Happily Ever Madder: Misadventures of a Mad Fat Girl (8 page)

12

I
go back to my office, dig the debit card out of my pocket, and sit down at the desk. My online session has timed out, of course, so I have to start the whole application over from page one. I do that, pay the fees, and sit back in my chair, thrilled that after ten years of thinking about it, I finally sent my application in to the West Florida Festival of the Arts. One whole day before the deadline.

I think about Mason and how proud he’ll be when I tell him. Then I think about how proud he
wouldn’t
be if he knew I spent the past hour lusting after Kevin Jacobs. Especially after that bad breakup I caused last year when I left Mason’s house in a fit of jealous rage and refused to speak to him for months because he was nice to some Barbie-doll-looking chick from his past who showed up out of the blue at his house one night. After all the stink I caused about that, I feel foolish and guilty now that I have this psycho-crush on a cat-daddy that I wouldn’t act on if my life depended on it. I hope. I force myself to stop thinking about Kevin Jacobs and get back to being excited about the art festival.

I go upstairs and tidy up the studio, then walk out on the balcony and look down at the gallery. I take a deep breath and smile because, for the first time in a long time, I feel a faint shimmer of hope about my ability to succeed. I just made my first official sale and even though I’d hoped to sell a lot more in these first few weeks, it still makes me feel like a huge success.

On the drive home, I feel hopeful and happy instead of fretful and anxious, and I think that maybe, just maybe, I can pull off this living the life of my dreams. Not many people get a chance like I’ve got down here in Pelican Cove, Florida, and I swear to myself that I won’t blow it by being stupid.

As soon as I pull up in the driveway, I hear Buster Loo barking up a storm. I see his little brown head and floppy ears in the bottom pane of the front door, and I feel so happy I think I might cry. I unlock the door, just as glad to see my crazy little fur ball as he is to see me, if not more so. I take him out back, and after he hits a few speedy-dog crazy eights, we roll around and play fetch in the patch of grass that is our lawn.

After about fifteen minutes, I toss his toy, and instead of barrel running to fetch it, he barrel runs to the doggie door and disappears into the house. I get up, follow him inside, and find him sitting at the front door. “Buster Loo wanna go for a walk?” I ask him.

He starts running around in circles, so I grab his leash and we head out. We circle the neighborhood a few times, stopping here and there for chitchat and little-dog butt sniffing. I see Cindy outside her house with Pebbles and raise my hand to wave, but instead of waving back, she snatches up Pebbles and stares at me like I’m a registered catnapper.

“Freakin’ weirdo,” I tell Buster Loo as we walk back toward our house. I meet Roger, who is out walking Moses, and stop to chat with him for a second. He tells me he caught Margo and Cindy on video lurking around his house in the wee hours of the morning.

“Doing what?” I ask.

“Hell, who knows?” he says. “They woke Moses up and he got all excited, so I got up and got the gun, thinking someone was breaking in the house. I looked out the window and didn’t see anybody, so I went to the computer and checked the surveillance video, and what do you know? I see Margo and Cindy out in my front yard on their hands and knees with little flashlights.”

“That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” I tell him. “Do you think they were measuring your grass?”

“Oh no, they come during daylight hours to do that because they have to be able to see those millimeter marks on their little rulers,” Roger says, laughing. “Those two goof-asses are surely gonna try to pull something after I played that video at their silly little meeting, but I’m not too worried about it.” He looks at me and smiles.

“You’re probably right,” I say, laughing. “But I wouldn’t worry about it too much, either.”

Moses is pulling at his leash, obviously ready to continue his walk, so I tell Roger I’ll keep an eye peeled for suspicious behavior and let him go on his way.

I’m back home cleaning Buster Loo’s food and water dishes when my phone starts buzzing, and I look down and see that it’s Mason. I think for a second about the time we spent apart and how, after he stopped calling because I wouldn’t answer, I wished every single phone call and text message would be from him. I decide then and there that I will never think dirty thoughts about Kevin Jacobs again.

“Hello, sweetie,” he says, and he sounds tired.

“Hey, baby,” I say. “How are you?”

“Hungry. You wanna meet me at the Blue Oyster in an hour?”

