A Fight to Remember
Lex
All of themadness that’s unraveled my well-orchestrated life in the last two weeks solely rests on the fact I accidentally made afriend. And now the fact my once wonderful yet mediocre life has been usurped and is currently in hostage negotiations with the bank, it only expounds on the fact I hatefriendsand I hatepeople. You see, exactly one week prior to stepping on the landmine of friendship, I paid off my Range Rover in full. It was an early yet fiscally sound birthday gift to myself. I don’t believe in debt, and that quadruple digit car payment made me angsty enough to want to sell my eggs on the black ovarian market. But before I parted with a potential fetus, or lost one more night’s sleep counting green sheep that morphed into fleeting dollar bills, I decided to empty out my savings and rid myself of the mountain of debt—thus enjoying the fruits of my labor and the masterful craftsmanship of British engineering whom I lovingly call Frank—named after the car salesman who cinched thedeal.
Enter Low. Harlow—Low—Hartley is a walking dark cloud, and she wasted no time in raining down her disastrous fury over my life. She is plain old bad luck, karma gone cosmically very freaking wrong. Even if I had decorated myself with every horseshoe on the planet, there was no way to protect myself from her bumbling, slipping and sliding on five-inch stilettos based wrath. So, it’s really no coincidence that after bothering to foster a friendship—something I am loathe to do—soon thereafter with one swift blow of an adjective—one that I never expected to hear—I watched as my well-orchestrated life imploded from order tochaos.
What would that adjective be, you might ask?Fired. As in without gainful employment, out of work,on the dole, expelled, canned, sacked, and ironicallyaxed. Axel Collins comes to mind, and I swat him from my consciousness like the loathsome gnat he’s become. It’s true. I was once sacked by anAx—the irony of which is that he is now my ex and is holing up in this same one cow town that I happen to reside in, Hollow Brook. Actually, that may not be true. For all I know he’s holed up in Jepson, a hop and a skip away from this one cow town I happen to call home. Nevertheless, it’s too close, but then again, there isn’t enough cosmic distance the universe could provide to keep him a good length away from me. Break my heart once and shame on me—break my heart twice—well, that will never happen because I no longer have a heart for him to break. Axel Collins marked an end of an era in my life, the very last arena of subjection that was out of my control. At least up until two weeks ago when the cuisine gods at Food Crack Nation lowered their fiery scepter and incinerated the contract I had with them. No thanks to my new friend, Low, and her harebrained idea to pretend that it was me dating her best friend’s brother and not the other twisted way around, everything in my life has toppled in quick succession like a domino rally gonebad.
It’s nine forty-five on a hellish Friday morning and I’m still lacking caffeine, a workout, not to mention my weekly online reward purchase for merely surviving in a world full of wolves parading around as humans. I looked forward to that monetary splurge with gleeful anticipation because it also had the ability to kick-start my weekend in the right trajectory. Instead, here I am, two weeks into my unemployed state, sans any financial prospects on the near horizon, awaiting a mortgage counselor to drop off an arm full of pamphlets while secretly scoping out my home’s worth for that dreaded moment it goes up on the auction block. Not to mention the fact I’m all out of the primo Ethiopian blend coffee I had drop-shipped to my doorstep every other week like a well-engineered Swiss clock. It was yet another splurge in a long line of splurges that have recently met their fiscal demise, such as an expired membership to the gym that I can’t afford to renew which means no hot, cold, or naked yoga—and all those sales fliers retailers have been flooding my inbox with—tempting me with their free shipping and extra 15% off discounts which have been promptly deleted. Now if only I could figure out a way to delete this headache, my jobless status, and Axel Collins from the planet—the universeand I might actually be on speaking terms onceagain.
