tell her. “That was awful!”

“It was pretty awful,” Lilly agrees.

“I meant having to stand up there like that.”

“I meant your speech,” Lilly says, providing everyone, including herself, with the opportunity to laugh off the tension.

Ethan Allen hands me a champagne glass and I take a big swig and almost choke. I don’t know what in the world is in that glass, but it ain’t champagne. Ethan Allen smiles at my reaction.

“Moonshine,” he says. “Thought it might help your nerves.”

“Ethan Allen Harwood!” Lilly says, reaching for the glass. “She needs to be calm”—I take one more swig before she takes the glass out of my hand—“not pissant drunk! We don’t need her dancing on the balcony in her bra and panties.”

“Has that happened before?” Dax Dorsett asks, and I can’t tell if he’s worried or interested.

“Yes,” Lilly says. “As a matter of fact, it has.”

Mason smiles at Ethan Allen. “Leave me a jug of that, would you?”

“No problem, buddy.”

Lilly hands me another glass.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Water,” she says. “Now, let’s go mingle with your potential clientele before they leave here thinking you’re a total nutcase.” She takes my hand and leads me into the crowd.

After Lilly and I meet and greet what seems like six hundred thousand people, I sneak off while she isn’t looking and have a seat on one of the benches. I’m wondering how improper it would be to shed my heels and walk around barefoot when I hear a commotion at the front door.

I look up to see Gloria Peacock, one of my very favorite people from Bugtussle, and her sophisticated senior citizen friends making a grand and glorious entrance. I forget the foot pain and rush over to welcome them.

“Graciela,” Gloria Peacock says, giving me a delicate little-old-lady hug, “How wonderful to see you!” She looks around the place. “Magnificent!” she says, smiling. “It’s positively magnificent!”

“I’m so happy y’all could make it,” I say and exchange hugs with the other three ladies.

“Well,” Daisy McClellan says, straightening her wide-brimmed, feathered hat. “We would’ve been here on time if Birdie hadn’t had that altercation with the police officer who pulled us over for driving the wrong way down a one-way street!”

“Daisy!” Birdie Ross snaps. “I was going where that varmint told me to go!”

“Well,
I
told you that
I
knew exactly where this place was, Birdie. And it’s a
Garmin
, not a
varmint
.” Daisy rolls her eyes. “That GPS is going to get you killed!”

“Or thrown in jail,” Gloria’s friend Temple Williams adds.

“Trust me, ladies,” I say, thankful they missed my babbling fool of a speech, “your timing couldn’t be better!”

Chloe appears with a tray of long-stemmed glasses. “Hello, darling ladies,” she says sweetly. “Could I interest anyone in some champagne?”

“Good holy mother of ginger snaps, yes!” Birdie exclaims, taking two glasses.

I escort Gloria, Daisy, Birdie, and Temple around the gallery, and they ooh and aah over my work to the point I start feeling giddy like I always imagined I would back when having my own art gallery was just a big, fancy dream. We wind through the gallery and back around to where Mason and the others are camped out, and since my psycho nerves are under control, I decide to make a solo venture into the crowd.

Just as I’m getting into my conversational groove, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to face a stout woman who looks to be in her late fifties or early sixties and would best be described as handsome rather than pretty. Her grass green dress is sparkly to the point of being obnoxious and she’s wearing a shimmery gold scarf with a gigantic rhinestone brooch shaped like, of all things, a hammer.

“Miss Jones,” she says with smirk, “I’m Lenore Kennashaw.”

She offers a gloved hand and I can’t tell if she’s snarling or smiling, but I shake her hand and try not to jump to conclusions. I’m committed to turning over a new leaf here in Pelican Cove and being a normal, perhaps even pleasant person. Pretty much the polar opposite of how I conducted myself in Bugtussle.

“That was some speech.”

“Uh, thank you, Mrs. Kennashaw,” I say, cautiously. “I was really nervous.”

“You know, one would think one would better prepare oneself for such a momentous introduction into Pelican Cove society.”

“Yes,” I say and feel my cheeks burning. “Well, this
one
did.” I point to myself. “I actually worked on that speech for three weeks, but I was so nervous you probably couldn’t tell.”

“One couldn’t discern that any effort whatsoever had been invested in that jumbled, incoherent discourse,” she says flatly.

