Chapter 2
Ally
I’ve managed to make it ten solid hours into my twenty-third year and so far, my efforts to avoid celebrating my birthday have been a success. Didi tried to tell the hostess when we arrived it was my special day but I kicked her shin, distracting her long enough she forgot to mention it again.
“I’m sorry if I left a mark.” Not looking up, my friend only shrugs her shoulder in response. Crap. “Deeds, come on. I said I was sorry.”
Placing her menu down beside her on the table, she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. A smug smirk slowly appears on her face before she asks, “Just how sorry? On a scale of ‘I’ll do the dishes for a week’ to ‘I’ll hold your hair when you puke’ where do you sit?”
“Hmm . . . well, I think it’s above dishes but you know I’m a sympathetic puker so . . .”
Our waiter, greets us with two mimosas, and he’s now my favorite person. We each place our order, Didi making a healthy choice by ordering her breakfast of an egg white omelet with every vegetable imaginable and a side of fruit. I don’t take that route.
“I’ll have the stuffed French toast, no powdered sugar, and a side of bacon, please,” I state with a smile and hand him my menu. Returning my smile, he takes the menus and asks if we’ll be partaking in the bottomless mimosas.
In unison we say, “Absolutely,” before we break into a fit of giggles.
Raising her glass to the center of the table, I mimic Didi’s action and wait for her toast. “Allyson Diane Honeycutt you are my very best friend and I love you to the moon. I am honored to not be celebrating your birthday, also known as the day the world changed for the better, and drink as many mimosas as this place will give us before they cut us off. Bottomless my ass, they have no idea the damage we can do.”
Clinking our glasses, we both lift the flutes to our lips. The sharp contrast of the sweet orange juice and dry champagne tingles on my tongue and I love it. We both finish our drinks in one effort and lift the empty stemware toward our waiter as he walks past our table. He simply shakes his head with a quiet chuckle before nodding in acknowledgment.
“So, tell me about the club.”
“No way, Ally. We are not talking about my night at the club or the hot man-meat I met. I mean, I wouldn’t want to bore you with the play by play of the epic orgasms he gave me or the way I had to sneak in to the apartment this morning before you woke. I mean, what kind of friend would I be?”
Snorting a laugh, I say, “Never use the term “man-meat” again.”
“Dammit. I thought for sure I was onto something.”
“That’s a hard no, sister. Plus, I ordered bacon, and honestly, I’m feeling conflicted about eating it now. Yet, I will admit to being grateful I didn’t choose the sausage.”
“Hmm… this is most distressing,” she says, tapping her chin. “Oh well. Anyway, we had fun as usual but missed you. As promised, I took those extra shots for you, found a guy who could dance, climbed him like a tree, then let him take me home and do very wicked things with me.”
“And the poor sap you met wouldn’t happen to be your fiancé, would it?”
Scrunching her face she waves her hand dismissively in front of her face. “Always the buzzkill. Fine, it was my future mister. What can I say? I’m a one dick gal. What about you? Did you feed your weird need for true crime?”
“Nah,” I begin when our food arrives. I wait for Didi to order us each two mimosas in wine glasses. I’m not sure why they always try to serve them in those tiny flutes. It’s really too much work for the servers to keep running back every few minutes with a fresh drink.
“So no Bundy or Dahmer binge?” she asks between bites of fresh melon. I eye the piece she’s lifting to her lips, and she laughs before popping it in her mouth. “Just order your own damn fruit, nut.” And then like the good best friend she is, she scoops a few pieces onto my plate while I slice off a piece of the delicious French toast and slide it onto her plate.
“I actually scrolled through to see what new shows and movies were released yesterday and stumbled upon one of your shows.”
“Oh? Which one? The Bachelorette? One of the Housewives? A marriage one?” she asks in rapid fire. You’d think she just chugged an energy drink as wide as her eyes are. Those shows are like her own personal drug or something.
Her demeanor has switched on a dime from curiosity to excitement. She’s eyeing me like a new opportunity, or cult member is more like it. As she shifts in her seat and a huge smile takes over her face, I roll my eyes and stuff a bite of food into my mouth. Delay. Divert. Anything to admit what I watched and ultimately what I did.
“Ally . . .”
“Ugh, fine,” I relent. “I scrolled and saw that date a guy in jail show you think is so awesome. It was a bit of a rabbit hole for me.”
“Oh! I’ve been telling you to watch that for months. And it’s prison. How far did you get? Did you see the jail cell cheesecake? I think we should make that. I figure if they can make it in a prison cell we can make it at home and likely not set the building on fire.”
Scrunching my brows, I turn my head to assess her words. I feel a little like Myson when he’s trying to determine if I’ve lost my mind when I hold one-sided conversations with him.
“Jail what?” I ask but continue before she can answer, “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know. No, I didn’t watch for long, but I did fall down the actual rabbit hole. Imayhavesearchedonline.” My final words are a cross between speed talking and mumbling as I lift my drink to my lips and chug it like cheap beer in a red cup at a frat party.
“What?” she screeches, drawing the stares of the patrons at the tables nearby.
