Excerpt: One Imposerus Too Many

This summer was hot, humid and windy. My mood wasn't making it any cooler. My name is Jessica Masterson Tate. Call me Jessie. Everyone does. I'm seriously considering changing my name to Squaw with No Brains. But right now signing anything, especially a legal document, lacks appeal. So I've started the Society of Women Once Spurned, Twice Shy. As far as I know, I'm the only member.
"You understand." The words rang in my ears.
I didn't understand. I was being let go from a job I'd had less than a week. And it was because Rob, my cheating ex-husband, had connections and was trying to ruin my life. It didn't make any sense. I'd signed the papers. He had the house. He had the money from the bank accounts. He had it all.
My boss would give me a good reference, he said. I wasn't sure what good that would do. I'd only had the job for a week. I was kidding myself if I thought anything would help now. No company would touch me once it was out that I'd been fired because my ex-husband could make their problems worse.
I came out to the parking lot boiling mad. Rob had dumped me and married Little Miss Pansy Jacobs almost immediately. I opened my mail this morning and discovered a little extra reason to go back to court. I had been billed for Rob and Pansy's honeymoon cruise. He and I hadn’t had a honeymoon cruise. We had camped at the lake. And it had rained -- for three days.
Why was he doing this to me? Then, coming out the door just now, I noticed something wasn‘t right.
My car was gone. A man shorter than me came running up and I automatically reached for the pepper spray.
"Don't hurt me. He told me to give you this." He threw a key at me and ran away. I picked up the key wondering what it was. Then it was obvious. I went to the wreck that had replaced my car in the parking slot and slid the key into the ignition. It fit. The car looked like it had been the creation of Frankenstein in this life. The rolling disaster had to have twenty different makes of vehicles patched in to make up its body. It coughed and spluttered into life. I wondered if Rob would have been disappointed that it worked.
I looked down on the floor and there was an eight ball. It was one of those answer question toys like the one I'd had as a kid. I picked it up and turned it over. "Most likely." Got that right, I thought darkly.
I went to my apartment and found I couldn't get in. A note posted from the landlord said all my belongings had been taken and put into storage because my last payment had been frozen along with all my other assets. I looked in my purse. I had thirty-seven cents. I hoped Frankenstein’s monster had enough gas to get across town.
"What do you think? Can we make it?" I asked the eight ball.
"Go for it."
I was beginning to like this companion.
What do people do when they break into houses anyway? Of course, I didn't want to get bogged down with taking things to pawn. That makes a difference I imagine. I just wanted to take what I needed. But then I began to feel the rage building.
I didn't feel even a wisp of guilt breaking into my former house. I was beginning to think I'd let the bastard off way too easy. He was the one who’d gone off and gotten himself a floozy. Little Miss Pansy Jacobs had scoped him out at the local strip joint and snagged herself a moron with money. Why was I being so nice to this jerk? I should have taken him for all he was worth. Well, I could take what I wanted now -- if I could just get in.
The hard part was deciding how to do it. I was standing on the porch trying to make up my mind when Mrs. Gates came huffing up the driveway.
“Yoo-hoo! Oh, dearie. I haven’t seen you in such a while. I did want to speak with you for a moment. I hope you don’t mind.” She chattered on for a while. “I just wanted to tell you how pleased I was to see you finally having a garage sale. Of course, your husband was so generous. I never would have taken him to be that kind of man. What does that say about me? Oh, my. He gave me the loveliest necklace. I can’t bring myself to take it off.” She fingered the pearls and diamonds with her bony stubs.
I stared at my great-grandmother’s necklace on Mrs. Gates’ turkey neck and resisted the urge to yank it off. “He must have been overcome with a feeling to let it go,” I croaked.
“Oh, I’ll never be able to let it go,” Mrs. Gates assured me. “It will always remind me of the two of you. Thank you so much.” She bounded across the street and I stared after her in wonder. Rob could make people so happy while doing the wrong thing. It was his gift.
