And One Last Thing...

by Молли Харпер

  I lifted my face from the pillow and immediately regretted it. Someone had let a polka band loose in my cranium.

  I groaned, rubbing my hands over my eyes to shield them from the unforgiving sunlight pouring through the window. I smacked my lips, cringing at the dry, sandpapery sensation of my tongue scraping the roof of my mouth. It tasted like a small rodent had nested there overnight. Given the cupcakes and circus-colored candy I had consumed, I suspected Mickey Mouse.

  I rolled on my back, exhausted by the monumental effort that seemed to entail. Something felt wrong with my head, and not just the massive hangover. It felt too light. There wasn’t enough dragging weight between my head and the pillow. I gasped, reaching up to lace my fingers through my hair and finding nothing but sheet.

  Cursing spectacularly, I stumbled into the bathroom and flicked the light switch. Squinting into the mirror, I screeched, “Damn you, Emmett!”

  Obviously, my brother had cut my hair at some point during the evening, which he was wont to do when his sister was smashed. I should have known better. I woke up the day after my twenty-first birthday with sassy layers. I cursed the years Emmett spent dating the head stylist of The Right Tangle Salon. It had convinced Emmett that he knew more about my follicles than I did and he had just enough skill with the scissors to be dangerous. Now, instead of long curls that settled between my shoulders, I had a short, sunny cap of blond with a fringe of bangs across my brow. I looked like a pixie, a hungover pixie, but a pixie all the same

  After plying me with an indecent amount of vodka, carbs, and fats, my brother had tucked me into bed and slunk away into the night. Emmett, ever practical, had cleaned up the mess before he left. When I woke in the morning to the sound of inhumanly loud jet Skiers whooping their way across our little cove, the only evidence that Emmett had been there was a collection of movies that he left to keep me entertained. The Strangers, Friday the 13th, Cabin Fever, Evil Dead, Sleepaway Camp - all movies about people who isolate themselves at cabins and end up horribly, horribly dead. Emmett said the idea of me scaring the crap out of myself appealed to his puckish sense of humor. Emmett was a twisted little man.

  There was also a reminder note on the counter that read, “The best way to get over a man is to get under another one. Love, Em…. P.S. Stop cursing my name. Your new hair is a huge improvement over the frumpy suburban Stepford zombie thing you had going. Embrace the pretty and move on.”

  I didn’t have the energy to process my new ‘do just yet. But I did, for some reason, feel hungry for the first time in weeks. In college, I’d learned that the only way to fix a hangover was wonton soup. Fortunately, Lockwood had a passable Chinese place called Wok’n’Go. I was pretty sure their egg rolls were from the frozen food section, but they had the best sweet and sour chicken in this end of the state. Since I hadn’t eaten out in weeks, I decided to spoil myself with the chicken, a double order of pot stickers, and extra fried rice. I was looking forward to a truly gluttonous late lunch followed by a nap with a cold washcloth over my face.

  When I came back to the cabin, MSG in hand, I found a girl lying in my hammock, listening to her iPod and reading a copy of David Sedans’s When You Are Engulfed in Flames. She had about fourteen piercings in each ear, a nose ring, jeans with more tears than material, and a black T-shirt that read “Even Jesus Hates Miley Cyrus.” Her long legs were crossed over the edge of the hammock, her feet encased in purple Chuck Taylors. I’d seen wine stains that weren’t as red as her hair.

  Was it possible that this was some castoff girlfriend of Monroe’s? She looked just antisocial enough to be his type. I wasn’t sure whether to get her attention or whip out the pepper spray. This wasn’t an issue as she looked over the edge of her book and grinned broadly

  “Lacey Terwilliger?” she asked, sitting up and yanking her earbuds out

  “Yes,” I said, stepping back and keeping the bag of Chinese up like a shield

  She let out a breathy laugh. “Wow, I’m just so glad - I drove, like, nine hours to meet you.

  She seemed nice. I hoped we could still be friends after I called the cops

  “Maya Drake,” she said, tucking her card into my hand. “Internet entrepreneur and devoted fan.

