The Love Sucks Club (3 page)

At the car, I wriggle out from under her arm and cross my arms.
“What the hell was that about?”

She grins. “Voldemort has told the whole island that you two broke
up because you were having a fling with me.
Might as well let
her keep believing it.”

“Voldemort and I broke up because she’s a raging alcoholic who
can’t do anything but drink and argue about how superior she is to everyone in
every single way.”

“I know that. You know that. And probably most of the sane people
on the island know that.”

“Are there any?”

“How anyone could believe that we’re lovers is beyond me anyway,”
Sam says.

“Yeah, butch on butch–totally
weird.”

“It’s your long hair.
Throws ‘
em
all off.”

I toss my hair in an exaggerated hair model pose and bat my
eyelashes. “Do I look feminine now?”

“Yeah, about as feminine as Chuck
Norris.”

“Glad you didn’t say Chuck
Heston
.”

“
Soylent
Green is people,” she yells,
shaking her fist in the air in a lovely Charlton
Heston
impersonation.

Sam sees me into her beat up pickup truck and drives me home. Most
of the money from my royalties went into this house. It sits up on a hill, high
above the village and the beach. The house itself is kind of small. It has two
standard sized bedrooms and a decent kitchen. The living room area is rather
large. The defining feature of the house is the wall of windows that looks out
over the hanging deck and consequently, the ocean. When the weather is nice, I
can sit in my favorite chair for hours, mesmerized by the waves. Sometimes,
when they crash hard enough, I can hear them all the way up here. After Sam
leaves, I plant myself in my chair, and stare out at the ocean. I’m trying to
focus my thoughts on my latest novel, but for some reason,
Esmé
keeps popping into my head. Even if she knew Fran, the woman on whom Annabelle
was based, how could she have known about me?
 
As far as I know, Fran didn’t talk about me to anyone. Fran certainly
never mentioned
Esmé
while we were together. Hell,
she never mentioned anyone from her past. It was only after she died that I
realized how little I had known about her while we were together.

I pop back inside to make myself some hot chocolate and retire
back to the deck to watch the waves. Frank, my huge Maine Coon cat jumps onto
my lap, nearly causing a muscle spasm in my thigh. I push him into a prone
position and pet his massive head. He chirps at me and goes to sleep. Trying to
clear my mind of thoughts of
Esmé
and Fran and
Voldemort and Mandy, I have to laugh a little. How does a self-proclaimed loner
find herself having to deal with so many women at one time? I take another sip
of cocoa and force my thoughts back to my latest novel. Maybe I can just
hibernate up here for the next couple of years. Sam can bring me groceries and
cat food. Sighing, I give up trying to focus on my work and let my head fall
back against my chair.

Chapter Two

I’m a hermit. It isn’t that I don’t like people; it’s just that I
don’t like them a lot. So I had to set some boundaries when it came to my time.
Mainly, don’t expect me to show up at every function, don’t be surprised if I
don’t answer my phone, and don’t ever come to my house without calling first.
With those rules firmly in place with everyone in my life, I am pretty much
guaranteed privacy whenever I want it.
Except now.
My
doorbell is ringing and I haven’t invited anyone over. That can only mean one
thing. Susannah.

I moved to an island to become a full-fledged hermit.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Not only did Sam follow me, my sister decided
that she couldn’t live without me. After our mother died, she did her time
trying to take care of our dad, but eventually she decided that she needed to
be closer to me. Now, she’s leaning against the wall outside my front door. I
give her a fake snarl before hugging her with one arm and relieving her of a
bag of doughnuts with the other. Susannah doesn’t believe there should be
boundaries between sisters. She thinks our blood relationship means she can
show up at my house whenever she wants, eat the food out of my fridge, raid my
closet for something new to wear, and hang out all day.

She waves in the direction of the herd of peacocks that live in my
yard. “Peacocks are so cool.”

“They’re not cool. They’re a nuisance.”

She shrugs and caws at the birds before stepping inside.

“Come in,” I say, ushering her to the kitchen. “But you can’t stay
long. I have a story due soon and I want to finish it today.”

Waving her hand, she dismisses me. “I’ll be quiet when you start
working. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“I will know. That’s the point.”

“They’re working on the street in front of my apartment. The noise
is unbearable. I’m just going to hang on your porch and get some sun.”

Sighing, I gather up some papers and offer her a seat at the
counter. “Why don’t you go hang at the beach and get some sun?”

“Because I won’t have a comfortable place to take a nap when I’m
tired of it?”

Giving up, I pour water for both of us and sit down across the
island from her. “Is that my shirt?”

She looks down at herself. “Uh, I guess.
Yours
or Olivia’s.”