I was back to the moment at hand. What do people do when they break into houses anyway? How did they do it? I didn’t have to be all that subtle. Obviously, the neighbors still thought it was my house. Maybe. I went to the back door.
I’d heard you could do it with hairpins or nail files. I dug around in my purse and found a dirty hairpin. I took off the soft tip and put it in the lock and wiggled it around. Nothing. But the hairpin was now out of shape and unusable.
I tried the nail file. It didn’t do a thing.
I tried the screwdriver. It left some nice scratches. But it didn’t do anything either.
I was not going to be turned away by a ten dollar lock from Ace Hardware. I knew it wasn’t the contractor’s lock because I still had my key and it didn‘t work.
I looked around. If you can't go for money, go for vengeance. I took my purse and swung it at the back window and heard the satisfying shatter of broken glass. I love a good plan. One of these days I’m going to have one.
I still hadn’t figured out why I was here, but I’ve always been good at improvising. I wandered through the house looking at the changes. They had taken it off the market for the moment so I knew they were living here. They hadn’t been able to get into their house of choice.
It smelled stale. I would have thought that they would be back from the honeymoon by now, but they may have gone on safari. Maybe Pansy would be gored by a rhinoceros. One could only hope.
Everything had a thin layer of dust on it and reminded me of my grandparents’ house after they had taken their trip to the coast. I never could define that smell. It was sort of the memory of cooked meals, muggy days and forgotten laundry.
I remembered that I had some clothes upstairs. On the way I passed the front hall. There was mail on the side table -- an open letter from her mother to Pansy.
“Thank you so much for thinking of me, honey. The clothes are a much better quality than I’m used to finding.”
I vaulted up the stairs. My clothes were gone. All of my clothes were gone. The little Pansy had crawled down from her pole and given my clothes to her mommy. Who gives a stranger’s clothes to their mother anyway? Here, Mom. These used to belong to my husband’s ex-wife. They looked just right for you. Just stick a few tissues in your bra.
I stomped into the bathroom and saw the toothbrushes. I once scrubbed a tennis court with a toothbrush for a college hazing. I hoped Rob was foaming at the mouth before he realized it. Maybe he'd think his new wife had rabies while she complained about the toothpaste.
As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw their clothes. They were spread on the bed. If these were the ones from their honeymoon, they hadn’t even been laundered yet. Oh, please, let me help. I gathered the clothes and trooped down the stairs to the laundry room. Why wash? I shoved them directly into the dryer and turned it on high. Rob and Pansy would never dream of having clothing that was anything but the best, the vulnerable best. Everything had to be dry-cleaned or put in delicate cycle. I smiled wickedly.
My head was throbbing. I was sweating. It was freezing cold in this air-conditioning, and I was dripping. I pulled a pair of my jeans out of the trash and found one of Rob’s blue dress shirts that I had bought for him before he decided he was too good for off-the-rack. I could wear them if I just didn’t feel so grubby.
The refrigerator was empty except for a bottle of water, something with blue fur on it, and a jar of olives. The freezer had ice cube trays, the meat packs I'd bought before the split and the steaks I had bought for our anniversary dinner. That was when Rob had told me that he wanted a divorce, right before I’d taken them out to thaw.
I’d come back from Mom and Dad’s. I'd spent weeks while I was trying to find them a caregiver. I was exhausted and frustrated. I walked in the front door and Rob says, “Jessie, I'm in love and I want a divorce.” I thought he was kidding. And then I saw her sitting next to him on the sofa with her cleavage hanging out and her rear bubbles popping out when she stood.
I gritted my teeth. I needed to get some of this filth off me.
The shower felt good. It was hot and wet and I ran the water until there was no more heat in it. I had stripped down to take the shower. It was disturbing to be without clothes where I knew Rob and Pansy lived now. I wanted underwear. There was an unopened package in my size. I stared at them. That was underwear? I’d heard of those. How could anybody wear them? It would be like wearing a rubber band up your ass. I popped the tape and pulled out a red pair. What the hell.
