Diary of a Mad Fat Girl (8 page)

“
Yes, we most certainly do,” I whisper
back. “We’ll check out the local addresses tonight.”

“
Tonight?” Chloe asks with palpable
enthusiasm.

“
Absolutely,” Lilly
replies.

Brother Berkin greets us in the foyer and we
exchange polite pleasantries before Lilly and I head out the
door.

Once we’re outside, Lilly turns to me with a
pleading look on her face.

“
Ace, I need some help,” she says.
“I’m asking you as a friend to help me. I can’t do it
alone.”

“
Lilly, I’ll do whatever I can to help
Chloe, but your problem,” I shake my head, “I’m not going near
that.”

“
Ace, Catherine Hilliard has some
stuff of mine that I desperately need to get back. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with Drake Driskall, I swear to God,
please.”

“
Fine, Lilly,” I say, “but if you
screw me on this, I just want you to know that I will whip your
ass. Understood?”

“
Understood.”

“
I’ll pick you up at your
place.”

16

Wicked is as wicked does. Or was that
stupid?

“
Lilly,” I say, as she settles into my
passenger seat, “look at all this from my point of view and tell me
what I’m supposed to think about you right now.” I look at her,
“Who is the Gentleman?”

“
Ace,” she says with a heavy sigh,
“you have been my best friend for over twenty years and you know I
love you like a sister, right?”

“
Lilly, I’m
not
detecting an answer in that gibberish and if
you want me to put this car in reverse, then you better cease and
desist with the sentimental bullshit and give me something
legit.”

“
Why can’t you just trust me?” she
whines. “Just believe in me, like Chloe always does.”

“
Chloe still believes in Santa Claus,”
I say and wince at the reference and Lilly turns the evil eye on
me. “Okay, let me take that back. But this car isn’t moving from
this driveway until you tell me what’s going on with
you.”

She takes a deep breath and looks out the
passenger side window.

“
Not moving.”

“
I am accompanying a man on business
trips who is having a secret affair with a married man and I’m just
there to make them look not so,” she pauses, “gay.”

“
Uh, seriously-”

“
There. I told you. Are you happy
now?”

“
Sounds like that could get confusing
at bedtime,” I say, being very sarcastic.

“
What?” she says with exaggerated
exasperation. “You have hounded me to death about this for five
months and I have told you no less than a thousand times that I
couldn’t talk about it and I have asked you no less than
ten
thousand times to trust me and
you never would, so there. Are you happy now?” She flips down the
visor and starts fiddling with her sleek blonde hair, “Can we get a
move on? Please?”

“
Okay, off we go,” I say and put the
car in reverse. “So, are you like a lesbian or a fag hag or some
kind of weird sex freak or what?”

“
Do not use the term ‘fag hag’ because
that is derogatory and insulting to both gay men and their
friends.”

“
Sorry,” I say and mean it, “so what
is the politically correct term for what you are then? An escort? A
call girl? What?”

“
Not having this conversation, Ace,
just drive, please.”

“
Right,” I say, “because it’s not what
it looks like, right?”

And we ride in silence from my house to the
school.

“
Pull up behind the cafeteria and
let’s go in that side door next to the gym,” she says, pointing.
“You got your keys?”

“
No, Lilly, I used a screwdriver to
crank my car and left my keys at home.”

“
You are such a smartass.” She whips
out her school issued photo ID card that has a picture of her
looking like an advertisement for Crest White Strips and
Pantene.

I whip out my school issued ID card, but my
picture looks more like a startled primate at the zoo. I swear, the
woman taking the picture said “one” then paused for thirty seconds
and said “two” then I popped my lips and the bitch screamed
“three!” and snapped the flash and now I have this jewel of a
photograph that I am supposed to wear around my neck every day.

I begged to have another photo made, but
that vagina wart Catherine Hilliard refused. I waited a few weeks
and claimed I lost it thinking that would do the trick, but Mrs.
Hilliard was kind enough to fish up the same old photo to put on my
new ID. Then she docked my check $35 for her trouble.

“
C’mon,” Lilly says impatiently,
“let’s do this.”

“
Do what exactly?” I ask. “What are we
going to do when we get into the school? You know the lobby is
locked and then Catherine Hilliard probably has dead bolts on her
dungeon door.”

Lilly points to a crisscross of bobby pins
in her hair.

“
Are you freakin’ kidding me right
now?”

“
I can do it, trust me,” she says and
I’m not feeling reassured. “Ace, I have to get in there, alright? I
have to. You don’t even understand how important it is for me to
get in that building and get my stuff.”

“
What stuff is it that you so
desperately need?” I ask, stalling because I really don’t want to
get arrested again this week. “All the hog-head had in her hand
that day was pictures and post cards.”

“
It’s not the pictures and post cards
that I need,” she looks at me. “It’s one of the frames.”

“
The picture frames?”

“
Yes, the thick black and brown frame.
Did you notice if she had that one in her hand that day?” She gives
me a mean look, “Because it wasn’t in the stuff you threw out in my
yard.”

“
Yeah, she did because I remember
thinking to myself what a big ass picture frame that was and, uh,”
I look at her, “kinda dwarfs the photo, don‘t you
think?”

“
It has a computer chip in
it.”

“
It didn’t have a cord.”

“
Not one of those chips, stupid. It’s
taped in where the inner and outer frames snap
together.”

“
Oh, so it’s one of those deals that
could be two smaller frames or one big one.”

“
Yes, glad you’re up to speed on that.
Can we go now?” she looks around nervously.

“
I’m not sure I really want to know,
but I have to ask,” I look at her, “what’s on the chip?”

