Olivia (17 page)

Olivia had seen landscaping like this before, but only on TV, or in Northside. Never in South. Grass didn’t even want to live in South. It refused to grow in most people’s yards. Same with everything green, except dandelions. That’s why all the old ladies just stuck fake flowers in their whiskey barrels. Plastic blooms didn’t have the luxury of dying.

Olivia wandered around a bit, touching and sniffing flowers and stuff, and worked her way over to one of the chaise lounge chairs. Feeling a little like Goldilocks, she looked at the comfy chair and debated stretching out and resting for a bit, and almost did, but a sudden flash of movement in her peripheral her made her scream.

She thought for certain it was Clete sneaking up to cuff her and haul her ass to jail for B&E, but when she turned around it wasn’t Clete’s breath blowing hot and damp across her face.

It was a horse!

Ok, it wasn’t a horse, but it was a fucking
huge
dog, and its dog tag was a shellacked pack of Juicy Fruit gum. 

Juicy Fruit had the potential to be a killer. He was massive. His teeth were massive. His paws were massive. His head was massive. Everything about the dog was massive. His massive jaws looked like they could open up wide enough to take her head off in one tasty bite. His
cojones
were the size of bowling balls. They put Chester’s to shame.

The horse-dog stood there, drooling a little, and looked at Olivia with sad, saggy eyes. His ears were pointy and perky and seemed to move as he listened to her breathe, but his face was a mask of disinterest. It was extremely unsettling. When he licked his chops, Olivia about shit her drawers.

“Hey there, puppy,” Olivia whispered out as slow and as sweet as she possibly could as she cautiously inched away from him. “Good doggy.”

She backed across the yard one tiny footstep at a time, angling toward a gate she hadn’t noticed when she had first scaled the fence. Juicy Fruit cocked his head and watched her retreat, but made no move to follow her.

“Good puppy.” She exhaled as the space between them increased and her confidence grew. She took a few more steps backward. “What a pretty puppy.”

She was four feet from the gate and closing in on it. Juicy Fruit sat and watched her, his head cocked in doggy, confused interest, undecided if he wanted to follow or stay put… until her foot landed on something squishy that let out a raspy
squeak!

Juicy Fruit charged with a rumbling growl.

As soon as her foot let off the rubber porcupine, Juicy Fruit was on the squeaky toy like a cannibal on fresh meat. Olivia screamed like a little girl and hauled ass to the gate.

Panicked to the point of hysteria, Olivia fumbled and struggled with the latch, and little-girl screamed some more. When Juicy Fruit came lumbering toward her with the squeaky toy clamped in his massive jaws, she abandoned the gate and scaled the fence in one giant leap, landing face-first in a barberry bush on the other side. She sprung to her feet and ran like the wind, screaming in terror with arms waving, right past her car, all the way to the safety of her trailer.

From that point on, whenever she staked out Clete’s house, she stayed in her car.

*  *  *

Now, Olivia may or may not have been stalking Clete, but Mitch had
definitely
started stalking Olivia. Everywhere she went, he was there. She’d catch him chewing on fries in the McDonald’s dining room when she was sitting in the drive-thru waiting for her Big Mac, or she’d look out the window and see him getting gas while she was milking the Dr. Pepper fountain at the Get ‘n Go, or he’d be molesting produce while she was debating Fruity or Cocoa Pebbles at the Sack ‘n Save. Every time she stopped at a red light, she’d look over and there he’d be, picking his nose in the lane next to hers, or she’d feel him breathing down her neck while he stood behind her in line at the liquor store.

It was really starting to piss her off. She couldn’t turn around or push open a door without seeing his ugly mug. And he couldn’t just
be
there, sharing space with her. Oh no, not Mitch. He had to
talk
to her as well. He would say hello and ask her how she was doing, and she would tell him where to go, or what to suck, or how to die, and then she would storm off without her toothpaste or vanilla milkshake or annual gynecological appointment, and would have to run her stupid errands all over again later.  

Finally, one day, when she was pushing an empty shopping cart around the end cap display of the feminine hygiene aisle of the new Walgreens she didn’t even know South had, and came face-to-face with Mitch as he perused flavored condoms, she lost it.