That’s sick, I thought. If I wear these, I’m going to go around all day wondering if my pubic hair has gotten loose. Don’t think about it, I commanded. You don’t have time. I pulled on the jeans and shirt. I hated to put my bra back on, but Pansy and I weren’t the same size there. She looked like she had big melons, but it was an illusion. I couldn’t believe that. She was tiny. She was tiny all over. And that made me start wondering how old she really was.
I took a Styrofoam cooler out of the utility room and shoved the steaks and the meat packages into it. Then I shoved in my clothes from the morning and shuffled everything out to Frankenstein‘s monster.
I took their clothes out of the dryer and shoved them into the laundry hamper being careful to throw a few here and there on the bed where I had found them.
I wasn’t having as much fun as I had hoped to have. Vengeance doesn’t have that free-for-all exuberance of tossing toilet paper over the trees at Halloween. It requires thinking and calculation and way too much anger to be fun. But it was helping somehow.
I went back and unplugged the refrigerator. Then I started thinking about food. I was probably going to spend the rest of my life asking, “Would you like fries with that?” That didn’t seem fair. I didn’t even like fries.
Then I saw the coveted piggy bank. Rob and I had saved our coins in it for almost all of our marriage. We only took out money when the kids needed shoes or if something important came up. Once we decided we were desperate to get out and robbed the piggy bank to go to a movie. I loved that day.
It was easy to open the bottom. I put a cake pan under it and the coins fell out with a clanging that made me smile. There goes the first year. There’s the second. I collected what felt like half a pig. Then I set back and looked at it. I’d given him the house, the bank accounts and the car. I took the rest of the coins out of the pig.
"Bye, Pig. If I'd thought of it, I would have told him that I wanted custody of you. Sorry about that."
The pig didn't respond.
I turned the heat up on the thermostat. It was an old and odd thermostat. We'd had it worked on and it hadn't worked right since. It was set for central heat and air conditioning and would run both at the same time if you pushed the right button. I pushed it. Take that, Rob the Robber! I thought. I hope you think the air conditioner has broken down for three days before you realize that the furnace is on full blast!
Frankenstein and I wheezed and snorted down the street and out to the highway. I couldn’t believe that my trip to check on my parents had turned into this. I was closing a whole chapter of my life and looking at maximum time served with the folks. I hoped I survived it.
"How'd I do?" I asked my eight ball companion.
"Better luck next time," it said.
I didn't like it as much now.

I had expected to see the summer harvest in full swing. There should have been trucks of wheat on the way to elevators and combines in the fields. To be fair, I hadn’t been registering anything at all until I was nearly all the way to Wellington. But this traffic was definitely not normal. Most of it was compact cars and semi-truck trailers.
As I waited for the so-called rush to move, I found myself staring at a rainbow. It was a big one that crossed the entire sky. I hadn't seen one like that since I was a child. I wished, just once, I could just jump past the hard parts of my life and find the best things to remember so it was worth living again. I'd probably need a shillelagh pogo stick. But it wasn't so bad.
I was the daughter of John Masterson, a retired lawyer. His wife, and my mother Eugenia, thought of herself as our small town's answer to Jackie O. A lot of the older women agreed with her.
Lucky me, I have two blonde-haired, blue-eyed and beautiful china doll sisters. I am the eldest papoose in the family that reminds my mother there's Cheyenne in our heritage. Rumors have said that I could be adopted or from a former marriage or possibly from an affair. My mother would have been horrified if she knew the gossips had considered she might have had an affair. But I had even heard that my mother was once abducted by aliens. Sometimes when I was younger, I believed that was true, but I wasn't considering that might have caused my birth at the time.
I swerved to avoid a Volkswagen that was going to be a Mini if it didn't keep out of the way of that semi with a Swift Trucking logo on the side. I wished I wasn't coming home. I had never liked living in Wellington. Between the cliques and the boredom, it was difficult to feel like I belonged. I was the kiwi in the apple basket.
