Olivia (8 page)

She was already gone.

Chapter Four

Olivia avoided George like the plague. She quit going to Kitty’s cold turkey. She blocked his number on her cell phone. She deleted him from her friends list on Facebook. If she caught sight of him around town, she went the opposite direction. Izzie tried to get Olivia to tell her what happened, but she refused to talk about it. She gave Izzie the twenty dollars to make good on their bet, then told Izzie if she mentioned his name again she would delete her like she did George. Kenny was more persistent about trying to get the gory details, but after a month or so, he gave up as well.

Mitch made no effort to hide his delight over the dissolution of Olivia and George’s friendship. He was practically giddy over it. It was a relationship he had barely tolerated in the first place. Once Olivia stopped talking about George, he felt it gave him free rein to bad-mouth George whenever he wanted. Olivia quickly squashed the habit with a pop to his jaw.

As April crept up on May, Melanie became obsessed with her upcoming wedding. She poured over bridal magazines while she was supposed to be quality checking at Garretson. Sam threatened to fire her, but Olivia picked up Melanie’s slack so he quit bitching. She needed a distraction anyway because Yvette transferred from third shift to second with Olivia’s crew. It took everything Olivia had not to fly through the vinyl strips that separated Quality from Shipping and Receiving and kick the little whore right in her bubbly ass.

George and Yvette’s romance became the talk of South. Everyone thought they were
adorable
together. Everyone thought they were
perfect
for each other. Everyone
loved
Yvette and said what a blessing she was for George.
Gag!
Olivia was so sick of listening to the talking and the gushing, she went straight to Walmart and invested an entire paycheck on a brand new iPod and enough iTunes cards to fill the stupid little thing to capacity.

She didn’t leave her trailer without plugging in and tuning out the world. Jenny Owen Youngs’s “Fuck Was I” replaced “Sick of Life” as Olivia’s theme song. She listened to it at least twenty times a day while she wallowed in sorrow and self-pity.

Since she was no longer going to Kitty’s, and Izzie was still desperately trying to make a baby, and Mitch wouldn’t let her come over during the week so she wouldn’t make him late for work, and she had no friends other than the ones either drinking, screwing or sleeping, Eugene was the only person left for Olivia to hang out with at night. She tried it for awhile, but his incessant crunching on Cheez Doodles drove her insane. She found herself turning into a knee-bouncing, chain smoker just like him. She tried finding a new bar, but they all made her miss George. Her new hangout became the only other place in Juliette open past midnight—Walmart.

Surprisingly, Walmart at night turned out to be a pretty fun place to be. For one thing, the night crew consisted mainly of young people with no work ethic. For another thing, the store was full of toys, snacks, alcohol, video games, and places to chill. And, probably the best thing, they had scooters. Every night after work, Olivia would drive across Juliette to the massive Supercenter on the very northern edge of Northside, hop on one of the battery-powered handicap scooters with the basket in the front, and start making her rounds.

She’d do her daily shopping first, picking up toilet paper, Pop-Tarts, shampoo or whatever else she needed to get through the next day. Then she’d go down the aisle that housed every type of alcohol ever imagined, packaged in pretty boxes and bottles. If she’d had a hard day at Garretson, she’d go for tequila. If it was Thursday and she was short on cash, she’d stick with beer. If it was any other day, she’d get vodka.

Once she had everything she needed, she’d drive her scooter to the self-checkout, pay for her purchases, and then scoot over to the McDonald’s restaurant in the corner of the store. She’d order a nine-piece of Chicken McNuggets and a large fountain pop. They’d hand her the box of nuggets and an empty cup, and she’d scoot over to the bank of soda fountains.

If it was beer or tequila night, she’d fill the cup from her shopping bag when no one was looking, but if it was a vodka day, she’d put a splash of Dr Pepper in the bottom of the cup first. As she worked on her buzz, she’d scoot around the store again and chat with the employees while she ate. Usually she’d top off the night with a round or two of ‘Halo’ on the 360 in the Electronics Department.

In the end, she discovered George was right. She’d been wasting her money buying his beer. Her dollar stretched much further at her friendly, neighborhood Walmart.

