Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (5 page)

7

I
’m sitting in the drive-through at Bueno Burrito, reading the news on my phone, when I hear a long honk from the car behind me. I look up and see that the car in front of me has moved forward, so I move up, too, but the honking doesn’t stop. I look in my rearview mirror and see a hefty woman in a light blue station wagon leaning forward on her steering wheel and flipping me off with both fingers. I feel my pulse quicken but keep reading the news, careful to hold my phone up so I can see when I need to drive forward, because the woman behind me is obviously in desperate need of burritos.

The car in front of me pulls up, and before I even get my foot off the brake, the woman behind me starts honking again. I decide to sit still for a minute, just to show her that all that honking can’t make me do a damn thing. When the car in front of me moves up a second time, I finally pull up, too, and when I roll the window down at the speaker, the woman behind me makes such a racket that I have to shout my order. I roll up my window and pull forward, telling myself to be calm. I shouldn’t have sat there like that, antagonizing her. A nice girl wouldn’t do that. A nice girl would’ve ignored the entire situation. I look back and see that she’s still flipping me off with both middle fingers.

When I roll down the window to get my food, she starts honking again, and I tell myself not to get involved with this maniac. The drive-through girl gives me my change, and just as I’m about to hit the gas and remove myself from the situation, I feel a thump and realize the heifer has rolled her crusty old station wagon into the back of my car. Now, I don’t have a new car, but I do have a nice car that I try to take pretty good care of.

I pull forward, so mad I’m shaking, and before I can roll up my window, I hear the woman shout, “That’s right. Get on out of here now before I jerk you outta that car and whup your ass!”

And to think I was just going to drive away.

I pull a car length away from her, then stop and get out. I walk around behind my car, and when I see the fresh scratch across the bumper, I completely lose what little composure I have left. I turn and walk toward the station wagon.

The woman doesn’t see me because she’s too busy cramming her hand down into her burrito bag as she pulls away from the drive-through window. I step to the side so she can’t run over me, then pound on the hood of her car and shout, “Stop this car! Right now!”

She hits the brakes and I can tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t expecting to see me. She slings her burritos into the passenger seat and starts rolling up her window, and I imagine her arms haven’t moved that fast in years. She locks her door just as I reach for the handle, so I tap my finger on the window and shout, “Get out of this car!” She’s frantically looking around and starts to pull forward, so I walk along beside the car, tapping on the driver’s-side window with my knuckles.

“I will
kill
you if you hit my car again, do you understand? I will
kill
you!” She stops the car but doesn’t look up at me. “Flip me off now!” I yell. “Honk that damn horn at me now!” She looks to her right, then starts turning the wheel of the station wagon. “Where are you going?” I shout. “You can’t get out of here! Get out of that car! Get out here and whip my ass like you just said you would!” She glances up at me and I give her my best crazy-eyed look. “I’m not the one you want, lady!” I yell. “I’m not the one you want!” She guns the engine and I step back just in time to watch her bounce that big station wagon over the landscaped curb and out into the parking lot. I look around and see people staring, some wide-eyed, some amused. I try to think up something to say, but what
do
you say after an incident like that? The truck that was behind her is about to pull away from the drive-through window, so I run back to my car and get out of there before somebody calls the law.

“Why did I do that?” I yell at myself on the way back to the gallery. “Why didn’t I just ignore her? I suck at this being-nice thing! I suck at it!”

I get back to the gallery, eat lunch alone in the break room, and then spend the better part of the afternoon feeling guilty for losing my temper and making a fool of myself in the drive-through of Bueno Burrito. Not a soul graces the doorway all afternoon, and I leave at five o’clock on the dot.

When I get home, I take Buster Loo for a walk around the block. I wave to a few neighbors and they wave back, and Buster Loo sniffs mailboxes, shrubs, and random patches of grass until eventually the mailbox he’s sniffing is ours. After playing some speedy-dog fetch in the backyard, I shower and get dressed, then head to the law firm of J. Mason McKenzie, where I dine with Mason, Connor, and his wife, Allison, in the conference room.

I can’t decide if Allison is someone I’m going to like or not, and I think it’s because she hasn’t decided what kind of person she’s going to be yet. She and Connor are pretty much still newlyweds, and while they appear to get along great, something seems off with them. Mason has told me that she comes from a wealthy family, goes home to Tallahassee a lot, and flits in and out of Pelican Cove society.