My sisters, Stephanie and Lisa, have never had a hair out of place. And they're tiny. Like Pansy. With my olive-brown skin, eyes so brown they sometimes look black, and a height that's more than a head taller than either of my sisters or even my parents, I don't even look like I'm in the same species. I got most of my looks and my weird sense of humor from my Grandfather on Mom's side. I figured Grandma would have to be satisfied that I inherited her tendency for risk-taking and her affection for brownies at midnight.
On Dad's side I think I inherited a Grandpa's fear of wasting my life and Grandma Masterson's tendency to talk too much. Then there’s the reddish brown hair. Dad thought I should be grateful it looked good on me. I thought it would look better if it would do something besides hanging like the limp cat from the Charles Schultz cartoon in good weather and frizzing like I'd put a fork in a socket whenever the barometer was low.
Right now I was considering whether I could get away with running over the Volkswagen, but the traffic had eased so I made myself save it for another day. I had a feeling there was going to be a lot more days like these.
Trouble has always kept me running. If old age caught up with me, I would look like the grumpy tribal grandma in the black and white pictures on the Oklahoma postcards. Even so, it was fortunate that I tall since lately I was living on moon pies, Twinkies and Snickers bars. What I wouldn't give for a homemade brownie. That wasn't because of my children either. They've grown and moved away from home. Sometimes I wished they were still little. When they were little, I could enjoy being a kid with them. For me, being a kid had been a lot easier than being a grown-up. Funny how you always wanted to be big when you're a kid.
When I was a kid, my sister Stephanie and I made mud pies. Our parents had wanted to talk to our grandparents without our constant interruptions so they sent us outside to play. We knew our jobs. Stephie made the mud and I tracked it into the house.
"Grandma," I whined. "I want pie." Grandma shushed me and said, "So make mud pies with Stephanie." I'd seen Grandma make pies so I went and started looking through the kitchen. I couldn't remember exactly what went into one so I dragged out butter, salt, sugar, pepper, chili peppers, bananas, salsa, watermelon pickles and raw spaghetti.
We put it all together and offered it to the adults but they wisely turned it down. In an effort to soften the blow, my grandfather assured us that it sounded like the food for the gods. Stephie and I ran out to taste our food for the gods. But I grabbed one of the pies and climbed up to the roof feeling it was only good manners to offer the gods their food before I had any.
The roof was high. But it wasn't high enough to get to Grandma's heaven. I figured that if it was the food of the gods of Grandma and Grandpa then it had to go to heaven. So I took a running leap and discovered that mud pie is too heavy to fly to heaven. And the ungrateful gods broke my arm.
I was six.
Today I was flying low because I had promised Mom and Dad I would get there before suppertime. I wasn't looking forward to it. I had recently been divorced if you call a year and sixteen days recently.
That was only part of the problem. I'd forgotten that Wellington had discovered the fine art of traffic jams and car crashes. It wasn't surprising. I left home and some jerk had convinced the fine folk of the town that life wasn't complete without a casino.
They had won out over other available places in Kansas. The government had insisted Kansas could only have one casino. Apparently, everybody had wanted one. So now drivers were caught in the eternal slow-down of people dragging past the gathering of the biggest three attractions in Wellington: the high school, the Wal-Mart and The Big Prairie Casino.
Wellington won the lottery of casino placement so it seemed. It was only a matter of time before the road was completely shut down for widening.
I used the time I gained while waiting to procrastinate. Life wasn't going to be any easier once I got to Mom and Dad's. I'd been avoiding them ever since I had signed the divorce papers. My parents believed marriage was for life and if you're committed you made it work no matter what.
On the other hand, Mom and Dad had an unusually unique relationship in the universe. While other couples stayed together by communicating or avoiding conversation altogether, my parents had discovered the joy of bickering. Mom claimed it was a sign of true love and proof that their marriage would last. So far, it had lasted about a hundred years so it was hard to doubt it.
