Divorced, Desperate, and Delicious

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

  

Kathy’s florist delivery truck, nicknamed the White Elephant, sat in front of her mobile home. Lacy got out of her car. Her heart hadn’t slowed during the five-mile drive.

She’d turned around and headed back to her house four times. But each time when she got to the road leading to her house, she thought of her mother’s words, I hear wedding bells. Then she’d remember Peter and her shattered dreams. If that wasn’t enough to put the car in reverse, a mental image of an old man doing the Dirty Chicken dance with her grandmother would fill her head. Did she want to wind up like her mother and grandmother, collecting divorces like they were stamps?

Taking the porch steps, Lacy walked through Kathy’s front door without knocking. Sue and Kathy stood in the kitchen.

“It’s about time.” Kathy brushed her long mane of red hair off her shoulder. “You better have a very good reason for being late. I’m hungry and you know I get cranky when I’m hungry.”

“I thought you get cranky when you’re horny,” Sue said.

“Hungry or horny. What’s the difference?” Kathy laughed.

Lacy dropped her purse beside the door and walked over to the kitchen table, where she plopped down in a chair. Without understanding why, her vision became watery. Then her eyes started leaking. She swiped at the drops falling onto her cheeks. “Must be allergies.” Lacy sniffed, trying to hold everything in, but the dam had burst and the tears continued.

Kathy and Sue studied her and then exchanged glances. “This doesn’t look good.” Kathy pointed a finger at Lacy.

“I think she slept with her ex-husband,” Sue said.

They stared at each other, then back at her. “Is this a wine night?” Kathy asked. “Or should we go with something stronger, like Jack Daniels straight up?”

Lacy hiccupped. “Congratulations, Sue, on . . . the letter from the editor.” She wiped her face again, fighting for control. “I’m happy . . . for you.”

“Yup.” Sue shook her head. “She screwed Peter again.”

“I haven’t screwed anyone.” Hiccup. “I can’t sleep with anyone.” She drew in a shaky breath. In spite of being best friends with these two for the last eighteen months, she’d never confessed her big secret—the family curse. “I can’t ever have sex again. Never! It’s a curse. My grandmother had it. My mother has it. I have it.” More tears flowed down her face. “No more home runs. Not even without going to bat. I’m just praying it’s the bat that sets this whole thing off.” Lacy dropped her forehead against the table and continued to hiccup.

“I’ll get the Jack Daniels,” Kathy said.

Lacy heard chairs being dragged across the floor, and she raised her head.

“Okay, first tell me about this curse.” Kathy pushed over a box of Kleenex. “Then explain home runs to me.” She poured whiskey into a small glass. “I think I got the bat reference.” Kathy grinned, as if humor would help. “Maybe home runs, too.”

Lacy pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. “It’s like this: insert male organ and out goes my heart. Bat in. Heart out. I’m destined to fall in love with every man I sleep with. And then I marry them. Then they screw the secretary or the professor. And then I get a divorce or give back the ring.” She picked up the glass and took a small sip. The whiskey burned her throat and she coughed.

Finally able to speak, she continued. “I can’t do it. If I do, one day I’ll wake up and I’ll be just like them. I’ll be competing against Liz Taylor for the Most-Divorced award.” She curled her hand around the tissue. “Right now my grandmother is planning on marrying some guy who can dance the Dirty Chicken. My mother’s marriage file is so thick she had to pay movers to get it to the lawyer’s office when she went for her last divorce. She changes husbands more often than she does purses.”