Diary of a Mad Fat Girl (18 page)

“
Oh, I love the way you smell,” he
whispers then looks me in the eye again and I think I’m going to
pass out this time for sure. He takes my face in his hand, then
sniffs my hair on the other side, brushing my neck with his lips as
he pulls back.

I start fantasizing about crawling on top of
him when the door flies open, Buster Loo goes nuts, and Lilly and
Ethan come in with coffee and doughnuts.

“
Uh, did we interrupt something?”
Lilly asks, smiling.

“
Oh Lilly, you wish,” Mason says and I
wish my cheeks would stop burning.

“
Hey,” Ethan says, “we got y’all a
little snack and some good coffee. I can’t drink this crap in the
room.”

An hour later, the four of us stroll down
Beale Street, taking in the sights and the heavy scent of stale
beer. Buster Loo puffs his chest out like a big dog, then tries to
pee on a statue of Elvis.

We walk down by the river, then to back to
the hotel to get our bags and check-out. Mason decides a trip to
Tunica is in order, so we head down that way to partake in a little
gambling and big breakfast buffet.

I’m chowing down on gravy and biscuits when
I get a text message from Gloria Peacock inviting Lilly and me to
The Waverly Estate. I accept and she immediately sends a message
extending the invitation to Mason and Ethan. I accept for them as
well and can’t help but wonder if she already knows about our
little fiasco. Regardless, I can’t wait to tell her the whole
story.

“
Heard from Chloe?” Ethan asks over a
mound of eggs, bacon, biscuits, and hash browns.

“
No,” I sigh, “she changed her number
and won’t respond to my emails.”

“
What?” Mason says and looks
disgusted.

“
She’s done it before, a few years
back,” I say, “and when she finally gave us her new number, she
apologized for her stupidity and said it wouldn’t happen
again.”

“
But it’s happened again,” Mason
snaps, shaking his head. “That’s pretty sad.”

“
I want to go to her house and talk to
her face-to-face,” Lilly says, “then help her pack her bags and get
away from that shit bag.”

“
Don’t know if that’s gonna work out
for you, Lil,” Ethan says, looking at his phone. “Gramma just
texted and said she saw them going in the Baptist church across the
street this morning.”

“
Gramma Allen knows how to text?” I
ask in genuine shock.

“
Gramma Allen has an iPhone,” Ethan
says proudly, “and she’s all eyes at church on Sundays.”

“
Hi-tech spy granny,” Lilly says and
we all laugh.

Our two vehicle convoy rolls back into
Bugtussle just after lunch and I wake up and realize I’ve slobbered
all over my shirt sleeve. Mason has invited himself to my place for
a nap so Ethan turns off on Lilly’s street and we continue driving
down to mine.

Before I unlock the door, I make him swear
there will be no funny business and, while showing him to the guest
room, I find myself hoping he doesn’t honor that promise.

I close the door to my bedroom and
scold myself for being so ridiculous. I swear to myself that I
will
not
have sex with
him
and
I will
not
be mean to him, although I must
admit that it’s easier
not
to
have sex with him when I
am
being mean to him. The sad truth is that I’m
dying
to do it, consequences be
damned, but I’m too old to act like that. But I can’t stop thinking
about it. Sleeping in the same bed with him was nearly more than I
could stand, even if he did fart all night long and into the
morning.

After napping in separate beds, we get
dressed in separate rooms and I am proud of myself for not busting
down the guest room door and jumping on his ass like a cheetah on
an antelope. I wonder if he thought about making a move on me or if
he was just in there snoozing and farting and being the perfect
gentleman.

Ethan and Lilly pick us up in the Escalade
and we arrive at the majestic gates of The Waverly Estate at a
quarter till four. The gate guard nods and opens the gate and
instead of the peacock blue golf cart with a single seat, the golf
cart chauffer appears in a peacock blue six-seater.

“
How many of these does she have?” I
wonder aloud.