The only downside to Walmart was Louise also favored shopping there at midnight. Olivia also discovered that Louise was quite the chatty person when she wasn’t busy trying to suck up to Sam. The first few times Olivia saw her, she was able to avoid Louise catching sight of her in return. But one night at the end of April, Olivia zipped around an end-cap display without looking first—and crashed right into Louise’s shopping cart. The cart shot out of Louise’s hands, and Olivia went flying over the handlebars and little basket on the scooter, landing face-first into a cardboard display of Doritos.

“Olivia!” Louise cried out in surprise. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” Olivia groaned. The display was totaled and Olivia’s ego was bruised, but other than that she was fine. Bags popped, and tortilla chips crushed and crumbled beneath her as she struggled to her feet amid a cloud of neon-orange cheese dust.

“Why were you on the scooter in the first place? Did you get hurt at work?” Louise worried as she yanked Olivia upright.

“Yeah?” Olivia sort of agreed.

“Did you report it to Sam?”

“No. It happened in the parking lot,” Olivia lied. “It wasn’t work-related.”

“You poor dear.”

“I’m fine.” Olivia dusted the cheese powder from her hands and face. “Well, see ya around.”

She made a break for the scooter, but Louise stopped her with, “Did you hear about Stephie and Sam getting caught in Old Man Garretson’s office last week?”

Director cues sound of needle on record—
screech!

Olivia spun around. “No! What?”

“I guess they were both up in his office and the cleaning crew walked in on them.” Louise smiled a conspiratorial little smile and leaned in closer to whisper, “They were having sex.”

“Holy shit! Does the old man know about it?”

“I don’t think so,” Louise said with a shake of her head. “But even if he did, Sam probably wouldn’t get fired. His mother-in-law is like second or third cousin to the Garretsons. He’s family. He can do whatever he wants and get away with it.”

It was the first Olivia had ever heard that Sam was married, but she played it off as if she’d known it all along.

“Well, yeah, but wouldn’t cheating on his
wife
be grounds for termination?” Olivia asked as if it were obvious, because it was. “She’s family. He’s just the prick she married.”

Louise shrugged. “All I know is, Sam’s been manager for ten years or so and Stephie is far from his first affair, and you know she won’t be his last. This isn’t even the first time he’s been caught. Just the first time he dared go in the front offices.”

Olivia took a slurp from her McDonald’s cup of vodka and Dr. Pepper as she thought it over. “It’s like he’s
trying
to get caught… Like he’s rubbing the old man’s face in it.”

“Exactly.” Louise nodded with Olivia.

“Huh.”

Olivia handed the cup to Louise, and Louise took a long suck off the straw. Her eyes grew wide in surprise, but she took another drink without commenting on the contents of the cup. When she took a third pull off the straw, Olivia frowned and snatched the cup away.
Lush
.

“Well, I better get moving along. See you tomorrow,” Louise said with a wave.

“Same time, same place,” Olivia said, and waved back.

The two women still never talked while they worked, but the next time Olivia ran into Louise at Walmart, Louise had her own scooter and cup from McDonald’s. They scooted around the store together, gossiping and giggling like school girls. While Louise wasn’t looking, Olivia stole a sip from her cup and discovered Louise preferred wine spritzers to vodka. Cool.

*  *  *

For no apparent reason, the sex between Mitch and Olivia took a sudden and unexpected slump. Mitch simply lost interest. Olivia tried everything she could think of to get “Mr. Happy” happy again, but he stayed as excited as a spaghetti noodle left in a pot of water overnight.

Mitch blamed Olivia’s slight weight gain for his condition, and started dropping not-so-subtle hints that she should start exercising and stop eating Twinkies for breakfast. Olivia flat-out told him to take his advice and shove it where the sun don’t shine. Izzie suggested they go back to the casinos to give hotel sex a shot at cheering Mr. Happy up. So, on the second weekend of May, Olivia and Mitch found themselves back on the Missouri river.

