Wrong Side of Forty

by Jana DeLeon

  Which sucked. Because this week had already had enough “no good” to last a lifetime.

  Chapter Eight

  Marina hurried out of the bakery, carrying a box of doughnuts. It wasn’t the healthiest breakfast, but it was certain to be one of the tastiest. Her car was already filled with cleaning supplies and items for some of the smaller repairs the cabin needed, including the dead bolts that Halcyon had insisted she buy. Most importantly, a shiny new coffeepot sat on the front seat next to a bag of expensive gourmet coffee she’d picked up on her last trip to New Orleans. No way was she leaving Harold with the good stuff.

  Halcyon was going to meet her at the cabin and her housekeeper would pop in after church to help with the deep cleaning. Marina would get on to the repairs and Halcyon would probably spend the day ordering everyone else around and complaining about the cheap wood paneling and lack of square footage. When she’d left Halcyon’s house earlier, her sister had been in the garage, muttering about old lamps and carpets. Marina had just yelled a goodbye and headed out. Halcyon’s old decor probably wouldn’t match the cabin or each other, but she’d take anything her sister was willing to donate.

  The bed frame and a small dresser that were already in the cabin were made from old pine and would still be standing after a nuclear war. She’d put the mattress out to air as soon as she got there and try to beat some of the dust out of it until the new set she’d ordered was delivered. In the meantime, she had a thick mattress cover to help with allergens. The living room furniture consisted of an old leather couch and two mismatched recliners. They were castoffs from when Marina’s mother had bought new furniture for their house. The leather was cracked and worn in spots and the couch sank down on one end more than the other, but they’d do until she could manage better. Besides, there was no use thinking about buying new furniture until she knew for certain where she’d be living. The cabin wasn’t a good long-term option and with her job situation up in the air, moving loomed as a more likely alternative than remaining.

  As she crossed the street, Marina caught sight of Harold coming up the sidewalk. She ducked behind a shrub in the town square, then cursed herself for acting like a silly teen. It was a small town. She was bound to run into Harold more times than she wanted to. Which was another point in favor of moving.

  “If you’re going to stand here with that box of doughnuts for very long, I’m going to ask for one.”

  Marina whirled around and saw Adelaide behind her, frowning.

  “I know you’re not hiding from that crap husband of yours, right?” she asked.

  Marina sighed and stepped out from behind the bush to stand next to Adelaide on the sidewalk.

  “I did it without even thinking,” Marina said. “And then I didn’t even know why for sure. I mean, it’s not logical.”

  “The heart protecting itself, I suppose,” Adelaide said. “Or your mind protecting you from possible jail time. It could go either way.”

  “Maybe both.”

  Adelaide looked down the street at Harold as he scratched his crotch, a pained look on his face.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Adelaide asked.

  Marina started to giggle and Adelaide stared.

  “I might have rubbed poison ivy in his underwear,” Marina said.

  The look of surprise and respect on Adelaide’s face was priceless. She shoved Marina back behind the shrub.

  “Stay there so he doesn’t see you,” Adelaide said. “I’ve got this.”

  Marina had no idea what was going on but she figured no matter what, she couldn’t get in trouble for standing in the park. She inched toward the thickest part of the shrub, then stuck her free hand in it to part the leaves and allow herself to see whatever Adelaide was about to do.

  Deputy Jimmy Franks, who was in his sixties and always threatening to retire, was crossing the street in Adelaide’s direction. She motioned him over and he gave her a nod. Harold was almost on top of her, scratching again and glaring at his crotch, when he looked up and realized Adelaide was standing there. He came to a halt and froze. Adelaide looked at Jimmy and pointed to Harold.

  “Deputy Franks,” Adelaide said, “this man made a lewd sexual gesture toward me.”

  Harold’s eyes widened. “What? No!”

  “You did it twice,” Adelaide said. “Grabbing your crotch. I watch the MTV. I know what that means and I don’t appreciate it.”

