Story of My Life (Story Lake #1)

43. Fancy pants

43

FANCY PANTS

HAZEL

I shoved the bangs out of my eyes and blinked as my ex-husband strolled up, smiling his smirky, judgmental smile at our sweaty little band of small-town misfits.

He was dressed in linen pants and what I’d always called an “old money” polo shirt. It was his summer casual uniform. He still wore his hair long and wavy on top like a turn-of-the-century poet. There was more salt than pepper now, and it might have been pure schadenfreude on my part, but it looked as though his hairline had retreated another centimeter or two.

“There’s my girl.”

The words had once set butterflies aflight in my digestive system. Now they merely lit a fire of rage in my chest.

“Jim?” I choked his name out like it was a Basskicker in my mouth.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The next time he saw me, I was supposed to be looking fabulous in a cocktail dress that fit me like a second skin with my hair blown out and makeup on point. The plan was to be either accepting some coveted literary award or on a date with a gorgeous man.

Cam and Zoey both took protective steps in front of me, forming a wall between me and the man who’d stolen from me. The man I’d allowed to steal from me.

Levi and Gage sensed a problem and joined them, Gage gently pushing Zoey behind him.

“Hazel, sweetie!”

The familiar girlish lilt had me peering over my protectors’ shoulders and blinking at the dazzling hallucination waving at me.

Zoey shot me a wide-eyed look. “Oh my God, is that?—”

“ Mom? ” I said, pushing my way through the wall of testosterone.

Ramona Hart-Daflure Whatever the Hell Her Current Last Name was floating toward me in a pleated floral Oscar de La Renta sundress and movie-star sunglasses. She enveloped me in a Jo Malone–scented hug. A new wedding set with a diamond the size of a midsize sedan glinted on her ring finger.

Unlike Jim, my mother hadn’t aged a day since I’d seen her last, on a whirlwind brunch and shopping excursion two years ago. We had the same thick dark hair, the same eyes, but everything else about her was softer, more delicate, more…calculated.

“What are you doing here? With him ?” I demanded when she released me.

“Don’t be like that, Hazelnut,” Jim said in that boyishly charming way of his. It made me want to barf on his suede driving moccasins.

“Well, when Jim called and said that you were having some kind of midlife crisis, giving up writing and moving to the middle of nowhere, I told Stavros that the honeymoon had to wait. My girl needed me.”

“I’m not having a midlife crisis, and I haven’t stopped writing. But I might have to when they send me to prison for murder,” I said pointedly at Jim.

“There a problem here?” Cam demanded, joining us.

“Why don’t you fellas go get a couple of beers on me and leave us to talk,” Jim suggested, all charm as he pulled out his money clip.

Cam took the offered forty dollars, stuck it in his pocket, then said, “No.”

Zoey choked out a laugh.

“Oh my.” Mom gave the Bishops an appreciative once-over. “Introduce me to your friends, Hazel.”

The last thing I wanted to do was stand here in my sweat-soaked defeat and make perfunctory introductions. “Mom, this is Cam, Levi, and Gage. Guys, this is my mother, who should be on a yacht in the Mediterranean right now.”

“Well, I’m suddenly much less worried about you,” Mom said to me, offering her hand to Cam.

“What are you doing here, Jim?” Zoey demanded. “Keeping an eye on your investment ?”

Jim held up his palms. “Now let’s try to keep things civil, Zoey.”

She bared her teeth at him and it was Cam’s turn to grin.

“Zoey. I should have known you wouldn’t let Hazel run off on her own,” Mom said, dragging her in for an involuntary hug.

“It’s good to see you, Ramona,” Zoey said after escaping the hug. “Your ring looks like it could take out an eye. Now what the hell are you doing with your daughter’s ex-husband after he cheated her out of her own work?”

My mother’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah, uh, Zoey, I didn’t exactly share that information widely,” I said.

Jim chuckled nervously. “No need to be dramatic about it.”

I’d heard the condescending line so many times it had almost become “our song.” The first time I’d heard it was when Zoey and I had gotten schnockered on cheap wine at a literary award dinner. He’d packed us into a cab and sent us home before we could embarrass him. Every time, it had shamed me into submission. After all, appearances were the keystone of reputation. And just because he’d married a significantly younger woman, he didn’t want his colleagues to think that meant I was immature.

Well, fuck that.

Cam was looking at me, asking for permission for… Well, I wasn’t sure. But I guessed it involved some violence and significant name-calling. I shook my head. This was my mess to deal with, and it was long past time I faced it.

“I’ll be as dramatic as I want, you colossal asshole,” I announced, once again brushing my bangs out of my eyes.

“Now, Hazel, I see no reason we can’t keep this civil.”

Old Hazel would have caved, would have let him say his piece and ended up agreeing with him. But Old Hazel was dead. And New Hazel had spent a significant amount of time with Campbell Bishop.

