Diary of a Mad Fat Girl (20 page)

“
I heard that!” she screams, even
louder. “Get out of my house and never come back again!
Ever!”

“
That’s it,” I say. “This is seriously
more than I can stand. I’m done.”

“
No, wait,” Lilly says. “Chloe, could
we please sit down in the living room?”

“
No!” she screams. “Get out! Get out
now! I know you’ve been following my husband and I hate you both
for it.”

“
You fucking told us to, you nut
case!” I yell at her. “You fucking told us to follow that piece of
shit!”

“
Ace, stop!” Lilly says. “Stop it
right now.” Lilly reaches into my bag and pulls out the
envelope.

“
You told us to follow him and we did,
Chloe,” Lilly says quietly as she slips the photos from the
envelope. “We did just what you asked us to do,” she flips one of
the pictures up so Chloe can see it, “and this is what we found.”
She flips another one and another one and keeps saying, “This is
what we found.”

“
No, no, no!” She screams. “It's not
true! You lie!”

“
Jesus, Chloe, listen to yourself!” I
say sternly. “You do not have to live like this. We are here to
help you. We are here to save you. We are here to get you out of
here.”

“
You are here to ruin my new life! And
you have done it! You have ruined my new life and I will hate you
forever for it!” she screams and falls out on the floor and starts
banging her head on the wall and screaming and crying and it scares
the holy hell out of me because I’ve never seen anyone act like
that. Especially not my beautiful, perfect friend Chloe.

Lilly looks at me and I look at her and we
get in the floor and I put my arms around Chloe and Lilly puts her
arms around us and I whisper, “It's gonna be okay, Chloe.
Everything is going to be just fine. We love you and we are here to
take care of you.”

“
What took you so long?” she whispers
and I look at Lilly, who, of course, starts sobbing her eyes
out.

“
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry we didn’t
come sooner,” I whisper and stroke her hacked up hair.

“
I remember you coming into my room
and hugging me and telling me I was going to be okay, but then you
never came back. You never came back, Ace. And I started to think
I’d dreamed it. But then when I heard you just now, I remembered. I
remembered that you were there.”

“
I will always be here and so will
Lilly,” I whisper. “We will always be here because we love
you.”

“
What am I going to do?” she wails.
“What am I going to do? I don’t know what to do and I haven’t had
y’all to help me and I don’t know what to do,” she looks down at
the pictures scattered on the floor. “Are those real? When did you
take those? Where did they come from?”

“
Most of them Saturday night,” I say
quietly, “in Memphis.”

“
This past Saturday night?”

“
Yes.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Of course I’m sure. Why?”

“
He said he had an important meeting
with a client in Memphis on Saturday night,” she says slowly. “Let
me see those.”

Lilly gathers up the photos with shaky hands
and when she turns to give them to Chloe, she freezes up. She lays
the pictures to the side and grabs Chloe and hugs her and squalls
all over her and tells her she’s so sorry and that she loves her so
much, but Chloe isn’t crying anymore.

“
Let me see the pictures,” Chloe says,
pulling back from Lilly’s sappy embrace.

“
Chloe,” Lilly says, “I don’t want to
hurt you worse than you’ve already been hurt.”

“
Oh, Lilly,” she says like a zombie,
“that would be impossible.”

She flips through the pictures two times,
then lays them on the floor and gets up.

“
Let’s go in the kitchen and get some
water,” she looks at us through puffy red eyes. “I’m so, so very
sorry.”

“
Hey, you don’t worry about a thing,
girl,” I say and breathe a sigh of relief that she appears to be
somewhat back to normal.

Just as we get on our feet, the front door
flies opens and Richard Stacks charges into the foyer like a bull
on steroids.

“
What are you whores doing here?” he
booms and nobody moves.

“
You!” he says, pointing at me. “You
stupid bitch! I have had enough of you!”