  Marina tucked the box of doughnuts under her arm and covered her mouth with her hand as Jimmy gave Harold a disapproving frown.

  “I swear, I wasn’t gesturing,” Harold said. “I have this…this thing.”

  “All men have that thing,” Adelaide said. “And you’re not allowed to touch it in public.”

  Harold’s face turned beet red. “Not that—it’s a rash, okay?”

  Adelaide and Jimmy both stared, looking disgusted.

  “Lie down with the dogs, you get fleas,” Adelaide said. “Lie down with sluts, you get STDs.”

  Jimmy cleared his throat. “Mr. Trahan, I think you need to see a doctor about that, er, situation. Until then, you need to control yourself in public or stay home. We’ve got kids in this town.”

  Harold whirled around and practically ran. Marina managed to hold everything in until Jimmy had walked off, then she sank onto the ground and collapsed in a heap of laughter. Adelaide stepped behind the bush and grinned down at her.

  “Got his goat on that one,” she said.

  “Oh my God,” Marina said, gasping for breath. “I think I might have peed.”

  “It’s an age thing. Welcome to the last half of your life.”

  Marina followed Halcyon to the door of the fishing cabin, practically shoving her sister out. Between Halcyon and her housekeeper, she’d been ordered around so much she felt as if she’d joined the military. But she had to admit, the place looked better. The housekeeper had helped her scrub it from top to bottom, and Halcyon had dragged some old rugs, lamps, pictures, and some other items out of storage and told her she could have it all. It was an eclectic blend of things her sister had grown attached to over decades of decorating changes, but the mismatched items added a bit of festivity to the cabin. Made it more interesting and less gloomy.

  Remarkably, one outstanding repair issue remained and that was a leak in the bathroom sink. Until the town’s only plumber could fit her in, Marina figured she could just use the kitchen sink to brush her teeth. It wasn’t as though anyone would be there to tell her it was inappropriate. Halcyon had raised hell over the locks until Marina made an appointment for the next week with the locksmith, but she’d installed dead bolts on the inside so that her sister wouldn’t worry about her staying in the cabin that night.

  It wasn’t that Marina didn’t appreciate everything Halcyon was doing for her. And her sister’s house was better than any fancy hotel—a soft mattress, an en suite bathroom, and a store of wine that beat most of the local restaurants. She also had awesome snacks. Halcyon was a professional at treating herself well and she’d extended all of those things to Marina.

  But the truth was Marina needed to be alone.

  She’d kept busy with the moving, cleaning, and decorating. And having other people around meant her mind had fewer chances to dwell on pointless things that would never change. But that couldn’t last forever and every night when Marina went to bed, the silence was overwhelming. Her mind raced with a million thoughts of how things could go from bad to worse to why-do-I-even-bother. And she knew that as long as she put off the serious thinking and decision-making she needed to do she’d never get past this.

  She needed a plan. A long-term plan. Not just one that covered what she was doing today or tomorrow. A long-term plan meant there was a reason to get out of bed every day. Something to work toward. Something to look forward to. All that pop psychology about living in the moment was great if the moment was awesome. But if the moment was absolute shit, she didn’t see the point.

  It was hard to figure out the future wi
th Halcyon hovering, trying to fix everything with wine and cursing. Not that she didn’t appreciate both. Her sister’s heart had always been in the right place where Marina was concerned. But Marina couldn’t let Halcyon make decisions for her. That was a cop-out. She was a forty-eight-year-old woman. She’d let Harold run things for decades and look where that had gotten her. It was time to take control of her life. That way, if it stayed in the toilet, at least she had no one to blame but herself.

  She opened the back door and called to Snooze, who was napping on the porch. He opened one eye and stared.

  “The noisy, sneezing one is gone,” Marina said.