I wonder for a second how she might like
one
of my high heels crammed up her ass. I take a deep breath and focus on staying calm and keeping my cool. I try to remember what Gramma Jones used to say about making nice with my enemies. It had something to do with heaping burning coals on their heads. Lenore Kennashaw stares at me and I stand there and give her a big, phony smile, because I don’t trust myself to open my mouth.

“So,” she says and turns to the painting to her right. “Is this supposed to be some kind of Edward Manet knockoff?”

“I’m sorry, do you mean Claude Monet?” I ask, eyeballing her sparkly hammer brooch. I smile again, thinking of how she might react if I plucked that gaudy thing off her ugly-ass scarf and popped her on the forehead with it.

“I think you’re mispronouncing that, dear. It’s pronounced
mah-
ney, not
moh-
ney.” She gives me a snide look. “If you wish to be taken seriously as an artist in this town, you might want to educate yourself on the correct pronunciation of the masters.”

“I have a bachelor’s degree in art history,” I say, trying and failing to keep the edge out of my voice. “
Edouard
Manet painted, among other things, naked women, whereas Claude Monet generally stuck with landscapes and nicely dressed ladies.” I nod toward my painting of two boats and a grassy lakeshore. “That is indeed an impressionistic rendering of the subject matter, but it’s more consistent with the style and color palette of
Mo-
net. Not
Ma-
net.” I really enunciate the difference in pronunciation. Her expression of shock and disdain are so pleasing that I add, “And that’s a fact, Mrs. Lenore Kennashaw.”

“Why, Miss Jones,” she says coolly, “your conversational skills are almost as unpleasant as your oratory verboseness.” She winks at me and says, “But not quite.”

She turns to walk away and I stand there beside my beloved boat picture, fuming while I think of all the nasty things I’d like to say to Mrs. Lenore Kennashaw.

“Excuse me, Miss Jones?”

I turn to see a woman who is a bit shorter but way thinner than me and bears more than a passing resemblance to a wood sprite. She has sparkly navy blue eyes and short brown hair that I find immediately intriguing because it looks like she gelled each individual lock on her head, but somehow the overall effect looks tousled and unkempt. She’s wearing a strapless lavender dress and a short necklace made up of multicolored stones.

“I’m Tia Wescott,” she says and presents an ungloved hand. “Nice to meet you.” She’s smiling, so I smile back and shake her hand.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I say, hoping she’s as nice as she sounds.

“I’m an interior decorator here in Pelican Cove and I just wanted to tell you that I love your new gallery.” She keeps smiling, so I relax a little. She nods toward the painting that sparked my nasty little exchange with Mrs. Lenore Kennashaw. “Like that boat picture. That’s really nice. Is it supposed to be some kind of Eddie Money impersonation?”

“Excuse me?” I say and start feeling like I might have a Lilly Lane–style sobbing fit. “Eddie Money?”

She tilts her head to the side and says, “Or is it Eddie Rabbit?”

I stare at her and say nothing. Then she starts to laugh.

“Gotcha, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” I say, relief rolling over me like the evening tide. “You did. You got me.”

She smiles and hits the chorus of Eddie Rabbit’s classic song “I Love a Rainy Night.” I start laughing and she says, “I just wanted you to know that while I’ve had a truly fantastic time looking around your gallery this evening”—she takes a step closer to me and lowers her voice—“the highlight of my night was definitely eavesdropping on that conversation you just had with Lenore Kennashaw.” She smiles and I smile back. “Can I buy you lunch tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I say, delighted to have an ally.

“The Blue Oyster at noon?” she asks.

“You’ve got a date.” I pause and freak out because I can’t remember her name.

“Tia,” she says, as if reading my mind. “Tia Wescott.”

“Tia Wescott,” I say. “Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Let me assure you, Ace Jones,” she says, patting me on the back, “the pleasure has been all mine.”

The music stops and I hear the slick-haired man on the microphone again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s auction time!” he says with great pomp and enthusiasm. “Please grab your paddles and gather ’round!”

“You better head that way,” Tia says, nodding toward the balcony, where the spotlight is beaming down on the well-groomed man.

“Right,” I say. She gives me a little wave, then disappears into the crowd. I make my way to the stairwell, hoping against hope that I don’t have to say a damn word during the auction.

“Where have you been?” Lilly demands as soon as she sees me.

“Meeting people,” I say.

“Nice people?” she asks.

“One nice person and one person I’d like to choke with her fancy gold scarf, then stick her in the eyeball with her tacky hammer pin.”