“
Probably a whole fleet,” Lilly
whispers.

The golf cart chauffer drops us off at a
thatched roof patio that has a tile floor and a large teak wood
table framed by six very comfortable looking chairs.

Gloria Peacock hugs everyone and
squeezes Mason’s cheeks and asks about his grandmother and his
parents and blah blah blah. After a round of sweet tea and peacock
shaped sugar cookies that look
and
taste like they came straight from Paula Dean’s kitchen,
Gloria Peacock takes us on a different route through her majestic
estate to the Mission Impossible room.

“
Before we tackle the Stacks’ issue, I
have something for you girls.” Gloria Peacock says
matter-of-factly. “I have prepared a slide show that I think you
will find to be both informative and entertaining.” She smiles,
“Are you ready?”

“
Yes ma’am!” I exclaim and I can’t
wait to see what she’s put together with her super spy computer.
What follows is a series of photographs of Catherine Hilliard
engaged in various positions of sexual endeavor with the Bugtussle
School District Superintendent, Ardie Griffith. In most of the
shots, they are in the back of Catherine Hilliard’s Cadillac
station wagon on top of what appears to be a piece of memory foam
with a blue polka dotted sheet haphazardly spread over
it.

“
Where are they parked?” I ask. “And
why wouldn’t they pull that door closed?”

“
I guess it might get too hot in
there,” Mason says and he and Ethan snort and laugh.

“
Just hold on and I’ll pan out so you
can see.” She pans out and my jaw drops as I recognize the vo-tech
building that’s right next to the high school. I quickly realize
that it’s the perfect place to hide because the u-shaped building
provides the ultimate privacy shield, plus the whole area is fenced
and locked. And Ardie being the superintendent and all, I imagine
it would be relatively easy for him to get a key.

Where they went wrong was not knowing that
their meeting spot was clearly visible from the rooftop of the
People’s Bank where Omega Systems just happens to have an eye in
the sky. That and not pulling that back door closed.

For the record, Ardie Griffith is not a
large man and Catherine Hilliard is a very large woman and together
they make me think of a squirrel humping a sow pig. The disgusting
slide show ends with a shot of them reclining in the back of the
vehicle, smoking.

“
Wow,” I exclaim, “that explains those
yellow teeth.”

“
I have copies for you Ace, in case
things get hairy at school tomorrow,” she says and hands me a
padded envelope. I get excited thinking about the damage I could do
with just one of these pictures. “Now, I understand you have
pictures from your wild night last night so let’s take a look at
those.

I give Mrs. Peacock the memory stick from
Chloe’s camera and, after some arm waving, the magic computer
monitor comes to life.

The camera was set on continuous snap so
there are several shots of the red carpet and the asphalt parking
lot, but the most of the pictures captured the moment just as we’d
hoped. The last one is a shot of Buster Loo with his eyeballs and
his asshole both facing the lens.

“
Nice,” Ethan says and
laughs.

“
Don’t make fun of my wiener, Ethan,”
Mason whispers and punches him.

“
Oh man, those are good,” Lilly says
quietly, “but this is going to kill her soul.”

“
She killed her soul when she married
Richard Stacks,” I say. “This will be the beginning of the end of
that.”

“
How are y’all gonna get ‘em to her?”
Ethan asks. “I mean, how do you go about something like
that?”

“
Don’t know,” Lilly says and I
shrug.

“
What if she doesn’t care?” Mason
asks. “What if, after all of this, she just looks at these pictures
and is just like, ‘People make mistakes and I forgive
him’?”

“
That’s what I’m afraid of,” I say
quietly.

“
The Chloe we know and love is buried
in there somewhere,” Lilly says, frowning. “I just hope it’s not
too late to dig out that part of her that would never put up with
crap like this.”

