Diary of a Mad Fat Girl by Stephanie McAfee Page A

know
that?”
    “ She said, and I quote, ‘Sweetheart,
I’m Gloria Peacock and when I tell you that I have what you need,
you don’t ask questions, honey, you just show up.’”
    “ Whoa,” I whisper. “That’s pretty
serious.”
    “ No doubt,” Lilly says and then
squeals, “and she’s expecting us at her house tomorrow afternoon at
2 p.m.”
    “ Oh! You are lying!” I say, getting
really excited. “You are freakin’ lying to me! We, me and you, have
a date with Gloria Peacock at The Waverly Estate? No shit? Are you
serious?”
    “ I am dead serious and I cannot wait,”
Lilly screeches.
    “ Me either! What are we going to
wear?”
    “ Sundresses,” Lilly says definitively,
“sundresses and heels.”
    “ I am not wearing heels,” I retort,
“but I will wear some nice sandals.”
    “ Then you should wear a strapless
dress,” she says and swings her hair around like she’s posing for a
photo shoot. “I’ll wear heels.”
    “ That sounds good.” I take a deep
breath. “Maybe this is a good sign. Maybe this means that this
whole damned mess is going to work out somehow and everything is
going to be okay.” I nod my head. “I think it’s a good
sign.”
    “ Uh, yeah,” Lilly agrees, “when the
richest woman in six states joins your team, it’s hard to imagine
you’re gonna lose!” She looks at me and smiles, “Now let’s go stalk
some whores!”
    “ Hell yeah!”
    She grabs her little net book out of her
gigantic hobo bag and flips it open.
    “ Okay,” she mumbles as she pecks at
the keyboard, “it appears that Dick Richard is heading toward
Tupelo.”
    “ Well, let’s go,” I say and we’re
off.
    We spend the afternoon following Richard
Stacks the Fourth all over Tupelo and, all in all, it was a pretty
dull run. After stopping by three different businesses and two
banks, he went to the mall where he emerged with bags from Ann
Taylor Loft and Barnes & Noble.
    “ Books and clothes,” I say flatly,
“wonder who those are for?”
    “ The new John Grisham book came out
this week,” Lilly says, clearly as bummed as me, “and you know
Chloe has the entire collection in hard back.”
    “ Great,” I say and we follow him to a
liquor store and then to a flower shop from which he emerges with
an arm load of yellow roses.
    “ Do you think he could possibly be
going to meet some whore tonight?” Lilly asks, but I can tell by
her tone she knows that’s not the case.
    “ Anne Taylor clothes, books, yellow
roses, and a liquor store bag that most certainly contains a bottle
of that really expensive wine she likes,” I mumble and shake my
head, “you know he’s going home.”
    We watch in total disappointment as the
black dot on the net book screen inches up Highway 45, veers off to
the left, and then stops. The address pops up as 309 Parker Drive.
Home of Richard and Chloe Stacks.
    “ Shit,” Lilly says and closes the
computer. “What do you wanna do now?”
    “ Let’s go see a movie,” I say. “What
time is it?”
    “ Three o’clock,” Lilly answers, “just
in time for the early show.”
    24
    When we leave the movies, the black dot
hasn’t moved.
    “ What the hell is she doing?” I ask
Lilly. “Why does she stay with him? I mean, what’s it gonna take?
What is it going to take to get her away from that shit
bag?”
    “ She’s gonna have to make up her mind
herself, Ace,” Lilly says, “simple as that.”
    “ That’s why we have got to have more
than just that one picture,” I say and tap on the steering wheel to
emphasize my point, “to help her make up her mind.”
    “ Honestly, Ace,” Lilly says quietly,
“I don’t know if a hundred pictures just like that would make any
difference to her because, in her mind, she’s doing the right thing
by staying true to her vows.”
    “ Wasn’t that the story she gave us
last time? The last ten times?”
    “ Yep,” Lilly answers, “but last time
she didn’t lose a child.”
    “ What the hell else would