“Quit stalking me you…
stalker!
”

She charged. Before he knew what was coming, she ran full-speed down the aisle and rammed her shopping cart into him, hitting him square in the family jewels. He squealed like a stuck pig as the neon cherry condoms went flying out of his hand.

“I’ve got connections in the Juliette PD, I’ll have you know!”

She rammed her cart at him again. He stopped it with one hand as he bent over and clutched his crotch with the other.

“I’m not stalking you.” He choked on the words and his face flushed cherry-red as he dry-heaved. His misery made Olivia smile. “I’ll leave. I swear! Just give me a second here to find my dick. Aw…fuck, Liv! I think you broke it off!”

“Aw, gee. I’m sorry.” She laughed, not feeling the least bit sorry, and scooped his condoms up off the floor. “Guess you won’t be needing these anymore. Sucks for your girlfriend.”

He coughed and took a few deep breaths as he straightened up a bit, his face still pained and his hand still protecting. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Planning to pick up some poor, unsuspecting bimbo at the bar?”

“No. I was just looking around. When the hell did South get a Walgreens anyways?” Mitch took another deep breath and stood a little straighter yet. “I swear it wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Oh, I
know!
It
totally
wasn’t here yesterday! It’s like they dropped it in by helicopter or something!”

“Guess we’re moving up in the world, huh? Next thing you know South’ll get their own hardware store.”

“Menards would never let that happen. They own the city council.”

“I thought Walmart did.” Mitch winced again as he rubbed his hand over Mr. Happy and tugged at the seam of his jeans, trying to make more room for the swelling. “Fuck, Liv. Next time give a guy a little warning, eh?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it this time. She stepped closer to him. “But you’ve gotta stop following me around. You’re creeping me out here.”

“I’m not following you. You’re following me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“
No
, I’m not.”

“
Yes
, you are.”

“I know you are but what am I?” she mocked and stuck out her tongue.

Mitch let out a little laugh. “God, I miss you, Liv.”

“I miss you, too,” she admitted.

They both looked at each other for a long minute. He moved closer to her. She moved closer to him. Her heartbeat sped up like it always used to do whenever he was near, and her tummy flipped over. The borders of her vision grew foggy and time slowed down as they took another step toward each other. The lights of the Walgreens dimmed, and the director cued a disco ball to slowly descend from the ceiling. It started to spin. They stepped closer yet.

As Peaches and Herb started to sing “Reunited,” Olivia reached for Mitch, who was dressed in his 70’s disco finest, his butterfly collar looking like it could take flight in the lazy tango of the yellow and red lights.

He took her hand. “I’m so sorry for everything, my love.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered, and slipped into his arms.

As his powerful hand fanned across her back, his lips met hers. The fire that had been missing from her life returned in a blaze. She melted from the heat of his lips, her heart soaring in her chest as it sang out its love for him in beats of wanting. All the while Peaches and Herb kept singing away.

“I love you, Liv,” he whispered before kissing her again.

That’s how Olivia’s reunion with Mitch played out in her mind. In reality, they looked at each other, Olivia’s tummy flipped, and she pinned him against the condom display, kissing him as ruthlessly and recklessly as she had in the middle of the road almost exactly one year earlier. They kissed and moaned and writhed against each other until Mitch winced from the hot blood rushing into his still-sensitive area.

“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested when he finally came up for air.

Olivia grabbed a handful of condom boxes from the rack behind him and they made a break for the exit.

They barely made it to the parking lot before Olivia had the package open and barely got the Buick’s back door closed before Mr. Happy was strawberry-flavored and Olivia was diving hormone-crazed and legs spread into the next chapter of her life with Mitch.

Some people never learn.

*  *  *

“Six years.” Olivia groaned and shoved a forkful of rum cake into her mouth.

“Can you believe it?” Izzie asked around her own forkful of cake. “Who would’ve guessed when we first came in and filled out those job applications that we would still be here six years later?”

“Six long, miserable years,” Olivia said. She felt like crying, and not because she was overjoyed.

“I should’ve fired your ass a long time ago,” Sam said.