I take a few steps back into the living room
and he comes at me hard and fast and I mentally prepare myself to
get knocked out. Lilly makes a run for it and I glance over at
Chloe and see that she has pulled a wrought iron cross off the
wall. Just as Richard Stacks draws back a meaty arm to punch me in
the face, Chloe swings that cross at his head like she’s trying to
knock a baseball out of the park.

“
Enough!” she screams and, as I
squeeze my eyes shut, I hear metal crunching against
flesh.

Lilly is back from wherever she ran off to
and is ransacking my purse screaming, “Ace, why didn’t you bring
your goddamned gun? Where is the Pink Lady?”

Richard staggers but doesn’t fall. He turns
toward Chloe and roars like a bear. When he pauses to finger the
bloody wound on his head, Chloe swings again. He takes the hit,
stays on his feet, and stumbles toward her swearing on his mother’s
life that he is going to kill her this time once and for all. She
lets the tip of the cross rest on the floor while he totters toward
her then she pulls it up and hits him with a nut shot that puts him
on the ground.

Lilly and I watch in horror as she slams the
cross into his back, his legs, and his head. He starts crying and
begging for her to stop and I look at Lilly and she looks at me and
we both look at the carpet where a puddle of blood is fanning out
from under Richard Stacks the Fourth.

“
Chloe,” I say. “Chloe, I think you
need to stop.”
“He never stopped! He never stopped for eleven years!” she screams
and I take a step toward her and she looks me dead in the eye and
says, “Don’t. Don’t you dare try to take this from me.”

I don’t know if she’s talking about the
cross or the moment, but either way, I take a step back. Richard is
moaning so at least he’s not dead. Yet.

“
Chloe,” he says, barely audible,
“Chloe, baby, please I’m hurt Chloe.”

“
You expect me to care?” she yells.
“Do you
really
expect me to
care?” She hauls that cross over her shoulder, brings it down hard
on his skull, and Richard Stacks doesn’t move.

“
Oh my God,” Lilly says and I can see
that she is shaking all over. “Oh my God!”

Chloe looks at him, drops the cross onto the
floor, and leaves the room.

“
Where are you going, Chloe?” I ask
and try to sound like I’m not scared shitless but Dammit! I
am.

“
To take a shower,” she says
calmly.

“
What are we going to do?” Lilly asks.
“What the fuck are we going to do?”

I get down on my knees and pick up his
hand.

“
He still has a pulse,” I say and
swallow hard to keep from vomiting, “so I think he’s just
unconscious.”

“
Should I call 911?”

“
No. Call Sheriff Jackson and ask him
what do to.”

Sheriff Jackson instructs her to call
911.

38

A crowd of nosy onlookers gather on the
Stacks’ front lawn, no doubt quizzing the Sheriff and Deputy Dax
Dorsett about what happened. One particular nosy neighbor comes
into the house without so much as knocking. She looks down at the
blood on the floor, then up at us like we’re a pack of child
molesters.

“
What happened here?” she demands.
“Who did that to Mr. Stacks?”

I was about to launch an explanation when
Chloe steps around the corner and says, “Mrs. Franks, why don’t you
mind your own business for once?”

Lilly and I look at each other in mutual
shock.

“
Why, Mrs. Stacks, I understand that
you must be upset, but there is no reason to be rude.”

“
There is no reason for you to be in
my house, Mrs. Franks, so would you please leave?”

“
I was just wondering if it was a home
invasion. Do we need to be on alert? Did they catch the person who
did that?” she eyes me suspiciously as Chloe takes her arm and
escorts her to the door.

“
Nothing like that, Mrs. Franks, no
need to worry,” she pushes the lady over the threshold. “Thank you
for your concern. Now run and tell everyone everything you’ve seen
here and try to blow it out of proportion as much as you
can.”

Chloe closes the door and I just stare at
her with my mouth hanging open.

“
The ambulance is pulling out,” she
says with no emotion. “What now?”

“
Pack a bag and let’s get out of
here,” I say.

“
Alright,” she says and turns toward
her bedroom, not even casting a glance at the fancy oriental rug
stained with her husband’s blood.