“Ladies, is everything okay?” the waiter asks, his eyes curious but his tone full of warning.
Turning her glare from me to our waiter, she squints her eyes as she looks at his name tag. “Vin, we’re going to need more of these mimosas. Someone has some ’splaining to do.”
“As long as we’re okay,” he says.
We both look up at him and smile our sweetest smiles and nod. When he’s two steps away, Didi leans across the table and whisper yells, “You went online to shop for a dude in prison?”
“I was curious. You know how I get. It’s both a curse and a blessing. I sometimes fall down a rabbit hole. For hours.”
It’s the absolute truth. If I am watching television or listening to a podcast and there’s a reference I’m unfamiliar with, I go to the web. I’ve been known to chase information for hours reading page upon page of articles without a care in the world. I love learning things, even if it means I lose all sense of time.
“Don’t leave me hanging here. What did you find?” Her eyes are sparkling with curiosity as she stabs her fork into her omelet blindly.
“Well, I found that there are dozens of sites for this topic. Sure, some are geared toward dating but the majority I came across were simply a pen pal thing. There were men of all ages. Women too. Some who will be incarcerated for centuries and others only a few years.”
Coughing, she gives herself a few minutes before she starts laughing. “Centuries?”
“Yeah. I obviously didn’t click on that guy. I mean, if they plan to send you to prison in the afterlife you must have done something really awful.”
We both start laughing and spend the rest of our meal and another two mimosas contemplating what crimes could have been committed to spend the afterlife in prison. By the time Didi settles the check the effects of the bubbly are in full force and we are both a giggling and swaying mess as we exit the restaurant. Vinny offers to call us a car, but lucky for us we only have to walk a block to our apartment.
As we walk, our conversation begins to lessen and the need for a nap overwhelms us both. Linking her arm through mine, Didi rests her head atop mine as we approach our building.
“So, did you find any guys on there that seemed . . . I don’t know, not scary? Maybe a white-collar felon? A l
ittle IRS issue or something? I mean, I doubt everyone is a possible serial killer/bank robber/car thief.”
“Well, there was this one guy. He looked like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Or at least his torso did, I couldn’t really see his face. His release date is sometime this month.”
“Oh, I bet he follows the rules of Fight Club and that’s why he’s in there. Maybe he took the fall for someone else’s crime. You should write him a letter.”
Stopping quickly, I spin on my heel with instant regret as the beautiful trees lining the street start to sway. Didi must have the same effect because her hand falls from my arm and rests on her stomach. A visible cringe skirting her face.
“First, it was more like a dating app where you “whisper” at a person and see if they do the same back.”
“So whisper. What’s the worst that happens?”
“He really is a serial killer/bank robber/car thief and they got the wrong guy?”
“Eh,” she says dismissively. “That’s when your super online searching skills come into play.”
Didi continues walking toward our building, leaving me standing alone on the sidewalk. She has lost her damn mind if she thinks I’m going to whisper, wave, wink, or nudge anyone on a pen pal site. I’m not lucky enough to not attract the next serial killer.
The only time I’ve been lucky with online anything is finding the perfect pair of jeans and my job. Romance on the internet didn’t work so why would a pen pal with an inmate be any different.
Chapter 3
Ally
When I was a little girl, I dreamed of one day becoming a teacher. Or a professional bug catcher. I was seven and didn’t know catching lightnin’ bugs wasn’t a paying job. Damn shame too. I was the best catcher in town.
My parents weren’t shocked by my declaration of pursuing a career in education since I basically worshipped my second grade teacher. Mrs. Albert made each of her students feel like we were important and taught us to believe we could do anything we set our minds to. I wanted to be just like her.
I told everyone in my life, and probably a few strangers, my life goal of teaching. The words fell from my lips so freely I believed them. Until I didn’t. With my degree in education in my hand, I stood before my parents at college graduation with dread swirling in my belly.
I did not want to be a teacher. I love kids and I love the idea of teaching, but I knew deep down it wasn’t what I was meant to do. Telling my parents I had spent four years at college and earned a degree I had no intention of using was one of the scariest conversations of my life. But, like they do everything else, my parents hugged me and told me they were proud of me regardless of what I did for a living.
Since I wasn’t going to settle into a comfortable job as a teacher, I needed to find something to pay the bills. That’s how I landed my first job as a virtual assistant. Late one night I was scrolling an online ad site and came across a job listing for an assistant to a novelist. I’ve always been an avid reader and, on a whim, sent him a response. For days I worried he was a fraud because he didn’t immediately respond. Then one day a Non-Disclosure Agreement appeared in my email. I quickly signed it and sent it back knowing the next step was discovering who my potential employer would be.
I was surprised to find out that not only was the author a former professor of my alma mater, he was in fact my former Psychology professor, Fin Wallace. Professor Wallace was someone I had tremendous respect for and whose class I didn’t mind getting up for early on a Monday. I was excited and scared to death of the responsibility.
That was eighteen months ago. Since then my boss has published his second book, been featured in a major magazine as one of the hottest new authors in mystery thriller fiction, and embarked on a nationwide tour promoting his book.
