Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (28 page)

48

L
illy and I make bets about whether Ethan Allen and Jalena will make a detour by his house for a quickie. I say they will and she says they won’t because Ethan Allen is too modest.

“I don’t think he has sex in the daylight,” Lilly says, and I look at her like she’s crazy.

I tell Lilly that I want to get a Pier Six pizza to-go so I can eat it for supper on the way home, and she laughs and tells me I must really be deprived of pizza down in Pelican Cove. I tell her about all the weird stuff Avery has picked up for me to eat, and she laughs until she cries about that.

“She’s the one with the heels, right?”

“Yes.”

“I cannot wait to meet her.”

“She’s really something,” I say.

I call in the pizza and get a text from Jalena while I’m still on the phone, and she wants to know what time we have to leave. When I hang up with Pier Six, I show Lilly the text and tell her that I should’ve bet her a hundred dollars on that.

“I wasn’t a hundred dollars’ worth of sure,” she says. “I was only about two dollars sure.”

“Right,” I say. I text Jalena back and tell her that if we leave by six, we can be there by midnight. She sends back a very informative, “Okay.”

“Man, it’s terrible they live so far apart,” Lilly says. “Poor Ethan Allen. He just has the worst luck.”

“Maybe he’ll ask her to marry him today and then we can both move up here.”

“Is that what you’ve got on your mind?” Lilly asks.

“Kind of. But I’m going back down there to give it my best shot first.” I look at her. “He expects me to apologize to him
and
to that stupid Lenore Kennashaw, and I’m not doing it. I’m
not
sorry and I won’t say I am.”

“Y’all are both so damn stubborn,” she says.

“He also told me that he didn’t care if I ever made a dime in the gallery, that I could just live off him.”

“Most women would love a proposition like that.”

“I don’t give a shit about
most
women.”

“Exactly,” Lilly says. “And that’s why he loves you. I’m starting to believe that old saying about whatever attracts you most to a person will be what drives you away from them in the end.”

“That’s depressing.”

“I know, because that means Dax’s penis is going to be what drives me away from him in the end.”

I start laughing and tell her I don’t see that happening.

“Me, either,” she says with a devilish smile.

I pull into the parking lot of Pier Six Pizza and think for a moment about what a wuss I am because all I want to do is move back home. I get out of the car, go in and get my pizza, and then drive back to Lilly’s house. I stick the pizza in the fridge and then start putting my bags in the car. Jalena is all packed up and ready, so I load her stuff up, too.

I sit in Lilly’s living room with Buster Loo in my lap while she fills me in on all the local gossip. At five o’clock, we hear a truck pull up and walk out on the porch to see Jalena and Ethan Allen, and they don’t look happy.

“Hey, guys,” I say cautiously. I glance at Lilly, wondering what might have happened, but then they both start talking to us like everything is normal and I stop worrying. I remember the pizza, so I run inside and get it out of the fridge.

“I guess we need to get on the road,” I say finally, not excited at all about the drive back to Pelican Cove. Jalena and Ethan Allen exchange a look; then she hugs Lilly and tells her again what a great weekend she had. I hug Lilly and Ethan Allen; then Lilly goes inside and I go get in the car and crank it up so the lovebirds can enjoy their last few minutes together somewhat privately. A few seconds later, Ethan Allen opens the door for Jalena, leans down and tells Buster Loo good-bye, then tells me to drive safely before closing the door.

Jalena doesn’t say anything until we’re on the highway.

“I know you think we went and had sex today, but we didn’t.”

“Don’t put that in my buggy, sister, ’cause I am not buying it.”

She starts laughing. “Ace Jones, you are too much, girl.”

“I do what I can,” I tell her. “So what
did
you do if you weren’t off bumpin’ uglies?”

“He took me to his farm and we rode the Gator down to his lake.” She looks at me. “Does everyone up here have a lake at their house?”

“Nope,” I tell her. “Just the people with money. There was no lake anywhere around my house.”

She shakes her head. “I’m going to be honest with you for a minute,” she says.

“Go ahead.”

“You were crazy as hell to leave this place.”

“Well, I’m not head over heels in love with a certain farm boy that lives here,” I tell her. “Plus, there’s another side to life in that little town, trust me.”

“Who cares?” she says. “I love it.”

“Better than Frog Bayou?”

“I love Frog Bayou with all my heart, and I always will. That’s home for me, but I could see myself living in Bugtussle.”

“Are you serious?” I snort.

“Ace, I’ve been out with so many guys, so many worthless, self-centered pricks. I
know
men, and Ethan Allen is unlike any man I’ve dated or even met.” She glances over at me. “It’s going to be so hard staying down there in Frog Bayou until he asks me to marry him.” She laughs out loud, and so do I. “You’re going to think I’ve lost my mind when I say this, but when I was on that Gator with him and he was carrying on and cracking me up, I looked around and got the funniest feeling, like God put me on this Earth to find this man and live on this farm. I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life, and it was freaky.” She looks at me. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Not at all,” I tell her. “I think you are very, very lucky.”

