Well, yeah, I did. I’ve got a lot of self-confidence, but I will admit I felt a little out of place traipsing into the fancy restaurant wearing my huge Aardvark Pest Control T-shirt. It was from Harry’s latest job that lasted about six weeks, controlling the roach population down here. People called them water bugs to sound fancy, like how people called these tiny hotel rooms condos. It might make you feel better, but it didn’t change what they were.
“I wear these T-shirts for a good reason,” I said.
Trey looked at me skeptically.
“They are a reminder. See, this one here is from Harry, who gambled away all my money. The one I wore yesterday, Bubba’s Lawn and Limb, that was from Calvin, who I walked in on sleeping with our neighbor’s twenty-year-old daughter. That NC State one was from Jimbo, who was real cute, but, damn, that man couldn’t hold his liquor.”
Trey was dying laughing. “So it’s like self-defense. You won’t make the same mistakes if you’re wearing their shirts?”
“Hasn’t worked out too well yet, though,” I said. “But you…” I pointed at Trey. “I think I see your game, and I think you’re pretty smart.”
He raised his eyebrows at me and took a sip of his champagne. “Go on.”
“I think you grew up good so you know about food and art and wine and stuff. And I think you’re a Yankee so you wear your pants too tight and you slick your hair back. Those thingsare real. But I think you wanted to be Gray Howard’s protégé, so you play up a few things like the fashion tips and the pop culture references so that you are her most favorite person to have around.” I took another sip of champagne, knowing I was going to sleep good tonight, even in my car.
I’d figured out that if I could manage to stay away from the cops and keep my expenses to the very bare minimum—phone, a little gas, and a little food—for ten days, I could make enough to put down a deposit on a crappy apartment. The key was moving around a lot. One night I’d stay at the end of Gray’s street, one night the parking lot over by the beach bars, which are always full all night on account of all the drunk people. It was pretty safe there because if you didn’t stay too many nights in a row, nobody’d bother you—and if they did, you just pretended like you got drunk and passed out in your backseat. No harm, no foul. There was also this deserted place down by the old bridge, but I’ll be real: it creeped me the hell out.
The weekend would be harder on not spending money but easier on finding good places to park and sleep. Four days down, six to go. I’d done way worse things than this. Way worse. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Trey winked at me but didn’t acknowledge what I had said. “Gray has taken to you, Diana. There’s no doubt about that.” He paused. “Although I think you made her pretty mad tonight.”
I cringed. I hadn’t meant to, but I knew I had. I bit my lip, my heart pounding now. “Do you think she’s going to fire me?”
He shrugged. “Nah. She loves people who stand up to her. She respects them.” He gave me a pointed look. “But she loves them until she doesn’t. You get me?”
“Noted.”
Then, not looking the slightest bit uncomfortable, he said, “We just need to teach you about what she likes. What she’s about. She can’t Instagram girls’ night photos of box wine. You know what I mean?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway, ready for this to be over. “Well, you’re the expert,” I said.
“Which makes me indispensable,” he added.
People underestimated this kid.
While we were finishing up, Robin texted to ask if I wanted to go out. I texted her back real quick:Dinner with the boss. Can’t come.
The last thing I needed was to spend twenty dollars on drinks. That’d set me back a whole extra day. But Robin wasn’t letting me off that easy.
Get your ass out here after.
My plan was to ignore her. But then, right as I was driving around trying to find a place to stay, my phone rang, and it was Janet saying, “Girl, why didn’t you tell us you dumped Harry?”
“How’d you even know about that?”
“I saw him down at the store. Saddest damn thing you ever seen in your life. He’s all weepy and pathetic.” She paused. Maybe she was waiting for me to feel sad or something, but I wasn’t. “All I know is that it’s high time you got to finding yourself a man who can look after you.”
One who could look after me… I’d been with a man who could look after me once. At least, I thought he could. I had been young then. Eighteen. And right pretty too. At least, that’s what people always told me.
Frank was older, just graduating from college when I was graduating from high school. And that summer he’d come back home… well, that summer’d been the most magical of my life. Frank’s momma, she’d said I was a quick study. I didn’t know whatquick studymeant back then.
Frank was a little bit fancy compared to the other boys I’d dated. He had this ’57 Thunderbird that he was fixing up and his daddy owned some auto parts stores. Frank was going places. I thought I was going with him. I reckon that I talked like Frank and dressed like Frank and acted like Frank because I didn’t know who I was, same as why I act like Harry now. I guess when you grow up an orphan, you don’t know who to be. You want everybody to like you, just hoping and praying that one of those foster families is going to stick, so you start acting as nice as you can, trying to be like whoever you’re living with, hoping that maybe they’ll forget you’re even there, just let you stay so you don’t have to go anywhere new where maybe the dad looks at you kind of funny when the mom isn’t around or one of the bigger kids beats up on you and says you fell.
I used to swear up and down and sideways and around that when I was big enough I was going to have a family of my own. I was going to have a bunch of kids and a nice husband, and we were all going to love each other, and then I’d know what afamily was all about. I’d have one of my own and they wouldn’t ever leave me.
I thought it’d be with Frank. Hell, I knew it would. But Frank, he’d turned out to be like all the rest, worse even.
“Hello, earth to Di. You’ve missed two of our Thursday nights out in the last two months. You know how pissy Robin gets about that. You coming or not?”