“I’ll give you a reason. I don’t want to be civil. I’ve ignored your calls and texts and emails for a reason, Jim. I don’t know what possessed you to come here and enlist my mother after you stole my first three books from me in the divorce. But you and your linen pants should leave now because nothing you have to say would interest me in the least and the last person who pissed me off ended up taking a header into the lake.”

Scattered applause surrounded us, and I realized we’d attracted a small crowd.

Garland raised his phone in my line of sight.

“Garland, I swear to God, if you take that picture, I will hunt you down and feed you your phone,” I snapped.

“Sheesh. Cam’s sure been rubbing off on you,” he muttered but tucked the phone into the safety of his back pocket.

“What do you mean, he stole your books in the divorce?” Mom demanded. Gone were the dulcet tones of the trophy wife. They’d been replaced with steel. “Because you know all you had to do was ask for my help and I would have had a team of attorneys on your side of the table.”

My mother knew the best, most expensive divorce attorneys in every major city.

“I don’t want to get into it right now, Mom. Why are you here, Jim?” I crossed my arms.

“I’m here because I care about you. And you obviously need guidance.” He gestured around us as if there was evidence circling us. But the only thing surrounding us was my town, my neighbors, my friends.

“You don’t care about me any more than I care about you,” I insisted.

“Let’s go talk somewhere more…private,” he said, glancing behind me at Cam and his brothers.

“Not happening,” Cam said, stepping up to stand by my side.

“Say your piece.” Gage joined him.

“Then get the hell out,” Levi added, taking my other side.

Jim looked like he was about to swallow his erudite tongue. He was used to civilized backstabbing, not face-to-face confrontations.

“Fine. I was only trying to protect you from embarrassment,” Jim said, taking his hands out of his pockets and putting them on his hips like a disappointed professor.

“The only person you’re ever interested in protecting is you.”

“That’s not true,” he wheedled.

“Man, if you don’t get to the fucking point in the next five seconds, my fists are gonna escort you out of town,” Cam said.

Jim scoffed. “Violence is only the answer if intelligence is missing from the equation.”

Cam flinched toward him, and my ex-husband jumped backward.

Jim swallowed hard. “Fine. Hazel, you need to give up on this ridiculous passion project. You’re contracted to write another Spring Gate book. That’s what the publisher wants, not this new midlife crisis, Eat, Pray, Stella’s Groove sap you’re working on.”

The breath left my lungs on a silent whoosh . I wanted to double over but forced myself to face him. “How do you know?” The shake in my voice was infuriating.

“I had lunch with your editor and the acquisitions team yesterday.”

“You did what?” Zoey demanded. Gage’s arm shot out and caught her around the waist before she could rush Jim.

“You’re not my agent. You have no right to pretend to represent me,” I said, steeling my spine even as a horrible sickness rolled through me.

“Hazel, look. We all have a vested interest in your success. Give them another Spring Gate book.”

I was shaking my head before he finished his sentence. “You have a vested interest because you’re the one who gets the royalties for the first three books in that series. Because as much as you shit all over my books, my stories, they supported us while you played Mr. Self-Important. The books you called unrealistic ‘mommy porn’ and ‘worthless fluff’ are the ones paying your damn rent right now.”

Cam growled, and Jim took a half step back.

“You suck!” someone shouted from the crowd. There was a murmur of agreement.

“Jim, is this true?” my mother asked.

“I was entitled to an equitable distribution,” Jim said. Pit stains were appearing on his fancy shirt.

“You’re a dick,” Zoey snarled from behind the barrier of Gage’s arm.

“And you never could behave like an adult.”

“I’d be careful if I were you, buddy,” Gage said icily. “I let her go and you’re just a body we have to bury.”

Cam turned to me. “Baby, I’m all for you standing up for yourself, but this guy is begging to get punched in the face, and if you don’t do it, I want the honors.”

“ Baby? ” Jim scoffed, looking back and forth between Cam and me.

“Don’t think either of us asked for your opinion,” Cam said dangerously.

“I were you, I’d already be getting in my car,” Levi advised Jim with a vicious little smile.

“One second,” I said, taking a step toward my past. “You’ve been doing all the talking for the last ten years. Now it’s my turn. You show up in my town and tell me in front of my friends that I need to give up on this little fantasy and get back to making you money that you never earned.”

I drilled a finger into his chest, noting that it was softer than I remembered. But any chest compared to Cam’s was probably doughy in texture.

“She’s doing the finger thing,” Zoey stage-whispered.

“Darling, don’t damage your fingernails,” Mom called out.

“Well, here’s a message for you and your BFF publisher friends, Jim . Fuck off, shit waffle.”

A ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd, and someone whooped.

“She’s getting a lot of mileage out of the shit waffle thing,” Gage observed.

