“It’s so cute.”
“Go back to being mercurial. I hate that you think this is cute,” I joked.
“You so don’t.” She bumped me with her shoulder.
She was right, I didn’t.
Mr. Eugene came downstairs dressed in slacks and a polo shirt.
“Good morning, girls. Judging by your time, I assume Opal gave you the ‘hate late people’ speech?”
I nodded and smiled, appreciating that he didn’t mention my absence like everyone else had.
“Well, now we are the ones waiting on her.” He gave a little wink. He went to the fridge, and I felt the need to apologize or say thank you, but when I opened my mouth to do so, he fixed me with a pinned look and asked if we had breakfast.
“If you mean if we had macaroni and cheese sandwich with mustard, then that would be a no.” Aria gagged.
“No, I mean a more traditional one, although it would have to be more of a continental breakfast, as we do have to get a move on things. How does bacon and eggs sound?”
I looked at him again to try and say something, and he again cut me off with talk of breakfast.
“Dacey? Can I get you bacon and eggs?” The look in his eyes seemed to say “apology accepted, drop it.” So I did.
* * *
We got to Orlando on time for Opal’s appointment, even with Mr. Eugene driving as slow as cold syrup, and checked her in.
Dr. Pfeiffer was a tall blonde with soft gray eyes. She gave us the rundown of how all the testing would go today, and she said that Opal would be there awhile. Aria decided to stay with her so that she wouldn’t be alone, leaving me to hang with Justin alone. Slick.
I texted Justin to let him know where I was and that I would wait for him in the lobby, then I went and filled Mr. Eugene in on what the doctor had said.
“So should I fire Trevor?” Mr. Eugene asked, totally taking me by surprise.
“Where did that come from?” I asked, shocked.
“I’m too much of a gentleman to repeat what Opal wanted to do to him for hurting you, and forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but Opal is my family now, and therefore, you are my family—and I don’t like to see my family hurting. I am very protective of my family. I would have already had him terminated, but I figured I should talk to you about that first so as not to overstep my boundaries with you.”
Wow. Up until this point, I hadn’t really made up my mind about Mr. Eugene and Opal. I mean, sure he had given me the speech about not going anywhere and when you know, you know, but that was before parents died and boyfriends broke hearts. Now, anything was possible, and the word “love” was apparently something that was tossed around like a rag doll, but hearing Mr. Eugene talk, I knew it was different—he was different.
“The fact that you would do that for me means more than you will ever know. And as much as a huge, gigantic part of me wants you to do that, because I know it’s his true passion and it would hurt him deeply, I can’t,” I sighed, not wanting to admit to myself why it would bother me so much if I hurt him.
“Very well, but I have made it clear to him that we are no longer cordial.”
“I don’t hate him. I should. Everyone says I should, but I don’t.”
“I wonder why that is?” he mused, but he seemed to know and was just waiting for me to come to the conclusion on my own.
My guess was because I was stupid. Before I could voice this though, Justin came through the glass doors of the lobby in full uniform, gaining everyone’s attention, and stopped in front of us.
Mr. Eugene stood and offered his hand. “I’m Eugene Davis. You must be Officer Parks?”
“I am. Nice to meet you.” Justin took Mr. Eugene’s outstretched hand and shook it firmly.
They exchange pleasantries, then we out the door five minutes later and on our way.
“I see the appeal,” he said as we walked outside onto the sidewalk.
“Not you too,” I groaned.
“Uh-oh, you don’t like him?”
“Oh, I do, but it seems everyone he meets has this hero worship thing going on with him,” I teased.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he raised a brow at me.
“So where to?”
“Left, since you don’t have that much time. There is this sub place right around the corner, a mom-and-pop joint. We can walk there. They have the best subs in town.” He guided me by my elbow through the throng of people, although with him being in uniform, people where giving him a wide berth anyway.
“Aren’t you abusing company time or something?” I asked as he fell into stride beside me.