“
Everything.”

“
Oh. Okay. That’s clear as mud. Like
pretty much everything else you’ve said so far today.” I sigh and
think to myself that we go to jail then her sassy ass can bail us
both out. “Why would you keep that at school and not at
home?”

She just stares at me.

“
Well, in that case, I guess I’m
ready,” I say and don’t move.

“
Great. Let’s go.” She unbuckles her
seatbelt and nods for me to get out.

“
Wait,” I put my hand on her arm,
“what about the security cameras?”

“
On the weekends, they only activate
if there is an intrusion at the school.”

“
Like breaking into the main
office?”

“
No, like a broken window or a kicked
down door or something like that.”

“
How do you know this?”

“
Sheriff Jackson told me.”

“
How very thoughtful of
him.”

“
Ace, shut up and get out of the
car!”

17

We waltz up to the school trying not to look
like the criminals that we are about to become. I unlock the door
and we walk through the commons area to the office lobby.

It’s unlocked.

“
It’s a trap!” I whisper. “Let’s get
the hell outta here!”

“
They don’t always lock it, you idiot,
and I think you know that!” she whispers and walks into the lobby
like she owns the place. I walk behind her looking around like a
bleeding man in a shark tank.

We get to Chloe’s office and she pauses,
then looks back at me.

“
I don’t think she’ll be back this
year,” I whisper and she shakes her head and moves on down the
hallway.

My stomach knots up when we get to Catherine
Hilliard’s office because I can’t stop thinking about all the ways
this could go wrong. I’m so damn nervous and it’s so unbearably hot
that I think I might pass out right there in the hallway. Lilly is
on her knees working the lock with her bobby pins and I start to
wonder if her new gay friends are some sort of criminals.

Then I hear it.

Click.

Lilly gets up and walks into Principal
Catherine Hilliard’s office and I trail behind like Shy Ronnie in a
Saturday Night Live skit.

“
C’mon and help me look!” she says and
starts rifling through the piles on Mrs. Hilliard’s junky ass
desk.

I walk around and pull open the top drawer
on the left side. In there, I find a mixed mess of office supplies
and a Cover Girl compact that looks like it was purchased sometime
around 1986. The second drawer is full of hanging file folders so I
thumb through those, not looking for anything in particular when,
at the very back, I see an unusually wide file with “L.L.” written
on the tab in thick black letters.

I pull it out and lay it on the desk and all
kinds of pictures spill out the sides and it doesn’t take me but a
second to discern a common theme.

The same three people are in every photo.
Two very distinguished looking gentlemen and one Lilly Lane. Maybe
she’s not screwing Drake Driskall after all.

“
Got it!” Lilly yelps. “Let’s get out
of here!”

She turns around and sees the pictures and
gets this look on her face like she just got flashed by Larry
King.

“
Is this?” I take a gulp of air. “Are
they-”

“
Oh holy shit!” she screams. “Where
did those come from? Where the hell did those come
from?”

“
Back there.” I point to the drawer.
“Lilly, what the hell?”

“
Oh my God! This is so much worse than
I thought. Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! What am I going to
do?”

I have no idea how to answer that so I scoop
up the file, grab her by the arm, and hustle her out of the
office.

“
Lock it back!” I order and we haul
ass out to the car.

Lilly trips over her high heeled flip-flops
in the parking lot and I pull her up and turn around just in time
to see a patrol car turning into the drive.

“
Oh God! Please let that be the
Sheriff,” she whispers as we pile into my car. I cram the file
folder under my seat and turn the air conditioner on full
blast.

The patrol car parks sideways behind me,
effectively blocking any exit I might have planned. In my rearview
mirror, I see Deputy Dumbass get out of his patrol car and unsnap
his billy club and I can’t stop thinking about Rodney King.

“
Give me your school ID!” I whisper.
“Now!”

“
Okay, we can handle this,” she says,
and starts digging in her pockets. “I just need to take a deep
breath and get my head back on and handle this.”

She comes up with the ID card just as
Deputy Dumbass starts knocking on my window with his stupid billy
club. I roll down the window and decide that now is
not
the time to be
bitchy.

“
Good evening, Deputy,” I say and try
to smile.

“
What’re you ladies doin’ parked
around here?”

“
We were just working out in the gym,”
I say, hoping that will stave off any questions about why I’m
sweating like a whore in church.

“
We both teach here and sometimes we
come in on the weekends to work out, but not very often because
it’s so
unbearably
hot in
there.” I mop my forehead with one hand and offer him our school
ID’s with the other. He looks at Lilly’s, raises his eyebrows, and
smiles like men do when they feast their eyes upon her image. He
flips mine over, jumps a little, and hands them both back to
me.

“
I ain’t never seen ya’ll back here
before and I patrol this parking lot every night ‘cept
Sundays.”

“
Who patrols it on Sundays?” I ask and
Lilly punches me in the arm.

“
Officer,” Lilly says sweetly and
leans over so her tank top falls at just the right angle to expose
her pink polka dot bra. “It seems like we run into you every time
we turn around and, you know what? I don’t even know your
name.”

She throws open the passenger side door and
struts around to where the deputy is standing and it’s clear to me
that she has his full attention.

“
Lilly Lane,” she says sweetly and
holds out a delicate hand, “and you are?”

“
Dax, ma’am,” he says with
goofy-looking smile. He takes her hand and I think for a second
that he might drop to one knee and kiss it. “Dax Dorsett. I’m from
the Delta and don’t know many folks around here or where they work
and what not, but I’m trying to get it all together.” Dax taps
himself on the head and is unsuccessful in keeping his eyes off her
boobs.