Where Would I Be Without You (24 page)

Nothing.  Not a drop.  I cleared my throat several times and he never once took his eyes off of me.  Something in his eyes softened on me a bit.  Maybe it was the blue in them that made me think of storm clouds brewing.  Maybe it was the way the blacks of his eyes enlarged a bit for a flash and returned to normal.  Maybe it was the fact that for five whole
minutes, I sat on that toilet with my hand under me trying my dandiest to pee and just could not let a drop loose.

"Christ woman.  You are as tough as they say.  Forget it.  It's been over three hours since you slammed your car between those boulders, six hours since you had a beer at lunch.  I'm hungry, tired, got a truck to fix and a game to catch.  Meet me in my office once you're done."

I sat in that bathroom for fifteen more minutes.  Not a single drop of pee.  I washed my hands, applied makeup from my purse, filed my nails, texted Meg with an update of where I was at and called my mother back to answer her questions about me being on the five o'clock news.  Apparently, through all the mess, I did not notice a news crew there.  And, they always revamped my previous mishaps.  I was a local mess a muck that kept everyone busy with conversations for the next week or two until some other caper came our way.  I should be proud to carry the title of the county, but instead I was feeling like my time had come for things to change.

Just as I hung up with my mom, the bathroom door flung open.  Cal stood there with a look on his face that made me want to melt.  "Let's go."

I questioned what he meant.  "Go where?"

"Home."

"I can walk."

"Suit yourself."  Then he turned and walked back out of the women's restroom.  I quickly went running after him.

"Does this mean I don't have to pee in a cup?"

"Yup."  He kept on walking until he got to his office.  I tossed the unused pee cup into an empty
trash can en route to follow him at a brisk pace.  He grabbed three uniforms on hangers in dry cleaner bags and turned back towards me closing his door behind him.

"What about the paperwork?"  I wasn't
sure, but the old Sheriff Cleat had never made me do my own paperwork or file.  In fact, most times he never filed paperwork on me at all, not to mention he changed facts to keep the media from the real scandalous story, but something told me he didn't keep it from himself or the new Sheriff Cal Taylor.

"Forget about it."  His look softened a
bit, but his body language gave me the impression he couldn't get away from me quick enough.

"So does that mean there won't be charges?"  I fidgeted with my purse and looked down the hall to see that the next shift of staff was starting to arrive.

"Nope.  And don't take the next thing I say wrong, but I hope we don't meet again."

At that instant, my heart sank.  I had some stupid romantic notion back in the bathroom that I had a glimmer of hope that Sheriff Cal and
I, were going to get to know each other on a much more intimate level when I wasn't getting in trouble or being rescued.  I guess the disappointment showed on my face as a soft set of words left his lips.

"Nothing personable.  It's just I took this job hoping for a nice quiet town."  He turned and began walking down the
hallway, and I turned the other direction and began to walk out the front doors of the sheriff station for the umpteenth time in my life.

I hadn't made it ten blocks before I had to pee.  I walked three more blocks convincing myself I didn't need to go and two more blocks after that, I spent looking for a huge bush to pee behind.  The sun was
down, and it was dark enough that no one would see.  I still had a bit to go and no business in sight to use their facilities, so I noticed a small run-down house set back away from the street and some unruly bushes.  I took a quick look around, and the house seemed empty; I unzipped my jeans, squatted down and took the longest piss of my life.

Only problem was,
sometime during that piss a set of headlights illuminated my naked ass in the bushes, and me squatting down.  The next thing I saw were red and blue flashing lights for a second and a voice coming over the sheriff's car intercom.  "You have got to be kidding me.  Now you can pee?"