“I’ll write what I want,” I said, continuing to stab Jim in the chest. “And if you don’t want me to do everything in my power to get people to stop buying those books you own, I’d leave right now and never come back. Oh, and never, ever mention my name to anyone again.”

Cam grunted his approval a split second before our audience burst into raucous applause.

“Take your fancy pants and get out,” Gator hollered.

Jim opened his mouth to argue, but I wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the crowd. He turned on his spiffy driving moccasins and stalked toward the parking lot.

It happened so fast that I almost missed it.

A scaly fish head descended from the heavens and landed with a splat right in Jim’s path.

“Better hurry. You angered Goose,” Gage called to him.

Jim sidestepped the fish and, holding a protective arm over his head, ran for his life.

Cam gripped my shoulder and gave me an enthusiastic shake. “Nice job, Trouble.”

Zoey cupped her hands and yelled, “Later, loser.”

My mother joined us in watching Jim’s walk of shame. “I think it’s time we had a long talk.”

I came downstairs after an emotional thirty-minute shower. My hair was wet, and I was wearing three layers of deodorant. My mother was looking lovely and fresh on my nice white couch. There was a frosty bottle of chardonnay on the table in front of her.

Zoey undraped herself from the armchair and got to her feet. “I’m borrowing your shower.”

Judging from her expression, I had a feeling Zoey had confirmed Jim’s claims about my publisher. But I was too emotionally exhausted to ask the question.

“Have at it,” I said, accepting the glass of wine she handed me as she passed. “Watch out for raccoons.”

Mom patted the cushion next to her with a delicate-pink-manicured hand.

“How do you do that?” I asked her as I took a seat, pulling my knees to my chest.

She cocked her head, diamonds twinkling in her ears. “Do what?”

“Look like you’re in the middle of a magazine shoot.”

She patted her hair, which was fashioned into a sleek chestnut bun. “I never leave the house unarmed,” she quipped. “Now, let’s move on to why you didn’t tell me what happened between you and Jim.”

“I told you we got divorced,” I hedged.

“You didn’t tell me he took you to the cleaners.”

“He didn’t take me to the cleaners,” I said directly into my wine.

“He got the rights to your intellectual property. That’s unacceptable.”

Unacceptable seemed like such a sterile word for the feelings I had.

“Darling, I could have helped you,” Mom prompted.

“I didn’t want your help. I just wanted to be done. And I really don’t want to talk about this.”

Mom shifted on the couch to face me. “Who else would understand better? I could have guided you. I certainly wouldn’t have let him get his hands on your books. I’ve been there a few times before, remember?”

“Oh, I remember. Maybe I didn’t want to be like you, okay?” I winced and reached for the wine again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m dehydrated and mean.”

Mom gave an elegant eye roll at the insult. “Of course you meant it. Stop apologizing for having feelings.”

I’d forgotten how comfortable my mother was with honesty, even the brutal kind.

“I didn’t give you an easy childhood, and I know we’re not as close as we could be. But there’s no reason you shouldn’t have come to me. I mean, let’s be honest. Who has more experience in divorce negotiations? So tell me, you didn’t want to be like me, or you didn’t feel like you could claim what was rightfully yours?”

I tipped my head back to stare up at the ceiling medallion. “Both?”

My mother hummed.

“He used me,” I said, sitting up and running my finger over the rim of the glass. “Zoey was negotiating my last contract with my publisher. I met her for what I thought was celebratory drinks.”

My stomach twisted at the memory.

“I take it they were not celebratory.”

I shook my head. “They were not. Zoey was furious. She told me that Jim had negotiated a backdoor deal with the publisher that allocated part of my advance to an author he was launching. The guy wrote some twisted autobiographical metaphor about wanting to sleep with his mother and kill his father.”

Mom said nothing but arched an eyebrow as she took a silent drink.

“It was the last straw. I’d put up with veiled insults and put-downs about me and my books. How I wasn’t a serious writer. It was a hobby. Fluff. It was worse when he didn’t know I was listening. But I kept letting him get away with it. I think I even bought into it. Until he literally stole from me. And you know what he said when I confronted him?”

“I can only imagine.”

“He said he thought I’d be happy that I was helping compensate a real artist with something important to say. He stole money from me and from Zoey and put it in his own pocket.”

Mom’s eyes hardened. “That self-serving weasel. I knew I never liked him.”

“You always acted like you loved Jim!”

“Darling, there’s no upper hand in letting the people you don’t like know you don’t like them until the right time.”

“Now you tell me,” I muttered.

“You thought you loved him. I wasn’t about to try to dissuade you from your own journey. But you made yourself smaller and less interesting for him. You let him guide you away from the spotlight and into the wings. Why do you think he went for the books you wrote before him? Because they were better than the ones that had his influence.”

“You read my books?”

She scoffed. “Of course I read your books.”