“You did,” Olivia reminded him. “But you missed me too much.”

“Humph.”  

Stephie came into Sam’s office, slapped an inspection report on his desk then turned on her heel and left without uttering a word to any of them. Sam kept his eyes adverted and his already foul mood turned fouler. Olivia and Izzie looked at each other and Izzie tipped her head to Sam. Olivia shook her head. Izzie nodded. Olivia shook her head again and pointed her fork to Izzie. Izzie shook her head then tipped it to Olivia and then to Sam again. Olivia rolled her eyes and sighed.
Fine
.

“What’s up with you and Stephie?” Olivia asked Sam. She glared at Izzie, and Izzie smiled a little smile. Olivia had no idea why the girls decided
she
had to be the one to butt her nose into Sam’s love life. She was the only one of all the gossip queens who couldn’t care less about it.

“I, uh… um… what?” Sam fumbled. “I don’t… uh… know what you mean.”

“Oh, quit pretending you don’t know that we all know what went on between you and Stephie behind the pallet racks,” Olivia said. “Discrete is not your middle name.”

“Um…”

“Spill it, Sam.”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Well, did you break up with her or did she break up with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because it looks like you broke it off with her.” Olivia shoveled another huge bite of cake into her mouth, and asked around it, “How come?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re pathetic,” Izzie said, finally joining the conversation.

“Why is he pathetic?” Olivia asked as soon as she swallowed the sticky mouthful of sugary goodness.

“Because she’s so obviously in love with him, but he’s sitting here acting like what they had together was no big deal,” Izzie said.

“No, he’s not,” Olivia said. “He just doesn’t know what happened.”

“He knows,” Izzie insisted.

“Maybe he doesn’t.”

“Oh, he knows.”

“Do you know, Sam?” Olivia asked, and she and Izzie both stared at Sam.

He stared back at them with a blank look on his face.

“See, he doesn’t know,” Olivia said to Izzie.

Izzie squinted her eyes, studying him. “I don’t believe him.”

“Was it because you two got caught in Old Man Garretson’s office screwing on his desk?” Olivia asked.

“
What?
” Izzie and Sam said in unison.

“That’s what Louise told me.” Olivia shrugged and polished off her cake.

“I never heard about that! Why didn’t you tell me?” Izzie said at the same time that Sam turned red and insisted, “We never went up there!”

Olivia shrugged again at both of them.

“Did your wife catch you?” Izzie asked.

Sam’s head whipped to Izzie. “I’m not married!”

“Yeah, you are,” Olivia and Izzie said at the same time.

“No, I’m not!”

“Since when?” Olivia asked.

“Since ever,” Sam said.

“Really?” Izzie asked.

“Really.” Sam sighed. “I’ve never been married. I came close once, a long time ago, but she backed out.”

“Aw, how come?” Izzie asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Sam threw his plate in the trash and pulled a flask out of his top desk drawer. “Get the hell outta my office.”

“Ooh, can I have some of that?” Olivia asked, her interest in the conversation finally piqued.

“No.” He took a long drink and motioned for them to leave.

“Well, hang on a second,” Izzie said. “If you aren’t married and Stephie isn’t married, then why were you two sneaking around like you were having an affair?”

Sam sighed heavily. “Stephie’s married.”

“
What?
” Olivia and Izzie cried out in union. Well, good gravy, what good was gossip if it wasn’t accurate?

“Stephie’s married, and she refuses to leave her husband to be with me,” Sam said with a dejected wave. “Happy now?”

“Oh, Sam,” Izzie said in her high-pitched, motherly, comforting tone that made Olivia’s skin crawl. She got up from her chair and went around the desk to give him a hug. “I’m so sorry for you. You’ll find a good woman one day who will love you for who you are and be honored to be your wife. You just keep your head up.”

Olivia groaned. “Oh, shut up, Iz.”

Izzie patted Sam’s head like he was a little kid. “You’re a great guy, Sam.”

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

“Maybe you should have promoted her,” Olivia said.

“What?”

“If you would’ve promoted her up to the offices like she wanted, she’d probably still be blowing your brains out today,” Olivia said and snatched Sam’s flask out of his hand.