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24 - SIMON
I threw open the front door, yanking out my earbuds and ready to knock out the fucker knocking at this ungodly hour. The noise sounded like a nail gun, a steel-toed boot or some shit I was too damn tired to deal with.
“Nana?” I said, digging a knuckle into my eye socket to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. She wasn’t supposed to be driving, and her Bentley was nowhere in sight. “Are you okay? Where’s your car? How did you get here? What time is it?” The questions tumbled out of me, and I braced one hand on the door and the other on the frame, leaning my head outside and silently cursing the fucking sun. She wore a soft pink tracksuit with matching thick-framed glasses and had her eyebrows pinched together in a scowl.
Thwap!
I stumbled back, my hands flying around my head for the errant murder hornet that was still alive and had migrated to South Carolina in November. “The hell was that? Nana, get in here and let me shut the door.” I reached forward, trying to grab a fistful of her nylon material, but was only met with another sting of pain for my trouble.
Whomp!
My reflexes snapped out of whatever dream they were in and snatched the non-murder hornet from the air, throwing it on the tile in the front hall and preparing to squash it under my bare foot. It wasn’t the brightest idea, but seeing how I was about to squish a newspaper and not a mutant insect with my heel made me feel better about my choice.
“What the—Nana? Did you hit me with a newspaper?”
Kapow!
A sharp pain caught me in the stomach, and I took another step back, looking around for signs I’d stepped into the twilight zone. Maybe I’d drunk myself into a stupor, fallen, hit my head, and slipped into a coma where I was the star of my very own comic book series with those thought bubble punch words. How long had it been since the Ball? A day? A week? A month?
Was I hallucinating from surviving on nothing but tobacco, pity, and random charcuterie board ingredients I had in the fridge? Perhaps. I guess I couldn’t live off of cheese, bread, and olives alone. You had to add antacids into the mix—lots of antacids.
The fucking Ball felt like a lifetime ago. A lifetime of heartache and pain wrapped up in a neat little bow, then stuffed into one of those gadgets you shove Christmas Trees into after the holidays. And what had I done in the time since the party? Since the woman I’d only realized I loved had taken another man’s hotel room key and stuffed it in her dress?
Let’s see,I thought, rubbing a spot on my stomach that desperately craved water. I’d wallowed in self-pity and completely ignored Drake, Beth, and my mother’s phone calls. I’d drunk myself into a stupor and woke up wearing one of Addison’s cardigans in the bathroom. Ah, I called her office and put in an offer on the Seabee house before it was officially on the market. And I somehow got added to a very bizarre text message group belonging to Maverick, Miller, Magnum, and Mark. I had to mute the damn thread after my phone overheated from vibrating so damn much.
Swoosh!
“What is happening right now, Nana?” I said, covering my balls with both hands after her abnormally large purse came dangerously close to whacking me in the man-berries.
“I am here to knock some sense into you, mes étoiles,” she said, pushing past me with the force of someone much younger than her seventy-nine years.
“Now isn’t the best time, mon cœur,” I said, not wanting to turn her away but knowing I’d be shit company.
“Yes, I can see that. You smell like moldy cheese and look like the grim reaper. If you’re too damn stubborn to see what’s in front of your face, what other choice did I have?”
She raised her cane like it was Excalibur about to run me through, and I sidestepped out of the way, slamming the door closed and rubbing my eyes until phosphenes appeared. I wished the black spots would temporarily blind me for a few hours—or days—so I could try to sleep without relying on exhaustion or alcohol.
“I know, Nana. I’ll shower tomorrow.” I walked over the newspaper and caught a glimpse of the weather when I looked down. One hundred percent chance of rain today and tomorrow. Maybe I’d hold off on the shower and sit naked on the porch. I raised my hand and scratched my days’ old stubble, catching a whiff of myself.
Gross.
I’d need to sit on the porch with these clothes so the rain would clean them too. At least my dry cleaning bill would be cheap this month.
“Is there something you need, Nana? I’m not exactly in the mood to be entertaining.”
“Have you bothered to turn on the television, read the newspaper, or answer the phone in the last five days, you daft twit?”
Daft twit? She needed to chill with the Downton Abbey reruns.
“No. I haven’t felt like doing anything other than listening to Natalie Merchant songs on repeat. Can I take you somewhere, please? Or home?”
I collapsed on the couch and stretched out my legs, throwing an arm over my face and not caring that my feet hung over the edge.
Oomph!
The newspaper hit me in the stomach along with Nana’s fist, and I curled in on myself—not in pain or anything, more like surprise that she punched me.
I should be thankful she didn’t punch me in the junk.
