Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (22 page)

36

T
uesday turns out to be fairly boring and I end up taking a short nap on the sofa in the gallery with Buster Loo after lunch. My phone starts buzzing, and it’s a text from Jalena that contains a picture of our big announcement.

“Looks great,” I send back. Buster Loo stretches, and I go get his leash and take him for a walk around the parking lot. It’s unseasonably warm and the sun is out full force, so it doesn’t take him long to set his sights back on the gallery door.

I go upstairs and think about painting but ask myself what the point of that would be since all I’m doing is basically running a museum anyway. I have plenty of paintings to swap out with the ones on display, but I really don’t see the sense in doing that when hardly anyone even comes in to see the ones I do have hanging up. I sit down in my studio and stare out at the bay, wondering how I ever thought this was what I wanted to do with my life.

I go back downstairs and surf the Net until Mason calls an hour before closing time to tell me all about his busy day. He says they’re working through dinner and asks me if I want to come eat with him in his office or if he should just have Allison pick him up something. I tell him I’m hanging out with Jalena again tonight, but I promise him I’ll bring dinner tomorrow night.

“You know what?” I say to quell my guilty conscience. “I’ll take off a little early tomorrow and go home and cook. How about that?”

“Oh, man, that would be great!” Mason says. “I would appreciate it so much. What are you going to fix?”

“I was thinking lasagna,” I say, knowing that’s his favorite.

“It makes my day today knowing I’m going to have your lasagna tomorrow,” he says, and I smile because at least I’ve got my love life back on track.

I hang up with him and look up the Florida Department of Education Web site. I read over the guidelines for applying for a teaching certificate, and apparently all I have to do is send in my Mississippi teaching license and a couple of hundred dollars. When I think about being back in the classroom, part of me recoils with dread, but another part of me gets very excited.

“Slow down, Bessie,” I say to myself. “I was one hundred percent excited about this art gallery before it opened up, and now look where I am.” Instead of downloading the application, I click the button that takes me back to Google. I look down at Buster Loo, who is snoring away in his dog bed. “Oh, to be so happy and content,” I say, and Buster Loo perks up and looks at me. “I have got to get my mind right, Buster Loo.”

I waste a few more minutes online; then Buster Loo and I check out thirty minutes early. Since I have his leash, we get out at the house and head straight for Pelican Trails Park.

I see Margo out in her yard, and when I wave, she just stares back at me, and that really pisses me off. I mean, if someone waves at you and you don’t want to wave back, that’s fine. But don’t stand there like a dipshit and stare. Turn your head or something. Jeez. I can’t help myself; I yell out, “Hey, Margo, what happened to the shitbag sign? I kind of liked it.” She scowls at me and I just keep walking.

When we get back, Jalena is parked on the curb, and I scare her to death when I walk up and tap on the window of her Jeep.

“Where have you been?” she asks when she rolls down the window. She looks down at Buster Loo. “Oh, walking, I see. Hey, Buster Loo!” she calls out, and he starts bouncing up and down like a basketball with too much air.

“Uh, yes, ma’am, would you mind telling me what you’ve been doing in this neighborhood?” I say in my best mock-policeman voice.

“Hardy-har-har,” she says sarcastically as she picks up a file folder from the passenger seat.

When she gets out of the Jeep, she picks up Buster Loo and hauls him into the house. I get him a treat and myself some water and ask her if she’d like anything.

“Let’s order pizza!” she says, and I tell her that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. Because it is. She calls it in and I get out some paper plates and napkins. The pizza arrives thirty minutes later and we hash out our plan for breaking and entering over dinner and Diet Mountain Dew.

“What if we get caught?” I say.

“If we get caught by the police, I can just tell them I’m looking for my cell phone, which I’m going to say I left inside the night before, and explain how much I volunteer for Caboose and so forth and so on.”

“And if he asks how we got in?”

“I’m going to tell him I used a dildo,” she says with a straight face, “because that tends to be a good distraction.” I almost choke on my pizza I start laughing so hard, and eventually she starts cracking up, too.

“I got it! I got it!” I say, getting hysterical. “We can say we shoved that thing right in the hole even though it was a really tight fit.”

“Yeah, and then we can tell him that we had to work it from side to side for a minute, but the door
finally
came open,” she says and starts laughing so hard she snorts.