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Sample Chapters of
Now Why'd You Have To Go And Do A Thing Like That

Hollywood takes in Alabama, but not for long.  One woman thought she wanted the glamorous life but what she got was a backstabbing best friend and her spot on prime-time television for the entire world to see.  Back home, no one seemed to care that she had gone and screwed up her life, but there was one question on the tip of her own tongue that kept repeating itself.  "Why'd you have to go and do a thing like that?"  Not once did she see it coming, but when she went about making the same mistakes back home in Alabama, she knew she needed to get her wits about her.  Only problem was, that the one man who mattered most might have decided she was too much drama to handle.  It wasn't her fault that she was born with a magical drama disaster wand or was it?  Could she learn to be the woman she was raised to be and let the man of her dreams know how much she loves him back, or is it too late, and he decides that loving her hurts too much to be rejected again?  Sometimes a southern man knows that if you love someone, she is worth it all in the end.  Can this starlet claim Sweet Home Alabama once again?

Favorite quote that describes it all.  "I was born with a tiara on my head and magical wand that created plumes of drama whenever I waved it."

Chapter One

"
It's a cat fight; that's what it is."  I turned to my best friend Lisa with a coy smile after watching two women go at in the bar.  Hair pulling, claws flying, expensive clothes ripping and harsh words their mothers never thought they would hear out of their daughters.  "Thank God, we'd never be like that."  I tossed in for a confirmation, as things have been a little strange lately.  She smiled back, but her eyes said something else altogether unnamable with what I had just stated.  I had no idea that what was coming my way would have made the Japan tsunami look like a wading pool splash.

Rumor has it.  Rumor has it.  Those three lousy words rolled through my brain over and over for hours, reaching over forty-eight hours at this point.  Lack of sleep.  I've got it.  Red itchy burning eyes from crying, I've got it.  Puffy face and the hiccups, I've got those too.  However, what I don't got - is the fact that it was happening to us, Lisa and me.  We were the Rumor Has It gals now, and I wasn't sure if a cat fight would make me feel better or worse.  What she had done was far worse than my worst nightmare and none of it was true, well some of it.  "But why?"  I had cried out those words repeatedly, to myself, to my mother, to my father, my sister Claire while she bathed her twin girls and now to my cat, Snickerdoodle.  The one creature I know that will not judge me or believe what is being said.

My entire life was now being splashed across the Hollywood media, for all to judge.  Every picture, racy or not, was being sold to any tabloid willing to buy it.  What was worse, I wasn't some Hollywood Starlet.  I had wanted to be, but I was the Hollywood Entertainment News reporter, the one that usually reported the scoop.

Now I was in my apartment, fuzzy jammies, fuzzy hair, holding my cat, watching my ex-employer and some new bimbo read off the teleprompter, all the juice about me that Lisa spilled.  Watching pictures of me in my long brunette hair with a Brazilian blowout, sparkling hazel eyes, and my three hour a day of strict workout regimen body be turned into a woman out of control.  Somebody had made my eyes look dull, my skin over tanned, my hair in massive need of conditioner and a muffin top on some of these pictures.  "A muffin top!"  I practically screamed and cried at the same time to the confines of my bedroom walls.  If they could talk back, they would have told me that I did not have nor did I ever have a 'muffin top' and that Lisa was going to pay for what she did.

This rumor juice would have flown under the radar for most, but Lisa timed it just right.  I was about to be promoted to lead interviewer which meant a lot more Hollywood parties and a gig as a sidekick in a new movie.  It was a small part but a start in acting that I had been working for.  My career was going up, up, up and hers... well she had just been laid off as restaurant manager at an elite Hollywood restaurant.

If it was money she had wanted, I would have given it to her, but it was my boyfriend she wanted along with the money, that came with selling the story and all those darn cell phone pictures we took of each other doing really stupid stuff.  Not to mention she videotaped my confession of my pregnancy conception from Hollywood's latest hunk.  A videotape I was not aware of; damn camera phones.  A pregnancy I wasn't sure I was going to keep, and I definitely didn't want my current boyfriend Crispin to find out about unless I planned to keep the pregnancy.