“No, I’m on lunch break. You think cops don’t get lunch?”
“Yeah, but you’re not really a regular cop. You’re highway patrol. Shouldn’t you be patrolling the highway?”
“I’m a cop. I just don’t deal with your basic homicides and murder.” He chuckled, showing his dimples.
“So what do you deal with?” I asked as he steered me across a crosswalk.
“Overseeing traffic violations, accidents—as you know—safety, and training. Basically if it has wheels, I deal.”
I laughed at his lame attempt at a joke.
“Yeah, that was pretty bad, huh?” he said, shaking his head.
“It sounds like something my friend Riley would say.” Thinking of Riley reminded me that I needed to call him and thank him for looking out for Aria for those days I didn’t.
We came to a stop in front of a dingy-looking yellow stucco building with a sign that read Mamma B’s.
I looked at Justin skeptically. “This is the best subs in town?” I twisted my lip up.
“Trust me. Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“But the cover is what draws you in.”
“Yeah, but it’s what’s inside—oh, just come inside.” He grabbed my hand and gently pulled me inside the small eatery. There were about five tables scattered around the small space, and each had two chairs on either side. Justin picked the table in the middle, as we were the only people in the place.
“Hey, Officer P,” a big-neck guy behind the counter yelled.
“Hey, Jay,” Justin yelled back.
“The usual?” big-neck Jay yelled.
Justin looked at me deciding something, then, “Yeah, hold the jalapeños, and two Cokes.”
“Water for me, please.”
“Make it one Coke, one water, Jay,” he yelled back.
“So, no waitress?” I joked.
“Nah, this is a family business. That’s Jay. His daughter is usually the waitress, but she’s in school, and they are usually slow during the morning and afternoon so he manages with just him and his wife, who I’m sure is back there somewhere.”
As if on cue, a blonde came out with a bottle of water and a bottle of Coke and put them on the table in front of us. “Hey, Officer P, new girl?” She wagged her eyebrows at me suggestively.
“No, Sam, this is a friend. Dacey, this is Samantha. Samantha, this is Dacey.”
She offered me her hand. “Call me Sam. Dacey, huh. What is that, Italian?”
“Gaelic,” I said, shaking her hand.
“Oh, your parents old Irish, are they?”
“We don’t have a lot of time, Sam,” Justin cut in.
“Oh, yeah, sure—let me go check,” she said, not seeing me fidgeting with the bottle in my hand at the mention of my parents.
“Thanks, I guess I should get used to that. It’s not like I can wear a sign that says don’t ask me about my parents.”
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s going to take time,” he said gently.
“So what did you order, and why only one?” I asked, remembering he hadn’t asked me what I wanted or for a menu, for that matter.
“Oh, it’s called a Big Kahuna.” He flashed that dimple smile again.
“That sounds meaty.”
“Meaty?” He laughed.
What the hell was so funny about that? “You know, you laugh a lot.”
“You say a lot of funny shi—stuff,” he corrected.
“What? Are you not allowed to cuss in uniform?”
“No, we are. I was just trying to be respectful, showing my Southern upbringing and all.” He tipped an imaginary hat.
“Oh, well, fuck that. I’m no Southern belle,” I joked.
He laughed out loud. “Good, ’cause I couldn’t be friends with those girls, too proper and I-broke-a-nail-help-me type.”
I held up my hand to show him my nubs.
“That’s why we will be great friends, Dacey.”
Sam came out with a red basket and a gargantuan sub packed full of different meats with pineapples, banana peppers, olives, and other things I couldn’t see because honestly, all I saw was meat.
“Y’all enjoy,” Sam said as she set it down and left.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“This is the Big Kahuna.” Justin rubbed his hands together, getting ready to dig in.
“How the hell do I eat something like this without it getting everywhere?” I didn’t even know where to start.
“Oh, well, you pick it up and you hold your head to the side and you bite, like this,” he mocked, picking up the sub and doing exactly that.