For them, any subject start a disagreeable discussion that made other people uncomfortable and they might change subjects ten or twelve times once they had started. But it would require plenty of stomping with the walker or pushing the wheelchair into walls, toddling over to the table to slam down a fist or whining just under the harmonics that only dogs hear.
Barking dogs in the neighborhood brought visits from the police. And the men in blue would be served coffee and cake when they arrived. Mom and Dad had usually made up by then and would start again as soon as they were gone.
I slammed on the brakes. There was no need to assume that the traffic was getting better. The casino had a full parking lot. Maybe the slots had started to pay out big money unlike any other casino in the U.S. The Wal-Mart was full of after-elementary-school moms pretending they would get the perfect bargain and find the perfect meal for supper. And as soon as I was past that parking lot, the high school would be letting out and the parade of teenagers playing tag would begin. I had plenty of time to regret my parents getting old.
Two years ago, Dad became ill and refused to stay at the hospital. I had attempted to negotiate a peace treaty during one of their questionable discussions by agreeing to try and get them a caregiver. I stayed through several false starts. One refused to clean. One refused to cook. One refused to drive. One refused to be in the same room when Mom and Dad bickered. One woman even laughed hysterically at every suggestion of work and pointed at Mom and Dad whenever they would finally make up and kiss.
After that one, Mom and Dad said they would find one themselves and I was sent home. By then it was too late to save my marriage. My then husband, Rob Tate, had found himself a flouncy dingbat who wore clothes that had less material in them than most of my swimsuits and she couldn't remember what year it was. But then, she couldn’t remember her name either.
I honked at a woman in a Taurus who had slowed down for a school bus that had put out its stop sign at the wrong crossing. Memories can make you crazy.
After the divorce Mom made it perfectly clear she expected me to move back home. She wasn't about to go to one of those homes for the living dead, she called them. She was tired of barking dogs and police, she insisted. Both my parents said I was to be the negotiator. Oh, yippee.
Maybe it was vulnerability.
Maybe it was insanity.
But one year and sixteen days after the gavel struck, it was desperation. I was headed to their house when it hit me what I had agreed to do. I was two miles away when panic caused me to flip a U-Turn and head the other way. I didn't even care where I went.
Shortly afterward, I heard the siren.
"Driver's license and registration." I was exceedingly aware of the man's crotch as he stood at my window. How could he smell so good in all this heat?
My shaking hand dug into my purse while I desperately tried to think what I was doing. What was I going to say?
"Do you keep the registration in your glove compartment?" the policeman asked.
I considered asking him to step away from the window.
I reached for the glove compartment and, as it opened, I dropped my license on the floor. I leaned over to get the license and banged my head on the compartment door I had just opened. Somehow during this, my elbow caught the gear shift and since I had forgotten to turn off the motor, the car started rolling down the road.
"Hey!" I heard behind me.
Without thinking, I made a U-Turn on the highway to get back to the policeman. A green SUV honked and a man flipped me the bird as he swung far to the left just missing the officer who rolled himself across the shoulder and down into the ditch. I looked over, the car still rolling, and hit the no U-Turn sign.
"Bother." I whispered. "That fine just went up."
The officer waited for two more cars then jogged across the road. His features were sharp and tanned even though his face was flushed. His lips were set in a straight line. Suddenly, I realized I knew him. It was Mac Smith. I ducked my head.
"Jessica Masterson?" I could feel his eyes on me.
"Hmm," I said wishing that it would just be over. Maybe he could just shoot me.
"Jessie?"
Slowly I raised my head. Silently, I was swearing. Couldn't he have realized who I was later?
"Jessica Tate," I said defiantly. So he was still tall, dark and gorgeous. So what?
"Well, it's good to know you're still just hitting inanimate objects. Kill any motorcycles lately?"
I couldn't think of a more appropriate beginning to being forced to come back to my home town than this if I tried, I thought. "I just got here," I said. I dearly hoped he was worried.
