Page 63 of Story of My Life
Hazel looked up and locked eyes with me. I did my best not to look quite so assholish. Judging by her quick frown, I guessed I hadn’t succeeded.
She turned to my dad. “How are you at raccoon removal, Mr. Bishop?”
“Call me Frank. And I don’t mean to brag, but I am an expert-level raccoon whisperer.”
That was a dirty lie, but family loyalty didn’t allow any of us to show it.
Hazel nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. Then if you’re all in, I’m all in.”
15
TWO WOMEN WALK INTO A FUNERAL HOME
HAZEL
Wasit my imagination or was Gage paying special attention to you?” I asked Zoey as I sprawled across her bed and flipped through her collection of impulse-buy magazines while she finished her makeup, packing as she went.
“Please. I’m pretty sure the Bishops only have eyes for you. Besides, that man is a red flag waving several smaller red flags,” she said, carefully applying a rosy lip stain in the mirror.
I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You and I have very different definitions of red flags.”
She turned to look at me while blotting her lips. “He’s obviously a serial monogamist looking to get his small-town, blue-collar tentacles on a woman so she can give up her career, make a bunch of babies, and drive them to sports ball practice. Plus, he was looking at you, not me. Which makes me doubly not interested.”
“Is that why you changed clothes three times?” I teased.
She turned back to the mirror and began to fashion her curls into a fluffy ponytail. “Excuse me, Miss Power Suit. You don’t get to judge my outfit selection procedure.”
“Hey, I’m trying to make a good impression here. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m looking hot to support your good impression. You wrote two hundred and fifty-seven words today, which is more than in the last two years. If you want this town to like you, I’ll force them to.”
“Ah. And wearing a bustier will help my cause how?”
“You’re getting raccoon fur on your suit,” she shot back.
I rolled off the bed and made a beeline for the mirror and the lint roller. I’d gone with a classic black pantsuit, a rust-colored camisole, and—since Zoey’s rental car hadn’t been delivered yet and we would be walking to the town meeting—my fanciest sneakers. Also, two coats of deodorant.
“I’m nervous,” I announced.
She stopped what she was doing and joined me in the mirror. “Why?”
“Why? Because everyone here hates me already. This was supposed to be a fresh start, a comeback. I bought a house, I moved out of the city, I dragged you along, all because some old newspaper article gave me the tingle?”
She slid her arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. “Don’t discount the tingle. Never discount the tingle.”
“What if this doesn’t work, Zoey? What if this town meeting is the first step in a darker, more depressing downward spiral? I don’t think I can survive it.”
Zoey released me, only to grab my shoulders. “You are Hazel Freaking Hart. You are a best-selling author. You supported yourself and your snide, elbow patch–wearing husband in one of the most expensive cities in the world on royalties you earned from books you wrote. Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how many people try and fail to do the same thing?”
“No,” I said petulantly.
“Tens of thousands. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. But you did it. And there’s no reason you can’t do anything you set that brilliant mind to. Including winning over this weird littletown, writing the best book of your career, and earning us both a dump truck full of ‘fuck you’ money.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded fiercely. “The only thing you have to do is unlock the closet you hid your badassery away in and start going after what you want. Dim—notice I didn’t say his real name—spent years fucking with your head. I get that it takes time to come back from something like that. But he’s not here anymore. The only one fucking with your head is you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I am never getting married again,” I vowed.
