Ex and the Single Girl Read online

  If death is your prerequisite for reading someone, I’m quite happy to be off that list.

  “Alistair Barnes?” I asked. “The guy who writes the Tan Carpenter spy novels?”

  “They say Brad Pitt is gonna play Tan in the movie. Pearl and the girls are hoping he’ll drop in for a visit this summer, but I doubt it. And while we’re on the subject, what kind of name is Pitt for a man who looks like that?”

  “Drink your tea,” I said. Beauji took a sip. I sat back in my chair and gave an incredulous huff, then sat forward again almost immediately. “He can’t be Alistair Barnes.”

  “Go look at his picture on the books if you don’t believe me,” she said, shooing me away with one hand. “I’ll be right here to pick your chin up off the floor when you get back.”

  I stood up and headed back to the B’s.

  “He can’t be Alistair Barnes,” I repeated. It was running through my head like a mantra.

  “You keep telling yourself that, girl.”

  I flicked my fingers over the B’s and pulled out the latest Barnes hardcover.

  “I know you’re all into the classics and everything,” Beauji called from her chair, “but he’s not bad. You should read one. I recommend Clean Sweep, to start.”

  I flipped the book over. Ian Beckett’s lopsided smile jumped out at me from a full-size color picture. I looked at the front cover, running my fingers over “Nonstop action!” and “High- Octane Excitement!” embossed above the “#1 New York Times Bestselling Author” at the top. I tucked the book back onto the shelf and returned to Beauji, who was smiling from ear to ear. “You look like you need to sit down.”

  “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me he’s Alistair Barnes.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t know. What kind of rock have you been living under, anyway?”

  The rock of Peter Miller. The rock of the Syracuse English Department. Shakespeare. Austen. Marlowe. Take your pick. Lots of rocks. I sank down into the hideous orange chair and pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes.

  “Poor baby,” she said. “You’ve been dallying between the sheets with a famous millionaire and you didn’t even know it.”

  “Dallying between the sheets?”

  She grinned and took a sip of her tea. “How was he?”

  I smiled. Her grin widened.

  “That good, huh?”

  I leaned over and put my face between my knees. “No.”

  “Oh, Portia. I’ve missed you, baby.” She took another sip of her tea. “I don’t know if it’s you or the tea, but I’m feeling so much better.”

  “Well, I live to amuse you,” I said.

  Beauji grinned. “Welcome home, darlin’. Welcome home.”

  “So,” Mags said, leaning her chin on one hand, her bangle bracelets dangling precariously over the glob of mashed potatoes on her plate, “how are you feeling today, Portia?”

  I stabbed at the roast, avoiding her gaze. “Fine. And you?”

  “I’m fine. I was just wondering how you were doing.”

  I put my fork down and glanced from Miz to Miz, all watching me over the steaming spread of hearty Southern food. I smiled.

  “I’m great, thank you.” I took a sip of my iced tea. They were still staring. “What? What do you want me to say?”

  “We’re just curious, baby,” Mags said. “A few details won’t kill you.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “They might kill you.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes gleeful. “Now that’s more like it.”

  “I’ll bet he was a wonderful kisser, wasn’t he, Portia?” Vera asked, refilling my iced tea. “I hear that men from England do this fabulous twisty thing with their tongues.”

  I stared at Vera. “Where’d you hear that?”

  She shrugged. “We stock Cosmopolitan magazine.”

  “Well, I think a girl who’d been kissed all twisty last night would be smiling more today, don’t you, Vera?” Mags said. She and Vera erupted into giggles. I shook my head and looked at Bev, who raised one eyebrow and took a sip of iced tea.

  “What exactly did you girls think?” I asked. “That one night with Ian Beckett was going to turn me into a giggly little teenager? It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Sometimes it does,” Vera said with a grin. “Why, there was this one time, when I was twenty-two...”

  Mags pointed her fork at Vera. “Marcus the banjo player!”

