“That’s Wolverine,” I said, my words garbled by a mouthful of ice cream.
He grinned at me. “What?”
“That’s my neighbor, Lefty Monroe,” I said as Emmett shoved me onto my couch. “Despite the hotness, he’s a jerk. I think he’s got an internet porn addiction, possibly online gambling. In a choice between his being over-sexed or broke, I think I’m rooting for gambling.”
“I can work with either,” Emmett said, shrugging. “Wait, did you say ‘Lefty’?”
I swatted at his hand as he attempted to dig a chocolate chunk from my ice cream carton. “Yeah.”
Emmett grinned. “I wonder where he got that name. Oh, the possibilities are endless.”
“I don’t know, but if you start to make guesses, I will leave,” I told him.
“He’s just got so much potential,” Emmett told me. “Lacey, I think that tall drink of water is exactly what the doctor ordered.”
“For what?”
“To help you banish the memory of Mike the Moron. You know what they say, ‘The best way to get over one man is to get under another one,” Emmett said, bowing his lips into a pert moue as he poured the makings of his famous chocolate vodka milk shakes in the blender. “It’s a life philosophy I whole-heartedly embrace.”
“That’s because you’re a man-whore,” I told him.
Smiling sweetly, Emmett hit the frappé button. The grinding noise of the decrepit motor covered the stream of profane insults he sent my way. I could read his lips well enough to tell he was denigrating my intelligence, wardrobe, general hygiene, and ability to color coordinate a room. I let him vent. After all, he was providing the liquor.
“Believe me when I say you deserve a piece of that cranky beefcake across the way there,” he said, cutting the blender off with a metallic groan. “It will be like therapy, only without the couch. Or, use the couch. That could be a learning experience for you.”
“I don’t think more bad sex is the solution to my problem. Besides, he could be a serial killer for all you know,” I cried. “And he’s a potential serial killer who has zero interest in me. He’s made that abundantly clear.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the other night he made it very clear that he has no interest in seeing me naked ever again.”
I lifted my face from the pillow and immediately regretted it. Someone had let a polka band loose in my cranium.
I groaned, rubbing my hands over my eyes to shield them from the unforgiving sunlight pouring through the window. I smacked my lips, cringing at the dry, sandpapery sensation of my tongue scraping the roof of my mouth. It tasted like a small rodent had nested there overnight. Given the cupcakes and circus-colored candy I had consumed, I suspected Mickey Mouse.
I rolled on my back, exhausted by the monumental effort that seemed to entail. Something felt wrong with my head, and not just the massive hangover. It felt too light. There wasn’t enough dragging weight between my head and the pillow. I gasped, reaching up to lace my fingers through my hair and finding nothing but sheet.
Cursing spectacularly, I stumbled into the bathroom and flicked the light switch. Squinting into the mirror, I screeched, “Damn you, Emmett!”
Obviously, my brother had cut my hair at some point during the evening, which he was wont to do when his sister was smashed. I should have known better. I woke up the day after my twenty-first birthday with sassy layers. I cursed the years Emmett spent dating the head stylist of The Right Tangle Salon. It had convinced Emmett that he knew more about my follicles than I did and he had just enough skill with the scissors to be dangerous. Now, instead of long curls that settled between my shoulders, I had a short, sunny cap of blond with a fringe of bangs across my brow. I looked like a pixie, a hungover pixie, but a pixie all the same
After plying me with an indecent amount of vodka, carbs, and fats, my brother had tucked me into bed and slunk away into the night. Emmett, ever practical, had cleaned up the mess before he left. When I woke in the morning to the sound of inhumanly loud jet Skiers whooping their way across our little cove, the only evidence that Emmett had been there was a collection of movies that he left to keep me entertained. The Strangers, Friday the 13th, Cabin Fever, Evil Dead, Sleepaway Camp - all movies about people who isolate themselves at cabins and end up horribly, horribly dead. Emmett said the idea of me scaring the crap out of myself appealed to his puckish sense of humor. Emmett was a twisted little man.
There was also a reminder note on the counter that read, “The best way to get over a man is to get under another one. Love, Em…. P.S. Stop cursing my name. Your new hair is a huge improvement over the frumpy suburban Stepford zombie thing you had going. Embrace the pretty and move on.”
I didn’t have the energy to process my new ‘do just yet. But I did, for some reason, feel hungry for the first time in weeks. In college, I’d learned that the only way to fix a hangover was wonton soup. Fortunately, Lockwood had a passable Chinese place called Wok’n’Go. I was pretty sure their egg rolls were from the frozen food section, but they had the best sweet and sour chicken in this end of the state. Since I hadn’t eaten out in weeks, I decided to spoil myself with the chicken, a double order of pot stickers, and extra fried rice. I was looking forward to a truly gluttonous late lunch followed by a nap with a cold washcloth over my face.
