The Break-Up Psychic (3 page)

I drop my head forward, allowing the water to cascade over my shoulders. Dragging a deep breath in then out, I focus on pulling myself together. It doesn’t seem fair that I’m the one in pain when it was Tim’s cheating penis that destroyed my fantasy of a life with him. Alright, fine, I’m a big enough girl to admit that I share in some of the blame. I find unconditional trust…complicated. Maybe I didn’t defile our living room furniture with the Fed Ex guy, but I did my part to run that relationship straight into the ground.

I step out of the shower and wrap one of Luanne’s pink fuzzy robes around me. I definitely feel less vomit-y now. I hear Luanne yelling at someone on the phone so I sneak down the hallway and make my way to the bedroom. There’s a selection of dresses laid out on the bed and I try to choose the least provocative one. Luanne likes to dress sexy at all times. She says it’s a part of her Southern charm.

I slip on a white and pink polka-dot dress that’s a little snug around the bust but otherwise looks pretty good. My face, on the other hand, needs some serious attention. The mascara smudges are gone but my eyes are still pink and puffy from crying. The mixture of tears and booze has left my skin looking paler than usual. I dab some concealer beneath each eye and apply thick layers of black mascara to try to bring out more of the blue and less of the morose. It almost works. I swipe a creamy blush across my cheeks and drag a comb through my hair, grateful for the natural curl. As I pat a light shimmery gloss over my full lips, I do my best not to think about the last time they were kissed by my lying, cheating ex.

Luanne is in full dressing-down mode as I enter the living room. I pity the soul that’s crossed her this time.

“Listen, Jo. I put in fifty hours at that rat-trap you call a bar last week alone. If you want me to cover Angel’s shift tonight, I want time-and-a-half and I want it in cash before I lock up. I don’t care about any stupid taxes. Well, have fun covering the shift tonight, then. No, you go to hell. I will. Fine. Love you too.” Luanne snaps the cell phone shut and drops it into her open purse.

“Your Aunt Jo?” I ask.

“Of course. The old bat wants me to cover that moron Angel’s shift again tonight. That’s the second shift in a week I’ve covered for her.”

“Maybe she’s sick or something.”

“Yeah, sick and tired of working for a living. Nah, she’s got herself a new man up in Denton County, an insurance salesman or
somethin
’. She thinks he’s going to marry her and take her away from all of this,” Luanne says, spreading her arms wide.

“Well, maybe he will,” I say, squishing my feet inside white strappy sandals.

“Oh, really? Huh. Funny, last night I remember someone who looks an awful lot like you
runnin
’ on at the mouth about how all men are scum. Now ‘Insurance Man’ is suddenly going to turn into a white knight?” Luanne stares me down, incredulous.

“I don’t know, Lu. Maybe they are all scum. Maybe it’s us, not them. But we have to put ourselves out there, right?” I ask, or rather, pray.

Luanne grunts and moves past me, bending down to pick up a piece of paper that’s half hidden beneath the sofa. As she straightens up she reads, “I hereby resolve that I will no longer date men who are too handsome, suave or otherwise clever enough to get me in bed before the sixth date, dangerous or exciting, or have long eyelashes.” She pauses to give me the old
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’
expression.

She hands the paper to me and I see that it’s not only written in my handwriting but has been signed by me, witnessed by Luanne, and sealed with what can only be the smudge from a chocolate chip. I stare at it in disbelief and try to recall when my drunken resolution met paper during the night. “When did I write this?”

“At about four o’clock this morning, after your visit to the porcelain God. You wrote on the back of my cosmetology application, thank you very much. I only signed the damn thing to get you to shut up.”

“Well,” I say, drawing myself up to my full height, “I mean it. I’m done being a magnet for lousy men. This paper is a contract. It represents the start of my new life.” I finish this sentence with as much bravado as I can muster given the fact that I’m wearing a pink polka-dot mini dress. I may’ve been drunk when I resolved to give up dating my ‘type,’ but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.

“Listen, Ellie, you know I love you. Hell, a few more bad dates and you might start looking pretty good to me yourself, but you and I both know how much you love those bad boys. You just can’t help yourself.”