After we calm down, we get back to business. We discuss going in her vehicle since she’s affiliated with the organization, then decide to go in mine and park around the block.

“We’ll be incognito with those Mississippi tags,” she says.

“Yeah, either that or everyone will know it’s me because I’m one of the few out-of-state tags in town and probably the only one from Bugtussle County,” I tell her.

“Does your tag really say that?”

“Yeah, go look.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she says. “We better go in mine.”

She drives to the town square, where the office for Caboose Charity is a block off the main road. She parks in front of the courthouse, then takes a credit card out of her wallet and sticks it in between the rings of her key chain.

“It’ll look like I’m unlocking as opposed to jacking if anyone surprises us,” she says, getting out. I grab the file folder and follow her down the shallow hill to the front door. I look around, hoping this town doesn’t have any eye-in-the-sky cameras.

She slips the card through the space between the door and the frame, then slips it through again, and the door eases open.

“You have a lot in common with my friend Lilly Lane,” I tell her.

“Really,” Jalena says, stepping inside.

“She also has a proclivity for small-time criminal activity.”

“Sounds like I’d like her.”

“You would,” I say, following her inside.

“There they are,” she whispers, pointing to a wall lined with white cardboard boxes. She looks at me. “Are we really gonna do this?”

“We’ve come too far to stop now,” I say and slide a few boxes off the top and set them to the side. “Let’s take this one in the middle,” I say, pulling it out of the stack. “That way maybe if they get stacked and restacked, it will just stay in the middle.”

“Excellent reasoning,” she says. “Look,” she says, nodding toward a room on down the hallway. “That’s the office. They didn’t even close the door after the meeting last night.”

“Good,” I say. “I like it when things are easy.”

She goes back to the office to make copies of the contribution records, and I pull out a stack of programs and start adding the inserts. A few minutes later, she comes back with a neat stack of papers and tells me the bookkeeping file hasn’t been moved since the last time she snuck in here and took a gander at it. I still have several programs to stuff, so I hand her half of the leaflets and a stack of booklets.

“Nice card stock, by the way,” I tell her.

“I’m crafty like that,” she replies with a smile.

Soon we’re done and I carefully stack the programs back in the box and replace the lid.

“Number twenty-one,” she says, pointing to the label. “Box number twenty-one.”

“Should we do another one?” I ask.

“We’ve only got about ten cards left.”

“Let’s get out of here, then.”

We put all the boxes back in place; then Jalena goes to the door and peeps out.

“Wait a minute, someone is coming,” she says, and I break out in a sweat and start feeling like I’m going to vomit.

“Do we need to hide?” I ask and start fanning myself with the file folder.

“No, it’s just some teenagers,” she whispers back. I walk over and stand next to her. “Don’t skulk out of here like you’ve just robbed the place, okay?” she whispers, and I nod to indicate that I understand. Then I follow her out the door skulking like I just robbed the place. “C’mon!” she says when we’re back outside.

She starts talking normal, and I try to act normal, but my nerves are shot and I just can’t. Once we’re back in her Jeep, however, I start to breathe again.

“Oh man,” I say, looking at her. “We have just pulled one more stunt.”

She holds up the copies she made of Caboose Charity’s financial records. “Yes, we did,” she says.

“We need to check Sylvie Best’s contributions, too,” I tell her.

“Honestly, Ace, I think her husband’s car dealerships do pretty good. Best Automotive Group isn’t rumored to be a sinking ship like Kennashaw Home and Garden.

“Well,” I say, slightly disappointed, “I want to check her out anyway.”

“We can certainly do that.”

“Good,” I say. “Now, let’s go get a milk shake.”

37

O
n Wednesday, I take Buster Loo for a walk, then decide to leave him home for the day because I plan on taking off early and making Mason a good, home-cooked meal. On the way to the gallery, I remember that I need to call Erlene’s husband about that station wagon, so I grab my purse and dig through it until I find the card for Sam Pettigo’s garage.

The person who answers doesn’t say hello, but barks out a “Yep” instead.

“I was looking for Mr. Sam Pettigo.”

“This is Sam,” comes the gruff reply. I explain who I am and why I’m calling, and he says, “You can bring that thing in today if you want and I can have it done by Friday. Erlene told me about you. Said she wanted me to get your car fixed quick as I could.”

