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  THE BADDEST GIRL ON THE PLANET

  The Baddest Girl on the Planet

  Heather Frese

  — BLAIR —

  Copyright © 2021 by Heather Frese. All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Laura Williams

  Interior design by April Leidig

  Blair is an imprint of Carolina Wren Press.

  The mission of Blair/Carolina Wren Press is to seek out, nurture, and promote literary work by new and underrepresented writers.

  We gratefully acknowledge the ongoing support of general operations by the Durham Arts Council’s United Arts Fund and the North Carolina Arts Council.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  This novel is a work of fiction. As in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience; however, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Frese, Heather, 1974– author.

  Title: The baddest girl on the planet / Heather Frese.

  Description: [Durham] : Blair, [2021]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020020219 (print) | LCCN 2020020220 (ebook) | ISBN 9781949467161 (hardback) | ISBN 9781949467383 (epub)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Bildungsromans.

  Classification: LCC PS3606.R47 B33 2021 (print) | LCC PS3606.R47 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020219

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020220

  Contents

  ONE

  Kid Dynamite, 2013

  TWO

  Evolution of a Bad Girl

  THREE

  Part Spell, Part Séance, Part Prayer, 1999

  FOUR

  Dominican Al’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Honeymoon Extravaganza, Sponsored by Dominican Al’s Rum and Fine Spirits, 2014

  FIVE

  The Big Book of Funeral Etiquette, 2015

  SIX

  Bad Dog

  SEVEN

  Postpartum, 2009

  EIGHT

  Women My Brother Has Loved, 2017

  NINE

  Like an Eagle, a Real One, 2016

  TEN

  An Open Letter to Patricia Ballance, 2008

  ELEVEN

  For His Part, 2018

  TWELVE

  Into the Neon, 2016

  THIRTEEN

  How to Stay, How to Go, 2019

  One

  Kid Dynamite

  — 2013 —

  My husband is not the first man to disappoint me. That honor goes to Mike Tyson, who I met the summer I was nine, the summer I left Hatteras Island to stay in Ohio for two weeks with my Ohio friend, Charlotte. Charlotte and I became friends while her family was camping on the Outer Banks, and I was allowed to take a sort of reverse vacation to the hills of Ohio. Charlotte’s family lived in a pretty, white, two-story house with blue shutters and dollops of woodworking around the front porch. I still think about that house and those green, green hills; about how every day seemed green and blue and gold. But maybe that’s just how every day feels when you’re a kid.

  Charlotte lived next door to Don King, and at that time he promoted Mike Tyson, along with a bunch of other guys, who all trained in tents in his backyard. Every day Charlotte and I would gather up her friends Sarah M. and Sarah N. and make the boxers watch us turn cartwheels. They would stop their jump roping and shadowboxing to look at us and applaud, just like they really cared. When I got home I bragged about Mike Tyson to all my friends. I was the toast of the fourth grade for an entire school year.

  Then Mike Tyson raped a girl. Real quick I stopped saying he was my best friend, but kids don’t forget things like befriending rapists. This did not help my social standing. Little girls who are best friends with rapists rarely remain popular. Except for Charlotte, who got off the hook because everyone in her town thought Mike Tyson was a good guy. Still, Charlotte and I stayed close, partly because I didn’t have many other friends. And then, a few years later, just when I thought my Tyson-induced social pariah status had begun to blow over, he bit Evander Holyfield’s ear off. I never mentioned Mike Tyson to anyone again.

  My husband is not the second man to disappoint me in my twenty-three years on this planet, not the third or the fourth, so by the time his disappointments start to really roll in, you’d think I’d be braced for them. You’d think his metaphorical ear-biting would not come as a complete and total shock. You’d think I’d be prepared for it when Stephen says, “Evie, we need to sell the house,” but I’m not.

  “What do you mean, sell the house?” I say. It’s morning and the light slices down through my window into my crazy, cozy little kitchen where I spend so much time boiling and baking and basting as a way to breathe. My house is not big and dollopy, and it does not have a front porch, and there’s not a bit of gingerbread trim anywhere, but it’s white and snug and bright and mine. I think of the morning after we moved in, when Stephen and I sat on the floor and laughed about owning six blenders.

  Stephen leans against the counter like he hasn’t a care in the world. Casual. He eats a bagel. He’s wearing khaki pants, and I wonder if he’s going in to work at his father’s store today. “I was talking to Royce Burrus at your office when I picked you up the other day, and he said we could get a good sum for the property,” he says.

  I squeeze out a dishrag and wipe at the kitchen table, looking down and hoping that Stephen doesn’t see my face color at Royce’s name. I have a tiny crush on Royce. I take a second and listen to the loud commercial blasting from the living room where my son, Austin, is watching TV. “But where would we live?”

  “I’m not saying it’s a perfect plan,” Stephen says. He crosses the kitchen and sits down in front of me at the table. “But we could stay with your folks or mine until the cash clears and then build somewhere.”

  I sit down. This sounds like an okay plan. This sounds thought-out and maybe even mature. But I know Stephen’s teeth are awfully close to my ear.

