Underestimated (3 page)

“Well I won’t keep you,” she said, and I was glad.

The first thing I did was fill the mop bucket with

hot sudsy lemon cleaner. I smiled. The yellow paint with

the citrus, lemony smell made perfect companions.

It was almost four o’clock in the evening, and I

really, really wanted to get the yellow painted over before

my furniture came the next day. I had planned on painting

the living room as soon as the walls were washed down,

but decided to go ahead and wash the kitchen down as

well that way I could continue painting and get that done

too.

The living room took fifty seven minutes. Five

o’clock. I was hungry. Why the hell was I forgetting about

food so much? Oh, yeah because I am used to having

meals prepared and waiting on me. That was another one

that I would have to get used to.

The kitchen had taken longer than I had anticipated

because of having to clean all of the cabinets. It was now

almost seven. I was still hungry. I sat on the floor leaned

up against the glass door. I had already moved the ugly

plastic tables and chairs out to the deck. I was eating

crumbs from the bottom of a two day old Cheetos bag

when someone was at the door again.

Once again my heart sank. Why didn’t I lock the

door? Lauren didn’t wait for me to answer that time and

opened the door, causing me to freeze in a panic.

“Relax,” she said, seeing my shocked paralyzed

face and stiff posture.

I smiled when I noticed her carrying a large pizza

and a six pack of beer. She had changed clothes and was

now wearing old jeans with a pink checkered flannel shirt.

Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled back and hiding

underneath a tied bandanna.

My mouth was already salivating. Pizza, just what

I needed. Not so much the beer. I had never liked beer. I

was more of a wine kind of girl. No. Wait a minute. I

drank wine because that was what Drew drank. Have I

ever had beer? Yes. I did. I was thirteen, and some friends

and I hid under a bridge, and I drank one. Did I like it? I

didn’t remember.

“You are my new best friend,” I told Lauren,

patting the wood floor next to me. I didn’t mind wasting

twenty minutes. I needed food, and pizza was just what the

doctor ordered. That would definitely make me feel better,

and I would probably work faster, having some

nourishment and regenerated energy.

We sat side by side, leaned against the glass doors

and shared a pizza. Lauren probably thought I was a pig. I

think I swallowed the first piece whole. I did drink a beer,

and I didn’t mind it a bit. I wouldn’t say that I loved it, but

it was okay.

“Well, we better get busy,” Lauren stated, closing

the pizza box.

I looked at her with a little bit of confusion mixed

with hope. “I am not going to let you help me paint,” I

demanded with my head tilted.

Please help me paint, please help me paint.

“The way I see it, you don’t have a choice. I am

doing nothing but sitting at my house watching reruns of

Greys Anatomy. Now where are the paint pans?” she

asked, and I smiled, happy that she wasn’t giving me a

choice. There was one problem, however.

“Paint pans?” I asked. I hadn’t bought paint pans. I

just bought paint and brushes.

“You don’t have any pans?” she asked. I shook my

head.

“What about rollers?”

I shook my head again, and she laughed. “Come on.

Let’s take a walk.”

She took the unlocked lock from her shed door and

took the two pans with four rollers and handed them to me.

“Do you have any drop clothes?” she asked.

Where was my mind? I had forgotten everything. I

had never painted a day in my life. How was I supposed to

know that you needed more than paint and brushes?

“Nope.” I smiled.

I was so grateful for Lauren’s help. I would have

never gotten done with a paint brush. She trimmed while I

rolled on the light gray paint. I liked it so much in my new

room that I decided to use it in the living room, as well.

“Do you have a radio?” Lauren asked.

I ran over to my list and jotted it down along with

other things that I had been remembering throughout the

day. Like a microwave. How could I forget that?

“I am going to run home and do number two and

get us one,” she announced. I laughed out loud at the

number two comment. I actually laughed and if felt great.

Could this truly be happening? Could I really pull this off

and not be found? My thoughts were all over the place,

and Lauren was back disrupting them ten minutes later.

“Everything come out okay?” I teased.

“Do you really want me to elaborate on that?” she

provoked right back. I shook my head. Nope, didn’t need

to hear that.

Lauren turned the radio to a country station. I hated

country music. Brakes. Wait a minute. Drew hated country

music. I had never actually listened to it. How could I hate

it if I had never even listened to it?

“Where’re you from?” Lauren asked as we painted

and listened to something about somebody digging their

keys into the side of somebody’s souped-up four-wheel

drive.

“Indiana,” I remembered.

“What part? I have a cousin in Indiana.”

And the questions begin. “Carson,” I answered

with only that.

“What brought you to Misty Bay? I know you

didn’t come all the way here just to work with Starlight

Scarlett in her weird little coffee shop.”

“Now you’re scaring me,” I stated, hoping to get

off topic.

She laughed. “You will absolutely love Starlight.

She is as Bohemian as they come. I just know that you

didn’t move to this sectarian town for that purpose,” she

assumed.

“Are you calling this town a cult?”

“Are you going to avoid my question all night?”

she retorted with her own question.

