Ace Jones: Mad Fat Adventures in Therapy

by Stephanie McAfee

  “What is that?” she asks me.

  “Payment for services rendered,” I say with a smile. It’s time for me to split.

  “It’s a pile of garbage!” Meg shouts.

  “Exactly,” I say, and turn to go.

  I hustle out the plain glass door and jog toward my car. Meg comes out a minute later and starts shouting at me. I hop in my car and bark a tire out of there, happy I had the good sense to write down a phony address. When I get out on the highway, I’m shaking like crazy. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just let stuff go every now and then? As soon as that moron started talking that crazy shit, I should’ve just got up and left. But no, I had to sit there for ten minutes and get mad as hell. Why do I always have to react? It’s like I can’t keep my mouth shut and I don’t even want to. Why can’t I just let stupid people be stupid and get on about my business? And how do I always find someone to start something with literally every time I leave my house? I think that asshole back there was right about one thing: I do have some problems.

  As soon as I get home, I get online and launch an extensive search for another therapist. I decide it needs to be a woman. I narrow it down to two, and then spend an hour Googling each one. It’s like I’m obsessed now. I have to find someone to help me. I finally decide on a counselor by the name of Molly Claiborne who looks like a genuinely nice person. I call her office and sure enough, Molly has an opening tomorrow. “We’ll be here as long as the roads are clear,” the lady on the other end of the line tells me. “But you might want to call in the morning before you leave.” She pauses. “Of course, we may not see a single snowflake,” she says. “I’m always skeptical.”

  “Well, it’s hard not to be, as many times as it hasn’t happened,” I say.

  “Exactly,” she says. “So we’ll most likely see you tomorrow, then.”

  “Yes, and thank you for your time.”

  When I get off the phone, Buster Loo appears from his secret hiding spot behind the love seat. He hops into my lap and puts his snout on my shoulder. It’s his special little-dog chiweenie hug that he saves for when I’m really upset. I pet him and tell him how much I love him; then we play some speedy-dog fetch. My doorbell rings, scaring me to death. I’m a freakin’ nervous wreck. I get up and walk to the door, wondering if this is it—if I’m finally cracking up once and for all. I open the door and see Lilly on the porch. She’s wearing a massive fur coat with the collar turned up.

  “Hey!” she says, waving like a maniac.

  “Well, hello, Pimp Mama,” I say when she steps inside. “That’s some serious rock star swag you’ve got going there.”

  “Why, thank you,” she says. Buster Loo barrels into the kitchen, but skids to a stop when he sees that coat. He stares at it for a minute, then goes ape-shit crazy.

  “He’s all bent out of shape,” I tell her while he barks and carries on.

  “It may remind him of one of his old girlfriends,” she says, slipping the jacket off.

  “It does look like a couch pillow I used to have,” I say.

  “You busy?” she asks.

  “Do I look busy?” She glances at my laptop and notebook on the table.

  “Kind of,” she says. “You looking for a job?”

  “No, but I guess I should be.”

  “Hey, forget all that and let’s go to Ethan Allen’s.” Ethan Allen, who owns one of the few bars in town, is one of our most favorite guy friends and also happens to be the lifelong best friend of my ex-fiancé. But that’s just life in a small town: Everybody knows your business and most people still like you anyway. “Throw on some clothes and c’mon.”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I don’t really feel going down there and having to answer a bunch of questions about what I’m doing back home.”

  “Ace,” Lilly says. “There is a winter storm warning for Bugtussle County. Do you think anyone will be worried about your love life when they’re saying we could get ten inches of snow?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Exactly. Everyone is going to be making plans on where to meet with the four-wheelers, tubes, and water skis and we need to be there so we’ll know what’s going on! Now come on, sister.”

  “Excellent point, my friend. Let me run and change clothes.” On the way to Ethan Allen’s, we get hysterical while rehashing the scene from yoga class yesterday. When we stop laughing about that, I say, “I haven’t talked to Chloe since I went to her doctor on Monday.”

  “I filled her in on all that,” Lilly says. “Told her that you had a great visit and you’re ready to start planning a trip to Tibet.”