“I’d love to,” I say, drying off Buster Loo’s bowls.

“Great, see you then.”

I run upstairs to get ready, excited about our date. When I get to the Blue Oyster, he’s already there, and he’s already drinking. A bucket of peel-and-eat shrimp is on the table, along with two frosty mugs of beer. I sit down and tell myself again that I can live this dream with Mason McKenzie.

“How was your day?” I ask.

“Let’s talk about yours first.”

I tell him that I submitted my application for the West Florida Festival of the Arts, and he is indeed very proud of me for that. I casually mention that Kevin Jacobs stopped by and bought a painting, and he nods and I don’t see any indication that bugs him, so I tell him what Kevin said about his parents getting it on.

“That Kevin Jacobs is one funny dude,” Mason says, shaking his head. “I love to go out fishing with him, and not just because he knows the best spots, but because he’s so much fun to be around.” He looks at me. “One day, he got so drunk he passed out on the boat and wouldn’t wake up even after me and the other guys loaded it on the trailer. So I drove that big-ass truck to his house with him asleep in the cabin of the boat.” He looks at me. “So, how many paintings have you sold?”

“That makes one,” I say with no small amount of pride. “And two giveaways.”

He reaches out and puts his right hand over my left. “That is great,” he says quietly. “I’m so proud of you.”

“How are things at the office?” I ask.

“Well, we got the hold off Mr. Marks’s bank account, so that was good.” He glances around, I assume to see if anyone is paying attention to our conversation. He lowers his voice and continues. “Connor found out that the bank had also filed for a continuing writ of garnishment, which means that in addition to trying to get every cent Mr. and Mrs. Marks have in the bank, they were going to try to take what little he makes working part-time at Home Depot.”

“How can they do that?” I ask.

“They can’t,” he says, peeling a shrimp. “And they won’t because Connor took care of that today, and after we make sure they’re not trying to screw them some other way, we’re going to get started with
our
lawsuit.” He dips the shrimp in cocktail sauce, then looks at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to nail somebody as bad I want to nail this bank, because they are
literally
trying to
rob
someone who has
nothing.
And I can just imagine those pompous-ass big bank executives sitting up in their big, fancy offices on the twenty-fifth floor of some downtown building whining about not getting a million-dollar bonus check; then one of them decides to do something like this.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Cocksuckers.” He takes a drink of beer, then says, “Let’s talk about something else. Please.”

I tell him about Roger catching Margo and Cindy on video, and that cracks him up a little.

“What is
wrong
with those two?” he asks after I tell him they were on their hands and knees with flashlights in his front yard.

“I have no idea,” I say, wondering whether Margo and Cindy have jobs or if they’re just full-time morons.

“Tell me something else funny,” he says, and I start getting stressed-out because I can’t really think of anything. I tell him about seeing Cindy and her cat, and he laughs a little about that, but I get the feeling I’m not being as entertaining as he would like for me to be. But I can’t help it. I’m not a stand-up comic. I can’t perform on demand.

13

F
riday morning, I get up before Mason and go downstairs to make coffee. Buster Loo is already outside with all four paws in the air basking in the morning sun. When he hears me clanking around in the kitchen, he jumps up and runs inside, no doubt hoping I’ll fry some bacon. I hear Mason rumbling around, so I pour him a cup of coffee and head upstairs with Buster Loo right behind me. Mason is lathering up a thick beard of shaving cream, so I put his cup of coffee on the sink.

“Would you like some breakfast?”

“No, thanks,” he says. “I think I had a few too many last night.”

“Would you like a Sprite?”

He eyeballs the coffee, then looks at me. “Not after getting a whiff of that.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.” I look at Buster Loo, who is sniffing a stray speck of shaving cream. “Buster Loo! No! C’mon out of here and let’s let Daddy get ready.”

“Hey,” Mason says, “Connor and I are leaving the office at five o’clock today, so you and I will have a night at home like normal folks. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do?”

“You decide,” I say. “You’re the one working from sunup till sundown.”

“Wanna grill some steaks?”

“I’d love to,” I say. “I’ll pick some up on the way home.”

“Great!”