“You must mean her,” Lilly says, and I follow her gaze to Mrs. Lenore Kennashaw, who is standing front and center of the crowd with her auction paddle at the ready.

“Mark my words, Lilly,” I say, smiling through clenched teeth. “That woman is going to be a problem.”

Lenore Kennashaw catches us looking at her and flashes a snarky grin.

“No time to worry about that right now,” Lilly says. “C’mon, let’s get up on the balcony and get this party started.”

“Please tell me that I don’t have to say anything,” I whine.

“Don’t worry, Calamity Jane, you just have to stand there.”

“Can I take off my shoes?”

“No,” Lilly says and starts making her way up the staircase.

I look back at Lenore Kennashaw and she winks at me again. She’s winked at me twice in the past fifteen minutes, and in my personal opinion, that’s about two times too many.

I want to wink back, then flip her the bird, but everyone would see me and I’m relatively certain that I’ve made a big enough ass of myself in front of this crowd tonight. So I simply smile and turn around.

I’m going to be nice. Even if it kills me.

3

A
fter an early breakfast at Round House Pancakes on Sunday morning, Mason and I see our Bugtussle friends off to Mississippi. After all the well wishes and good-byes, he heads to the gym and I go home and get back in bed. I’m physically and emotionally drained from the previous night’s excitement, and my feet are swollen and achy from being crammed into high heels for six hours. Mason wakes me when he gets home from the gym and we take our chiweenie, Buster Loo, for a leisurely walk around the block.

“So, you have a lunch date today?” he says.

“Yes, with Tia Wescott. Do you know her?”

“I’ve heard of her,” he says. “She does renovation, or restoration-type stuff or something like that?”

“She said she was an interior designer.”

“You like her?”

“She seems pretty cool,” I say and decide again not to mention the confrontation with Mrs. Lenore Kennashaw because that might make Mason think I’m not trying as hard as I should be to be the nice girl I promised him I would be. Not that he would care. It’s just that I don’t want to muddy the waters with petty crap like that.

“Well, babe, you’ve worked nonstop since you moved down here three months ago,” he says, draping an arm around my shoulder. “I’m glad you’ve finally branched out and found yourself a gal pal.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” I say. “Hey, have you thought anymore about where we might get married?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve thought a lot about that,” he says, and I can tell by his tone that he hasn’t. “And I’ve decided that wherever
you
want to get married is exactly where
I
want to get married.”

“So you haven’t thought about it at all?”

“Listen,” he says, stopping to wait on Buster Loo, who is doing some doggie business in a shrub. “I’m a man. Men aren’t picky. We could get married at Credo’s Wild Wings and I’d be happy.”

“Credo’s Wild Wings?” I stop and turn around. “Are you serious?”

Credo’s Wild Wings is a mom-and-pop joint about half a mile from where we live. It’s an old fishing camp turned restaurant with a big, wide deck sprawling out to the water. The parking lot smells like dead fish every now and then, but the food is so good and the view so fantastic that you tend to overlook it.

“Yes! It’s on the bay,” he says, digging a doggie bag out of his pocket. “They have an awesome deck. They’ve got supercold beer and really good hot wings.”

“They do have really cold beer,” I say, smiling at him. “And great wings.”

“And it’s beautiful at sunset,” he says.

“You’re so romantic, Mason,” I say sarcastically, and he starts laughing. “In a macho, wild-wing kind of way.”

“I do like to wing it,” he says, puffing out his chest. “Chicken wing it, buffalo wing it, wing it by the seat of my pants.”

“You are so crazy!” I say, laughing.

“Really, Ace, anywhere you want is fine with me. My only concern is that, after all these years and all the stuff we’ve been through, we just get it done. As for the location”—he looks at me and shrugs—“I couldn’t care less.”

“Tell you what,” I say, really wanting him to participate in planning our wedding but not wanting to nag. “I’ll narrow it down to three places and you can pick the one you like best.”

“Would that make you happy?”

“Yes. Very.”

“Then narrow it down to three and I’ll pick.”

* * *

I get to the Blue Oyster at eleven forty-five and don’t see Tia, so I wander up to the top deck, where every table has a spectacular view of the bay. I choose a seat that also has a view of the parking lot because, for some odd reason, I’m curious about what kind of vehicle Tia Wescott drives. I order a beer and finish it and one more by the time she arrives at five minutes past noon.

