Shopping for a Billionaire 4(18)
Author: Julia Kent

Normal respiration resumes. By the time I’m okay, Chuckles has moved on to peeing on a plant, a doorstop painted like a bunny, and someone’s stray Target bag filled with dish soap. Equal opportunity sprayer, he is.

He hates everyone equally.

“Jessica Coffin made you choke!” Amanda declares, trying to be funny. She fails.

“Why did you shout her name?” I ask. The words make sense to me, but everyone acts like I just spoke in Farsi.

Somehow, Amy understands what I’m asking and repeats it.

Mom frowns. “We can talk about that later.”

“Now,” I croak.

“Okay, well…” She really doesn’t want to say this. “When you’re recovered.”

I drink all the water in the glass she’s given me, heart slowing down. “Thank you,” I say to Amy with as much gratitude as my damaged voice can muster.

“Anytime.”

“This makes up for the Barbie,” I say in a shorthand only siblings understand.

“Finally!” She throws her hand up like an Olympian winning a gold medal. “It only took fifteen years and near-death!”

“That was my favorite Barbie,” I rasp. We share a smile. I inhale deeply and turn to Mom.

“Jessica Coffin?”

Amanda points at Mom. “You’re right! Perfect!” The two share a look that goes right over my head.

“Care to share?”

“She’s the hoity-toity gossip queen. If anyone knows what happened to Elena, it’s her. Or her Mom. They both use gossip like it’s currency.”

My throat nearly closes up again with the implications of what they’re saying. “You want me to go and see Jessica Coffin to pick her brain for the answer to how Declan’s mother’s death is connected to his dumping me?”

All three of them nod.

“You are all in a folie a deux. A tres,” I amend, because all three of them are nuts.

“What’s that?” Amy asks.

“It’s French for ‘batpoop crazy,’” Mom explains.

“You speak French?”

“No. But you’re not the first person to use that phrase with me.”

“And I won’t be the last.”

“If you don’t see her,” Mom threatens, “I will.”

I give her a dark look. She’s unpredictable enough to do it. The shock of seeing Jessica with Declan in Northampton was bad enough. The woman is pure, social media evil. But Mom and Amanda have a point. If there’s some secret, some lynchpin to understanding what Declan’s mom’s death has to do with his breakup with me, then…

“Give me my phone.”

And with that I tweet the only woman in the world who resembles my old Barbie.

Before its head was roasted on a stick.

Chapter Ten

“You told me this would be a bunch of hot men running around covered in mud while scaling wooden walls like they do in Army basic training camp commercials,” I grouse as I fill the 1287th paper cup with Gatorade. Amanda is slicing oranges and shoving them into little paper cups that will be summarily squashed by the fists of runners and flung in our faces.

And we have to cheer for those same people.

“Amy said that if we volunteer and hand out rehydration we can go to all the after-event parties and meet cool people,” Amanda explains. A bee begins to hover over her hands, lazy and drunk, and I back away slowly.

We’re at this 10k running event in downtown Boston, surrounded by a crowd that cheers on the runners. Amy’s one of the athletes, and Mom and Dad are somewhere nearby, Dad with a camera so big and old it might have a black cloth you have to drape over it, and Mom’s wearing four-inch high heels that scream I Am So Not a Runner.

The race is for a charity run to raise money for some medical condition I’ve forgotten already. The runners shoot through mud runs, climb crazy ropes courses, and engage in a manufactured obstacle course that is carefully cultivated to generate maximum filth and photogenic fun.

I just came to help out because Amy’s on my case about turning into one of those women they profile on a cable reality television show, the kind with three hundred dolls in a living museum in their basement, or the woman who grows her fingernails out so long she can pick locks across the street.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” I say softly. Amanda jerks suddenly at the sight of the bee, and I step backward slowly, sticky hands in the air.

“You have your EpiPen?” she asks, giving me a concerned look.

“Three.”

“Three?” As if on cue, two more staggering bees come over and give the air around her hands an ominous feel.

“Mom’s new thing. And the doctor wrote the prescription out happily.” I back away and head toward the building where the runners all register. I know there are volunteer spots in there to help with answering questions, directing people to bathrooms, helping with finding outlets to charge dead mobile phones, and to listen to people complain about everything from the dye in the Gatorade to questions about whether the oranges have GMOs in them.

Ah, Boston. Don’t ever change.

I can’t avoid bees and wasps in May in New England. Impossible. Unlike Declan’s brother, I have no desire to live my entire life in some self-created bubble where I never go outdoors, never feel the sun shine on my skin. Being fully aware and carefully prepared for stings and medical responses is one thing; never taking the tiniest risk and being unable to enjoy the vast majority of what it means to live a rich, fully human life is quite another.

A pang of sadness fills me as I make a beeline (pun intended) for the bathroom. Declan. He was the cornerstone of what I thought would be that kind of life, one filled with fun and hope and love. I set the feeling aside like an errant child who needs to be put on Time-Out. I go to the bank of sinks to wash off the sugar.

The past week has been one long string of rejection, starting with Jessica Coffin, who completely ignored my direct message on Twitter and my carefully worded email through the Contact Us form on her website. Nothing. Nada. My dreams have shifted from sexy times with Declan to pitchforks and torches, Barbie heads on spikes and ogres noshing on jointed Barbie legs.

The new system at work that Josh carefully designed has been spitting back every single report my shoppers submit, and Chuckles hates my guts even more, refusing to sit in my lap after I hocked up a chocolate projectile and gave him the kitty version of a black eye.

I can’t win.

Scrubbed clean and no longer a bee or wasp magnet, I walk out to a long hallway and look up to see Declan and his brother, Andrew, standing at the end.