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Of your work,” she said. “A friend of mine forwarded your e-mail to my account last week. Plus, it’s on like thirty different websites, a bunch of legal blogs, women’s health forums. And some woman claiming to be you is doing angry readings of the newsletter on YouTube. You are the voice of pissed off, betrayed housewives of your generation.”

  “Well, that’s both flattering and upsetting,” I told her, hitching the increasingly heavy bag against my hip. “How did you find me? Seriously, doesn’t anyone respect the whole ‘in hiding’ concept?”

  “Well, I went into town and hung out at the White Hat Café until I heard someone bring you up. It took a grand total of three minutes. When someone brought your letter up, I asked where you were staying. Everybody had a different story. You’d fled to Mexico. You were holed up at a spa getting Botox. You were on your way to Vegas to be a showgirl. But then I ran into someone who was more than forthcoming with good information. Your brother says hello, by the way.”

  “Resourceful and very creepy.” I nodded. “Look, if this is one of those lure the unsuspecting desperate divorcée into a secluded place and kill her scenarios, I feel I should warn you that I have nothing left to lose. I will take you down with me.”

  Maya laughed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk to you. Urn, you wouldn’t happen to have a few extra egg rolls you could throw my way, could you? It’s been a while since that tuna melt at the White Hat.”

  Mama had pounded Southern hospitality and good manners into my bones since birth. Being a gracious hostess was practically a genetic imperative, like salmon spawning or swallows flying to Capistrano. So before my better judgment could win out, I sighed, “Come on in.”

  Fortunately, the amount of food that was sinful for one person was just enough for two. Although I did deeply resent sharing my egg rolls, frozen or not. Over the pot stickers, Maya explained that she’d received an e-mail with my newsletter the week before and decided she had to meet me. Maya ran a greeting card company called Season’s Gratings. She provided clever, customized cards for people who were getting quickie annulments, were taking time off for a nervous breakdown, or had kids come out of the closet. You know, all of life’s little surprises that Hallmark didn’t quite cover.

  “So you came all this way to sell me some divorce announcements?” I said as I tossed the paper plates in the garbage. “I admire your tenacity, but I think most of the people I know took the e-mail I sent out as the announcement.”

  Maya grinned. “I don’t want to sell you cards. I want to hire you. I want you to write newsletters. Hundreds of them.” She opened her laptop to show me a prototype of a website called, And One Last Thing…

  She cleared her throat and used what was obviously her “professional voice” to give me her pitch.

  “This site would allow the customer to order completely customized newsletters tailored to their unique marital situation. They fill out an online form and select a number of design options. You would take the specific information provided by the client and do what you do best, write a fantastically snarky newsletter. We distribute it to a list of e-mail addresses provided by the client, routing through their personal address. I don’t think it would be hubris to say that we could retire before we even started operation. I’ve done some test marketing on the card site and I’ve already got enough preliminary orders to keep us busy for the next year.”

  “I think you need to leave now,” I told her. “But I may call you if I need some ‘I’ve gone into hiding because I lost my mind’ cards.”

  Maya was clearly caught off guard by my not immediately jumping on board and thanking her for such a golden opportunity. Or that such a seemingly nice person was rudely tossing her out on her a
ss. “You don’t think it would work?”

  “No, I’m sure it would make us both temporary millionaires!” I laughed. “It’s crazy. Brilliant, diabolical, inspired. But there are some serious flaws in this plan.”

  She shrugged. “Such as… ?”

  “We would be sued,” I cried. “There would be no way we could guarantee any of what the client said was true. And I’m already being sued for the first newsletter I wrote. If I write another, my lawyer will hurt me. She’s short, but I’m pretty sure she works out.”

  “Which is why I had my lawyer draw up an ironclad release form where the client swears the information is true and takes sole responsibility. We’re not disseminating the information, we’re just formatting it in a pleasing manner,” she said. “Plus, we would be completely anonymous. We would be ghosts.”

  When I sat staring at her, unmoved, she grunted. “Aren’t you even curious as to how I came up with the name And One Last Thing?” she asked.