When I came back to the cabin, MSG in hand, I found a girl lying in my hammock, listening to her iPod and reading a copy of David Sedans’s When You Are Engulfed in Flames. She had about fourteen piercings in each ear, a nose ring, jeans with more tears than material, and a black T-shirt that read “Even Jesus Hates Miley Cyrus.” Her long legs were crossed over the edge of the hammock, her feet encased in purple Chuck Taylors. I’d seen wine stains that weren’t as red as her hair.
Was it possible that this was some castoff girlfriend of Monroe’s? She looked just antisocial enough to be his type. I wasn’t sure whether to get her attention or whip out the pepper spray. This wasn’t an issue as she looked over the edge of her book and grinned broadly
“Lacey Terwilliger?” she asked, sitting up and yanking her earbuds out
“Yes,” I said, stepping back and keeping the bag of Chinese up like a shield
She let out a breathy laugh. “Wow, I’m just so glad - I drove, like, nine hours to meet you.
She seemed nice. I hoped we could still be friends after I called the cops
“Maya Drake,” she said, tucking her card into my hand. “Internet entrepreneur and devoted fan.
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of your work,” she said. “A friend of mine forwarded your e-mail to my account last week. Plus, it’s on like thirty different websites, a bunch of legal blogs, women’s health forums. And some woman claiming to be you is doing angry readings of the newsletter on YouTube. You are the voice of pissed off, betrayed housewives of your generation.”
“Well, that’s both flattering and upsetting,” I told her, hitching the increasingly heavy bag against my hip. “How did you find me? Seriously, doesn’t anyone respect the whole ‘in hiding’ concept?”
“Well, I went into town and hung out at the White Hat Café until I heard someone bring you up. It took a grand total of three minutes. When someone brought your letter up, I asked where you were staying. Everybody had a different story. You’d fled to Mexico. You were holed up at a spa getting Botox. You were on your way to Vegas to be a showgirl. But then I ran into someone who was more than forthcoming with good information. Your brother says hello, by the way.”
“Resourceful and very creepy.” I nodded. “Look, if this is one of those lure the unsuspecting desperate divorcée into a secluded place and kill her scenarios, I feel I should warn you that I have nothing left to lose. I will take you down with me.”
Maya laughed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk to you. Urn, you wouldn’t happen to have a few extra egg rolls you could throw my way, could you? It’s been a while since that tuna melt at the White Hat.”
Mama had pounded Southern hospitality and good manners into my bones since birth. Being a gracious hostess was practically a genetic imperative, like salmon spawning or swallows flying to Capistrano. So before my better judgment could win out, I sighed, “Come on in.”
Fortunately, the amount of food that was sinful for one person was just enough for two. Although I did deeply resent sharing my egg rolls, frozen or not. Over the pot stickers, Maya explained that she’d received an e-mail with my newsletter the week before and decided she had to meet me. Maya ran a greeting card company called Season’s Gratings. She provided clever, customized cards for people who were getting quickie annulments, were taking time off for a nervous breakdown, or had kids come out of the closet. You know, all of life’s little surprises that Hallmark didn’t quite cover.
“So you came all this way to sell me some divorce announcements?” I said as I tossed the paper plates in the garbage. “I admire your tenacity, but I think most of the people I know took the e-mail I sent out as the announcement.”
Maya grinned. “I don’t want to sell you cards. I want to hire you. I want you to write newsletters. Hundreds of them.” She opened her laptop to show me a prototype of a website called, And One Last Thing…
She cleared her throat and used what was obviously her “professional voice” to give me her pitch.
“This site would allow the customer to order completely customized newsletters tailored to their unique marital situation. They fill out an online form and select a number of design options. You would take the specific information provided by the client and do what you do best, write a fantastically snarky newsletter. We distribute it to a list of e-mail addresses provided by the client, routing through their personal address. I don’t think it would be hubris to say that we could retire before we even started operation. I’ve done some test marketing on the card site and I’ve already got enough preliminary orders to keep us busy for the next year.”
“I think you need to leave now,” I told her. “But I may call you if I need some ‘I’ve gone into hiding because I lost my mind’ cards.”
Maya was clearly caught off guard by my not immediately jumping on board and thanking her for such a golden opportunity. Or that such a seemingly nice person was rudely tossing her out on her ass. “You don’t think it would work?”
“No, I’m sure it would make us both temporary millionaires!” I laughed. “It’s crazy. Brilliant, diabolical, inspired. But there are some serious flaws in this plan.”
She shrugged. “Such as… ?”
“We would be sued,” I cried. “There would be no way we could guarantee any of what the client said was true. And I’m already being sued for the first newsletter I wrote. If I write another, my lawyer will hurt me. She’s short, but I’m pretty sure she works out.”
“Which is why I had my lawyer draw up an ironclad release form where the client swears the information is true and takes sole responsibility. We’re not disseminating the information, we’re just formatting it in a pleasing manner,” she said. “Plus, we would be completely anonymous. We would be ghosts.”