“Hey!” she says, waving. “Sorry I’m late. How are you?” She’s wearing short denim shorts and a coral tank top. I can’t help but notice that her short legs are very toned and nicely tanned.

“I’m great!” I reply. “Not that I’m a stalker or anything, but I didn’t see you come through the parking lot.”

“Oh, I walked,” she says, waving toward a residential area situated to the left of the marina. “I’m working over there.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes, on a Sunday,” she says drearily. “I don’t do that very often, but I’ve got what I call a ‘dragger.’”

“A dragger?”

“Yes. That’s what I call a project that just drags on and on with no end in sight.” She points to the houses again. “I’m renovating one of the older places, just, you know, trying to get it up to par with the rest of the neighborhood, and I swear that everything I try to do turns up fifteen other things that have to be done first.”

“Wow,” I say.

A waitress appears with lunch menus and a glass of ice water.

“Thank you, Jenna,” Tia says to the waitress.

“Sure thing, Ms. Wescott,” Jenna the waitress says. “Do y’all need a minute?”

“Yes, please.”

“So,” I say after Jenna the waitress walks away. “What’s good here?”

“Oh, the crab cakes are top-notch. The fried crab claws are amazing. The crab dip is good, too.” She flips the menu over. “And their stuffed crab will make your eyes cross.”

“I take it you’re fond of crab.”

“I’m quite the crab connoisseur, if you will.” She looks at me and smiles. “I was born and raised in Pelican Cove and I eat all kinds of seafood, but, yes, crab is my favorite.” She nods toward the restaurant. “I love this place because everything is homemade and fresh, so it’s all good. You really can’t go wrong no matter what you order.” She looks at me. “And you can’t leave here today without having a slice of key lime pie. So don’t even think about trying, okay?”

“One thing you need to know about me,” I say, “is that I am
not
the kind of girl who walks away from pie. Any pie. Ever.”

Jenna returns and I order crab cakes and another beer and Tia orders crab claws and a Diet Pepsi.

“So,” she says after we order, “what about that Lenore Kennashaw?”

“That woman is such a bitch!” I whisper. “What is her deal?”

“Just that,” Tia says, sipping her Diet Pepsi. “She’s an intolerable bitch. And here’s the thing about her.” She leans in, so I do the same. “Her husband owns all these Kennashaw Home and Garden stores all over the South, and their stuff is total
shit
! After Hurricane Ivan hit back in 2004, they kept selling Chinese drywall even after it was found to be toxic. Then when Mr. Kennashaw got sued for it, he hired Lennox Casey, a sleazeball attorney from New Orleans, to come over here and get him off the hook.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yeah, but that’s only part of their story,” she says, keeping her voice low. “Lenore is the chairwoman of the biggest charity organization in northwest Florida. It’s called Caboose Charity, and she weaseled her way into that position I don’t know how many years ago.”

“Being involved with charity doesn’t seem consistent with her dreadful personality.”

“Exactly,” she says. “She and her husband are first-class scuzzy-buckets, but they present themselves in society as the world’s greatest benefactors.” She leans back in her chair. “I know for a fact that they give the absolute minimum required to keep Lenore on the board, which is only about five hundred dollars a year.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

She looks around and whispers, “I have a friend who volunteers for Caboose and she can’t stand Lenore Kennashaw, either. A few months ago, she snuck around and checked the records to see just how much the Kennashaws give each year, and she wasn’t surprised to find that it was the minimum specified in the bylaws.” She stirs the ice in her glass and continues. “The Kennashaws couldn’t care less about the cause. All they want is to attend the high-profile events and rub elbows with the big shots in Pelican Cove.” She looks at me. “People who give tens of thousands of dollars to that charity.”

“No one cares that she barely meets the financial qualifications?”

“Well, no one knows. My friend—her name is Jalena Flores, by the way, and I think you’ll like her because she’s crazy as hell. Anyway, she can’t tell anyone because she’d get into big trouble because Caboose Charity is adamant about privacy”—Tia punches her straw around in her ice—“which works great for Lenore.”

“What about the fact that she’s a stupid bitch?” I say. “She can’t hide that.”

“Oh, but she does.” Tia gives me a sly look. “She only shows her true colors to people she considers ‘beneath’ her on the socioeconomic ladder.”

“I’ll black that heifer’s eye,” I say, and Tia laughs out loud. “I can’t believe she acts like that and no one notices.”