I once ran my life like a tight ship, rising at five thirty, coffee, walk the dog, gym, coffee once again—this time at Hallowed Grounds, hit the office, hit all of the scrumptious locales that as a food critic I was commanded to visit, call my little sister, call my big brother, read a few chapters in the book sitting dutifully on my nightstand, sleep well, and repeat. It was a glorious life and one I regret ever putting on the line for something as foolish as a friendship. Thus it brings me full circle. Ireallyhate friends. And I really hatepeople.
Strudel, my two-year-old French Bulldog with fur the shade of a colorless day, sniffs around the fuzzy pug slippers my brother, Marlin, gave me last Christmas. He said he couldn’t find a dog like Strudel, but that these were close enough. That’s Marlin in a nutshell. Close enough has always kept him content in all areas of his life. Can’t make it as a fireman? Join the Jepson PD. Close enough. Can’t get a girlfriend of your own? Date your best friend’s. Close enough. Can’t make it as a racecar driver? Watch the Jepson 500 on TV. Close enough. That last one is the kicker. Marlin spent his entire life driving racecars, had a sponsor for years, but he never did qualify for the big one. But that’s the difference between Marlin and me. He’s content to let life steamroll him whenever the heck it sees fit. I’m more inclined to take it by the horns, force it to go in the direction I’m demanding it to, and then killing the bull just to make sure it staysthere.
Nevertheless, Marlin is a whole six years older than me. He was already out of the house when our mother took off. And two years after that, our father collapsed at his desk and died of a heart attack over a stack of insurance papers. Marlin was already married and divorced by then. Yes, our family has been slowly eroding off the planet for as long as I can remember. Even my poor Aunt Priscilla died in a major car wreck not long after my father bit the big one. Marlin and I have spent the last decade and a half looking after our younger sister, Serena, and Aunt Priscilla’s kids, Rush and Sunday. Their brother, Nolan, is up there in age with Marlin, and with his help we knit together a motley crew of a family. Uncle Chuck, Aunt Priscilla’s grieving widower, is still alive and kicking and as oblivious as always when it comes to anything other than New York real estate. New York real estate doesn’t mean all that much when your home base is in Hollow Brook, NorthCarolina.
Strudel whines hard and does a little potty dance at myfeet.
“Hush, you.” I head to the door and check my face in the mirror, seaweed sleep mask still in place, bloodshot eyes from the tears I will go to my grave denying ever existed, my crimson-colored hair still coiled neatly in sponge rollers to give me that effortless tousled look I spend ten hours trying toachieve.
I sneak a glimpse out the side window and note the back end of a particularly hairy sheepdog relieving himself on my lawn andgasp.
“It’s the pooper!” I hiss to Strudel, and he sits at rapt attention. I may not need or desire a single human being in my life, sans my family, but Strudel does his best to worship me dutifully like no human ever could. His forehead wrinkles with curiosity, his tiny head cocks to the side as if intent to hear more. “It’s every single day I tell you. And this, my friend, is the last day that beast drops a smelly hot brownie on my front lawn.” I’ve been picking up this dopey dog’s dung day after day while his moronic owner, an elderly woman with gray hair and an obnoxious matching mustache, looks to the street as if she were oblivious to her dog’s anal dealings. I don’t care about her elderly state of being.She’sthe ageist if she thinks it’s fair I play pooper-scooper after her dogdroppings.
“Ha!” I bark as I fling the door open and fly down the porch. The hairy beast stops midflight in his brownie delivery as both he and his owner attempt to scuttle down the street. “Stop, thief!” I shout. But the only person to turn around is my treacherous neighbor as tall and round as a stump who does nothing but smoke cigarettes and pass judgment on whoever gets locked in her sight while molesting her anxiety riddled Chihuahua all the livelong day. I’ve heard her unrequited commentaries on the innocent passersby one too many times. I couldn’t care less about her or her roving lung-cancer-in-the-making opinion. “I saidstop!” I roar as I scuttle my fastest in these cumbersome pug slippers, clearly not intended for the unevenly paved sidewalks of downtown Hollow Brook. No sooner do I jump in front of the gray-haired granny who’s stolen my sanity for the last six months than an SUV skids on its brakes, stopping inches from sending Strudel to the great doggiebeyond.