“I know how to eat a sub, smart ass. I just mean they don’t give you utensils for all the meat?”
“Oh, you need a knife and fork, Southern belle?” he challenged.
“Ohh, why no, no I don’t.” I picked up a glob of meat that had fallen off when he took the first bite and shoved it in my mouth. “Uummmohmygod,” I chewed, “this is so good.”
“Told you. Now try some with the bread, caveman,” he said, rolling his eyes.
I broke off a piece of the other side of the sub along with more meat and took a bite. “You were right—this is the best in town,” I said after I swallowed. “Although I haven’t been here before, so I have nothing to compare it to.”
“Well, we will have to fix that then, won’t we?” he said, breaking off some of the sub and eating it.
I was only able to eat about three more bites before I became full, leaving Justin to finish it.
“Thank you,” I said as he held the door open for me as we left Mamma B’s.
“My pleasure. I would love to do it again.” We headed back to the medical plaza building.
“Um, I’m not sure when I’ll be in Orlando next, and I have finals—who knows if I’ll even pass those. My teachers have all given me a ‘her parents died’ pass, except for one, and it’s not because he doesn’t care, more like he just wants to make sure I succeed, so I think I’ll be good, but you never know.”
“What are you majoring in?”
“Journalism.”
“So you want to be a writer or an editor?”
“Writer, I think. Aria thinks I’ll be an amazing writer.”
“What do you want to write about?”
“At first I wanted to write for newspapers, you know, the normal go-getter articles that every journalism major wants to write about, but now...” I trailed off, not wanting to finish my thought.
“Now?” he urged.
“Now I want to write about life, and life’s changes. How it can change in one minute, how it can change you in one minute for good or bad if you let it, how it sucks, how it’s awesome, and how it can be so insanely fucking funny you think it’s fake but it’s not—it’s life.”
We had reached the medical plaza building, and Justin was just staring at me funny with his hand on the door about to open it for me.
“What?” I asked after a minute.
“So whenever you write this, whatever it is about life, I want the first copy.”
“Shut up.”
“No, I’m serious. Everyone’s take on life is different, but yours, I would love to read what you write about life.” He pulled the door open for me and told me good-bye and that he would talk with me soon.
Mr. Eugene was still in the lobby, and I sat down next to him and thought about what Justin had just said. Could I really do it—write, for all to see, about life, about my life? A part of me was scared shitless to even entertain the idea, but the other part of me, the part that had changed, felt the urge to. They say people have their own way of dealing with grief. I think maybe I just found mine.
Chapter 18
It was going on three in the afternoon by the time we got back to Shaddy Groves with a very irritable Opal, who had been asked to remember this and recite that and stuffed in a MRI machine and then poked until she threatened to sue them for harassment. I had to calm her by telling her I would buy her pudding later, which is why we were making a pit stop at the grocery store now before Mr. Eugene was to drop us off.
I was so focused on Opal, I didn’t have time to freak out about the chances of me running into Trevor, or worse, Trevor and Kelly. As we pulled into a parking space, Mr. Eugene barely had time to put the car in park before Opal was out of the car and into the store, leaving me and Aria running in after her. We had just enough time to stop her before she tried to open the pudding cup right there in the store.
“Auntie, we have to buy them first,” I said as if I were talking to a child.
“Look, I been poked and messed with. Jus’ let me have my pudding, chile,” she shot at me.
“Maybe you should just let her, Dac. I’ll go pay for it now,” Aria was saying as she was pulling money out.
I looked up to see that Mr. Eugene was in the parking lot on the phone. He would be of no help in trying to pacify her, and his smoothness could come in handy right now.
“Yeah, I guess, but how are you going to eat...?” My question died on my lips as I watch her pull out a spoon from her bag. I should have known she would have one in that thing. “Auntie, why?” I asked, shaking my head at a loss for words.