“No one but me.” Tia smiles a devilish smile. “And I tell everyone I work for that Kennashaw Home and Garden sells second-rate products at ridiculous markups and that they’d be better off going to Lowe’s or Home Depot.” She looks out at the water and raises her eyebrows. “A lot of people listen to me, but others are so hell-bent on buying local that they just go over there and give them their money, thinking they make all these big donations to charity.” She looks at me. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for buying local, especially in this economy, just not from Kennashaw Home and Garden.”

“I bought something from there,” I confess.

“Oh, we can’t be friends, then,” Tia says, laughing. “I’m so sorry.”

“I took it back,” I say. “Does that help?”

“No,” she says. “What was it?”

“Paint.”

“Oh, I knew you were going to say that! Their paint is the worst! Did you get your money back?”

“Sure didn’t. And it made me mad as hell.”

“What did you do?” Tia asks, looking amused.

“I thanked them and left because I’m trying to turn over a new leaf down here and be a nice person instead of a short-tempered nut job like I always was in Bugtussle.” I lean forward and put my elbows on the table. “So instead of pouring that damn worthless paint all over their parking lot like I wanted to, I took it back to my studio, where I’m going to try to work it into some of my projects.”

“Did you just say ‘Bugtussle’?” Tia asks with an odd look on her face.

“Yes,” I say, smiling. “Bugtussle, Mississippi. And before you ask, yes! That is the real name of a real town, and I used to live there.”

“So what did you do in Bugtussle, Mississippi?”

“I taught art at Bugtussle High School.”

“Bugtussle High School,” she says, obviously still very amused by the name of my former hometown. “Wow.”

“Yeah, it was a nice little job in a nice little town, and I worked with my two best friends.” I feel a pinch of homesickness and try to ignore it.

“And now you’ve just opened your own art gallery and you’re engaged to marry a guy you met how?”

“Oh Lord!” I moan. “That’s a long story.”

“Give me the short version today and we’ll make a date for the long one later,” she says with a look on her face that makes me laugh.

“Okay,” I say. “Well, when I was eleven, my family moved to Bugtussle from Nashville, Tennessee, and I met him at church.”

“How sweet.”

“Right,” I say, and snort. “And we’ve had this long, drawn-out on-again, off-again thing going ever since.”

“Since you were eleven? Are you serious?”

“Sadly, yes,” I say, realizing how ridiculous that must sound coming from someone who just turned thirty-one. “We were boyfriend and girlfriend in middle school. Dated off and on in high school. Had a few torrid affairs in college, then—” I pause because I don’t want to tell her the whole truth about the past few years, when I spent so much time acting like a crazed lunatic with severe trust issues. I look up at her and decide to give her the short version like she asked for. “I actually lived down here for a month and a half last summer.”

“Here?” Tia asks, surprised. “In Pelican Cove?”

“Yes,” I say. “After a few ‘off’ years, Mason and I ran into each other at the annual Ole Miss–Mississippi State football game and he asked me to marry him and I said yes.” I laugh at the memory. “We were both somewhat intoxicated at the time, but we carried on a long-distance love affair for several months. Then when I got out of school for the summer, I packed up and moved down here.”

“What happened?” Tia asks, thoroughly immersed in my drama. “Wait, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business—”

“Oh no,” I say casually. “If we’re going to hang out, then you should know that I’m a psycho.”

She starts laughing and tells me she’s a psycho, too.

“Well, I got mad at him for something stupid and packed up and moved back home.”

“But here you are, back again, with a big, shiny rock on your finger.”

“Here I am,” I say, looking at my engagement ring. “A whole new life.” I feel a pang of sadness when I say that, because my old life wasn’t that bad. It just didn’t have Mason in it.

“Trying to be a nice girl,” Tia says.

“Yep,” I say, nodding.

Our lunch arrives and the crab cakes are indeed the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some good crab cakes. Tia tells me that she has a daughter named Afton who graduated from high school this past May and moved to Gainesville, where she enrolled in the veterinary medicine program at the University of Florida. She doesn’t mention a husband or a boyfriend and I decide not to ask. We get on the subject of pets and she tells me that she has a thirteen-year-old wiener dog named Mr. Chubz. I tell her about Buster Loo and we decide they should have a play date sometime in the not-too-distant future. Then we start talking about Lenore Kennashaw again.