  “Yes!” Vera said, her eyes drifting heavenward at the memory. “He did this one thing with his toes—”

  I held up my hand. “Ah-ah-ah-ah. No. Please. Vera. I love you, but please. No.”

  Mags and Vera giggled again. Bev handed me the basket of warm rolls.

  “Surely you must feel a little different,” she said. “Every man a woman sleeps with changes her a little, whether she wants to admit it or not.”

  I took a roll and Bev withdrew the basket.

  “Not me,” I said. “I am unchanged. I was fine before our little dalliance, and I’m fine now. So y’all can stop with the Flyers and stop with the fixing and just hand me some of those potatoes.”

  “I don’t know, baby,” Mags said. “I think Bev is right. About the men changing you, a little bit at least. There was that man I met in Bermuda, Rory Munroe. I only slept with him once, and I’ve walked a little different ever since.”

  Vera and Mags descended once again into a fit of giggles. I tossed my fork down on my plate and looked at Bev.

  “Doesn’t that bother you? To hear your daughters talk like that?”

  Bev shrugged. “Why should it? They’re just being honest I stared at her. She stared back.

  She knew I’d faked the Flight.

  I didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. I picked up my wineglass and hoped she’d keep it our little secret. Mags and Vera would have me Flying with every unattached man in Truly before they’d admit defeat, and that’s a prospect that could get very, very scary very, very quickly.

  “So, are you going to see him again?” Vera asked.

  “Of course not,” Mags said before I had a chance to answer. “What’s the point of Flying if you have to see him again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug, my eyes on the bit of roast I was sawing into. “He’s a pretty big deal as authors go. I was thinking it might not be a bad idea to do a book signing or something.”

  Vera smiled and leaned forward. “Really?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, really, Vera. This hadn’t occurred to you? We own a bookstore, for crying out loud.”

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Vera said, practically glowing with satisfaction as she sat back and reached for her iced tea. “It’s a horrible idea,” Bev said. “He lives in London.”

  I looked at them. “What does that have to do with a book signing?”

  Bev stabbed at her green beans. “Why don’t you call up that nice Greg Feeney?”

  I spoke to the ceiling. “Because Greg Feeney hasn’t written a book.”

  “Oh, Portia.” Mags raised her glass in my direction to get my attention. “I think you should go see Pearl McGee.”

  I looked at her. “For what?”

  She grinned. “Well, surely you know that ponytail has got to go.”

  My hand flew to my ponytail. “No. I don’t.”

  “I think if you cut it shoulder length, maybe added a little flip to it? Some highlights, maybe? It’d be real pretty. Not that you’re not pretty now, baby, but you know we all have to put our best foot forward.”

  I stared at her. She smiled back and patted my hand, standing up from the table. “Who wants more sweet potatoes?”

  My eyes flew open on the edge of a dream I couldn’t quite remember. I pulled on my glasses and looked at the clock. 2:34. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, wide awake. I knew myself well enough to know it was hopeless. The back- home insomnia had set in.

  I sat up in my bed and looked around at all the items from my youth. The field hockey trophy
I’d gotten during freshman year. The shelf with all the copies of my favorite books from high school. William Goldman’s The Princess Bride. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The Compleat Shakespeare. A collection of Melville’s short stories, my favorite of which was “Bartleby the Scrivener,” about a clerk who got out of work simply by telling his boss “I prefer not to” whenever he was given a task. Obviously a man who’d never lived with a Miz Fallon.

  I got up and ran my fingers along the worn spines of the books, smiling. I moved over to the dresser, touching the candles that had remained unlit since Ian had blown them out. I opened the wooden jewelry/music box that Vera had given me when I turned sixteen, and it creaked out a few strands of “Sunshine on My Shoulder” before petering out.

  I walked over to my closet and opened it. I hadn’t unpacked my duffel bag, so all that was in there were my prom dresses, encased in dusty dry cleaning bags. I laughed and ran my hand over the rip I’d made in the mauve taffeta when Beauji and I got caught drinking beer in the elementary school playground. That was probably the fastest I’d ever run in my life.

