“Yes, her wine intake. She does love her wine. And her mimosas. And her bourbon. She’s off with her lover right now. Deep sea diving and day drunking. Oopsie! Daydrinking.” I snorted and threw air quotes around deep sea diving. Tomato paste flew from my fork to the white tablecloth. “Oh poop. I did that. Where is the maid? If you get her on that quickly she should be able to get that out with some giner ale. No. What? Giner ale?” I began tittering and then snorting like one of Acosta’s pigs. Did he have pigs? I couldn’t recall. “Where is the staff? I think I was mistaken. It’s club soda, not ginger ale. Tell the maid to grab club soda. Oh, never mind, it’s Christmas. They’re home with their families. That’s lovely. Family must be nice. You all are so nice. So family. So close. I’m so sorry about Cassie. She should be here and not me. I’m not good enough for a family to love me. Oh. Oh gah. Look at that! I’m leaking.”
The tears rolled down my cheeks. Unbidden and totally unwanted. The sound of three kind people being aghast nearly overpowered the lilting sounds of the ’80s Christmas song mix tape that Mr. Melios had cued up on the TV in the living room.
“Oh no, glykó agóri,” Mrs. Melios said, rising from her chair to come over and hug me to her bosom. I stayed there for quite some time, gasping and whimpering, my nose running. When I finally came out of the comforting pillows of her breasts, Mr. Melios was gone. Acosta was sitting there, staring, his gaze beyond confused. “Now, now, let’s have no more of the sadness. You should go home to rest.” She rubbed my shoulders as she spoke. Acosta reached over the table to hand me a clean napkin.
“Thank you,” I whispered before dabbing at my wet cheeks. “I have no home to go to. Just a cold motel room in a town where everyone hates me.”
“No, silly, we don’t hate you. Do we, Acosta?” I peeked over the top of the napkin in time to see Mrs. Melios deliver a killer glare to her son. “Acosta?”
“No, of course not. We don’t hate you. Oh look, here’s Papa with your coat.” He stood as his father entered the room. Mr. Melios looked incredibly anxious. It wasn’t every day a guest had a breakdown at your dinner table. The poor man. Ugh. I was such a stupid jerk. “Let’s get you to your motel room.”
“Can…can I visit Bitsy before I go back to that empty motel room?” I pushed to my feet, swayed, and belched. My cheeks grew hot. “Excuse me. That’s the wine and ouzo talking. I think I should nap with a goat.”
“Yes, that is good. Goats are the most loving animals on the planet. Take him to your place, Acosta.”
“Mama,” he groaned, then grabbed my rubbery arm and shoved it into my coat sleeve.
“He needs love, not another lonely room,” Mrs. Melios stated.
I smiled wobbly at her. “Can you be my mother?”
“Yes, of course. Now, go nap. Take some aspirin and drink lots of water. Acosta, make sure he drinks water. Let me get you some leftovers.”
Within ten minutes, I was strapped into the front seat of Acosta’s truck, balancing a container of moussaka in one hand, and a snotty napkin in the other. My chest felt funny. Maybe it was because of the seatbelt snugged so tightly across my breast, but maybe it was due to the fact that I was still tipsy with an ouzo-soaked brain but I knew I’d just made a major asshole of myself in front of some incredibly nice people. Shame and pain sat inside my ribcage like two bricks.
“I’m sorry I runt your Christmas dinner.” He tossed me a look, then returned his attention to the road. A light snow was falling, dusty little flakes danced around the wipers as they tried to bat them away. “Ruing. Gah. No, not that. Ruined. Ruined your dinner.”
“It’s okay.” He threw me another fast look. I dabbed at my face with the dirty napkin. His eyes were so pretty now, dark gray, filled with something that looked a lot like pity. “I didn’t know someone with your kind of wealth could have such a shitty past.”
My head was heavy. I let it fall to the side to rest on the cold window. Not much heat was flowing from the old engine yet. My toes were going to be frozen solid. Maybe I should keep wiggling them to keep the blood flowing. Actually, most of me was cold, inside and out.
“Money can’t buy happiness,” I croaked while my eyelids floated down to rest on my cheeks.
“Figured that was just something rich people told poor people to make them feel better,” he replied in an almost kind tone.
I let out a deep, forlorn sigh. “Goats can give love. Thank you for letting me see Bitsy today. Can I adopt her? Like you know how people adopt Bengal tigers or whales?” I sat up, my eyes flying open as the idea took root. He met my wide-eyed look with one of pleasant surprise. “I would like to adopt her. Let me do that! I’ll send you however many dollars it takes to feed and medicate a goat every month! Oh! And you can send me monthly updates and pictures. You could do that withallthe animals. It would be a source of income for you!” I smiled. He smiled.
Then…I puked all over myself.
ChapterEleven
When one awakenswith one’s head resting on a warm, hairy, chest, one snuggles in close. Eyes closed, I drew in a deep whiff of Acosta then wrinkled my nose. Wow, someone needed to shower. Someone smelled like a barn.
I lifted my head, which felt like a lead ball sitting on my wobbly neck, to tell my lover—the same man who hated me to bits which was an odd paradigm of how relationships should work—and found myself staring at a tiny udder. Right. Okay. That explains the barn smell. I rolled away from the udder, my head throbbing softly, and got a goat nose in the face. Her breath was nearly as bad smelling as her belly.
“You need some mouthwash and a good bath,” I told the Nubian.
“Blah!” she shouted in my face. Did this breed only yell? I’d not noticed the other goats being so vocal. And loud. Dear God, she was loud. Louder than normal. Also, was I in bed with a goat or was I on the floor? In all honesty, the floor and Acosta’s miserable pullout bed were quite similar.
I winced as I tried to sit up. My mouth tasted like I’d licked a manure fork clean. Just thinking about that made me queasy.
“Ouzo is…Satan’s apéritif,” I groaned as the wave of nausea slowly passed.
“You drank a full bottle and seven glasses of wine,” Acosta said from somewhere in the darkness that surrounded this awful bed. Had I gone blind?! I forced my eyes open. There stood Acosta, a book about llamas in one hand, a glass of water in the other, staring down at me as if I were a science experiment gone horribly wrong. I felt like one.
“Did you ever seeThe Flywith Jeff Goldblum?” I asked, my voice craggy. I swiped my tongue over my teeth. Yuck. Still with the barn flavor.
“Yeah. I’m not sure—” I tried to focus on the blurry face hovering over me. “If you’re going to throw up again do it in the trash can.” I nodded. There was a trash can? Where? Under the goat? This was weird, but not the strangest situation I had ever woken up to after a binge. There was that time in Gran Canaria when I came to in the back room of a bar. There was a goat involved in that as well. Perhaps caprines were my spirit animals. “It’s on the bed beside you. Man, you are ugly right now.”