  Stephen links his fingers together and makes them into a steeple. “We could build on the mainland. It’d be a hell of a lot cheaper.”

  And there it is. He wants to leave the island. Chomp. “Maybe if you got an actual job we wouldn’t be so strapped that we have to sell our home,” I say. I lean forward on the table and my arms get sticky from the damp dishrag.

  Stephen’s mouth tightens. It’s an old argument, and it goes like this—I say, Get a job. He says, I’m staying at home with Austin. I say, You’re never home with him, and I know this because I drop him off at my parents’ every day before I go to work while you fuck around on your Jet Ski. He says, I’m above working any jobs on this island. He doesn’t say it in exactly those words, but that’s what he means, and that’s what he honestly, truly believes. But it’s not below me to answer phones and make coffee and peddle beach houses to tourists every day, because I’m just that low. He believes this, too. I know it.

  Stephen crosses his arms and the sunlight glints off his watch. “I have a job,” he says.

  “Part-time stock boy for your father doesn’t count,” I say. He works in the back where no one can see him and does it out of obligation to his father. His father who basically gave us this house.

  Stephen shakes his head. “Goddammit, Evie,” he says.

/>   “Austin can hear you,” I say.

  “He can’t hear a fucking thing over that goddamn TV.” But Stephen lowers his voice all the same. “I don’t know why you let him watch it so much.”

  I stand up. “You’re the stay-at-home father. Why don’t you monitor him?” I cross to the living room where Austin sits on his knees, entranced by Go, Diego, Go! My son is small and dark-haired, and I’m always a bit thankful that he looks like me. “Come on, kid,” I say, reaching down to pull him up from under his armpits. “Time to go to Grandma’s.”

  Austin has the charming habit of kicking the passenger seat on our daily rides up the island to drop him off at my parents’ inn. I guess if I was strapped down in a car seat, I’d kick too, but it doesn’t ease my annoyance. And I am strapped down, come to think of it, with my own seat belt. “How about you cut that out, buddy?” I say. I glance at the rearview mirror, but Austin’s looking away.

  “I want to hear the Hollaback song,” he says, and I die a little inside. Every day he wants to hear “Hollaback Girl.” This was cute, at first, until he started singing, “I ain’t no harlot snack girl,” and I had to correct him over and over so people don’t think my kid knows about harlots, even though I know he has no idea what it means. He wants it every day. Every day we drive up the same road and listen to the same song, and I think of Charlotte saying you can’t get lost on an island because pretty soon you’ll drive off the end, and right now, I want to drive off the end. But I pop in the cassette I’ve recorded from my dad’s old stereo and think about how Stephen goes jogging every morning with his iPod. And then I make myself think about how I want Austin to grow up with a family, with a mom and a dad and a little white house. A little white house that once held six blenders. A little white house that Stephen wants to sell. The morning is bright and sunny for February, and the Pamlico Sound spreads out in shades of blue and gray and green as Highway 12 passes close to the water. Austin kicks the seat in time to the music. I fumble for my sunglasses and sing along with Gwen Stefani.

  I would not be the first person in my marriage to have an affair. I think about this as Royce Burrus walks in the front door of the office, the little bell jangling his presence. Royce is easily in his fifties. His hair is brown and thin, and he has a small, rounded gut. I find this endearing. I want to rub it like a Buddha belly. I debate whether it would be too forward to tell him so. “Royce,” I say. “You are one sexy son-of-a-bitch. Let me rub your belly.”

  Royce looks startled, yet pleased. This is a notch up from our normal morning routine. Usually, I tell him he’s a beast, and he says I look nice in whatever I’m wearing. Royce crosses over to where I sit at the receptionist desk, puts down his briefcase, and shrugs off his jacket. He smells like the outdoors, and his hair is tousled. Royce props an arm on the tall desk. “How’s my sunshine today?” he asks.

  I feel the familiar zing at his closeness, the stir in my belly and warmth in my face. I think about what it would be like to touch his arm. “I’m mad at you,” I say. I pout up my mouth in a way I hope is cute and sexy.

  “Are you now?” he says. His eyes crinkle and he doesn’t look concerned.

  “Why’d you go and tell my husband we should sell our house?”

  Royce walks around the back of the desk to stand beside me, and I spin in my chair to look at him.

  “I was just bullshitting with him,” Royce says. He draws his eyebrows together. I find this endearing, too. “Does he seriously want to sell?”

  I cross my arms. “Anyone who got that house would just knock it down and build a monstrosity.” And they would, too. A pastel McMansion monstrosity.

  “I’m sorry,” Royce says. “Didn’t mean to put a bug in his ear.”

  Royce reaches out his hand, and I think he’s going to touch my face, and my heart pounds, but then he just smooths his hair and puts his hand back down. I try to breathe. “Get yourself to your office,” I say. “The tourists need you.”

  Royce gathers up his stuff and walks down the hallway. He turns, walks a couple backwards steps, and says, “I’ll make it up to you, cupcake.”

  And I just bet he will.