  The old hound dog opened the other eye and both of them gave her a suspicious look, but finally, he pulled himself up and strolled inside. He glanced around, as if to make sure Marina hadn’t been lying to him, then apparently satisfied, lay down on the donated rug next to one of the old tacky recliners. Marina sat next to him and reached over to rub his ears.

  “We’re going to be fine,” she said, more for herself than Snooze. The old hound appeared quite content at the cabin. Probably because Harold wasn’t there.

  Marina glanced into the kitchen at the boxes on the counter and felt her energy wane. Not because they needed to be unpacked but because there were so few of them, even with Halcyon’s donations. Truth be told, Avery’s dorm room probably contained more and better stuff than the cabin did.

  It was a bunch of old, ugly furniture and questionable decor—just like the house she’d shared with Harold. Apparently, she couldn’t escape that fate.

  She blew out a breath. If Harold had ever given any indication that he’d be willing to get rid of his mother’s things, Marina would have built a bonfire up to the heavens and lit it all up in the backyard. But he’d insisted that all the furniture was “quality” and there was no need to replace it. Marina had assumed he was just being cheap. Now she wondered if he’d been reserving that money for other things. Things that didn’t include Marina. She wondered about a lot of things as far as her marriage was concerned.

  But none of that mattered now. What mattered now was collecting her payout from Harold, looking for an attorney, and calling the plumber. She pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. At least she could handle the last one of those items now.

  She heard the movement behind her before she saw the man step into her side view. She bolted out of the recliner and threw her phone at the man in the purple skinny jeans—which probably wasn’t the best idea—then ran for the kitchen and grabbed the first thing out of a box that she could put her hands on, which turned out to be a bottle of perfume.

  The man slowly approached and Marina was certain she was about to be serial killed.

  Chapter Nine

  This was it. This was how Marina’s life ended. In a pair of jeans with a hole in the crotch that her thighs had caused, a T-shirt with dirt and cleaning solution on it, and no bra. She was even wearing basic white granny panties. Good God, what was the undertaker going to think?

  “We need to talk,” the man said.

  Marina thrust the perfume bottle in front of her, determined to go down in a fight. “Stop right there.”

  The man looked a bit confused but continued to move toward her. “You don’t understand—”

  “Oh, I understand!” she yelled, and sprayed him right in the face with the perfume. It wasn’t Mace but surely it would give her time to dive for her cell phone. Maybe even run out the door, because getting away seemed like a more viable option than locating a pair of silk underwear in the boxes.

  She made a break to his right but unfortunately, Snooze decided that was the moment to get up and see what was going on. Her leg hit a hundred and ten pounds of immovable fur, and she pitched right into Skinny Jeans, hurtling them both onto the floor and sending the perfume crashing into the back door. Skinny Jeans screamed and she scrambled on top of him, trying to grab her cell phone. Snooze decided that it was all too much for him and took off for the bedroom.

  Marina’s hand locked around her cell phone and she launched herself toward the door. But even though she could clearly see that the locks weren’t engaged, she couldn’t pull the door open.

  “You can’t jam now!” she yelled at the door. “Skinny Michael Myers is after me!”

  “I am not after you,” Skinny Jeans said. “At least, not in the way you’re imagining. Will you please stop with all the drama and let me explain why I’m here? Because I don’t think either of us can take more of your attempts at self-defense or our olfactory senses will pack up and leave our bodies.”

  Marina had no idea why the man’s words caused her to pause but she found herself turning back to look. He stood in the middle of the room, arms by his side, his nose wrinkled in distaste. But Marina was most impressed by the fact that he was glaring at her, eyes wide open, giving no indication that the perfume had bothered him at all. Which made no sense. Marina had accidentally sprayed some in her eyes one morning before work and she’d cut Mrs. Breaux’s hair an inch too short in the back. It had taken a good hour before her eyes stabilized. Way longer than that for Mrs. Breaux’s hair.

  “Do you have something I can wipe this off with?” Skinny Jeans asked. “Before I pass out from the smell. This is so awful.”