“Well, I’ve changed,” I say, following Luanne to the door, gathering my jacket and purse from the arm of the sofa on the way. “This is the first day of new Ellie. I’m not going to give my heart away to the wrong man ever again,” I declare as we walk into the hallway.

Luanne uses her key to lock the door and throws a raised eyebrow in my direction. “You better knock on some wood, honey. That sounds like an invitation for trouble to me.”

“It’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

As I step forward to follow Luanne to the stairs, I reach out and gently knock on the apartment’s door. Just in case.

The thing about working at Brook’s Bath and Body Shop is that I get to indulge in the best bath and body products around for a substantial discount. Bubble bath, skin creams and perfumes can all be mine for thirty percent off. Tim loved the way I smelled after coming home from work. He said it was like living with a bouquet of flowers. Stupid Tim. I bet Suzy smells like tanning lotion and Botox.

Today I have the happy job of taking inventory of the stockroom. Let’s see, we have three containers of lavender and vanilla body cream, four bottles of ‘A Rose by Another Name’ body mist, and one good for nothing ex-boyfriend who has yet to call and beg my forgiveness. Not that I want him to call. If he calls, I won’t answer. I won’t help him relieve his guilty conscience. The fact that he hasn’t called so that I can ignore him and punish him with my indifference doesn’t bother me at all. I mean, one might assume that screwing a downstairs neighbor rates an apologetic text message at least, but I don’t care. At this point, he could send a handwritten apology letter, written on parchment paper and delivered by carrier pigeon, and I still wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of—

“Hey, Ellie, I think you’re murdering that
loofah
.” Amber, donning her usual uniform of a black dress and spiky metal accessories, is standing in the doorway watching as I squeeze and twist the life out of a top-selling bath sponge.

“Amber! Yes, well, I was just…uh…I mean, I was testing the resilience of this
loofah
. No one likes a poorly made sponge when they’re trying to remove dead skin cells.”

Amber looks down at her chipped manicure, bored with me. “Whatever. Brook’s here. She brought in a new line of body powders that taste like food. She’s looking for your superior palate to decide which products to stock. Take my advice. Go for the kidney-pie flavor.”

Amber’s always been an enigma to me. Brash, sarcastic and gloomy, you wouldn’t think of her as a natural salesman, but people inevitably buy everything she suggests. Personally I think it’s her blunt honesty, but I can’t rule out witchcraft.

“Brook’s here?” I moan. “I thought she wasn’t coming back until next week?”

“I guess her little sex siesta with the ‘King of Kars’ Karl didn’t turn out as she planned.” Amber takes a step toward me and smiles. “From what I hear, Brook caught old Karl in the backseat of a pre-owned Miata with that actress who’s in all of his commercials. I guess he really does give the best service in town.”

Amber winks a heavily lined eye at me and floats out of the stockroom on black platform boots. That girl loves misery. Placing the misshapen
loofah
back on its shelf, I hurry out of the back and find my boss, Brook Taylor, standing behind the counter wearing a tight leopard print dress and four-inch stilettos. Brook makes Luanne look like a senator’s wife, and that’s really saying something.

“Hey, you!” Brook calls out as she spots me. “I’ve just picked up our new hot product, flavored body powders. Let’s see…there’s strawberry, honey, chocolate, caramel, and marshmallow,” she says, placing each on the counter in a long row. “They’re all shimmery powders but I think we can sell them as perfume too since they smell so good.”

Brook pulls the lid off the chocolate-flavored product and uses the accompanying puff to lightly dust her wrist with the glittery powder.

“Go ahead, taste it.” Brook, rather unceremoniously, sticks her wrist under my nose, eagerly awaiting my taste test.

“Brook, I’m not going to lick your wrist.”

“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Ellie, taste it!”

“Yeah, Ellie,” Amber rings in, “lick Brook’s wrist.”

I shoot Amber a venomous expression and take hold of Brook’s chocolate smelling wrist. I do my best to lick the powder off as prudishly as I can, but I’m pretty sure it still comes across as slutty.