I think she can’t make up her mind if she wants to be a snobby bitch or a nice person, because sometimes she’s so nice it gets on my nerves and sometimes she’s so snobby I want to slap her jaws. I’ve wondered if she’s having an identity crisis or if she might actually be schizophrenic. Whatever the case may be, she’s sporting her nice-girl persona during dinner and even cracks a few jokes. One is actually funny.

As far as looks go, Allison Dexter McCall is ridiculously beautiful. She’s almost as pretty as my friend Lilly Lane, who is a former lingerie model. And like my friend Chloe, Allison radiates that all-put-together perfection that gals like me just can’t seem to figure out. She notices me staring at her and gives me an odd look, so I compliment the Chinese food she had delivered to the office. She smiles and starts telling me about their weekly specials.

The dinner chatter is light as we talk about movies we’ve seen and movies we want to see and then what the weather is going to be like for the rest of the week. I tell a few jokes that are way funnier than Allison’s so she doesn’t get to thinking that, between the two of us, she’s the funny one.

After dinner, I hang out in Mason’s office for a few minutes before telling him good night and heading home. I snuggle up with Buster Loo and end up falling asleep on the couch watching a
Saturday Night Live
rerun. Mason wakes me when he gets in, and I look at the clock on the cable box and see that it’s 10:34.

“Come to bed with me, beautiful,” he says, taking my hand.

“Baby, it’s so late,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says, leading me up the stairs. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s the deal?” I ask, turning back the covers and climbing into bed. “I didn’t think real estate lawyers had to work like this.”

“Normally I don’t,” he says. “But yesterday, a man my daddy’s age walked into the office and told Connor that he lost his house last year in a foreclosure and now the bank has just filed a deficiency judgment against him and frozen all of his bank accounts.”

“I don’t know what all of that means, but that last part is terrible.”

“What’s terrible,” he says, tossing his clothes on the floor and joining me in bed, “is that the man lost his job
three
years ago when he was fired by a company that decided to save themselves some money by getting rid of all the people who were about to retire. When he told us that, I said we could sue them as well and assured him it wouldn’t cost him a dime, and he said he’d love to but the company went bankrupt six months ago.” He pulls the covers up and sighs. “So anyway, the man and his wife did everything they could to keep their home and, after draining most of their savings, ended up losing it anyway. Now the bank is back and trying to collect the difference between what was owed on the house and what they sold it for. The only cash the man had was what was in his pocket when his debit card was turned down at the gas station. You want to know how much that was?”

“How much?”

“Eight dollars,” Mason says. “And his truck was on empty, so he was able to buy
almost
two gallons of gas. Just enough to get home and get his emergency credit card.”

“That makes me want to cry,” I tell him.

“Well, you’ll be crying tears of joy when we get finished with this, because banks are supposed to be sure someone has the assets to cover the deficiency before they file a judgment against them, and there’s no way this man and his wife fit into that category. This was not a strategic default. The man agreed to let us take a look at his foreclosure documents because it’s my guess that if that piece-of-shit bank is ignoring the rules now, they probably ignored the rules during the foreclosure. But we can’t worry about any of that until we get the damn hold off his bank account.” He rolls over. “Sons of bitches.”

I lie beside him, trying to think up something to say that might make him feel better, but I have no idea how to respond to what he just told me. I reach over to pat him on the shoulder and tell him that I’m proud of him for helping those people, but he doesn’t respond because he’s already asleep.

8

A
nother week passes during which I keep to myself in an honest effort to avoid dramatic confrontations of any kind. The next Tuesday, I wake up early and, much to my dismay, cannot go back to sleep no matter how hard I try. I throw on some clothes and go downstairs to find Buster Loo sitting at the front door. He twists his head around sideways and looks at me like, “What are you doing? I’m waiting!” so I grab the leash and take him for an early-morning stroll. I let him walk where he wants and wait patiently as he does his whole stop-and-sniff routine at each and every mailbox on the block. I notice several little signs around the neighborhood announcing the quarterly homeowners’ meeting, which is apparently tomorrow night at seven p.m. in the community center. Buster Loo notices the signs as well and stops to raise his leg next to one.

“I’d rather be shot in the face than go to that,” I tell Buster Loo as he kicks grass up onto the sign with his back paws. He gives me a “ruff” reply and I laugh because my little dog has no idea how funny he really is.

An hour later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table reading the morning paper when the doorbell rings, causing Buster Loo to rocket-launch himself out of his deluxe doggie bed and have a furious barking fit. I pick him up and try to sweet-talk him out of his guard-dog rage, but it’s too late. He’s in full-fledged beast mode. I open the door to find a petite little lady wearing what looks like athletic gear. I can’t help but notice that her shirt has creases pressed into the sleeves, and the shorts look equally crisp.