I smiled down at her from my step stool, which

thank God she owned too. “I lost my job when they

downsized, and my grandmother left me this house. I just

decided it was time for a change.” I lied, hitting it right on

the money. I smiled inside, proud that I remembered until I

saw the look on her face. She knew I was lying. She knew

my grandmother didn’t leave me this house.

“If we’re going to be friends, you can’t lie to me,”

she said being exceedingly blunt. “My aunt owned this

house up until last month. She owns mine too. That’s why

they are both ugly blue.”

I walked down the step stool to face her. “Lauren,

please don’t ask me too many questions about my past. I

am not running from the law or anything like that. I just

need to keep a low profile,” I tried to reassure her.

“Well, you need a better story,” she said, turned

and started painting again. “People around here know that

my aunt has owned these two houses for years.”

Thanks a lot, Ms. K. Nice investigating skills.

“I’ve got it,” she stated matter-of-fact. I looked

down at her with a peculiar stare. Why would she be so

zealous about helping me? I didn’t get it.

“How old are you?” she asked, again bluntly.

“I will be twenty five next month. Why?”

“Perfect,” she alleged while I continued to look at

her like she had two heads. “We went to college together,

and when you lost your job, I told you about my aunt’s

house, and you bought it,” Lauren exclaimed excited. “You

didn’t tell anyone else the grandma story, did you?”

I shook my head.

I was happy that Lauren stopped asking questions,

and we talked and talked while the room was being

transformed into a whole new domicile. We painted the

living room and kitchen with the light gray almost silver

tone paint. The wall around the French doors and the front

door were painted in a darker shade of gray, and I, without

question, loved it. I tried to get Lauren to quit and go home

just before midnight, but she wouldn’t. I was glad that she

didn’t.

She washed all of the new dishes and put them

away while I hung curtains. The only thing left to do was

clean the hardwood floors and wash down the two

bedroom walls. I could do that the following morning. The

furniture wouldn’t arrive until around noon.

“I’m done.” I stated. I couldn’t go anymore. My

energy was gone, and my body was telling me that it had

enough. “I can’t thank you enough, Lauren,” I told her, and

I couldn’t. I would have never gotten that much done

without her, let alone trying to do it with limited tools.

“Yes, you can. You can thank me by going in there

and getting some clean clothes and coming home with me.

I have an extra bed.”

“I’m fine here, but thank you just the same.”

“I insist. If I leave, you are going to continue to

work, and I can tell that you are exhausted. Now move it.”

I smiled at her. We just met, and she already knew

my intentions. I was already thinking that I could get the

walls washed before I went to bed. “I’m going to grab a

shower, and I’ll be over.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

I didn’t wonder anymore why Lauren had picked

the house on the other side of the road, rather than the one

by the ocean. Her house was quite a bit bigger. She had it

decorated with modern décor. The walls were like mine

and painted two-toned but with beige and chocolate

brown. There was a black and white, female country

music singer hanging behind the couch. I knew I had seen

the woman before, but couldn’t tell you her name.

“You play?” I asked, eyeing the guitar on the

couch.

“Yeah, I mess around a little,” she said, modestly.

She was dressed in flannel pants and a t-shirt just

like me. She yawned and showed me to her spare

bedroom. It was a queen sized bed with a fluffy green

comforter. I couldn’t wait to crawl into it.

I lay in bed and stared out at a branch blowing

back and forth in the window. I had a million and one

thoughts going through my mind, and they wouldn’t seem to

settle. I thought about decorating my new house and

making it my own. That thought led to the mansion that I

had just fled from. My whole house was the size of my

suite there, but already it was more inviting than the ice

cold castle. That thought led me to thoughts of Drew, and I

betted that he had at least five P.I.’s looking for me.

Would he find me? Was there any way that he

could trace my whereabouts? I wondered what my friend

Jena had told him. She knew nothing. I made sure of it. She

had no idea where I was either. I talked to her the night

before I had disappeared, and we even talked about the

weekend charity event that we would attend,
tomorrow
. I

wondered if Drew was sly enough to report me missing. I

had made my intentions perfectly clear with my short, to

the point, note, informing him that I hoped he rotted in hell.

It was a good possibility that he never even found the note.

I had typed in my e-reader. I told him not to try to find me,

but I knew that was like pissing in the wind. He had

everyone he knew on it, and then some.

I thought I had covered my tracks well enough

though. I didn’t once talk to Ms. K on my cell or the house

phone. The only telephone that I had ever used to call her

was the pre-paid one that she had given me, and once from

Drew’s desk phone, but that was months ago. He made so

many calls from that phone he would never put it together,

not to mention I didn’t even know Ms. K’s name. All she

would ever give me was Ms. K.

Chapter 2

I woke later than I had wanted to. I had so much to

get done yet, and here I was still in bed at almost nine. I

wasn’t sure what time the exhaustion had finally won, and

I fell asleep, but I did feel rested. I walked out to Lauren’s

living room, and it was empty. Her bedroom door was

opened, so I peeked in, it was empty too. Maybe she had

to work.

I walked down the hall and took in the portraits

down the left side of the wall. I knew that Lauren had a

much better childhood than I had. There were several

pictures of her and her sister, I assumed. They both had the

strawberry blonde hair and were built with the same short

but not too short build. There were two other pictures of