  “That’s really not the biggest concern for me -”

  “It’s from the last line of your e-mail!” she cried. “’And one last thing, believe me when I say I will not be letting Mike get off with ”irreconcilable differences“ in divorce court. Mike Terwilliger will own up to being the faithless, loveless, spineless, shiftless, useless, dickless wonder he is.’ It was the best part!”

  I chewed my lip. “That’s not a tribute I deserve. In the negative or positive sense of the word.”

  “Promise me that you’ll at least think about it,” she said. “I’ve e-mailed the mock-ups for the website to your address.”

  “How did you know my e-mail address? Wait, I don’t want to know, do I?”

  She shook her head. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for the interlocking triple sixes,” I said, surveying her scalp. It seemed a fairly intimate act, poking a chopstick at the head of a woman I barely knew. But Maya was so laidback, so open, she sort of exuded this instant closeness vibe, once you got past the piercings and hair dye. She was someone I could see myself being friends with.

  It struck me that I was free to have friends like Maya now that Mike wouldn’t be screening them for acceptability. Mike refused to shop at the mall anymore because he couldn’t stand the thought of crossing the paths of “those weirdo Goth freaks.” It would have been high entertainment to invite Maya to dinner just so I could watch Mike squirm.

  The weird thing was that I didn’t miss Scott or Allison or Brandi or Charlie, people who were supposedly my closest friends when I was married. I hadn’t even thought to call them in my post-Beebee period, and that said something. I think Mike got them in the divorce anyway.

  Maya popped the last bite of sweet and sour chicken into her mouth. “Even though I feel compelled to mention once again that this venture would be incredibly lucrative, I just want you to know that I’m not in this for the money. I had something similar happen to me.”

  She reached into her bag and pulled out her car keys. In a glittery black-frame key chain, there was a photo of a smiling girl with light brown hair posing with a football-player type. Her hand rested on his broad, manly chest, a whopper of an engagement ring glinting on her finger.

  “Cute couple,” I commented, handing the picture back to her.

  “I call it my young Republican phase,” she said, regarding the picture with no small amount of disdain.

  “Holy shit, that’s you?” I cried, snatching it back to get a closer look. Yep, underneath the thick eyeliner and the silver studs, there was the same chin, the same twinkling green eyes.

  “Why does everyone react that way?” she demanded.

  I grinned. “So where is the other Future Business Leader of America now?”

  “Hopefully, rotting somewhere in the seventh circle of hell,” she snorted. “Brock -”

  “Brock? Oh, come on, his name was B rock?”

  “Do you want me to tell this story or not?” Maya demanded. I threw up my hands. “Once upon a time, there was a sweet, simple girl named Brooke who had dedicated her whole life to keeping her parents happy. Brooke majored in marketing, because her father wished that he had majored in marketing. Brooke joined a sorority because her mother had always wanted to pledge a sorority. She wasn’t particularly interested in either of these things, but she was interested in making as little fuss as possible. Telling her parents she’d rather major in graphic arts would have caused a large fuss. When Brooke arrived in that magical land known as college, she met a handsome prince named Brock in her freshman seminar. Brooke’s parents approved of Brock, which meant no fuss.”

  “So… Brooke and Brock? I mean, the names alone would be reason enough not to get married,” I observed drily. She glared at me. “Which is entirely beside the point.”

  Maya cleared her throat and started again. “They had the perfect, all-American courtship followed by a perfect, all-American engagement their senior year. Little did Brooke know that her prince was following that all-American tradition of banging a prettier, better-endowed girl who had no qualms about hooking up with her roommate’s fiancé.”

  “Your roommate?!” I exclaimed. “So instead of stealing your Hot Pockets, she stole your future spouse? That bitch.”

  “Oh, yeah, Joanie was my maid of honor.” She shrugged. “I should have known something was up when she said she didn’t care which bridesmaid dress I chose, she just wanted me to be happy.”

  “That was definitely the guilt talking,” I agreed. “So I take it that when Princess Brooke figured out what was happening, she broke the spell and made one hell of a fuss?”