“Well, we’ll just take it one day at a time and see how it goes.”

“I’ve got a feeling it’s gonna go well,” I tell her, and I only wish I could feel that way about my life. Not wanting to discuss my “is my situation shitty or am I just crazy” dilemma, I ask Jalena what she thought about Gloria Peacock, Birdie Ross, and Temple Williams.

“Wow!” she says. “That’s all I can say about that entire experience. Wow! They make getting older look so glamorous. Mrs. Williams is beautiful, that Birdie Ross is a damn hoot, and Mrs. Peacock is the sweetest, spunkiest little lady I’ve ever seen. It felt like I was surrounded by family.” She looks at me. “Ace, this whole weekend—the party Thursday night, going to Memphis and Tunica on Friday—it was all so much
fun
. And Friday night, I had the time of my life with Ethan Allen, and you know I had a fine ol’ time last night.” She giggles. “And today, it was just unreal. This whole weekend has been a game changer for me.”

“Game changer?” I say.

“As soon as I get home, I’m canceling all of my online dating accounts.” She looks at her phone. “I’d do it right now if I could figure out how.”

“Olivia is going to be so proud of you,” I tell her.

She starts laughing. “She will, won’t she? Hey, would you care if I call her?”

“Of course not,” I say.

She calls her sister and tells her all about the weekend, and when she gets off the phone, I suggest we have a snack. She reaches around and gets the pizza box off the top of her suitcase, which is where I had to put it so Buster Loo wouldn’t have himself a little dog pizza party in the backseat. When Jalena takes a bite, she can’t even believe how good it is.

“And it’s
cold
,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to stand it fresh out of the oven.”

We chitchat some more; then she gets quiet and I pop a CD in and we listen to Adele all the way to Meridian. When we get there, we stop at the same gas station we did on the trip up.

She falls asleep shortly after we get back on the road, so I go through my whole collection of Kid Rock CDs. She’s snoring when I pull up at her house and I wake her up; she can’t believe she’s already home.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she says, and we haul the last of her bags in the front door. “Thanks again for everything!”

I pull out of her driveway and head home. Mason didn’t call or text all weekend, and I didn’t call or text him, either. It’s almost midnight when I turn into our neighborhood, and my stomach drops when I pull up in the drive. I leave my bags in the car and tote Buster Loo inside the house. When I put him down, he promptly disappears out the doggie door, and I stand in the living room and listen to see if Mason gets up. He doesn’t make any noise, so I decide to just sleep on the couch.

49

M
onday morning, Mason wakes me up bright and early. He’s dressed for work and looks and smells dapper to the max. He hands me a cup of coffee and sits down across from me on the love seat.

“How was your trip?”

“Good,” I say. “It was nice to see everyone.”

“I understand Ethan Allen and Jalena hit it off.”

“I believe they did.”

“Do you want to move back up there?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to move back?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No,” he says. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“So are you going to leave?”

“Would you come with me?” I look at him and he looks at the floor.

“You know I can’t do that,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“Will you please just give me some time? I promise you that I can make you happy.”

“What if I wanted to start teaching school again?”

He looks surprised by that but says, “You can do whatever you want.”

“I love you, Mason. There is no one else in this world I want to be with.”

“I feel the same way,” he says, moving over to sit next to me. “Let’s make it work.”

Why does it have to sound like such a chore?
“Okay.”

He kisses me on the cheek and gets up. “Well, you know what I’ve got to do.”

“Go to work.” I smile at him because I really do love him with all of my heart. “Have a good day.”

* * *

I go upstairs, get in the bed, and sleep for two more hours. I wake up at eight, take Buster Loo for a quick walk, then come home and make another pot of coffee. I’m exhausted from the trip and sore from sleeping on the couch, but I take a shower, get ready, and head to the gallery. I leave Buster Loo at home because I feel like he needs some rest after all that traveling.

* * *

I take the sign off the front door and go upstairs to my studio. I sit down in front of my easel and feel about as creative as a tax accountant on the sixteenth of April. I walk down to Avery’s studio and open the door, only to find that everything is gone. The room looks just like it did the first day I showed it to her. I go downstairs and call her, but it goes straight to voice mail. I don’t leave a message.

I sit behind the counter and stare out into the parking lot for a while. No one comes in all morning. At lunchtime, I lock up and go get a sandwich, then sit down at my desk and look up the Florida Department of Education’s Web site again. I print out the application, read over it, and then set it on the corner of my desk.

Avery calls at twelve fifteen, and when I ask her if everything is okay, she seems confused.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” she says. “Are you home?”

“Yes, I’m at the gallery and I just went upstairs and saw all of your stuff was gone.”

She starts laughing and tells me that she and Rob and several other local artists have decided to rent a storefront downtown and form a community gallery.