“Please, we hardly have the same fashion sense. And that isn’t
pink.”

“Don’t be so judgmental. Not everything she owns is pink.”

She’s successfully sidetracked me once again. I don’t get it. My
straight sister, who is about twenty pounds thinner than I am and about a
million times more girlie, still manages to steal my clothes on a regular
basis. Her boobs are a lot bigger than mine, so maybe it evens out. At any
rate, she’s got that new man glow that I’ve seen so many times before. “So,
who’s the new man?”

She grins. “His name is Thomas and he’s very sweet.”

“Married?”

She pauses.
“No, definitely not.”

“Definitely not as in you know for sure, or definitely not as in
you don’t know for sure?”

“
Jeeze
, Dana. Give me a break. He’s not
married, okay?”

“I’m just
sayin
’.”

“Jack told me he was single. How was I supposed to know?”

My sister has a habit of dating the world’s most obnoxious men.
Jack was actually a pretty good one in comparison to most of her boyfriends.
The one before that was a wanted felon.

“Anyway,” she ignores my pointed silence. “Thomas is a sweetheart.
He works at the bank and he’s friends with Lori’s brother.”

“Aw well, I didn’t realize he came with a pedigree.”

She ignores me to answer her cell phone. Giving her privacy, I go
back to the porch and position myself in front of my computer. With Susannah around,
I have to take every moment I can possibly get. She follows me out a few
minutes later and stands awkwardly in the doorway. Pretending that I don’t
realize she’s there, I continue to type, letting her squirm. Finally, she
clears her throat.

“What, Susannah?”

“Olivia blew a tire on the Frank Court Highway. We need to go help
her.”

Tapping my fingers on the side of my keyboard, I count to ten.
Olivia Parker is the very embodiment of everything I dislike about human
beings. She is filled with nothing but drama. Everything that happens is cause
for horrific tears and weeks of bitter complaint. She and Sam had sex once,
many years ago, and to this day, she still complains that Sam didn’t call her
after. In Sam’s defense, she said that Olivia complained so much during the act
that Sam almost called it off at the midway point. I still have vivid and
terrifying memories of the time that she twisted her ankle on the beach in
front of The Cottage. The horrified owner probably still has nightmares about
her berating him about the slippery rocks in front of his restaurant.
Suppressing a shudder, I try to reason with my sister.

“Go get her. Take her to that tire place on Front St. Tell Hank
that you need to buy a new set of tires, but you don’t know how to put on a
spare to bring it in. I’m sure he’ll send someone back with you.”

“Come on, Dana. You know she doesn’t have the money to buy new
tires now. We just need to go put the spare on so she can take the old one in
to get a patch.”

I don’t know why I’m bothering to put up a fight. Somehow Sam and
I have become the handymen for every single woman on this island. Not for the
first time, I’m lamenting the shortage of capable men in our lives.

“Wait a minute. What about your new beau?” I’m grasping at straws
because I really don’t want to leave my house today.

“Please. I just met him. I can’t call him to fix my best friend’s
tire. Not until we’ve been dating for a couple of months at least.”

As a last ditch effort, I pick up my cell and call Sam.

She answers sounding happy.
“Hey-O!”

“Sammie.
I need a favor.”

Suddenly leery, she pauses for a hit of her cigarette. “What?”

“Our mutual friend Olivia has a flat tire and is in need of
assistance.”

“Aw shucks.” She feigns disappointment. “If only I wasn’t in the
middle of a project at work, I would so do it. Gosh, I wish I could be there
for you on this.”

“Whatever, ass.”
                      

“I’d love to help.”

“And I’d love to be able to pawn her off onto you.”

Laughing, she says goodbye and I follow Susannah out the door.

Sliding behind the wheel, she glares at me. “That wasn’t very
nice.”

“What wasn’t very nice?”

“Making fun of Olivia with Sam.”

“I’m not a very nice person.”

“Olivia is a wonderful woman and you and Sam are always assholes
to her.”

“Olivia is not a wonderful woman and Sam
are
I are not assholes to her. We simply choose not to be in her company for longer
than is absolutely necessary.”
   

She ignores me as she starts maneuvering the dirt road from my
house. With a deep rut on one side and overgrown brush on the other, my road can
be damn near impassable in some cars. During the rainy season, Sam loads cement
into the back of her truck, and even then, it doesn’t always make the hill. It
has been inconvenient at times to have to trek two miles up a mud road on foot,
but it’s worth it to me to live in a place that discourages visitors.

When we make it to the paved road, Susannah sighs. “I really wish
the government would pave your road.”