We had gone together in high school for a few months. He had been my one and only boyfriend. After our six month anniversary as boyfriend and girlfriend, he slid his class ring on my finger. It was huge. And I wasn't sure how I felt about it. A lot of girls had sex after they got their boyfriends' rings. A lot of them didn't graduate because they'd gotten pregnant. But others were just happy to be a couple. And he had looked happy until my parents made me give back the ring.
Two weeks later, I had walked in on him doing the wild thing with my best friend.
Looking back, it had a bizarre symmetry to it. My best girlfriend and I had been in the costume room trying on dresses, and then we had gone our separate ways for the day. But then I remembered I had left my instrument there when we had checked out the dresses for the coming play. I had pep band so I had rushed back.
Apparently Mac had no trouble finding his instrument. He was yelling like a cowboy. She laughed as a hoop skirt flopped over her head. I watched in stunned silence as her feet and legs bounced up and down on either side of his naked backside. Then she sat up and saw me, and I heard them laugh together as I closed the door and walked away.
I had walked over to Dad's office in a haze, got Dad's 1956 Ford Fairlane and run over Mac's 1970 Harley Davidson Ironhead motorcycle. I knew he had saved and worked for that motorcycle for over a year. I imagined it flattening like my hopes for our relationship as I ran it over and over until it looked like metal road-kill.
Afterwards, nothing could keep me in Wellington. It had been my intention to leave and that intention never wavered until now.
As he gave me the ticket, I was tempted to make another U-Turn. He was walking to a 2003 Harley-Davidson VRSCA V-Rod. I doubted that the city had paid for it. I hadn't heard of them springing for new vehicles of any kind since they'd been teased for their purchase of the white Ford Taurus "rolling bathtubs". My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as I concentrated on just making it through the moment. It was all old news. I deserved the ticket.
In my peripheral vision, I watched Mac swagger over to mount the motorcycle. He still looked good after all these years. Life wasn't fair.
I checked the mirror for stray Volkswagens. I listened to the scratching and creaking of my front bumper as I put my patchwork car in reverse and backed away from the sign and onto the road. I hate having people watch me as I back up vehicles. You can almost feel the negative judgments spewing out of their ears. Okay, so I've totaled a few garage doors now and then. People who park on the street or have carports just don't understand the challenge of parking and debarking from a wooden cave. And reversing onto a road is no better.
But even my trash cans had been against me since the divorce. I never knew when they would jump out in back of the car. I'd driven a full-sized sedan for a long time before I got an environmentally friendly compact. I just hadn't considered that my environment wasn't going to be so friendly to it. Maybe that was why Rob took the car away from me, I rationalized.
When Rob asked for the divorce, I was devastated. I would have done anything for him. I guess I did. I told him to sell the house and keep the money. He took all the money out of our accounts before he’d bothered to ask, just like the car.
After twenty years of marriage, I had come home to discover all the kids' pictures on the front lawn. I was terrified that he might have sold them. When I had signed the papers, I thought it was over. Despite everything I could do, Rob had dealt the final blow of blows.
Everything was gone. My credit, my job, my children, even my clothes were all gone.
Now I was on the road to live with Mom and Dad. I wasn't going just to help them. I was trying to get my feet under me to exist again. I wondered how long it would take before I began whining like a two year old. Judging on how I felt right now, not long at all.
I sighed as the bumper finally sprung loose of the sign and the U-Turn print bounced back and forth like it was waving goodbye. I wiped the solitary tear with the back of my hand and growled. It was my own fault for letting Rob the Robber off so easily. But all I had wanted was to make the pain go away. We had been getting crazy towards the end. One of us had to make it stop.
I glanced in the mirror. I couldn't show up looking like this. My eyes were red-rimmed and I was blotchy. I had filled the car using the coins in the cake pan. I was really glad I didn’t have to face that cashier again! I had argued with myself for twenty minutes whether to have a Snickers or a moon pie for my lunch. Moon pie it was. Mother would be thrilled if I was hungry again, I'd thought.