  Most of the time my job is kind of fun. I make copies and I make coffee and I answer the phone, and when all the agents are busy, I help clients select beach houses. I have a good memory for which house has what feature, and I’m quick at pulling it all up in the database. So when a Mr. John Bo Cook from Roanoke, Virginia, calls and wants to reserve Isle Be Back for two weeks in July, I tell him right away it’s not available.

  “Mr. Cook,” I say, “I’m really sorry, but that house was reserved by someone else three months ago.”

  Mr. Cook is not pleased. He tells me he wants that house. He says, “If you can’t get that house for me, then you’re good for nothing.” He has a raspy, twangy voice.

  I want to tell Mr. John Bo Cook to go fuck himself, but I root through the listings and suggest he try Mullet Over or Nautigull.

  Mr. Cook is insistent. He wants Isle Be Back.

  I click around on the computer a little more. “It’s open for a week in May and a week in September,” I say.

  But Mr. John Bo Cook says it has to be July. He tells me I’m bad at my job. He says, “Listen, you little whore, I’m the client, and it’s your job to make me happy. Right now, you are not making me happy.”

  This hurts my feelings. I’m good at my job. In four years of working at Outer Banks Realty I’ve never had anyone speak to me like that. I’m a little bewildered, to be honest, but then I get past that. Then I get mad.

  “Listen, John Bo Cook,” I say. “You can take your beach house and shove it up your flabby white double-named ass.” And I hang up.

  I stare at the phone and fight the urge to run down to Royce’s office and tell him about it. Luckily, Pansy Friedman comes down the hall at that moment and I tell her about the whore and the hanging up and all of it. I start to worry I might get fired, but Pansy says every once in a while we get one like that, and not to worry, and why don’t I take an extra-long lunch. This is fine with me.

  Without really thinking about it, I head down the hall, out the back door, and down the steps. I forget my jacket, but it’s a nice day, in the high forties and sunny, so I traipse across the scrubby back lawn to my tree. I used to eat lunch here every day when I was pregnant with Austin. It has a low branch that sticks out like a bench, and it’s pretty in the summer when the sun shines through the leaves, but of course there are no leaves now. I pull out my phone and check on Austin. He’s fine and eating cherry Jell-O. I call Stephen.

  “What’s up,” he says.

  “Some guy called me a whore today,” I tell him. I kick at the ground and stir up some dead leaves.

  “Did he know you in high school?” Stephen asks. He laughs. For the second time today, I hang up the phone on someone.

  Most of the time my job is kind of fun, but other times it’s downright boring, especially in the winter. By afternoon I’m skimming the internet, clicking through the news sites and anything else that hasn’t been blocked. I learn about the world’s friendliest countries (Canada, Germany, and Australia). I turn the sound down and watch a video of kittens riding a Roomba, then read about how to dress slimmer. The key, it seems, is to not mix tight with shiny and to stay away from high-waisted jeans. I don’t know why anyone would wear those in the first place. I start to research the slenderizing properties of Spanx undergarments when I hear a rustle behind me and turn around to see Royce. I switch off the computer monitor quick as I can.

  “I promised I’d make it up to you,” Royce says. He holds out a little white take-out box. He smells good and it distracts me.

  “Did you get me a corsage?” I ask. I take the box and shake it. “Is it a pony? Did you get me a pony?” I open the box and ooh. It’s a fat square of baklava from a restaurant up in Buxton run by two eastern European guys, and I don’t care if their country doesn’t make the world’s friendliest list because if there was a world’s b
est baklava list, they’d top it. The first time I had their baklava they’d just taken it out of the oven, and the warm, sweet, honey-flaky crustiness was the best thing I’d ever had in my mouth. “Thanks, Royce,” I say, standing up to give him a big hug. It starts out as a nice, spontaneous crusher of a thank-you hug, but pretty soon I’m all too aware that my nose is buried against his neck, and his hands are sliding down my back, and I really want to grab his ass, but I let go because it’s an open office and anyone could come by.

  “I remembered you talking about it last week,” Royce says, in an aw-shucks kind of way.

  I turn around to my desk and set down the baklava. Then I scribble the words If you want to share, stay late tonight on a neon green Post-it and stick it to his left palm. Royce looks down at his hand, and I just about die from the expression on his face, a mix of surprise and pleasure and confusion, like he’s not really sure what I mean but is intrigued to find out. After he leaves, I sit down and call my mom to see if she can keep Austin through dinner. I know I’ve made the right choice when I see that Royce has stuck a little plastic fork into the box of baklava. I lean back and take a bite.

  Our affair doesn’t have a very interesting trajectory. There aren’t any longing glances and stolen moments, just pretty regular sex in the office after-hours. After a couple of months I decide I’m falling in love with Royce. It’s crazy. It’s not like he can bring me flowers or take me out on a date, but he’s kind, and he walks me to my car afterward. I still think he’s a sexy son-of-a-bitch.

  Everyone knows. Of course everyone knows, or suspects. It’s a small office in a small town on a small island. I make sure not to take the affair home with me, but it’s only a matter of time before Stephen calls me on it. I think the moment has come one night at dinner when Stephen says, “I know what you’re doing, by the way.” He spears a bite of salmon and watches me as he chews.