I watch her guide the jeep over a particularly huge rut in the
road. “Why would they? I’m the only one at the top of it and I don’t raise a
fuss. Why spend the money for one quiet taxpayer?”

“There’s shovel guy,” Susannah says, laughing.

“The road is paved most of the way to his driveway. Plus, I don’t
think he really cares that much about modern conveniences.”

“Either way, it’s a pain in the ass.”

“You have a jeep.”

“Yeah, and it used to look pristine before I had to drive to your
house.”

“I moved to the top of a hill to discourage visitors.”

She smiles. “Nothing can keep me from seeing my loving sister.
Even if I sometimes have to drive you to the grocery store.”

“Small price to pay for me
paying your cell phone every month.”

She nods. “Yeah, good point.”

Stopping behind a herd of goats that are blocking the road,
Susannah grimaces. “Sometimes I think about moving back to the States.”

“Hey ladies.”
A group of men in a pickup
truck swerves around us and pushes forward into the goats. One of the goats is
hit by the truck and the rest run, bleating, to the sides of the road. The
truck roars through and a beer can hits the hood of the jeep as the truck roars
off. Susannah flinches as the can bounces up onto the windshield and off the
side. She looks at the goat in the road in front of us.

“Dana, go see if it’s dead.”

There’s no point in even arguing. Stomping toward the possibly
dead goat, I pause for a moment to glance back at my sister. She’s staring
straight ahead, blinking furiously. I know what that means. She’s on the verge
of tears and if this goat is dead, the rest of her day will be ruined. Approaching
the goat cautiously, I stare at it for a few minutes trying to see if it is
breathing. Another goat, embolden by curiosity or perhaps hunger walks up to me
and starts chewing on my shorts. I yank the fabric out of its mouth and reach
down for the other goat.

“Meh!”
It rears its head up and bleats
in my face. Half-screaming, I fall back, tripping over the other goat. Sitting
on my ass in a pothole filled with mud, I glare back at the jeep. Susannah is
indeed in tears, but this time, it’s because she’s laughing too hard to hold
them in. Both of the goats have run back to join the herd at the side of the
road making their annoying little goat noises. I make a mental note to stop
sending money to PETA. This is all Olivia’s fault. I yank myself up and angrily
brush as much mud off my shorts as possible. Fuck it, anyway. If Susannah’s
jeep seat gets ruined, I won’t shed a tear.

She’s still laughing as we pull past the goats and onto the main
highway in town. Of course, when I say highway, I really mean a big paved road
with a high speed limit, several traffic lights, and potholes that are only
slightly less dangerous than the ones on my road. Susannah tools along watching
the side of the road until she sees Olivia’s little red Ford Focus.
A Focus.
Seriously.
She might as
well just drive it off the side of the road and leave it there. Half the
potholes are as big as the car.
          

We pull up and Olivia tears over to Susannah. She throws her arms
around my sister, crying.

“Oh thank
Gawd
you’re here. I thought I’d
be stuck on the side of the road forever.”

“Yes,” I intone. “I can’t imagine the terror of being stuck on the
middle of the road a mere thirty feet from the closest restaurant.”

Both women ignore me as Susannah consoles Olivia. As she sobs
uncontrollably, I watch them for a few moments, shaking my head. Olivia is
about five-four and blonde. Her golden shoulder-length curls are glistening in
the sunlight and her slender arms, a deep brown from all of her beach time,
seem to glow. She has the most vivid blue eyes and long, dark eyelashes. She’s
kind of hot, in a false innocence, batting her eyelashes, annoying kind of way.
It still amazes me that Sam had sex with her. I mean, I know she loves straight
women and all, but did she have to pick one that was such a pain in the ass?
Still, to give her credit, Olivia is good-looking, Sam likes blondes, and maybe
she hadn’t talked yet before Sam took her home that night.

I grumble to myself as I reach in and put on the parking brake.
The ground looks stable enough, so I slip the jack under the car and raise it a
bit. Olivia is still crying on Susannah’s shoulder. I’m going to cry if I can’t
get these
friggin
’ lug nuts off.

“...and next thing I knew, there was a loud noise and the wheel
started jerking in my hand,” I overhear Olivia stuttering to Susannah. I can’t
handle this. Everyone in the world has had a flat tire. Trying to ignore the
women, I finish taking off the old tire and putting on the spare. I throw the
old tire into the trunk and turn to my sister and her best friend.

“You’re set. Drive over to Hank’s and he’ll tell you if he can
patch the old tire. If he can, it will cost about ten bucks. If he can’t, he
can sell you some retreads for a decent price.” I turn to Susannah. “Take me
home.”

“No, you can’t!” Olivia looks stricken. “I can’t go there by
myself. They’ll eat me alive.”