“Could I bring it in Friday afternoon or Saturday morning?”

“Can you do without till Tuesday?”

“Sure can,” I say, inadvertently mimicking his clipped tone.

“Bring it Saturday morning, then. I got a couple of cars sitting around if you need one.”

“Okay, thank you,” I say, but he’s already hung up.

I get out at the gallery and look up the beautiful mermaid on my sign.

“Bring me good luck today,” I tell her as I walk to the door.

For a minute I think that she will because I have several people come in throughout the morning. One couple sits down on the couches and strikes up a friendly conversation. They’re from Sarasota and the wife has family in Pensacola and they tell me they always drive out to Pelican Cove to eat at the Blue Oyster.

“Well, it’s worth the drive, if you ask me,” I say.

“It’s worth the drive just for the shrimp and grits,” the woman says.

They sit and talk for about an hour, and I’m kind of sad when they leave because they were such good company. I try to call Tia just to see what she’s been up to, but she doesn’t answer and the call doesn’t go to voice mail. I think about sending her a text but don’t want to bug her, plus she’ll see my number on her missed calls list. When Avery comes in at one, I ask her if she’d be okay hanging out by herself for the afternoon.

“Are you serious, Ace?” she asks in her quiet way.

“Yes, everything is tagged, and in the unlikely event that someone actually buys something, don’t worry about tax,” I tell her. “Tell you what,” I say, patting her on the back. “Let’s make a deal. If you sell a painting today, I’ll give you a raise.” She looks at me like I’m crazy, then starts laughing.

“You should be a motivational speaker,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Thank you,” I say, picking up my purse. “Call me if you need anything.”

* * *

I drive to the grocery store, excited to be cooking dinner for Mason, even though we’ll be sharing it with Connor and Allison in that godforsaken conference room.

“Oh well,” I say to myself as I get out of my car. “I’ll think of it as a double date.”
The double date that never ends.
“This positive-attitude stuff is going to take some practice,” I say to myself as I walk into the grocery store next to a man with overtrimmed hair and a golf shirt. He shoots me a funny look.

“I have a bad attitude,” I tell him, and he quickly walks in the opposite direction. I get a buggy and load up everything I need for my lasagna. I stop in the last aisle and go through the checklist in my head, touching each individual item in the buggy in the order I will use it when I start cooking. Satisfied that I have everything, I go by the frozen foods aisle and grab the longest piece of garlic bread in the freezer. I check out, drive home, and happily set about making Mason’s favorite pasta dish.

When I put it in the oven forty-five minutes later, I decide to go upstairs and get ready like I’m really going on a date. Buster Loo follows me and hops up on our bed, where he stays until I get out of the shower and turn on the hair dryer.

“Is this what you were waiting for?” I ask him as he jumps around and paws the hair dryer. “Buster Loo need some heat in his life?”

He runs in and out of the bathroom going a hundred chiweenie miles an hour while I finish drying my hair. Then he disappears under the bed, no doubt exhausted and probably very warm.

I get dressed and do my makeup, then go downstairs and dig around in the utility room until I find a nice wicker basket that I think will hold the lasagna pan. I line the basket with kitchen towels and place the steaming-hot dish inside. I take the bread out of the oven, partially slice it, and wrap it in foil. I find a bag to put the bread in, then load it all up in the car. I drive to the office, feeling good about how I look and even better about how my dinner smells.

I slip in the back door and have everything ready by the time Mason realizes that I’m in the building. His eyes light up when he walks into the conference room, and Connor comes in a minute later and demands to know what that smell is all about. Allison comes a few minutes after him, and she doesn’t look happy.

“Hi, Allison,” I say.

“Hi,” she says and doesn’t say anything else.

Mason and Connor sit down and I realize I don’t have a spoon to dip the lasagna out with.

“That’s okay,” Connor says, jumping up. “I’ve got that covered.” He rummages through all the drawers until he finds a spatula in one with a bunch of pens and other random office supplies.

Allison snarls her nose, points at the spatula, and says, “Wash that.”

“No, I thought we’d just eat off it dirty,” Connor says sarcastically, giving her the evil eye on his way out the door.

“So how was your day?” Mason asks, and I tell him about the couple from Sarasota who came in for a visit. Connor comes back in with a clean spatula and serves everyone a slab of lasagna.

