3. Dot
DOT
“Ho-ly shit . I can’t believe you got arrested! I always thought if one of us ended up in jail, it would be me.”
Ever since I broke the news to Darren, he’s been speaking with a mix of admiration and disapproval.
It must be confusing for him, being my older brother and yet also sort of my friend.
Ever since he married Katie, my lifelong best friend, he’s been hanging out with the both of us more.
He gives us our space, of course. But any time I go to their house for a girls night, Darren crashes the first fifteen minutes, catching up with me and stealing some of our food before disappearing upstairs.
“Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” I ask him.
“You’re a grown woman,” Darren replies. “What are they going to do? Punish you?”
There’s that word again. Punish. My brother and my best friend don’t seem to notice the way my cheeks heat up at this word. I’m thinking about William again, and the way he offered to carry out whatever punishment I could think of.
My mind went to the gutter immediately. I thought of Christian Grey, of leather whips and handcuffs. Of my boss glaring at me with those icy blue eyes while he teased and tormented me.
Where the hell did all of that come from?
I haven’t crushed on my boss like that since the early days of working for him. Before all of our verbal sparring, when I realized he’s a jerk who would never be interested in me the way I was interested in him.
Since then I’ve gone on lots of first dates and the occasional second date. Trying to…I don’t know? Make my body forget that it’s attracted to William?
Sometimes I think this has worked. And then I make the mistake of looking directly at him again and poof. All progress is lost and I’m back to being hopelessly lovesick…or in this case, hopelessly horny.
Katie walks into the room holding a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of homemade guacamole. She looks at my big brother – her new husband – and clears her throat.
Darren glances at her and rises from the table.
“That’s my cue to go,” he says, giving my best friend a kiss on the cheek.
I watch them with barely contained envy. I’m glad they’ve found one another, and I’m genuinely happy for them. But honestly, my brother and best friend falling in love has served as a frequent reminder of how I’m lacking that kind of thing in my own life.
“Go,” Katie says to Darren. “We need girl time! I’ll text you when the enchiladas are done and you can come down and fix yourself a plate. Then we need you to disappear again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Darren says. “I get it, no boys allowed.”
Katie nods approvingly. My brother looks at me.
“If you need anything,” he says. “Let me know. I won’t mention the arrest situation to Mom and Dad, but you should know they’ll probably find out anyway. This is a small town.”
“I know,” I sigh. “I’m just…trying to figure out how to explain myself.”
He nods.
When Darren is gone, Katie looks at me.
“So,” she says. “Heather, again?”
“Heather, again,” I confirm.
“God, what is her deal?” Katie groans. “It’s like her sole purpose in life is to spread misery wherever she goes. I don’t know why.”
“Because she’s a miserable person,” I reply. “Miserable people go out of their way to spread more misery. And that’s exactly what she’s done. She gave my photography business a bunch of one-star reviews under different profiles.”
“How do you know it was her?”
“It was something she said at the bar,” I explain.
“A phrase she said. ‘Your photography business is an utter failure.’ An utter failure. That’s the same phrase that the reviewers used over and over again.
Utter failure . It’s been repeated way too many times for it to be a coincidence.
So when Heather said ‘utter failure’ to me in the bar, that’s when I realized it was her.
She’s been trying to sabotage me for months. ”
“What a bitch!” Katie says.
“Yup.”
I load a chip with a healthy dose of guacamole and salsa, then shove it in my face. Tonight I’m eating my feelings, filling up on Tex-Mex and homemade margaritas.
“Katie?” I say when I swallow my oversized bite.
“Yeah?”
“I have a confession. I think I have a crush on my boss.”
Her eyes widen and she claps her hands together.
“I knew it!” she says with glee. “I knew a man could only drive you that crazy if you cared about him. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I don’t think I understood my own feelings,” I reply honestly. “Maybe I’ve been in denial? Because I don’t want to have a crush on him. I don’t want to want him. But I do.”
“What’s so bad about William? He’s a successful guy. Good-looking too.”
“But he’s a jerk.”
“A jerk who got out of bed in the middle of the night to come to your aid?”
“Yeah…”
She has a point. If my boss is really such a jerk, why did he do that? And why hasn’t he been acting all smug and superior about it since he did it, the way I expected him to?
Today in the office, we went over every detail of the incident that led to my arrest. Starting with Heather approaching me in the bar and “accidentally” spilling her drink on me.
Then making fun of my curvy girl boudoir photography business.
And then shoving me against the bar, so hard that the back of my arm scraped painfully against the wood.