But I was beginning to feel my stomach objecting to lunch. I held my stomach and sweat built up on my upper lip. I checked the change again. Maybe I could get something else before I had to deal with my family.
I was tempted to take a detour and go see Grandpa Eagle Feather. He liked me to call him, Eefay. I never learned the language. It was the closest I could get to Eagle Feather when I was a little girl. It amused him. Most of the things I did seemed to amuse him. But he made me feel good about it.
I had often talked to him about things that bothered me while I was growing up because no matter how bad things got, I found that he could make me feel better about it. We would either find a good side or laugh at it until it didn't hurt so bad. And he didn't preach to me about what I should have done. That was a definite plus. But for right now, I was more interested in a toilet.
I had already gone past the hotel with steakhouse. All I really wanted was a restroom to get my stomach to stop cramping and to splash some water on my face. Maybe I was allergic to my parents now. That would be a reason to go somewhere else. Siberia, maybe.
I began to pass obvious choices by debating how quickly they would report to my parents that I was in town. I turned on Hwy 81 and followed it over the bridge. Things had changed so much. I never would have believed the townspeople would have agreed to allow the casino to be built so close to the high school. Mom had told me the rationale was that the monster Wal-Mart sat between them. It seemed to me that their parking lot would just make it that much easier for the students to find their way to the craps table. But what did I know?
Finally, I couldn't wait any longer. I stopped at the quickie mart. I raced into the restroom. How do you pull down these things in a hurry? I was afraid to yank. Just how strong were these dinky little strings? I wished I had checked the trash to see if she had thrown out all of my underwear the way she'd thrown out the jeans I was wearing. Then I wouldn't be looking at these and wondering why I'd even tried to wear them. I looked at the thong then shoved down the strings on either side hoping it would work. Part of me wished Pansy had tried to foist off my undies to her mommy, the wobbly weeble. Maybe her mom would finally get around to whacking the bimbo upside the head and asking what she could be thinking. May they both get vaginal infections.
I wondered if the ass rubber band was going to give me an infection. Could you get an infection from a red rubber band?
I was in the main part of the store after I’d been to the restroom before I realized that I hadn't checked my purse for loose change. For other people it would be a stupid nuisance. For our family, it was good manners to buy something you don't need so you have the privilege of using the facilities. I sighed. I went to the back of the store away from the counter and started digging through my purse. There had to be something in this stupid thing somewhere, didn't there? The rest of the change was still in a cake pan in the car.
"Is there something I can help you to find?"
I jumped three feet in the air and faced the cashier. Omigod, he was perfect.
He was a little taller than me, but not much if anything at all. It was just that his personality took up all the air in the room and left me breathless. He had strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. He had big hands. I could imagine him doing wonderful things to me with those big hands. His blue eyes made me want to tell him everything I knew. But it wasn't scary. It was the lack of scariness that was scary. I gulped.
"I was trying to find some change to buy something to compensate you for using the restroom. You know, to justify being here?" I sounded like a dork.
He looked at me with an amused smirk. "There's no charge for the restroom. But choose whatever you like. I'll pay for it just for the pleasure of your company."
I felt my heart quicken. He didn't belong in a quick mart. He should be in the movies or the secret service or my bedroom.
"No, no. That's okay. I was just going to get a moon pie or something."
He nodded slowly and walked to the front of the store. I followed him like a lost puppy. He reached behind the counter. "I like moon pies too. Have this one on me."
I nodded and took it from him and was embarrassed as a little squeak escaped from my mouth as I felt the warmth of his hand. I could tell that I was blushing. I wanted to run for the door, but I just couldn't move. I silently mumbled to myself to pull it together.
"Thank you." My voice was way too high. I started sidling over to the door while keeping an eye on him and trying to look nonchalant. Then I looked out the door and saw Mac coming to the front entrance. "Oh, crap. Doesn't he ever go away?" I dropped the moon pie and ran for the back of the store. The cashier picked up the moon pie and set it on the counter.
"Hey, Wayne. How's it going'?" Mac swaggered in the door like he owned the place.