“What?” she asked, peeling back the foil top of the pudding cup and dipping in the spoon.
“’Cause everyone carries around a spoon in their purse.”
“They do if they wanna eat pudding.”
Aria giggled and went to go up front to pay. “Pay for three packs,” I yelled, and she gave me the thumbs-up sign.
Opal looked perfectly content to stand in the dairy section of the Shaddy Groves Market and eat pudding, and I didn’t feel inclined to tell her to move. Walking a little ways away, I pulled out my cellphone intending on texting Tina to make sure she got home okay when a voice stopped me.
“You know that’s stealing.”
Fuckfuckfuck. My spine stiffened. “Hi, Shannon,” I said, turning around.
“What is she doing?” she said, looking past me at Opal and making a face.
“Eating pudding, what does it look like?” I said, not keeping the sarcasm out of my voice.
“She’s stealing.”
“She’s not. My sister is paying for it now.” I moved into her line of sight, blocking Opal from her.
She focused on me and smiled acidly. “Haven’t seen you around lately, but then again, I wouldn’t, would I, now that your less occupied.”
Bitch. “Oh, I didn’t think you would have noticed, what with how occupied we all know you can be.” Score one for me.
If my dig about her being the town slut got to her, she didn’t show it as she chuckled and started walking but then stopped and turned to look at me over her shoulder and added in a sickly sweet voice, “Yeah, Trevor knows how occupied I can be too,” then she sauntered away.
Score five for the bitch.
The logical part of my brain knew better than to believe anything that came out of her mouth and that Trevor wouldn’t have dared sleep with her, but the other part of my brain, the part that’d had her mind blown these past few weeks, didn’t know what or whom to believe anymore. It was possible that I had been played this entire time and this was the reason Shannon never liked me, because she was the other woman. Thinking that he would touch her and then touch me made me want to go home and take a bath in bleach.
I was pulle
d from my reverie by my cellphone ringing. “Hello?”
“Miss Harper?” said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize.
“Yes?”
“This is the law firm of Bartholomew Jackson. He needs to set up a reading of your parents’ will with you and your sister.”
“Oh, yes, okay.”
“How is tomorrow for you?”
Aria had come back, and I made a motion to her that I needed a pen and a piece of paper with my hand. She reached into her purse and pulled out a scrap of paper and pen and handed it to me.
After I told the caller that tomorrow was fine, she began to recite an Orlando address, of course. I thanked her and hung up.
“Who was that?” Aria asked.
“Mom and Dad’s lawyer. The will is ready. Tomorrow at eleven we hear it,” I said, pushing all thoughts of Trevor and Shannon aside, for now.
“Oh, I’m really curious what they have in a will,” Aria admitted.
“Yeah, me too,” I said distractedly.
“Come on, get Opal and let’s go. I’m suddenly drained.” In truth, I was tired, but I just really wanted to lie down and forget about what I just heard.
Having gone through almost one pack of the four-pack pudding cups by the time we got to her house, Opal was in a much better mood. I told her I would call her the second the doctor called me, as I had given the doctor my number as a contact. Aria and I drove home the short distance in silence, with me in my thoughts about the Shannon thing and Aria just silent.
“Why are you so silent?” she broke my thoughts.
“Hum, nothing. Just tired.”
“Bullshit.”
“Whatever, I am tired,” I defended myself.
“You just spent four days in bed. You’re not tired.”
She had a point. “I don’t mean physically tired, just mentally tired,” I clarified.
“What did that ho-bag say to you?”
“Ho-bag?”
“Shannon. Don’t act dumb. I’m the actress, remember?” she said, eyeing me.
“How do you know she said something to me?”
“Because she has hated you ever since you and he-who-must-not-be-named had started going out ’cause she has wanted him since forever and you had him, and she wouldn’t resist making you feel like shit now that you don’t, just because. Plus I saw the flies. They follow her, you know, the smell.”
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