  “Really?” I say, laughing. “Is that what you said?”

  “Yeah, or maybe I told her how much you appreciated the gesture but that it wasn’t for you.”

  “Did you tell her about the yoga disaster?”

  “I did, but didn’t go into great detail.”

  “Thank you, Lilly,” I say. “For everything.”

  “Are you about to start singing that Vitamin C song about being friends forever? Cause if you do, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.” I start singing and she does, in fact, ask me to stop. When we get to Ethan Allen’s, the parking lot is full. “How about this crowd?” she says, buttoning up her pimp jacket. “Let’s go in there and get tore up from the floor up, you want to?”

  “That’s the best plan I’ve heard all day,” I say.

  We go inside and eat and drink and dance and talk and, sure enough, everyone is so worked up about the snow that no one thinks to ask me why I’m not still in Florida. Or maybe everyone has already heard what happened and they’re just being nice by not mentioning it. Either way, I appreciate it. The snow flurries start around ten p.m., and that gets everyone excited. The rednecks convene at the bar to lay plans for a snow day unlike any other. At eleven, someone comes in and says it’s started sticking to the roads and that gets several folks moving toward the door. Ethan Allen stands by the coatrack and make sure everyone has a designated driver. At eleven thirty, the conversation about what could be used as a sled comes to a close, and everything from horse saddles to beanbags has been discussed. Lilly’s plastered and so am I, so Ethan Allen drives us both home. Lilly tells us that Dax will be pulling an all-nighter down at the station with Sherriff J. J. Jackson. Ethan Allen drops Lilly off first and then drives to my house.

  “It was good to see you havin’ such a good time tonight, girl,” Ethan Allen says as he walks me to my front door.

  “Thank you, Ethan Allen.” I want to ask him how Mason is doing, but I can’t do it. I ask about his new girlfriend Jalena instead and, of course, they’re doing fine. “I’ll come get you in the morning,” he tells me. “I’ll be out making my rounds.”

  “I’ll be ready!” I tell him. “Good night.” Despite my high level of intoxication, I get my play-in-the-snow suit ready. Pajama pants, wind pants, long-sleeve T-shirt, sweatshirt, pompom hat, scarf, and gloves. I get out my thickest fuzzy socks and dig my old Timberland boots out of the back of the closet. On his way to bed, Buster Loo stops to inspect my outfit. “Ready for a snow day,” I tell my little dog. Then I brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my winter jammies, and go to bed.

  6

  Thursday morning, I get up and rush to the window and pull back the curtains. I’m fully expecting to see snow up to the bottom of my window pane, but instead, my yard looks like it’s been lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar. “Shit,” I say. Buster Loo growls under the cover. I turn on the Weather Channel and see Jim Cantore standing in nearly knee-deep snow in Memphis, Tennessee.

  “Well, folks, it looks like Memphis got the brunt of the storm with a record-breaking fifteen inches of accumulation.” I open my front door and see cars moving up and down the road. Buster Loo comes into the living room and stretches. “No big snow for us, Buster Loo.” That doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He runs over and hops out the doggie door. I fix a cup of coffee and watch people sledding on State Line Road in DeSoto
County. Then I get in the shower and get ready for my third visit to a therapist this week.

  Molly Claiborne works with five other counselors in a brand-new building on the nice side of Tupelo. Her office overlooks a lake surrounded by trees and a walking trail. It only takes a minute to complete the necessary paperwork and at nine o’clock on the dot, I’m sitting on her very cool red leather sofa. Molly is nice. She speaks softly and asks easy questions until we get around to the hard ones. I don’t cry as much when I tell her about my life falling apart. When I finish, I feel like I might actually live through this.