“That’s nice,” Mason says with his eyes on his plate. “Thank you so much for cooking this and bringing it here.” He looks at me. “That was so sweet.”

“Yeah,” Connor says with a mouthful of steaming pasta. “You are
so
sweet for cooking a meal at home and bringing it here.”

Allison doesn’t say a word. She picks up her plate and leaves the room.

“Should I go talk to her?” I whisper to Connor. He just shakes his head and continues eating.

“I try to get her to go home,” Mason whispers. “Take a break, not from the office, but from him.” He nods toward Connor.

“Ha. Ha. Mason.” Connor snorts. He looks at me, “This stuff is really good, Ace.”

“Thank you, Connor.”

“Y’all spend too much time together,” Mason whispers to him.

“Why don’t you do me a favor and fire her then?” Connor practically shouts.

“I heard that, asshole!” Allison calls from the office down the hallway.

“Good!”

I try not to laugh and then remind myself that everyone in a relationship, regardless of the details, is dealing with some kind of crap, and nobody needs anyone sitting around sniggering about it.

Connor and Mason start discussing the nitty-gritty details of foreclosure reversal and I tell myself to just stay with it and smile. Then Connor starts telling this great story about a couple in Collier County, Florida, who paid cash for a bank-owned home, and then a certain bank tried to foreclose on their house even though they didn’t even have a mortgage, and the couple ended up with a judgment against the bank.

“Which the bank wouldn’t pay,” Connor says. “So the couple got a moving van and some law enforcement and went to the bank and started loading up stuff. The bank officer locked himself in his office ‘cause he couldn’t figure out what to do, but he finally figured something out.”

“What was that?” Mason asks.

“He figured he would just write the couple a check like the judge had ordered him to six months before that,” Connor says, helping himself to more lasagna.

“Did you just make all of that up?” I ask him.

“Absolutely not! I saw the news clip online.”

“Unfortunately, my job has never been quite that exciting,” Mason says.

“Well, it might be after this case is over,” I tell him.

“Yeah, especially after Mr. Marks brought in two of his friends who have the same problem he’s got.”

“Really?” I say, as my heart sinks.

“Hell yeah,” Connor says. “That’s a little thing I like to call job security.”

I look at Mason and he’s looking at his lasagna.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him.

“Oh shit,” Connor says.

“Oh no, it’s fine,” I say, putting my hand on Mason’s arm. “I’m not mad.” I try to smile.

“If I may be excused.” Connor picks up his plate. “Sorry, man,” he says to Mason on his way out.

A minute later, I hear Allison say, “What are you doing? I moved in here to get away from you.”

I look back at Mason.

“They came in here and talked to us. Two couples. We haven’t signed a representation agreement yet,” he says quietly. “Because I wanted to talk to you first.”

“So what does that mean for us if you agree to represent them?” I ask, and he looks down at his lasagna. “More of the same, I assume.”

“I won’t do it,” he says. “I’ll tell them no and they can find someone else to help them.” I can tell from the tone of his voice that is not what he wants to do.

“But you want to help them, don’t you?” I ask.

“Of
course
I want to,” he says. “We may even be able to get their homes back, Ace.” He rolls his office chair up next to mine. “The whole reason I became a lawyer was to help people, but I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.” He puts his hand on mine. “I know it’s hard, having to come in here and eat all the time, and I’m never home and we don’t have any semblance of a normal life—”

“How long?” I ask.

“A year. Maybe two,” he says. “With breaks in between, during which I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. And just this morning, Connor and I discussed maybe bringing someone on board to help.”

“Like another lawyer?”

“Yes.” Then he grins and says in a lower voice, “And a full-time secretary.”

“You love your job, don’t you?” I ask. I start thinking about Gramma Jones and how she always used to tell me that selfishness would ruin the best of relationships.

“Yes,” he says, his eyes pleading. “You know I do.”

“If those people have to find another lawyer,” I say slowly, “whoever they get wouldn’t be as good as you and Connor.”

“Plus we have a tremendous advantage by having three similar cases.” Mason smiles and puts his arm around me. “Baby, I knew you would understand.”

I smile and hope the small part of my soul that just died is worth the trade-off in the long run. He gives me a look of genuine appreciation, then picks up his fork and starts eating.

And I start wondering if Kevin Jacobs is at Credo’s tonight.