Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee

jealous!”
she snaps as I turn in to the parking lot. “Now pull into the last
space in front of the cell phone store and I’m gonna go around
behind this building,” she says, pointing, “because his car is
backed in over there by those trees over, so all I have to do is
sneak up into that thicket and pop! It’s on there.”
    “ Okay, that’s not near as dangerous as
you made it sound,” I say, looking over at her strappy silver wedge
sandals. “You wearing those?”
    “ Of course I am. You know I walk
better in heels than I do in tennis shoes,” she says, “and I cased
the place earlier so I kinda knew it wouldn’t be that hard to
do.
    “ Small Time Criminal,” I say nodding
in approval. “Fah sho.”
    “ Fah sho,” she says and gets out of
the car.
    I watch as she trots past the end of the
building, then dips into the thicket separating the rear parking
lot of the accounting firm from the back side of the strip
mall.
    Two seconds after she disappears into the
brush, Richard Stacks the Fourth walks out the back door of his
office and makes a bee line for his car. I think for a second about
jumping out and chasing Lilly into the shrubbery, but he would be
able to see me every step of the way. I pick up my cell phone to
call her, but hesitate because she never puts her phone on silent
and wouldn’t hear it if she did.
    Just as he reaches the front of his car,
Lilly pops back out of the bushes and gives me a big thumbs up. I
start waving frantically with one hand and pointing with the other.
She whirls around and sees him and jumps back into the trees just
as he glances down to where she was standing. Only after the white
Lexus is well out of sight does she creep out of the brush.
    She smiles triumphantly and starts taking
long, confident strides back toward the car when, all of a sudden,
she stops short, looks to her left, and freezes. I follow her line
of vision and my eyes come to rest on a petite, silver haired lady
holding a giant lady bug purse.
    I know that little old lady. Everyone in
Bugtussle knows that little old lady.
    It’s Gloria Peacock.
    23
    Gloria Peacock is a spunky little senior
citizen rumored to be one of the richest women in the South. Word
is she knows everything about everybody in town and has known
everything about everybody in town for the past fifty years. Maybe
longer.
    I look at Lilly then at Gloria Peacock and
take a deep breath.
    They both just stand there like cowboys at a
shoot-out about to draw.
    Lilly looks at her then back at me then back
at her and Gloria Peacock looks at her then at me then back at
Lilly and I’m looking back and forth between them wondering how
long Mrs. Gloria Peacock has been standing there with her big ol’
lady bug purse.
    Nobody moves.
    All of a sudden, Lilly gets this look on her
face like she just remembered where she was and starts walking
toward Gloria Peacock, who steps into the shade as she
approaches.
    They have a brief interchange that ends with
Lilly and Gloria Peacock both tossing their heads back and laughing
like they just heard the best joke ever. Then Mrs. Peacock waves
one of her frail, diamond laden hands at me and smiles the biggest,
most genuine smile I have ever seen.
    Lilly comes and gets in the car.
    “ What was that?” I ask. “What was so
funny?”
    “ Well, Mrs. Gloria Peacock saw the
whole thing.” Lilly glances back at the elderly lady who has just
gone inside Merle Norman. “She was very brief and told me, in a
nutshell, that she knows everything that’s been going on for the
past week and would really like to sit down and speak with
us.”
    “ Sit down and speak with us? So are
we, like, in trouble with her?”
    “ Oh, no,” Lilly laughs, “not by a long
shot!” She looks at me, “She says she has just what we need to get
what we want.”
    “ How does she know what we need and
what we want?”
    “ I asked her the same thing and do you
know what she said?”
    “ Why, hell no. How would I