  “Ace,” she says. “I think you should stop being so hard on yourself. Life is about discovery, and sometimes what we find isn’t what we were looking for. And that’s okay. It happens to all of us at some point.” I tell her I’m tired of feeling so depressed all the time, and she tells me I have to be patient with myself. “You’re grieving right now,” she says. “It’s okay that you don’t want to leave the house right now.” We talk about Buster Loo for a few minutes and then discuss my job situation. Again, Molly is all about patience and acceptance. “It’s okay that you quit your job,” she says. “It’s okay that they hired someone to replace you. All of that is just fine. It took a lot of courage for you to pursue your dream. Most people never get that chance or never take it, but you did. And that’s a wonderful thing. Now you’re free from that nagging uncertainty. That’s more of a blessing than a curse.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “Well, I know,” she says. “And you can trust me because I’m a professional.” Molly just made a joke. All of that niceness, intelligence, plus a sense of humor? I’m impressed. So impressed that when my session is five minutes from being over, I don’t want to leave. I feel like I’ve found a safe haven in Molly.

  “Ace, when it comes to truly being happy, the most important thing is not whom you marry or where you live or if it snows ten feet or two inches. It’s about loving yourself, being kind to yourself, you taking good care of you.” She pauses to let me process that. “Do some soul-searching. We don’t love the same things in our thirties that we did in our twenties.”

  “Thank goodness,” I say.

  “Thank goodness,” she says. I look at the clock and see that it’s time for me to get up off the lovely red sofa. “Be kind to yourself,” she says. “Find that place where you can always go and be happy.” She puts her right hand over her heart and says, “This is where you start.”

  When I get home, the sun is shining and the sky is clear. I find Buster Loo sitting next to the front door looking up at his leash.

  “You wanna go for a walk?” I ask him. “Buster Loo wanna go for a walk?” He goes nuts, which means yes, so I bundle us both up and we take off for the park. After a nice walk, we go back to the house and Buster Loo disappears behind the love seat.

  I go out onto my back porch and notice some snow on the ledge that’s shaded from the sun. I walk over and try to make a little snow ball, but it’s so light and powdery, it just melts away. “And that’s okay,” I tell myself. I go back in the house, start a pot of coffee, and flip open my laptop. I go to Bugtussle School District’s employment page, intent on putting in an application. When I get there, I notice a new job opportunity has been posted. I click on the link and read the job title: Permanent Substitute Teacher. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but maybe that’s okay, too. I click the button to apply.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Molly Reese and Danielle Perez for making this little project possible.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Stephanie McAfee was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and now lives in Milton, Florida, with her husband, young son, and chiweenie dog.

  CONNECT ONLINE

  www.stephanie-mcafee.com

  www.facebook.com/BooksByStephanie

  www.twitter.com/StephanieMcAfee

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF STEPHANIE McAFEE

  Happily Ever Madder

  “A funny story about a woman who can’t seem to keep it together and her madcap friends. Fans of Bridget Jones should like this one.”

  —News and Sentinel (Parkersburg, WV)

  “McAfee’s novel is filled with delicate Southern charm as well as backbiting Southern snark, and her characters alternate between inducing laughter to prompting eye rolling. Fans of [her first book] will certainly clamor for this one.”

  —Booklist

  “Fun and clever, and Ace is still a firecracker.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “One of the funniest stories that I can remember reading… .I just can’t sing the praises of McAfee’s books enough! … In fact, her style reminds me a bit of Jennifer Weiner’s… .Graciela ‘Ace’ Jones … is my current favorite literary character.”

  —BookPleasures.com

  “This book is written with humor but still a lot of feeling, and I have to give this sequel a big 5 stars!”

  —Chick Lit +

  “An excellent story that combines tons of humor, fun, and emotions. I guarantee that you will laugh, cry, squeal, and shake your head in exasperation… .Ace Jones is such a hoot and I could not help but fall in love with her and her sassiness and guts! … The perfect sassy Southern girl book that will have you rolling with laughter and your heart tugging with emotion.”

  —Romancing the Book

  “McAfee manages to create a character that is over-the-top, but at the same time down-to-earth and someone you wish was your best friend.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “Ace is one sassy lady for sure! … A great read, depicting a character almost every reader can fall for… .This reviewer hopes we’ll hear more about Ace in the future!”