“
I’ve made every effort to have her
here as a guest,” Gloria Peacock says, “I sent a few emails, then a
card, and of course I called several times, but was never able to
speak with her personally. The only response I received was a blunt
email that basically said ‘thanks but no thanks’.”
“She probably didn’t even get the card and the email was probably
from Richard,” I say, feeling anger well up in my guts.

“
So what’s the plan?” Mason asks,
clearly wanting to move things along.

“
Have you ever taken a needle and
punched holes on either end of an egg and shook out all the yolk?”
Gloria asks and Mason and Ethan exchange a
what-the-hell-is-she-talking-about look.

“
Oh yeah,” Lilly says. “My students do
that every year for cinco de mayo. They’re called
cascarones.”

“
Did she say, ‘cajones’?” Mason
whispers and Ethan shushes him.

“
Yes, so you understand how delicate
and fragile the shell is?” Gloria Peacock replies, not hearing or
completely ignoring Mason.

“
Of course, I have each student make
five or six because a few are bound to break no matter how careful
we are.”

“
Exactly,” Gloria Peacock says. “Chloe
is that shell and her soul has been brandished from her so she must
be handled with utmost care.” She looks from me to Lilly and we nod
our heads in agreement. “Go see her,” she says. “Go to her house
and break it to her gently.”

“
What a metaphor,” I whisper in
awe.

“
A what?” Ethan says.

Gloria Peacock waves and points and her
magic computer starts printing pictures, which she puts in another
padded envelope and hands to me without a word. I look up at her
and smile. She is officially my new idol.

When Mason and I get back to my house, he
asks to come inside. We have a few beers on the patio and he asks
if he can spend the night. I want to take him to my bedroom, tie
him to the bed post, and do unspeakable things to him, but I don’t.
I tell him he’s welcome to sleep in the guestroom.

“
Again,” he whines.

“
Again,” I smile.

35

Monday morning I hop out of bed
feeling like a million dollars earning twenty percent interest. I
don’t know if it’s because Mason McKenzie is snoring away in my
guestroom or because I somehow managed
not
to go in there and jump his bones or because
I have an envelope full of glossy pictures of that hussy Catherine
Hilliard getting boned by that twerp Ardie Griffith. Ha.

I get to school twenty minutes early and set
out to find Coach Hatter. I walk through the gym and into the
athletic office without even knocking.

“
What are you doing in here?” Coach
Wills asks with a look of pure disdain on his broad, oily
face.

“
Shut the hell up, Wills. If I want to
hear your mouth, I’ll rattle your cage, okay?”

The other coaches hoot and holler and I look
at Coach Lawson, the head football coach, and ask him where I might
find Logan Hatter. I’m dying to jerk out those pictures and pass
them around the room, but I know now’s not the time.

“
He’s not here yet, Ace, anything I
can help you with?”

“
No sir, I’ll catch him later.”
“Y’all sleepin’ together again?” Wills yells, obviously trying to
recover from the ego slap.

“
Maybe,” I say and wink at him, “tell
you what, Wills, why don’t you step outside, hold your breath, and
count to infinity? Then come find me and I’ll tell you everything
you’ve ever wanted to know.” I turn to go, pleased by the laughter
I leave in my wake.

As I’m walking out of the gym, I meet Logan
walking in and he can tell by the look on my face that something is
up. We go to his office, he closes the door behind us, and I whip
out the goods.

“
Oh, holy shit,” he whispers and looks
at me. “How about
that
?”

“
How
about
that?” I say, grinning from ear to ear
because I love perpetrating mischief.

“
Ugh. I’m gonna lose my breakfast if I
keep looking at these.” He looks up at me and then back down at the
pictures. “You have to admit though, Ace, some of that’s pretty
funny.” I nod in agreement. “Can I have one? Or two? I’d like one
for the wall in here and maybe one to hang on the bulletin board in
the main lounge.” He starts that idiotic sniggering and I start
laughing.

“
Maybe later and you can blame it on
me, how about that?”

“
Sounds good,” he says, then gets
serious. “Where did you get those, Ace?”