His travels have meant he’s writing a little slower than usual, so I’ve had more free time and taken on a couple part-time clients. While he can be a little possessive, he doesn’t mind me working with other clients as long as it doesn’t interfere in my work for him. Which also includes reading the first draft of his work in progress. Assistant to an author wasn’t a job I ever knew existed, but I love it. And, turns out, I’m really good at helping people stay organized and meet deadlines. Even from home in my pajamas.
Last year when my family and I went to Disney World for Christmas my granny demanded I tell her the identity of my mysterious author boss. Regardless of the NDA I signed, she still thinks her role as Granny means she trumps any legal document and it’s her right to know everything about my life. She went as far as to tempt me with my favorite wine and the promise of pie. I didn’t cave. Well, I mean I still drank the wine and snuck a piece of pie like a thief in the night, but I didn’t spill the tea so to speak.
Instead, I simply gave her a signed copy of his novel in which Fin wrote “For the woman who gave the world the amazing Ally.” She scoffed and tossed it to the side like it was a bad piece of fish mumbling that she prefers abs on her covers.
This morning I’m dressed in my most professional tank top and sweatpants with my hair piled high on my head as I respond to some of Fin’s emails before I drag my ass to the elliptical machine in the corner of the room. My job is mostly sedentary and since I have a fondness for foods commonly referred to as dessert this part of my day is a must. Love-hate is a real thing when it comes to me and exercise.
Clicking send on the last email, I close my laptop and toss it to the side before dragging myself off the couch. Myson, as usual, sits atop the bookcase and watches me. His gaze follows me and I can only imagine the judgment he’s throwing my direction. So judgy is my feline friend.
“Yeah yeah. I know, watching me huff and puff is your favorite part of the day. Just remember, if I die on this thing there will be nobody here to feed you.”
The downside to working from home is the reality that my only company is a cat. Thank goodness for podcasts and the people who entertain me with my reality television recaps and true crime stories. If it weren’t for them, I would truly only hear my own voice most days.
With a deep breath, I nestle the buds in my ears and cue up the latest true crime episode before starting the machine. I succumb to the rhythm of the machine as two familiar voices make true crime come to life in my ears.
The front door opens and closes as Didi swears under her breath at Myson. A flash of white scurries through the room and down the hall as my bestie drops her belongings on the breakfast bar.
“Girl, that creature is going to give me a heart attack one day.”
“You know he loves you, Didi.”
“Yeah, that’s why he always jumps in front of me when I walk in the door. I swear he only loves you and tolerates the rest of the human race.”
I laugh with her but it’s true. Myson is a one-woman cat and many days seems to not tolerate anyone at all. I continue stirring the sauce before peering into the large pot on the back burner to ensure it’s boiling.
“Pasta?”
I turn my head, pasta box in my hand, and look at Didi. Her hands are in prayer pose and she’s fluttering her eyes. Ridiculous. Smiling I reply, “Nope. Steak and potatoes. This box is just for looks so I can properly toy with your carb-loving emotions.” Hope deflates from her face and I let out a barking laugh. “I’m kidding. Yes, pasta. I also made a salad in the fridge.”
Hopping up and down, she rushes to my side and places a huge kiss on my cheek before scurrying to her room. Dropping the pasta into the boiling water, I stir it around a little before setting the sauce to simmer and pulling plates from the cupboard. In minutes Didi returns to the kitchen and pulls the wine from the fridge before pouring us each a glass. Clinking in a silent toast we each take a long sip and let out a unified sigh.
For the next few minutes while we wait for dinner to finish cooking, Didi tells me about her day. As a struggling actress, she spent her morning at an audition for a commercial that she feels good about and her afternoon at her temp job. She’s also an administrative assistan
t but, unfortunately for her, she’s in a large office and known as “temp girl number three.” I’d feel bad for her but she’s also a people person and loves the atmosphere.
That’s one of the few ways we’re different. Growing up an only child in Pickerton Grove, population 8,000 at last count, a small town that few people leave or new folk rarely move to, I’ve always been more of an introvert and loner. It’s also why we’ve probably remained such good friends. We complement one another. Through the years, she’s pushed me out of my comfort zone more than once while I’ve shown her the beauty of quiet and just being in the moment.
Sure, I spend half the time playing the “what if” game and driving her nuts because in her world you don’t wonder “if” you should, you simply do. Take the risk. Jump feet first and deal with the mess later. Even the thought makes me cringe.
In the middle of her story about the small child she had to audition with today, my phone sets off a string of notifications in the form of giggles. My notification is set to the giggles of my favorite true crime podcaster and makes me smile each time it goes off.
“Crap, that’s my email. I must not have switched it over to my personal account,” I mumble as I wipe my lips with the napkin and rise from the table to silence my phone. Before I can reach for it another three notifications come through.
“Wow, Fin must be in some sort of writing groove. What does he call it? The zone?” Nodding, I pick up my phone before taking my seat again.
“Yeah, ‘the zone’ but Twilight Zone is more like it. That’s all you’ll get from me; you know I can’t talk about it. I’m surprised he doesn’t care that you know I work for him. I can’t even tell Granny.”
It Was Always You Page 2