At the gallery, the morning turns out to be quite busy, but I don’t sell a damn thing, and that puts me in a foul mood. When the place is empty, I go upstairs and flip through my inventory, thinking that maybe I need a different selection on the floor. I have quite a few ship paintings left over from my days of teaching school, because every year I did an extensive unit on maritime art. I spread those out across the floor and think for a minute about the six years I spent in the classroom. I never thought the day would come when I would miss teaching high school, but here I am thinking about all of my students and how much fun I always had hanging out in the lounge gossiping with and about my fellow teachers.

“Never saw that coming,” I mumble as I get up off the floor. I gather the paintings and stack them by the door, determined to press onward with my dream. I decide to do some rearranging this afternoon so the gallery will look completely different next week and maybe people will stop looking and start buying.

I hear the doorbell chime, so I step out onto the balcony and see Avery in the gallery below.

“Well, hello!” I call out. “Be right down.”

When I join her downstairs, she smiles and says, “I wanted to stop by and see if you needed any help with anything. I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait until Monday.”

“Well, I was thinking about doing some rearranging, if you’d like to help with that,” I say, pleased with her enthusiasm. She’s wearing hot pink Converse tennis shoes, red hose with so many runs I don’t really see the point of even having them on, a Pink Floyd T-shirt that looks two sizes too small, and a supershort denim skirt with fringe where a seam should be.

“I’d love to!”

“Okay, I’ve got some stuff upstairs that I was going to bring down,” I say, glad to have some help but more excited about the company. “I thought it would be nice for the place to have a fresh look come Monday.”

“I couldn’t possibly agree with you more,” she says.

We haul paintings down the stairs and spend the remainder of the afternoon rearranging, hanging and rehanging dozens of portraits, leaving the main wall open for my mermaid. I ask Avery if she’d like to have an area to display her work and she tells me she’d love that but she needs a few weeks to “get a feel for the soul of the building.” That makes me think she might be a little more bizarre than I already thought she was, but that’s okay because I thought Chloe Stacks was bizarre at first and she turned out to be one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

When we finish, Avery looks around, obviously pleased.

“Can’t wait to get to work on Monday,” she says. I tell her I can’t wait for her to get to work on Monday, either. I’m looking forward to having someone to talk to.

We walk out together and she hops in her shiny Audi, puts the top down, and drives away. I grab my
OPEN
fish, then step inside, pick up my purse, and head back out the door. I stop by the butcher shop, where I pick up two thick and what I know will be juicy, delicious steaks. I accept the man’s offer to preseason the meat, and he wraps the steaks in thick white paper before sticking them in a brown paper bag.

“Thanks!” I say, thinking I can’t wait to smell these babies on the grill.

Mason gets home at five thirty on the dot, and I whip up my special superfattening twice-baked potatoes while he fires up the coals. As Mason cooks, Buster Loo stays on full alert, circling the foot of the grill in hopeful anticipation of a stray morsel. We polish off several Coronas, and I’ve got a great buzz by the time we sit down to eat.

“Tell me something I don’t know, baby,” Mason says, picking up his knife.

I tell him about my day, omitting the part when I realized how bad I miss my old job and talking instead about rearranging the gallery. Mason looks about as interested in what I’m saying as I am in getting up from the table and jogging around the block. When I ask him about his day, he starts telling me all about strategic defaults, negative equity, and asset protection in the state of Florida, and I start thinking that sawing my own arm off might be more fun than listening to him talk about work.

“This dinner was amazing,” he says, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his belly.

“Wasn’t it?” I say, thankful that at least we’re not in the conference room at his office. “Must’ve been the potatoes.”

“Yeah,” he says, jerking both his thumbs up to his chest, “or the man with the mad grill skills.”

“Right,” I say, and we both start laughing even though nothing is really that funny. He doesn’t mention wedding plans, so I don’t, either.

“Let’s deal with this tomorrow,” he says, looking around at the kitchen. “I’m ready to go upstairs.” I follow him upstairs, and he’s fast asleep by the time I finish taking off my makeup. I lie down beside him and start thinking about the Peanut Festival tomorrow. I’ve never heard of such, but I don’t even care what it is because I’m just looking forward to hanging out with Tia.