Chapter 34
I drove to the other side of the Marietta Square, to the cottage I’d once shared with Ken. His car sat in the long gravel driveway to the side of the house, and I felt a mixture of relief—he was there—and revulsion—I didn’t want to be.
But my car title wasn’t going to find and sign itself, so there I had to be.
I pulled into the driveway right behind him. No easy escapes that way.
As I walked around to the front of the house, I noticed that some of the bricks in the path were uneven.
I’d placed those there. I’d also insisted that we paint the house a light peach color that would’ve been popular in the late eighteen hundreds, when the house had been built.
I stepped on the wraparound porch, glad to see the ceiling was still “haint blue.”
I turned to a mantra after ringing the doorbell.
Slow inhale: This is a beautiful home.
Slow exhale: I will find another.
The Douchecanoe opened the door. “Stella! What a surprise.”
“May I come in?”
“Sure, sure.” He moved aside to make room for me. I walked in, the whiff of dirty dishes hitting me as I crossed the threshold. I fought to keep my expression neutral as he hurried through the small living room, picking up mail and chargers and such so I would have a place to sit.
On the camelback couch that I had picked out after agonizing over color and style for at least six months.
“What brings you here?” he asked hopefully.
“I would like for you to sign over the car title to me so I can make my annual pilgrimage to the tag office,” I said.
“I would like an apology.”
“And people in hell are partial to ice water. I’m not going to apologize. I had nothing to do with the glitter bomb.”
“A likely story.”
“Believe what you want, but I’ll be sitting here until I get that title.”
Brave words, Stella, considering how disgusting it smells in here.
He frowned. “Even if I wanted to give it to you, I couldn’t. I don’t know where it is.”
“Ken,” I said. “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be.”
“I seriously don’t know where it is.”
My bullshit detector suggested he just might be telling the truth. “Fine. Then I’ll look for it.”
“Sure, look away.” He sat down in his battered recliner, confident I wouldn’t be able to find the title. All the better for me if he stayed out of my way.
If I were my car title, where would I be? I asked myself.
I’d probably be upstairs in the office in a pile of mail that Ken hadn’t opened because he didn’t like to open mail and was used to my handling such things.
That would be my first guess. I got up and walked a path upstairs, both familiar and awkward, to the second bedroom.
The last time I’d made this trek, I’d been holding a bottle of champagne and shedding clothes as I went.
Don’t think about that now, Stella.
I avoided looking at the main bedroom and focused on the smaller bedroom we used for an office.
“What the heck happened up here?” I asked as I surveyed the papers and mail strewn around the office. I immediately regretted it because Ken might come upstairs to answer me.
Blessedly, he didn’t respond.
I started sifting through papers, stacking them in piles according to where I would’ve filed each one. Muscle memory could make a person do the oddest things. I found unpaid bills and bit my tongue to keep from asking him if he knew they were there.
I unearthed tax forms still sealed in their envelopes and could see no evidence that Ken had asked for an extension. For the first time I felt a swell of gratitude that my name wasn’t on any of the official documents. If the IRS came calling, they wouldn’t be looking for me.
The urge to help him was strong—it was hard to overturn almost twenty years of habit in one afternoon—but no.
When I found a receipt he’d printed from the internet for Honeymoon Haven cabins, I said nothing.
He’d written “business expense” at the top, but I could tell from the dates that it was his supposed honeymoon with Eloise.
The man was always trying to claim something as a business expense that he shouldn’t. It was one of our annual fights.
Not my tax return, not my auditors.
After going through all the papers on my desk, I looked behind the upholstered chair that sat beside it.
Next, I sifted through the mail on Ken’s desk.
I checked underneath his chair and even in the trash can.
That’s when I saw the corner of an envelope that had fallen behind Ken’s desk and to the floor.
Eureka!
I opened the envelope, which had been mailed earlier in the spring, and there it was: the title to my Corolla.
After I’d placed it back in the envelope, I tucked it into the back waistband of my jeans and prepared to indulge in some pettiness of the highest order. I gathered the piles of papers one on top of another and then tossed them all in the air over his desk, letting them fall like a wintry mix.
Yep. Pretty much what the room had looked like when I walked in. If you want me to do your paperwork, then maybe don’t sleep around on me.
I grabbed a pen and hopped down the stairs.
“All right, Kenneth,” I said as I approached where he still sat in the living room. “It’s time for you to sign this title over to me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Why should I?”
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to call the IRS and suggest they audit you.”
His eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, but I would. I’m Little Miss Petty, remember? The pettiest person you’ve ever met.”
“How about I sign over the title, but you come back home?”
Was he seriously trying to bargain with me? When he had absolutely nothing that I wanted other than a single piece of paper? A piece of paper that showed he symbolically owned something that was truly mine in every meaningful sense of the word.
I took my phone out of my pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the IRS.”
“Fine, fine! I’ll do it.”
I put my phone away and held the pen out to him. He put the title on the coffee table and added his name in both print and cursive. I’d researched everything that would be necessary for the transfer, and I could handle the rest.
“Thank you. I would say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, but my nana hates it when I lie. Goodbye, Ken. As a good friend likes to say, may you have the life you deserve.”
My prize in hand, I had almost escaped when he stepped between me and the door. “Stella, please come home. I’m a mess without you.”
His anguished tone made me stop.
Nope. Not going back.
“Quite literally a mess,” I said as I gestured to the house around him.
“No, you were right about how I can’t make myself any younger by dating younger women.”
I said nothing. Hearing a “you were right” should’ve felt better than it did. Maybe it only counted if it came from someone you loved or, at the very least, respected.
“If we got back together, I could make all your money problems go away.”
Earlier I might’ve been tempted by that possibility for at least a second, but I’d worked hard at legal work, PI work, and acts of pettiness.
Thanks to the money earned there as well as Havisham’s loan, I no longer needed his help.
No, I wanted to get out of this sad house and away from this sad man as quickly as possible. I practically sang, “No thank you.”
Each time I tried to get past him, he blocked my exit.
“Er, thank you for helping me with the paperwork upstairs,” he said sheepishly. I willed myself not to smile and thus betray exactly how unhelpful I’d been. “Do you think you could help me with the dishes?”
“Absolutely not. Put on your big boy pants and make it happen.”
“I don’t know how!”
“YouTube is a wondrous place. I bet you can find all the answers there.”
He stubbornly stood in front of the door. I could’ve gone out the back door, but I didn’t want to wade through the grass he also hadn’t cut. Besides, it was the principle of the thing.
“It’s been real. It’s not been fun. Time for you to move, or I’ll do another leg sweep on you.” Bold words I wasn’t entirely sure I could back up, but hopefully the threat would do the trick.
Finally, he stepped aside, muttering something about how unreasonable I was being.
“Unreasonable.” Add that to “stubborn,” “petty,” and “spiteful” as adjectives often used to describe women who merely had the audacity to stick up for themselves.
As I was stepping outside, he said, “You’re not as smart as you think you are. You sure let Trista play you like a secondhand fiddle.”