That’s when I lost my cool. I’ll admit, I used way more force against Heather than was necessary. There’s no way you could call what I did self-defense. More like finally letting out all of my pent-up anger I’ve held towards this bully since she used to tease me in 9th grade gym class.
Yes. Just like my friend Katie, Heather and I go all the way back to high school. We have a history, and it’s not a good one.
Bullies never expect you to stand up to them. And when you do, they cry victim. That’s exactly what Heather did. She spilled that drink, insulted me, then shoved me.
So I hit her.
Hard .
Is it my fault she was so confident that she didn’t expect me to retaliate? Is it my fault she lost her balance, hit the floor, and then burst into a pathetic puddle of tears so that everyone around us stopped dancing and looked at the scene?
To every onlooker, it seemed like I just randomly attacked her. But that’s not the truth.
The next thing I knew, I was being put into the back of a squad car while a crowd of Wild Bronco locals gawked.
Katie and I spend the rest of the night getting buzzed on margaritas and brainstorming ridiculous revenge plots against Heather that we’ll never actually act upon.
We imagine replacing her shampoo with Nair and slashing her tires, all of the immature high school acts that we wish we’d had the guts to do back in the day.
By the end of the night we’ve decided we’re too damn old for those games. We’re strong, independent women. Confident women.
And we don’t need revenge…because the best revenge of all is a life well lived.
I don’t know if someone famous said that, or if we just saw it on a bumper sticker one time and decided it’s our new motto. All I know is that it rings true.
“To self-confidence!” Katie lifts her glass for a toast. It’s probably our tenth toast tonight. We keep inventing progressively more outlandish ones.
“To William’s tight butt,” I say, tapping my glass against hers.
“I would toast to that, too, but my husband is probably eavesdropping upstairs and he has some serious jealousy issues,” Katie replies. “But I’m happy that you found a toast-worthy butt to admire.”
“If only it was attached to a man I had a chance with. Or who liked me.”
“How do you know that he wouldn’t like you?” Katie asks me.
“Please. He’s…him. Look at him! And I’m…me.”
“Dot, you literally own a photography business that is meant to give plus-sized women confidence in their bodies. You sexually empower women for a living. Don’t tell me you think you don’t have a chance with this guy because of your weight.”
“I’ve met the woman that he’s gone out with a few times. I look nothing like her. Even though I like my body, I can’t force other people to. Everyone has their preferences, and I’m definitely not William’s.”
Katie nods understandingly.
“Speaking of sexual empowerment,” I continue. “I finished my self-portraits.”
As a boudoir photographer, it’s amazing I haven’t already taken any photos of myself until now. So last week, I got my camera out and went crazy. Multiple outfits, all sorts of poses. Experimenting with new lighting and props.
And I have to say, I love the way they turned out. Taking these photos gave me a new appreciation for my body and all that it can do.
Katie sits up on the couch excitedly.
“No way. Can I see?”
“Sure,” I reply. “Um…they’re pretty revealing. Some of them are full nudes. Boobs and butt and all. Are you sure?”
“You’re acting like we’ve never seen each other undressed before,” Katie says.
“I’ve known you since you were six years old and liked to go streaking through the water sprinklers.
You saw pretty much everything of mine when you went with me to try on wedding dresses.
And when I have a baby you’re definitely going to be in the hospital room with me, holding my hand.
So I think I can handle looking at some smutty photos without clutching my pearls. ”
“Alright then,” I say reluctantly.
I take my phone out, searching through my many photo albums.
“I can never remember how to share these things with people,” I mutter. “I usually do this on my computer, not my phone…”
I find the button and click the share button. At least, I think I clicked it. But then the screen flickers and the app shuts down.
What the hell?
Weird.
I blink at my home screen for a moment, then pull the app back up. I click share again. This time, it seems to go through. Whatever.
Katie looks at her phone, opening the photo album and scrolling through the images. They get progressively more revealing as she scrolls, until she’s finally to the nudes. They’re tasteful, I think, with most of my explicit body parts concealed by the poses or my hair.
“Oh my god. You. Look. So. Hot.”
“Thanks!” I say with a smile.
“How could William not be attracted to you? Seriously?” Katie asks me. “I think you should shoot your shot with him. The worst that could happen is he could say he’s not interested, right?”
“The worst that could happen is that I ruin our working relationship and make things so awkward that I have to find a new job,” I reply. “And I can’t afford to quit my job right now. Not when I’m so close to hitting my savings goal for my photography business.”
“Fair,” Katie sighs, closing her phone. “But after you quit? I think you should ask him out. Take charge and see what happens.”
“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
Really, I have no intention of ever doing anything like that.
William’s not into me. That much is certain.