“Hello,” I say, and Buster Loo growls and shows off his teeth. “Hush,” I whisper to him.

“Hi, I’m Margo Kiltzwich.”

“I’m Ace Jones. Nice to meet you,” I say, and Buster Loo continues to growl and snarl. Margo whatever-her-name-is looks at my ten-pound dog like he’s an enraged lion about rip her face off.

“I’m the president of the homeowners’ association, and I’m just out reminding everyone that the quarterly meeting is tomorrow night, so if you have any complaints—” She stops talking and looks at Buster Loo, who has stopped barking but continues to snarl and show his off his chiweenie choppers.

“I don’t,” I say, shocked at how incredibly annoying her high-pitched, nasal voice is. Buster Loo starts to bark again. “Excuse me,” I say. I step into the study, put Buster Loo down, and pull the door closed. Back at the front door, Margo has a smile on her face but looks like she smells something that stinks.

“Thank you,” she says, and I assume she’s referring to my taking her out of harm’s way by removing my ferocious man-eating chiweenie from her haughty presence. He’s still barking his crazy little head off, and I smile, thinking he’s an excellent judge of character. She continues. “Okay, well, it’s very important that everyone attend in case anyone submits any complaints that involve you.”

“Are there complaints that involve us?” I ask, shocked.

“Oh, well, not that I’m aware of, but there could be by tomorrow night.”

She keeps chattering while I smile a phony smile and tell myself not to laugh out loud. I can’t help but think this annoying knucklehead would get along great with Lenore Kennashaw. I wonder whether they’re friends and, if so, whether they get together and have little ironing parties for their casual clothes. I’m sure if they do, they have people on hand to do the actual work. Then I start thinking about Tia and wondering if she might be the only normal person in this entire town. I wish she would call and invite me to lunch again. “I’ll be sure to remind Mason,” I say, and start to close the door.

“Oh, you should come, too!” she says with a bit too much enthusiasm. “We’ll have snacks and drinks—nonalcoholic, of course. And since you live here now, you have a responsibility to the community, and I can’t help but notice that Mason hasn’t been to a meeting since you moved in.” She raises her eyebrows and looks at me like I stole something from her.

“Thank you, Margo,” I say. “Nice to meet you.” I put my hand on the door and remind myself that I’m a nice person now.

“See you both tomorrow night. Seven p.m. on the dot!” I push the door closed as she yells, “Don’t be late!”

“Oh Lord,” I tell Buster Loo as I open the door to the study. He runs straight to the front door and starts growling.

* * *

On Wednesday, I get to the gallery at five minutes before ten, unlock the front door, and hang out the
OPEN
fish. I have a flurry of potential customers streaming in and out throughout most of the morning, and even though no one buys anything, I tell myself that it’s good to have so many people looking around. At one o’clock, the gallery is empty, so I run out to grab lunch, hoping I don’t run across any crazy-ass-idiot people because I’ve met enough of those lately to do me for a while. Luckily, I make it to the sandwich shop and back without getting into any kind of altercation. I eat lunch at the desk in my office so I don’t have to sit in the break room by myself.

After walking around the gallery for a few minutes, I decide to dedicate the afternoon to creating a large painting of a glamorous mermaid to hang right in the center of the gallery. I have a few smaller mermaid portraits and several undersea paintings, and I think if I grouped them all together alongside the mermaid I have in mind, it would give the gallery a unique and mystical ambiance. Maybe then someone might actually buy something.

I run upstairs, where I get out my paints and line up my brushes, and then I sketch out a big, beautiful mermaid. I make her plump and curvy, with come-hither eyes and long, flowing hair. I mix up my paints and feel a rush of excitement as I get started. I’m almost finished with her shimmery tail when, at a quarter till four, the doorbell rings, so I step out onto the balcony. I look down and see what appears to be a gypsy standing in the middle of the gallery.

“Hello,” I call out. “I’ll be right down.” I toss my brushes in the sink, rinse and dry my hands, then head downstairs.

“Hello,” the gypsy girl says sweetly when I greet her downstairs. “I’ve been so excited about this gallery, and I hate so bad that I missed the grand opening.”

“That’s okay,” I say, trying to figure out just exactly what I’m dealing with here with this strangely dressed person.