“Well?” Brook asks.

“Actually,” I say, licking some errant powder from my lip gloss, “it’s pretty good. It tastes like chocolate and there’s no bitter aftertaste.”

“See, I told you, Amber!” says Brook.

Amber rolls her eyes and grabs the marshmallow-flavored powder from the counter. She liberally dusts the cleavage beneath her spiky necklace before leaning provocatively toward Brook and me. “Ok, Ellie, now taste me.”

We all burst into laughter as Amber shakes her meager bosom side to side, the powder rising off her skin like a flour cloud. Brook and I claim two other flavors and the three of us set about administering a very formal taste test of each. The honey is by far my favorite and I lightly dust my neck and shoulders with the golden glitter.

“So,” Amber says, licking some strawberry powder off her finger, “what happened with the
Kar
King?”

Brook sighs heavily and bends over the counter, her ample bosom on shimmery display. “Lord almighty, Ellie, I should’ve listened to you. You told me you didn’t think he was ‘The One,’ but I wouldn’t listen. All I could see was his big house and fancy cars. Hell, I had my boobs done for that man and he didn’t even offer to pay for half the surgery. Anyway, I went to pick him up last night after closing and found him and that actress of his getting busy in one of the certified pre-owned,” Brook says, her angry excitement jiggling beneath the mini-dress.

I step forward and wrap my arms around her in a hug. When she sniffles into my shoulder, I try to recall my mother’s method for getting eyelash glue out of cotton.

“
Shh
,” I say, rubbing circles across her back the way Luanne did for me last night. “Don’t give him another thought.” I rock Brook from side to side for a moment until she stops her sniffling and pulls away.

“I don’t know why you’re upset, Brook,” Amber says, thumbing through a magazine as she nestles into her chair in the shop’s only shadowy corner. “That guy is a sleaze ball and you can do better. He owns a used car dealership in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, and he’s got the worst toupee ever made. I say good riddance.”

“I’m with Amber. My mama always says,
‘Men are scum,’
” I say, bracing my hands on Brook’s shoulders.

“Does that include Tim?” Amber asks snidely.

I hesitate for a just a moment. On my way in to work I decided not to tell Amber about Tim and me, but Brook’s face is practically begging for some solidarity, and I can’t hold back.

“Actually, Tim and I broke up.”

Amber immediately puts down the magazine she’s been reading and rushes over to the counter. I wish I could say this was out of some sort of sisterly affection between us, but I know how much she loves misery. I really can’t deny her this small pleasure.

“What do you mean you and Tim broke up?” Brook asks, her sad expression replaced with eager excitement, her eyes wide at the prospect of fresh gossip.

“You and Tim, perfect Tim, broke up?” Amber’s tone is far too happy sounding. “I knew it! When you didn’t come back from lunch yesterday I knew something had happened. Did you catch him in the act, Karl style?”

“Actually, yes, I did.”

“You didn’t come back after lunch yesterday?” Brook asks, suddenly more invested in business rather than the tragedy of my breakup. “Did you remember to clock out?”

“Nice, Brook. She tells you she caught her man in the act with another woman, and all you care about is her timecard?”

“Of course not, Amber, but I do have a business to run!” Brook spits back. Seeing my teary eyes she immediately changes gears and places a conciliatory hand on my forearm. “Come on, sugar, tell your Aunty Brook what happened.”

Aunty Brook, my ass.

“He’s been sleeping with one of our neighbors. I don’t know how long it’s been going on, but it’s definitely over between us.”

“What’d I tell you? Men are scum,” Amber says.

“I said that.”

“Whatever, the point is that now we’re all single and we’re free to go out and flirt with every man in Harlow County,” says Amber.

“In your case, Amber, I’m guessing flirting means tying a guy up with chains and whipping him until he cries for his mommy?” asks Brook.

Amber’s smile is devilish, and she lets the accusation hang in the air as she makes her way back to the corner.

“Listen, baby, I’m real sorry about you and Tim but I think it’s for the best, you know? And I think I’ve got the perfect man for you,” says Brook.