  —Crystal Book Reviews

  “Straight up hilarious… .[McAfee] has totally captured a side of the South that frequently goes unwritten—at least as far as heroines are concerned.”

  —Book Hooked Blog

  Diary of a Mad Fat Girl

  “This story may be set in the tiny town of Bugtussle, Mississippi, but Ace, our heroine, is anything but a shrinking Southern belle… .[This] is the kind of breezy summer read that’s perfect for wintertime, too.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Southern-fried Janet Evanovich.”

  —Booklist

  “Meet Graciela ‘Ace’ Jones, a wildcat Southern version of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum … [a] hilarious debut novel.”

  —Library Journal

  “Bawdy, sexy Southern-fried fun. McAfee makes a powerhouse debut that readers will love.”

  —Valerie Frankel, author of Four of a Kind

  “Fresh and funny. Ace Jones is a hoot! This is what Sex and the City might have been if Carrie and friends were looking for love in Bugtussle, Mississippi, instead of Manhattan.”

  —Wendy Wax, author of Ocean Beach

  “Ace Jones is my kind of girl: Her outsize appetite for life, plus a dangerously low tolerance for losers, gets her into one impossible fix after another. In addition to involving a delightfully madcap crew of friends and acquaintances in her quest for justice, Ace is aided, abetted, and occasionally bedded by some delicious Southern gentlemen. Ace prevails with humor, heart, and a speed-dial relationship with the pizza guy.”

  —Sophie Littlefield, award winning author of A Bad Day for Scandal

  “Stephanie McAfee, in creating Ace Jones, has written a character that will grab you by the shirtfront and take you with her on her ride, and oh, what a wild ride it is. Diary of Mad Fat Girl is pure fun.”

  —Rachael Herron, author of Wishes & Stitches

  Discover Other Titles by Stephanie McAfee:

  Diary of a Mad Fat Girl

  Happily Ever Madder

  Down and Out in Bugtussle

  Don’t miss other Ace Jones novels.

  Enjoy these previews of Diary of a Mad Fat Girl and Happily Ever Madder

  On sale now from New American Library

  Also, please enjoy this preview of Down and Out in Bugtussle


  Available July 2, 2013, from New American Library.

  Diary of a Mad Fat Girl

  All of my bags are packed and I’m ready to go. If I had some white shoe polish, I’d do like we did in the nineties and scribble “Panama City Beach or BUST” on my back windshield.

  Spring break is finally here, and for the next week I’m a free woman. No students to teach, no projects to grade, no paintbrushes to wash, and, best of all, no bitchy Catherine Hilliard riding my ass like a fat lady on a Rascal.

  I’m sick of her and I’m tired of my job and I need a vacation worse than Nancy Grace needs a chill pill. I wish we were leaving tonight. I squeeze a lime into my beer and head out the back door with Señor Buster Loo Bluefeather hot on my heels. While Buster Loo does speedy-dog crazy eights around my flower beds, I flip on the multicolored Christmas lights, settle into my overstuffed lounger, and start daydreaming about white sandy beaches, piña coladas, and hot men in their twenties.

  My phone dings and in the two seconds it takes me to look at the caller ID, I wish a thousand times it was a text from Mason McKenzie.

  I wouldn’t give Mason McKenzie the time of day, and he knows I wouldn’t give him the time of day, so it’s ridiculous for me to wish that he would text me, but I still do. Every day.

  Of course, it’s not a text from him; it’s one from my best bud, Lilly Lane.

  Call me. I will never understand the logic of sending a text message that says call me. Lilly Lane is one of those cellular addicts who could carry on a full-fledged six-hour conversation via text message. Sometimes her messages are so encrypted with abbreviations that I just pick up the phone and call her, which pisses her off. She’s like, “I’m texting you, why are you calling me? If I wanted to talk to you I would’ve texted you and told you to call me.”

  Oh, so I’m the idiot? Right.

  Then I’ll say something like, “Hey, heifer, save it for someone who cares and tell me what the hell that last message was supposed to mean. I’m not Robert Langdon. I can’t decode symbols, and if you don’t want me to call you, then send me some crap I can read.”