  “I came back to the dorm earlier than expected from spring break to find them going at it on my bed. I tossed Brock’s clothes out the window and made him do the walk of shame buck naked down the hail. Joanie ran after him and refused to come back to our room without a campus police escort. She was always a bit of a drama queen. And Brock just didn’t get why I was upset. He told me he didn’t love Joanie. It was just that he was able to do things with her he couldn’t do with me.”

  “Because he could only think of you as his future wife?” I asked. “I think Mike had the same problem.”

  “No, because I refused to do those things with him,” Maya said primly. “Along with the ‘no fuss’ principle, Mama drilled the ‘men don’t buy the cow’ philosophy right into my brain stem. And Brock told me he respected that. Of course, he respected that because it meant I wouldn’t screw around on him while he was screwing around on me. Anyway, he informed me that I had no right to be angry. That it was really a compliment to me, that my skanky roommate was the girl you snuck around with, but I was the girl you brought home to Mom, the kind of girl you marry.”

  “And I take it you didn’t see his philandering as the romantic gesture it was intended to be?” I asked.

  “No, I told him to take his grandmother’s ring and choke on it,” she said. “This was about three months before the wedding. I’d just had my first shower, thrown by said skanky roommate. I had to return all of the gifts. I had to take my dress to a resale shop. I had to cancel the four-tier cake, the caterer, the hall. And he didn’t have to do any of it. He didn’t have to deal with people feeling sorry for him or making the ‘aww’ face.”

  I sent her a questioning look. She tilted her head, made a sympathetic noise and crooned, “Awwww.”

  I winced. “Yeah, that one sucks.”

  “My mom sent me down to the printer’s to send out cards announcing the cancellation. I was standing there at the counter, in this shop where they hadn’t changed the stationery samples since 1983, and I couldn’t come up with the wording. I had to be so polite about it. I had to find a nice way to put it, to make sure that neither one of us came out looking bad. The poor engraver couldn’t help me. He’d never had to deal with something like that. He had this helpless look on his face and kept saying that most people just call everyone on the guest list and inform them personally. But I wasn’t up to that and neither were my
parents.

  “They didn’t want me to embarrass Brock or his family by telling people what a lowdown dirty snake he was. And I kept wondering why? Why protect him? Why sugarcoat it? So I wrote my first card. It was plain white card stock, nothing fancy. Lucida Handwriting font. On the inside, it said, ‘Our wedding has been called off because Brock ____’ and then it had a big blank. The next sentence was, ‘If you want to fill in the blank, call Brock at 555-236-8367 or my former maid of honor at 555-236-1924.’ The engraver got a big kick out of it. I think he thought I was kidding at first. And then I ordered about two hundred of them.”

  “How did it make you feel?” I asked. “Because when I sent out the e-mail, I mostly wanted to throw up.”

  “About the same,” she admitted. “But I went home that night and slept like a baby. My conscience was clear and I knew that Brock couldn’t say the same. His family was mortified, and once they figured out that it wasn’t a joke, so was my family. My grandma wrote me out of the will.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I don’t see you as a sterling and china girl anyway.”

  “Oh, I was,” she said, shaking her head. “For about five minutes, it was devastating. I didn’t know how to handle people being mad at me. Pre-engagement me would have done anything to keep people happy. But then, after Nana stopped crying, I felt sort of powerful. I was done being polite. Not having to worry about keeping people happy was like this huge weight being lifted from my chest. I told Nana I loved her, but I didn’t care whether I ever used her silver gravy boat on my very own table. I told Mama that I was moving out and I didn’t know where, and I would call her when I was ready. And I finally told Uncle Herb that if he used hugging as an excuse to touch my ass one more time, he would draw back a bloody stump where his hand used to be.”

  I barked out a laugh. “That’s a variety of subjects in one rant. Uncle Herb was lucky you didn’t turn that one into a card.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that. It could be a whole new product line,” she exclaimed, taking out a notebook and scribbling while she muttered. “Creepy Uncle Cards. When you care enough to say, ‘Stop touching my chest.”