“Oh God!” I bolt into traffic and ignore the honking and yelling of a passing minivan while scooping Strudel safely in myarms.
“Lexy?”
I look up to find standing in front of me—in front of the still running SUV that almost introduced Strudel to the rainbow bridge, a suit clad Axel Collins, those bright gray eyes wide with concern, those full kissable lips parted and panting. His dress shirt stretches taut with the sheer mass of his expansive chest, and that warm yet familiar cologne slowly pulls me back to a different day long ago when life didn’t involve imperiled mortgages and obnoxiousexes.
Oh fudge.Heck, I think this occasion warrants an expletive or two. Shit, shit,shit!
I hobble back to the sidewalk, only to find the mustache lady and the cigarette wielding tree stump gesticulating about something while the Chihuahua and the sheepdog sniff the business end of one another. I’m not about to let the mustache lady amble away freely just because Axel Dog Dodger Collins has shown up on thescene.
“You got a problem with her, lady?” The tree stump screws her face up in a knot, and that ridiculous expression only makes me want to kickher.
“Darn right, I have a problem with her.” I lean in toward the mustache lady herself and give a few quick blinks. That whole mustache on a woman thing is a bit jarring at this close proximity. “How dare you come here day after day expecting me to do your dirty work!” I thunder so loud my voice comes back to me as an echo. “I suggest both you and your mangy dog find another neighborhood to terrorize with his hind end because this is the last time I bend over for either of you hairy, scary beasts. You had better get lost quick. And if you ever show your fuzzy face again, I’m going to personally drop kick you both across the street! Get a clueanda razor—that was your last brownie bonanza on my frontlawn.”
“My God”—Stumpy pipes up, and I glance over to find her capturing the incident on her phone—“you are a monster, Ms. Range Rover, Louis Vuitton, pug feet with the bright reddoor!”
“Ah-ha!” I swing a finger in her direction, and Strudel burrows his face into my bosom. “I knew you were judging me.” I take a step into the prying eye of her camera. “Well, Ms. Judgey McJudgernuts, I hate you and your little dog, too!” The tiny whippet barks and nips as if returning thesentiment.
“All right, ladies,” a deep, warm voice rumbles from behind, and I turn slowly, eviscerating him with all of the hate-filled beams I can afford. Axel’s eyes round out as he blinks a nervous smile. “I think I see the problemhere.”
My mouth falls open wide at the audacity of this nitwit, albeit drop-dead gorgeous nitwit—suddenly, my ovaries feel rather unsafe at this close proximity—the nerve he has to inject himself into my day, into my life without so much as aninvite.
“Don’t worry! I have all the footage I need.” Stumpy snaps up her yippee little rat and scampers back to her hidey-hole.
But Axel doesn’t release me from his hypnotic gaze. I hike up on my tiptoes, bringing me dangerously close to those full lips I might have regretfully fantasized about a time ortwelve.
“I don’t think you see the problem here. The problem here is that this waste of human skin”—I turn my attention back to Hairy Granny and a tiny part of me bubbles with regret at my word choice—“sees fit to make a craptastic deposit on my front lawn each and every day as a means to absolve herself of doggy doody for the rest of her numbered days.” I lean in hard toward the beady-eyed woman and note the start of a cactus-like beard already prickling through her skin. “I don’t care if you’re a hundred years old. I wouldn’t care if you were one hundredweeksold! You and your furry little flea bag had better find another lawn to decorate with dingdongs!”
The woman looks to Axel with her unmoved expression and makes a few hand gestures, inspiring him to make a few hand gesturesback.
“What’s going on?” I pull Strudel in close and cover his ears in the event a nuclear-sized verbal detonation is readying to lob myway.