“Yeah, I was going to tell you before I moved everything out, but you’ve seemed so troubled lately that I didn’t want to stress you out more. I can still work anytime you need me.”

“Avery, I don’t need you to work, but I would love to have the company if you ever just want to stop by.”

“Great! I will, because I’ve missed you.” She tells me their big plans for the community gallery and I tell her it all sounds great. Because it does. I wish her the best of luck and tell her to call me if there’s anything I can do to help with the project.

Later that afternoon, the phone rings and it’s Tia. “Well, hello!” I say when I answer.

“Hi, Ace Jones,” she says sweetly. “So, I heard you took Jalena on a little road trip and she found herself a Mississippi man.”

“We did and she did.”

“So are we having Girls Night In this week or what? I want to hear all about it.”

“Yes!” I exclaim. “As a matter of fact, we should have a special celebration in honor of Jalena deleting all of her online-dating profiles.”

She laughs about that and we chat for a minute and she carries on like everything is perfectly normal, so I do the same. When we get off the phone, I text Jalena and tell her I heard from Tia and Girls Night In is on this week. She texts back a few minutes later and says that she will be there and so will Olivia. I text Avery and she says that she’ll definitely be coming but that she might be a little late. After about a hundred more text messages, we decide that everyone should just pick up whatever they want for dinner on Thursday and we’ll eat together in the break room.

I decide to leave an hour early, and on my way home, Mason texts me and tells me that Allison is bringing a home-cooked meal to the conference room tonight. After inviting me to join them, he sends me another text immediately and says he will completely understand if I don’t want to come. I decide to go, not because I want to, but because I want to make it work between us. I go home, take Buster Loo for another short walk, then drive to the law office of J. Mason McKenzie.

Allison acts supremely nice to me when I get there, and she and Connor seem to be getting along a lot better. After a dinner that tastes almost as good as warmed-over cafeteria food, Mason walks me out to my car.

When he gets home later, I hug him as soon as he walks in the door, and we sit in the living room and chat for a while. He tells me Allison leaving at five o’clock has made the work environment much less toxic, and I tell him that there seemed to be a lot less tension. I tell him all about my trip to Bugtussle, and then we start discussing ways to make things better between us.

“I don’t want you to feel that you have to eat dinner in that conference room five nights a week,” he says. “You need some time to hang out with your friends.”

“Maybe if I come up there on Mondays and Wednesdays,” I say. “And then we’ll have the weekend to be together. Or at least Saturday night and Sunday.”

“Then you could hang out with the girls on Tuesday and Thursday,” he says. “Do you think you could live with that for a while? I promise it won’t be this way forever.”

“Yes,” I say and honestly feel that I can.

We go upstairs and have some makeup sex, after which he starts snoring so loudly that I have trouble falling asleep.

On Tuesday, I sleep late and don’t get to the gallery until eleven. I walk into my office, get a pen, and start filling out the application for a Florida teaching license. When I finish, I put it right back on the corner of my desk. Tuesday night, I have a nice dinner with Jalena and Tia at the Blue Oyster. Wednesday, I make a casserole to take to the conference room, and Thursday, I stop by Bee Bop’s Burgers and Shakes on my way to Girls Night In.

When I get to the gallery, I go inside and turn on all the lights. At just after seven, Jalena comes in with a bag from Bee Bop’s as well. We’re laughing about that when Tia comes in, and she’s carrying a Bee Bop’s bag, too.

“We should’ve just met at one of the picnic tables at the drive-in,” Jalena says as Olivia comes through the door with a bag from Bueno Burrito. “Oddball!” Jalena calls out.

“What are you talking about?” Olivia says, looking at our bags. “What can I say? I think outside the bun.”

I text Avery to see if we need to wait on her, and she says she’s on her way, but she’s already had dinner, so we dig into our fast-food bags and we’re almost finished by the time she arrives. At this point, Jalena points out that we don’t have any alcohol, and then we collectively decide that staying sober will be just fine. We leave the break room and settle into the couches, where Jalena wastes no time cranking out tales about Bugtussle.

“I’m so happy for you!” Tia exclaims.

“I’m happy, too, but I’m afraid she’s gonna move up there if she gets the chance,” Olivia says.

“I can tell you right now that I will,” Jalena says, smiling.

“It’s all so bittersweet!” Avery says.

“Well, how’s your love life going?” I ask Avery.

“It’s great,” she says with a smile. “Rob actually met my parents last weekend and, wow, did they ever love him.”

“Even though he’s an artist?” I ask.

“Oh, they love that he’s an artist,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know what got into them!”

“Seein’ their baby girl happy, that’s what,” Olivia says, and Tia agrees.

“Well, that is great!” Jalena proclaims. “So who’s going to the Halloween Festival next weekend?”

Everyone, apparently, so we start discussing costumes, festivities, and the best and worst Halloween decorations we’ve seen so far this year. At nine o’clock the conversation winds down, and fifteen minutes later, I’m on my way home.