“You never mentioned?—”

“Exactly when did you think I should have mentioned it? When you’re avoiding my texts and emails or when you’re rushing me off the phone because you’re too busy with a life you don’t want to share with me?”

“Um, ouch.”

She lifted her shoulders. “Don’t ask the questions if you can’t handle the answers.”

“I don’t think I can handle anything else today.” I grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to my chest. “You and the weasel caught me at a low point. It’s been a rough day since about half an hour after I got out of bed.”

“Speaking of that. Tell me about this Cam.”

“What about him?” I asked, shooting for innocent and landing squarely in the middle of guilty.

“That’s what I thought. He’s gorgeous and very protective of you.”

“We’re just…having fun,” I insisted.

She nudged me with a well-moisturized elbow. “Is that what you want?”

“It’s all I can handle. I didn’t exactly prove to be great at relationships.”

“There you go, being small again.”

“Mother, I don’t need you kicking me with your stilettos when I’m already down,” I complained.

“I didn’t say anything when you married Jim, but I’m sure as hell going to take the opportunity to say something now. Stop accepting less than what you’re worth, less than you want.”

“I’m not like you. I can’t flit from relationship to relationship.”

“Why not? Life is messy, and it doesn’t always look good to others on the outside. But going after what you want is more important than making strangers more comfortable. If all you want is some satisfying sex, then by all means, keep going. But if you think you could have something real with this handsome farmer?—”

“Contractor,” I corrected.

“With this handsome contractor, you owe it to yourself to go for it. Decide what you want. Be relentless in your pursuit of it. Because no one in this world is going to hand you what you want, no matter how much they love you or how well they know you.”

“What do you want, Mom?”

Her smile was dreamy, her lipstick still perfect. “That’s easy. I want to be adored.”

I took a long, noisy slurp of wine.

She gave me a playful slap on the arm. “Oh, don’t be disappointing. It’s not up to you to approve of my wants.”

I snorted. “It’s a good thing.”

Her grin was bright and beautiful, and a half dozen happy childhood memories I’d buried flashed through my mind.

“What if I want more from Cam and he isn’t willing to give it to me?” I asked. “What if I want to write this book and no one wants to read it?”

“Then you keep living and falling in love with whatever comes next,” she advised.

“It sounds like a lot of work.”

“But it’s so much fun.”

The front door opened, and in walked a freshly showered Cam. Even in my bamboozled state, I could still appreciate just how attractive he was. He nodded at my mother, then turned his attention to me.

“You okay?”

“I just aired my dirty laundry to the entire town that I failed with my harebrained scheme that could have seriously injured people. Everyone is going to hate me forever, and I’m going to have to move to a new town until they start to hate me. I might as well invest in one of those mobile tiny homes so I can just pick up and drive away the second I start disappointing people.”

Mom patted my knee. “She’s fine. Just a little dramatic.”

Cam flopped down on the couch next to me and put his feet up on the ottoman. “You didn’t fail or injure anyone. This was the first battle, not the entire war. And airing your dirty laundry in front of the entire town is a rite of passage in Story Lake.”

“The handsome contractor is right, though I’m taking his word on the injuries,” Mom agreed. “And now that I see that you’re in good, capable hands, I need to return to my honeymoon. Stavros sent a helicopter for me.”

She pressed a kiss to my cheek and got to her feet.

“Oh my God, Mom. If you see a bald eagle anywhere near that helicopter?—”

“Keep an eye on this one. She seems a little dehydrated,” Mom said to Cam as she headed for the door.

“I’ll put her to bed,” Cam promised wolfishly.

Mom opened the front door. “Oh, hello there,” she said.

“Is someone hanging up We Hate Hazel flyers?” I grumbled.

In walked Darius, Gage, Levi, Pep, Ace, Erleen, Gator, Billie, and Hana. They were carrying coolers and folding chairs.

“What’s going on?” I asked dazedly.

“Strategy meeting,” Darius announced. “We’ve got a lot to discuss, people. Cam, you were right. Emilie was definitely in cahoots with Nina. Levi found the missing extension cords and the tool she used to drill holes in Beto’s pontoon in Emilie’s trunk.”

“Nina promised to make her deputy mayor if the annexation went through and Dominion could build its golf course,” Levi said.

“Bunch of us are gonna wallpaper her house with Traitors Suck flyers tonight,” Gator reported.

Darius clapped his hands. “Let’s get those chairs set up and unpack the food. We’ll eat and strategize next steps.”

“Hang on. You’re not all mad at me for making Summer Fest an epic failure?” I asked dazedly.

“Are you kidding?” Darius asked. “Sylvia from Silver Haven already texted me and said her seniors had the best time today. She wants to schedule another bus trip next month.”

Mom caught my eye from the door. With a wink she blew me a kiss and then mouthed, Call me, before disappearing.