  I looked up to the top shelf of my closet and my smile disappeared as I saw the faded red shoebox peeking over the shelf. I think originally it had held a pair of Mary Janes I’d had in the first grade, but since then, I’d been using it to store letters.

  I reached up and pulled it down, walking over to the bed and settling in. For a moment I just stared at it, then finally forced myself to pluck off the top.

  They were there, a series of fat envelopes stuffed with letters and pictures. The return addresses were written in my handwriting, which flowed from the scratchy print of my childhood to the fat cursive of my teenage years. Miss Portia Fallon, 1232 Sweet Tree Lane, Truly, Georgia. The addressee was always one line: Lyle Jackson Tripplehorn. I’d never had an address to put under the name.

  I pulled one out and opened it. A picture of me from the sixth grade fell on top of the pile. The writing was round and fat. I dotted my Is with tiny circles.

  Dear Jack,

  I turned twelve last week. I got a Walkman from Mags, a Billy Joel tape from Bev. Vera gave me a stuffed polar bear. She’s nice and everything, but she still thinks I’m a kid or something. I’m getting all A’s in school and I’m especially good in English and Social Studies. I hope you are doing well and maybe someday you will come see me. I’m a good kid, and I’m getting my braces off in three months.

  Love,

  Portia

  I put the cover back on the box and stuck it back on the top shelf, then got dressed and headed the six blocks toward the Printed Page.

  “Portia? Portia baby?”

  I swatted lazily at the hand on my arm and opened my eyes. I looked up. Vera. I blinked, and shifted in the hideous orange chair. “Hmmm. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “We were worried about you, sweetie. I wish you had left us a note.” Vera walked over to the coffee bar and put down the big platter of muffins she’d been carrying. “Although we all figured you’d come here to read. You having trouble sleeping again?”

  I pushed myself up in the chair. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

  “Oh, don’t you think twice about it.” She stepped around the bar and stood next to me, a small smile spreading over her face. “Good reading?”

  I looked down at the book in my arms, and the itty bitty booklight that was glowing all over the handsome face of Mr. Ian Beckett, otherwise known as Alistair Barnes. I turned off the itty bitty and tossed the book onto a side table.

  “He’s not bad,” I said, getting up and stretching. “I really think we should have him come in for a book signing.”

  “You know what, baby?” Vera said, smirking. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Why don’t you go out to the Babb farm and see if Ian has any time for us?”

  I blinked at her. “Why can’t we just call?”

  “Oh, that phone hasn’t been hooked up for ages. You’ll have to go out there yourself.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I haven’t showered.”

  She jerked her head toward the ceiling. “Use the shower in the apartment upstairs. We haven’t used it in a while, but it should still work.”

  “Don’t you need my help here?”

  She pulled a small basket out from under the coffee bar, lined it with a linen towel, and filled it with muffins from the big tray.

  “Oh, I can get by for an hour or two. Bev said she’d come in for a little while this morning.” She held the basket out for me with a smile. “Now go. Be neighborly.”

  When I was a kid, I spent one summer selling eggs for Morris Babb at the farmers’ market, working a table in the high school parking lot every Sunday afternoon until I could afford the ten- speed bike I’d had my eye on. Working at the Page after school contributed to the family income, and as part of the family, I never saw an actual paycheck. Morris gave me five dollars a week, and at the end of that summer I rode my new bike out to the Babb farm to show it off to Morris and his wife, Trudy. She invited me in and made cornbread. He gave me iced tea and sat on the porch with me, telling stories about Trudy when she was young.

  “Now Miss Trudy Bates was the prettiest gal in Catoosa County, and there were plenty of fellas tryin’ to catch her eye, you know.” He laughed and winked at me. “Now, how do you suppose the upstart son of a dairy farmer got that beauty for himself?”

  I smiled and shrugged. He leaned forward.

  “Well, I knew the only way I’d get a chance with Trudy was to get her attention. So I got me up at four in the morning one Sunday and dragged Butter, the crankiest milk cow ever to exist anywhere, all the way into town, and I left that ornery cow right there on her daddy’s lawn. Then I went to hide across the street, waiting for the family to wake up and get all ruffled so I could come in looking for my lost cow and save the day. Be the big hero, don’t you know.”