"Fine. Nobody's mugged me. Girls' skirts are short again. And I've only had one attempt at a drive-off."
"Now, who would try to drive off on you?"
"Little bit of a thing. Too much makeup and a whole lot of attitude. Anything new with you?" Wayne kept looking back at me curiously as if he thought I could disappear through the freezers.
"Well, I arrested six drunk midgets, separated two fighting mothers and gave tickets to a couple of high schoolers who decided to block traffic during the after school rush. Apparently, one of them was mad at the other for making a pass at her boyfriend."
He stopped and grinned. "And I had an old girlfriend pop back into town and try to run me over."
"I didn't try to run you over," I blurted out.
He grinned bigger and I knew I'd been suckered. He must have seen my car out front.
"If I’d tried to run you over, you'd be flat now, you miserable wretch."
Wayne covered his mouth with two fingers and looked out the window like he was checking the pumps. Mac laughed.
"You never did have good aim. You had to total my motorcycle in high school because you couldn't face me."
"Couldn't face you? Couldn't face you?" I forgot all about the new guy and rage took over. My life had already been too stressful lately. I took packages of Raisinets and threw them at him. "You worthless pig. You unforgivable jerk. I wish I'd never met you." I used both hands and threw Milk Duds, Fritos, and pretzels and reached for the bean dip as I considered whether it would break the glass door.
Mac laughed again and put one arm up to block them. He turned to Wayne. "You want me to arrest her?"
Wayne shook his head. "Just go. I'll take care of her."
Mac grabbed something off the counter and left some cash and went out the door.
I stood shaking and watched him go back to his motorcycle as I seethed. Why couldn't he just leave me alone? Why couldn't they all just leave me alone? I looked down and saw Bob picking up the things I'd thrown at Mac.
"Sorry. He brings out the worst in me." I squatted down next to him and started picking up the items that were left.
"Wasn't your best side. I liked the woman I met before he got here."
He smelled good. It was sort of like Dial Soap, a rain forest and the sweaty smell you get after good sex all mixed up together. I could live with that smell. For a moment I forgot my promise to stay off men for the rest of my life. He was so gentle, so kind. I cleared my throat.
"He called you Wayne. Is that your name?" I asked. Another stupid question. I was on a roll.
He nodded. "My mother called me Robert if you prefer. The legal people like Robert Wayne Jennings. My ex-wife liked bastard."
I smiled slightly and shook my head. While we were down on the floor a group of people came in. While I was squatting, I was just about their height. I put the last package on the shelf and tried not to stare. "Are people getting shorter in Wellington?" I whispered to Wayne like a complete idiot.
He shook his head and chuckled silently. "There's a performance group at the casino that's going to do the Wizard of Oz. Maybe you'd like to go sometime."
My mouth fell open and nothing came out.
"You want to close that trap before you catch a fly?" one of the newcomers said.
I turned and found myself staring at a man with brown hair and a square jaw that had to be shorter than my youngest nephew. He had his hands on his hips like a miniature Superman and tilted his head as if he expected an answer.
I blinked. I turned and stared at Wayne. "Did you just ask me for a date?" I asked. If I had any sense I would walk away and try to avoid the impression that I was a total loser.
"Friday," he said. "Dinner and a play. Give me your address and I'll pick you up."
I nodded dumbly. I've heard about things like this happening. They happened to young women with great bodies and loose attitudes. I hoped he thought I was all those things. I must have given him my address. I heard the number and the street. It seemed to come from very far away.
"Don't forget your moon pie." He pressed it into my hand.
"What was your name? Wayne what?"
"Wayne Jennings."
The mood was broken. "Don't mess with me," I said coldly. "I'm not someone you want to mess with."
Wayne looked over where we had picked up everything I'd thrown. There were still crumbs and pieces on the floor. "I can tell that. I think you're worth the risk."
"All right then. Friday," I said. I turned and walked to my car. What had I done? I didn't know him. I'd made a date with a complete stranger. My mother was going to kill me.