“
Pack a
big
bag Chloe,” Lilly calls. “We may not be back
here for a while.”

“
That would be great,” she says and
disappears down the hallway.

“
Let's see what we can do about this.”
I nod down at the rug.

“
Ugh, okay,” Lilly mumbles and doesn’t
move.

I ransack the kitchen, throwing junk
everywhere and gather up all the cleaning stuff I can find. I run
to the laundry room and grab the whole box of washing powders, a
can of spot remover, and a long handled brush. I hustle back to the
living room where Lilly is standing with a handful of towels,
looking down at the stain.

I return to the kitchen and scrounge around
until I find some hot dog tongs that I take back in there and use
to peel the rug off the floor. Lilly throws a towel down on the
pecan wood planks and I stifle a gag.

“
Oh, this is disgusting,” Lilly says
and I nod my head in agreement because I’m afraid if I open my
mouth, I’ll hurl. “I’m going to get a trash bag.” She runs to the
kitchen and returns with trash bags, the vacuum cleaner, and two
pairs of rubber gloves.

“
Here,” she says, handing me a pair,
“bastard probably has AIDS.”

We scrub down the rug, Lilly runs over it
with the vacuum, then we repeat the entire process two more times.
Luckily, the rug is mahogany and the stain was virtually
unnoticeable after the second round of scrubbing and vacuuming.

“
What about that?” I ask, nodding to
the cross. “What do we do with the murder weapon?”

Lilly picks it up, struggling with its
weight, and holds it out for me to wipe down.

“
Cleaning blood off of a cross,” I
say. “Ironic.”

“
Well, it is a symbol of redemption,”
Lilly says. “Help me get it back on the wall.”

“
Jeez,” I say as we struggle to get
the cross back on its nail, “she was slinging this thing around
like it was nothing.”

“
A woman scorned,” Lilly says,
straightening it on the wall.

We both just stand there for a second,
looking at the cross.

“
Wonder what God thinks about this
mess?” Lilly asks.

“
Probably glad to see a demon beat
into submission,” I say, and Lilly looks at me like I’m stupid so I
say, “How should I know? It’s hard sometimes to tell how and where
all that forgiveness fits into a situation like this,” I pause
“maybe He’s up there thinking, ‘Chloe Stacks in the foyer with the
cross.’”

“
Yeah,” Lilly says sarcastically,
“just a game of Clue, right?”

We are washing our hands in the kitchen when
Chloe comes in with her entire collection of luggage in tow.

“
I’m ready,” she says, her eyes devoid
of any emotion. “Let’s take my car so we can load this stuff while
the garage door is still down.”

“
Great idea,” I say, amazed at her
transformation from certifiable nut case to murderess to a
level-headed, clear thinking woman.

I call Gloria Peacock and tell her what had
happened and she instructs us to come to The Waverly Estate
immediately. Chloe drops me off at my car and Lilly rides with her
and I follow them to the majestic iron gates.

39

We are taken to the indoor patio of The
Waverly Estate and when we walk in, drinks are set up and it’s not
sweet tea. Chloe doesn’t seem to notice the grandeur of the place.
I guess always having money numbs you to things like that. Or maybe
she was distracted because of that murder she damn nearly
committed. I can’t really say.

“
Boy, when I picked you girls to hang
out with, I really picked some doozies, didn’t I?” Gloria Peacock
says when we walk in. “Drinks?” She waves a hand toward the bar and
I’m first in line. While I’m shaking my Whiskey Sour, she
continues, “If you would allow me, I’d like to give you all a
little update on something of interest.” She smiles, “Catherine
Hilliard has been forced to resign her position as principal of
Bugtussle High School and Ardie Griffith voluntarily resigned his
position as superintendent and word is they plan to leave town,”
she pauses, “together.”

“
Ugh,” I say, “that’s good to hear,
but gross to think about.”

“
Good for them,” Lilly says with
palpable disgust.