  Trudy had come out of the house at that moment, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorjamb. She smiled at Morris, then looked down at me.

  “He telling the story of how he won my heart?” She and Morris exchanged looks, and she smiled at him as she finished the story. “Fool puts a cow on my lawn, what did he think was gonna happen? My daddy saw that beast eating up his grass, and he got his shotgun, of course. The first time I noticed Mr. Morris Babb was when my mama was pulling buckshot outta his backside.”

  They laughed together, her chipper giggle harmonizing with his rough bark, almost as if they’d been practicing it. I watched them, wondering at this strange world where a man fell in love with one woman and stuck long enough to harmonize a laugh. I made a quick excuse and rode my bike out to Beauji’s.

  The next time I saw Trudy was at Morris’s funeral during my senior year of high school. I told her how sorry I was, and she stared at the funeral home wallpaper and said blankly that they’d had fifty-two years together; who could ask for more than that? I squeezed her hand, my mind unable to wrap itself around a man who’d stick for fifty-two years.

  Now, I stepped out of my car in front of the Babb farmhouse and looked around. The cows were gone. The chicken coop was empty. The big red barn still stood, but the color was dulled by years of inattention. A side door was open and seemed to be hanging a little crooked, as if the top hinge had given up hope. The farmhouse, however, looked just as it had the day I’d ridden up to show the Babbs my pink ten-speed. I’d heard some rumbles about Bridge Wilkins keeping the place up and renting it out, bat since we weren’t allowed to discuss Bridge Wilkins in our house, I never did get the full story. At any rate, whoever had been taking care of the house had done a great job.

  I grabbed the muffins from my passenger seat, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. Moments later, the door opened, and there was Ian Beckett, wearing a pair of blue sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt, leaning one hip against the doorway and sipping from a mug that read WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDMA.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, smiling down
at me. “Would you like to come in? We could pretend to have coffee.” I smiled at him, swinging my left arm out and presenting him with the basket of muffins. “I’m being neighborly.”

  He took the basket from me. “Thank you. That’s very thoughtful.” He stepped back, holding his body against the inside door while stretching out one arm to pin the screen door back for me. “Please. Come in.”

  I slid past him and turned around to face him as he stepped inside, letting the doors shut behind him. He caught my eyes and smiled. I smiled back and held up a hardcover copy of Clean Sweep.

  “I just was wondering if you could sign this for me. I’m a huge fan.”

  Chapter Four

  “I’m sorry I don’t have any coffee,” Ian said, coming up behind me and putting a mug of steaming tea on the end table next to my side of the couch. “I will have to get some soon.”

  “Don’t feel you have to give in to cultural pressure on my account,” I said, looking at the writing on the side of the mug before taking a sip. GRANDMA’S KITCHEN. “I like tea just fine.”

  Ian shrugged. “When in Rome...”

  We were quiet for a moment. Ian’s eyes dropped to the book sitting on the kitchen table between us.

  “Sorry about that, by the way.”

  “No big deal,” I said with a shrug. “As lies go, it’s not so bad.”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly lie...”

  “Yes, you exactly did. I asked if I should know you. You said no.”

  He held up one pedantic finger. “That’s not a lie. Why should you know me?”

  “Because you’re Mr. Tan Carpenter. That’s a big deal.” He opened his mouth and I held up my hand. “I come in peace, Tonto. It’s okay. I’m not angry.”

  He smiled and sipped his tea, placing it gently back down on the table.

  “Sometimes it’s nice when I meet someone who doesn’t know who I am,” he said quietly. “Not that I’m mobbed everywhere I go, but there are times when it matters, and I’d rather it didn’t. Does that make any sense?”

  I nodded. “I understand. And it’s really not a big deal. I mean, it’s not like we actually...” I made an awkward gesture in the space between us and we both chuckled a little.