“Would you mind if I looked around a bit?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

I take in the multicolored ankle-length skirt, the pink polka-dot tank top over a light blue fitted T-shirt, and what look to be real ballet slippers for shoes. She’s beautiful in a very exotic way, with thick lips and perfectly white teeth. She’s wearing long, feathered earrings and a passel of beaded necklaces, some of which reach almost to her waist. Her dark blue eyes are speckled with gold, and when she looks at me, I feel like I’m gazing at a much older soul than her youthful complexion conveys.

“Of course,” I say, trying to be quiet the way loud people do around people who aren’t. “I’m Ace Jones and this is my gallery.”

“Hello,” she says. “I’m Avery Cambre. I’m studying studio art specialization at the University of West Florida.”

“Studio art specialization,” I say, genuinely impressed. “What year?”

“I’m a junior,” she says softly. “Going for a bachelor of fine arts.”

“Wow,” I say, consciously keeping my voice low. “Nice.”

“Thank you.” She smiles at me. “So you don’t mind if I look around?”

“Not at all,” I say, flattered by her interest. “If you have any questions, I’ll be right over there.”

“Great—thanks.” She pitter-pats away in her ballerina shoes, and I go sit down behind the counter. I make a mental note to find something to keep up here so I can look busy when I need to instead of reshuffling these business cards and brochures over and over again. She makes a round through the gallery, then comes back to where I’m sitting and doing a horrible job of looking busy.

“How long did it take you to do all of this?” she asks in her quiet voice.

“Well, it’s been a gradual accumulation,” I say, trying to speak quietly. “I actually taught art for several years, and most of what you see here are things I did during that time. Some pieces are from college, and some, like those little mermaids over there, I painted last week.”

“Where do you paint?”

“Upstairs,” I say. “Would you like to see my studio?”

“I was hoping you’d ask,” she says, smiling.

She follows me upstairs and into my studio, where she hardly notices the stunning view of the bay.

“I need a place just like this,” she says, looking around at all of my supplies.

“You should get one after you graduate,” I tell her.

“That’s easier said than done,” she says with a frown. She goes on to tell me that her parents aren’t exactly thrilled with her program of study and nag at her constantly about changing her major so she can pursue what they call a
real
career.

“Oh,” I say and get a tiny bit pissed off at her parents. “Sorry.”

Then I get a tiny bit sad because I always wanted to have my own gallery but was too much of a chicken to go after my dreams so I went the safe route and became a teacher. But that all changed when Mason bought me this building, which was a gesture that said, “I believe in you,” in a way words never could. That was a pivotal moment in my life, and now here I am, standing in my brand-new studio, with this sweet girl telling me she has the same dream and no one to support her.

I decide to go out on a limb.

“Let me show you something else.” I walk out of my studio and down the balcony corridor until I reach the end of the hall. I open the door and step into a room only a bit smaller than my studio.

“Do you think this would make a nice studio?”

“Yes,” she says, looking around. “Of course.”

“Let’s make a deal, then,” I tell her, and then I start lying. “I could use some part-time help,” I say, thinking instead it would be nice to have some company. “You work for me a few hours a week in the gallery and you can use this space as your studio for as long as you like.”

Avery looks like she’s about to pass out. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m not. You might stay here a couple of weeks and decide this isn’t for you, or you might stay here a couple of weeks and decide that there’s nothing else that makes you happier. Either way, you’ll know a lot more about what you want after you’ve been here for a while.” Avery looks like she’s about to cry. “Where do you keep your stuff?”

“At home. In the attic.”

“Well, go home and start packing,” I say, happy with my spur-of-the-moment decision to become a quasi employer. “When do you go to school?”

“Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from ten until noon and Tuesday and Thursday from eleven until three, so I could work in the gallery Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from one to five, maybe come in and paint some on Tuesday and Thursday, and then what about Saturday?”

“I’m just doing Monday to Friday right now, and we can discuss your hours after you get all moved in—how about that?”

“Oh, okay,” she says. “So when can I move in?”

“How about next Monday?” I answer, thinking that would give me a few days to think up a job description.

“Great,” she says, beaming. “I’ll see you Monday at one, then?”

“Sounds good!”

I follow her down the stairs to the front door, wave good-bye, and watch as she gathers her long skirt and gets into a gorgeous little convertible Audi. As she drives away, I immediately start second-guessing myself. I mean, I don’t know that girl from Adam and I just issued a standing invitation for her to hang out in my gallery as much as she likes.

“Oh well,” I say aloud to my paintings. “At least I’ll have someone to talk to.”

I glance at the clock because I’m ready to go and see that it’s thirty minutes before closing time. I ponder that for a moment, then decide to take off early because I’m in charge of taking dinner to the conference room tonight and it’s not like people are lined up outside the door waiting to get in anyway.