Mitch had another commission check burning a hole in his pocket and sprang for a luxury suite, and then took Olivia shopping and picked her out a dress to wear to dinner. It was black, tight, and lifted her breasts to almost gravity-defying heights. When she dressed, she skipped the underwear, slipped on a brand-new pair of fuck-me heels, and dabbed her most-expensive Jean Nate cologne in strategic locations. After she finished spooning on her make-up, she checked herself out in the mirror one last time and decided she looked pretty damn fine. If this outfit didn’t make Mr. Happy smile, nothing would.

They went downstairs for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Olivia was impressed to the point of being intimidated by the atmosphere. Everything was expensive-looking and gorgeous. The food was extraordinary and, according to the description on the menu, the wine was “World Class,” whatever the hell that meant. All Olivia knew was it tasted yummy and went down like water.

A live band played quietly in the corner. They were good, but it wasn’t anything life-changing, so she paid them no mind. It wasn’t until she and Mitch were sharing a slice of cake for dessert that she even bothered to look at the stage. Once she did, she couldn’t take her eyes off the singer. He was ruggedly-handsome, in GQ kind of way, and looked so familiar she couldn’t help but gawk.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Mitch grumbled around a forkful of devil’s food cake.

“I know that guy.” Olivia combed through her memory, searching for how she knew him. “I know I know him. How do I know him?”

“How the hell should I know how you know him? Maybe you slept with him.”

Olivia rolled her eyes and sighed. He had been in a fairly good mood all night, but he was getting restless. And when he got restless, he got grumpy. And when he got grumpy, he picked fights. And when he picked fights, Olivia fought back. She couldn’t stop herself.

“You seriously think if I’d slept with the guy I wouldn’t remember him?”

“Maybe.”

“How many people do you think I’ve slept with that I would forget a face?”

Mitch said nothing.

“Great. My boyfriend thinks I’m a slut.” As Olivia rolled her eyes, they drifted back to the singer on stage.
Who the hell was he?

Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “How many guys have you slept with?”

“I don’t know… Eight or nine, maybe,” she said with a dismissive wave.

He choked on his cake. “
Nine?
”

“Is that a lot?” Olivia worried.

“Who were they?” Mitch demanded as soon as he could speak, which took awhile. Apparently nine
was
a lot. Huh. Who knew?

“I’m not telling you that!”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Olivia said. “End of discussion.”

“Like hell it is! Tell me.”

“No.”

“Do I know any of them?” he asked. His face started to take on that particular shade of red that Olivia hated and made her angry.

“How should I know if you know any of them? You’ve never introduced me to any of your friends,” she accused.

“I have too.”

“You have not.”

“Have too.”

“Have not.”

“Would you like another cup of coffee, sir?” the waitress asked with a smile.

“
No!
” they shouted in unison.

The waitress flinched and slipped their check onto the table, then made a hasty retreat.

Mitch stared Olivia down. She stared back.

It was about to get ugly.

“Tell me who you’ve slept with,” Mitch ordered in a low growl.

“Kiss my ass,” Olivia said with a growl of her own.

“Fuck you.” Mitch shoved away from the table so hard he knocked over Olivia’s glass of wine, spilling it into her lap.

Anger flared, sanity slipped, and she picked up the last of the chocolate cake, hurling it at him as he strode away. It hit him square in the middle of his back in a chocolate glob. He froze mid-stride. His shoulders came up and his hands balled into fists. His neck turned fire-red, but he didn’t turn around. Instead, he continued toward the exit with devil’s food cake sliding off his back in gooey, brown dollops, and sticking Olivia with the check.

“Stupid fucking…” Olivia muttered to herself. She cleaned the cake frosting off her hand and the wine off her new dress as best she could with the probably very expensive linen napkin off the table.

The waitress knelt in front of Olivia and handed her some more napkins “Are you ok?”.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She felt like a fool, but she was fine.

“If you need anything, call this number, day or night.” The waitress pressed a card into Olivia’s hand, and then moved on to one of her other tables.

Olivia finished mopping up her lap then glanced at the card for Catholic Charities Domestic Violence Shelter. “Oh, for crying out loud…” Olivia ripped the card up and tossed it on her plate. “Stupid people need to mind their own fucking business…”

“Excuse me?” a voice came from Olivia’s left.

She looked up and her heart about stopped when she saw the singer from the stage standing beside her. “Oh, I’m sorry, what?”