The whole thing was a mess of proportionate disaster, at least in my world.  My boss fired me on the spot and then quickly released my story and pictures before anyone else, making me out to be the latest Hollywood scarlet wanna be.  Then it was all over the entertainment news media, Twitter, Facebook and even the local news back home in Alabama.  If I had slept with anyone other than Mr. Hollywood, I probably never would have made the headlines.  He was big news and now I was part of it.

As for my boyfriend Crispin and why Lisa wanted him.  Well, he is an up-and-coming actor with very famous parents in the industry.  Lisa was known for flirting with him ruthlessly, but I never imagined she would do this, never.  Now I could see her working her way into my life, easily replacing me.

The same words echoed through my head like a reverberation, 'now why'd you have to go and do a thing like that'?  My mom said it, my dad, my sister down in Alabama and if my fluffy white cat Snickerdoodles could talk; she would have asked the very same question.  It was in her blue eyes that she told me that she forgave me, and I was still number one in her book.

As for Crispin, he was on Facebook faster than a racecar driver, stating his status as single.  A few hours later, Lisa and Crispin were updated as a couple and I was crushed.  They looked so happy in their pictures.  Moreover, I knew that looking at their updates was only making things worse for my mental
wellbeing, but I had to look.  I was curious.  The pictures they posted together seemed almost too surreal.

As for the current condition of my pregnancy, well if it weren't for the slipped up condom deal, I would not think that it was Mr. Hollywood's.  Nevertheless, the incident happened, rather disappointingly I might add considering he was up for an academy award that I had expected more.  However, five cosmopolitan drinks later with no food in my system for the last twenty-four hours left me a wee bit tipsy and not a very good thinker on the cognitive scale.  A trip to the ladies restroom, followed by a persistent Mr. Hollywood following me, wanting an 'exclusive' interview; we did the horizontal for all of two minutes.  The worst dreaded two minutes of my life.

I didn't think Crispin needed to know.  It wasn't like we were engaged or going to get married.  We were an item though.  Hollywood loved to have us together at events, taking pictures, laughing or just hanging out.  We were a Hollywood match made in heaven.  My southern sweetness and LA body went hand in hand with his blonde surfer shag and six-pack of abs.

Right this second, as my face and name were being splashed across entertainment news by my replacement; there was no longer a hand in hand or a promotion.  There was just Snickerdoodles, the little pea pod growing in my belly and me.  This poor thing didn't have a chance in my crazy world, yet alone what kind of mother would I make?  Somehow, the nagging feeling in the back of my head told me that I would keep it.  I picked up the fifth pregnancy test with the pink positive sign and stared at it a bit longer.  Long enough to make my eyes feel cross and my fingers twitch.

Just as I was about to eat the last Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie in the bag, Snickerdoodles made a loud meow and jumped out of my lap and off to the floor heading for the front room.  I paused for a second and muted the low volume I had going on the TV.  If I didn't know better that was the sound of my front door being opened and the only three people that had a key were Crispin, Lisa and my sister Claire.  The last thing on my mind lately was to change the locks.

Then, there was her voice.  "Julie Marie Howland."  Not the name Lisa or Crispin called me.  They called me by my stage name Jules Hone.  My acting manager gave it to me, said it had a certain ring to it, kind of Starlet factor.  Right now, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard every time I heard my name in the news.

As she rounded the corner to my bedroom with Snickerdoodles in hand, she had a look of concern on her face.  "I don't know if I am madder at the fact that Lisa and Crispin did this to you, or that you didn't tell me first.  How the heck can I not be excited about being an aunt, but not telling me first?  Not to mention the fact that you got it on with 'the' next big Hollywood hunk.  I would have liked to know about that incident, like every frigging detail."

I looked at her with puppy-dog eyes and slowly crawled out of my bed with cookie crumbs falling onto the floor while trying to get up and give my baby sister a huge hug, which I needed so desperately right now.  I needed someone on my side, not just by phone but also in person to help me through this ordeal.