“You’ve always been a bitch,” Fredrick said. “You’ll get what is coming to you.”
“Just remember, what comes around goes around.”
“I’ll remember that,” Fredrick said. “Just like I can sit here thinking of you cleaning that mess up on your front porch.”
“Do you really think I’d do that?” she asked. Or would be able to. She didn’t think he’d be that horrible.
There was a pause on the other line. “Did you get that creepy neighbor of yours to do it? He’s always coming to your rescue and being underfoot.”
“He’s not creepy. He’s nice. Something we know you’re not!” She hung up on him.
Very few people could make her yell, scream, or want to be mean.
Her ex could bring it all out at once.
4
PRIDED HIMSELF
The next night, Clay was just coming out of his bathroom when his phone rang. He looked at his watch, saw it was close to seven and he’d been working since seven this morning.
Up before five, he’d lifted weights in his basement for an hour, took care of some work emails and other office shit he hated to handle, then went to the mill before his staff showed up.
He saw his sister calling and grabbed it. “Gale,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Hi to you too,” Gale said. “I heard you hired Meri.”
“Meri,” he said. “Who are you talking about?”
“Meredith Banks,” Gale said. “The wedding planner resume I sent over to you. Mom said you hired her.”
“She goes by Meri?” he asked. Why hadn’t she told him that?
“Clay,” Gale said. He knew that tone. She was losing her patience with him. “Did you not know who that was?”
What the fuck was she talking about? “It was a resume,” he said. “I don’t know. I talked to her for ten minutes, maybe. She just about did a face plant walking in the door in her shoes, then freaked out over a damn fly. I hope she’s not like that around clients, but I don’t have time to look for someone else.”
Not like anyone was even answering his ad.
His sister’s laughter wasn’t helping matters either.
“Oh, my God. She hasn’t changed a bit. I haven’t spent a lot of time around her in years.”
“You know her?” he asked.
“Clay,” she said. “Meri Banks. She was my best friend until she moved in ninth grade. I get it, you were gone by then and older, but you can’t tell me you don’t remember her. She was at the house all the time for years prior.”
“Seriously?” he asked more to himself than his sister.
He prided himself on being aware of everything going on around him and yet he didn’t recognize one of his sister’s closest friends.
It all hit him now.
The little girl who was always running from bugs and insects. They lived on a farm. They were everywhere but never bothered you if you didn’t bother them.
If she wasn’t running from bees and flies, then she was skinning her knees or getting grass stains on her clothing from always losing her balance and falling.
One day she showed up in glasses and he assumed that was why she constantly ran into things.