  “That’s Chanel!”

  “No. It’s not. It’s a really cheap and awful knockoff.”

  Marina sighed, all fear slipping away from her. How dangerous could a man who recognized knockoff perfume really be?

  “I should have known,” she said. “It was a gift from my soon-to-be ex-husband.”

  “It smells like a skunk in a stinkweed patch with a hint of motor oil. Please don’t tell me you’ve been wearing this.”

  “I thought maybe it smelled differently on me—you know how you don’t smell it the same as other people do.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not the case here.”

  “Of course not.” Her perfume was just one more thing in a long line of failures. She shouldn’t have been surprised.

  She headed into the kitchen and located a dish towel in one of the boxes, then wet it and handed it to Skinny Jeans. He rubbed his face but didn’t seem satisfied with the results.

  “I can offer you dishwashing soap,” Marina said. “But that’s all I’ve had time to unpack.”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ll shower later and snort coffee grounds.”

  Marina nodded. Shoving her nose in a jar of coffee grounds sounded really good. Why in the world had she thought that perfume smelled okay?

  “So you want to tell me why you’ve been stalking me?” Marina asked, no longer concerned about his intentions. If he wanted to kill her, he’d had plenty of opportunity already. “Let’s start with your name.”

  “I am called Alexios.”

  “But that’s not your name?”

  He frowned. “I just said it was.”

  “No. You said you were called Alexios. Some people call me Biscuit because it’s all I’d eat for a year when I was three, but that doesn’t mean it’s my name.”

  “Why does my choice of grammar seem to annoy you?” He looked genuinely confused.

  “Because ‘I am called’ is a really pompous way of saying it when you could just say ‘my name is.’ And your name being Alexios isn’t helping matters. In a place like Last Chance, it sounds uppity.”

  “Interesting. I suppose I could go by Alex while I’m here. Would that help me blend?”

  “Not as long as you’re wearing purple jeans.”

  “Humans are a very peculiar bunch.”

  Marina narrowed her eyes. He might not be a serial killer, but he was definitely walking the crazy plank. “Some of us are, certainly. I take it you’re not claiming human as your species?”

  “I’d love to say that’s the case, but unfortunately, a part of me is. Apparently not the part that prefers purple jeans or proper speech.”

  “What’s the other half? And I swear to God if you say you’re an alien
I’m going to spray you with cooking oil. It’s right here in this box.”

  He considered this far too long for Marina’s taste but finally nodded. “I suppose if you mean that a part of my lineage is not of the Earth, then perhaps I could be considered alien. But if you’re speaking of the general Hollywood definition, then no.”

  “You know, it’s been a really long day and an even longer week. And I’m going to hate myself for asking this, but where exactly is the other part of you from?”

  “I’m a demigod.”

  Marina stared. “You really are into yourself, aren’t you? I mean, I know a lot of men who think they’re gods, but not any that just come right out and say it.”

  “This is the worst part of my job. The convincing.”

  “If you’re waiting for women to believe you’re a god, I can see where that would be difficult.”

  “A demigod. Not a god. If I were a god, I wouldn’t have this horrible assignment. I’d be living it up on a cloud.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a demigod?”

  “I’m the product of the mating of a god and a mortal.”

  “You mean like Hercules?”

  He rolled his eyes. “What is it with you humans and Hercules?”

  “I don’t know. Defied the gods, saved the world, that sort of thing.”

  “Good! That gives us some common ground. You’re a Seeker and I’m here to help you save the world.”

  The tiny shred of patience that she’d been clinging to dissolved. “Dude, I can’t save my marriage. Or myself. Hell, I can’t even keep a cactus alive. If the world is depending on me, then this is the saddest day in history since God said ‘let there be light.’”

  “That’s not really how it happened…you know what, never mind. I can see you’ll need some convincing, so I’ll just save some time and launch right into the dog and pony show. Let’s start with how I got into your house.”