Sex, Lies, And Online Dating

book.”

Lucy groaned inwardly. Plotting with Adele meant that you came up with suggestions and she never used them.

“Now might not be the best time,” Maddie said, bless her neurotic soul. “I’m having a really hard time concentrating.” Then she turned to Lucy and asked, “Do you really buy fifty pounds of cat food at a time?”

“I think it might be more like forty.”

“No wonder Snookie is so damn fat.”

“He’s not fat. He’s husky.”

Adele laughed at that. “Husky is just a nice PC way of saying he should push away from the cat dish. If he were a man, he’d have to buy his clothes at a big and tall store.”

“You need to put Snookie on a diet.”

“I’ve tried,” Lucy said through a sigh. “But if I don’t get up and feed him when he wants food, he bites my feet.”

Clare looked up from inspecting her fingernail and sort of listed to one side. “Did you know that Costco sells coffins online?”

Obviously it was time to sober her friends up. Time for dinner. “No way,” Lucy said and reached for the phone.

“You’re kidding.”

“Do you have to buy two at a time?”

The next afternoon, Lucy jumped in her Beemer and headed to McDonald’s. Her head pounded, her stomach felt queasy, and the dark lenses of her sunglasses did little to help the pain in her eye sockets. The night before, she’d intended to stop drinking before dinner arrived, but then she’d decided a few more glasses of wine with her meal wouldn’t hurt. After that, everything got really fuzzy. She recalled toasting to everyone’s futures and to Quinn getting a disease, but that was about all she remembered.

She placed her order and drove forward to the pickup window. There was just nothing that cured a hangover better than a Quarter Pounder with cheese, greasy fries, and a Diet Coke. She grabbed her food and ate in her car on the way to the post office. She hadn’t been to her PO box in about two months now, and it was time to check out what might be hiding for her in there.

She pulled into a parking slot and washed down the last of her burger with a swig of Diet Coke. Yeah, she knew. What was the point of a Diet Coke when she’d just scarfed about two thousand calories and one hundred grams of carbs and fat?

Who cared?

She stuck her brown Coach hat on her head and climbed out of her car. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, spring flowers were beginning to bloom. The world was moving on, and she felt so empty inside. Even after stuffing herself with French fries. It just didn’t seem right.

She moved into the post office and opened her PO box. It was crammed with mostly junk mail, which she tossed in the trash. She shoved five reader letters in her purse and headed back home. When she got there, she checked her answering machine, but her voice mail was empty.

“I’ll call you,” Quinn had said, proving yet again that he was a big fat liar. Not that she would actually pick up and talk to him if he did call, but he should at least grovel on her machine.

Lucy yawned and tossed her hat on the kitchen table. She knew she should march her butt upstairs and get to work, or clean her house, or do something productive. Instead she fell into bed and curled up with Mr. Snookums.

She rolled to her side and scratched her cat’s belly as her thoughts inevitably turned to Quinn. Everything he’d ever said to her, everything she believed about him, was as tangible as smoke. Did he actually have a family? Had he really broken his arm showing off for the neighbor girl? Was his wife really dead? Or was Millie an ex-wife or a former girlfriend? Or, God forbid, he was married or in a relationship. Was his name even Quinn, or was that, too, a lie?

Just like everything he’d said, everything he’d made her feel was a lie. It might have felt real. Even now it felt real. It burned inside her chest like it was real, but it wasn’t. She’d kicked men out of her life for various reasons, but at least she’d known those men. Quinn was different. She’d fallen in love with a man she hadn’t even known. A man who’d touched and kissed her because it had been his job. Oh, she knew that he’d been attracted to her. She’d felt the proof of that against her thigh and held it in her hand, but that didn’t mean he cared anything for her. That just meant he was a man.

Mr. Snookums purred and licked her hand. Then, in an effort to make it all better, he pulled out all the stops and head-butted her chin. She wished it were that easy. That a loving head-butt from her cat could take away the pain in her chest, but it only made things worse by reminding her that she was probably going to die all alone with no one but her cat. Her biggest fear was that Snookums would blow through his cat food and turn his hungry eyes on her corpse.

She thought about getting out of bed and getting to work. Instead she took one of the sleeping pills she usually saved for stressful times in her life. Her heart ached and her head pounded and she wanted to sleep until it all went away. She promised God that if he would just help her out with the hangover, she’d never drink red wine again.

She fell asleep until the next morning, and when she woke, she instantly noticed three things. One: She was still dressed in the clothes she’d had on the day before. Two: God had been good to her and her hangover was blessedly gone. Three: Her heart still ached. She wasn’t over Quinn yet. Maybe she should have asked God to heal her heart instead of her head. The only consolation, although not a big one, was the fact that she would never have to see Quinn again.

Lucy changed into her bathrobe, then padded into the kitchen and made coffee. While she waited for it to brew, she fed Mr. Snookums and grabbed the reader mail out of her purse. Three of them had the same typed address and Boise postmark. The others were from California and Michigan. The reader from California praised Lucy’s talent and wrote that she was looking forward to her next book. Lucy set that letter aside to be filed with the other readers whom she planned on sending a note and a bookmark. The writer of the Michigan letter wasn’t so praiseworthy. He pointed out that the trajectory of a bullet’s path in her second novel was physically impossible. He’d drawn a diagram and asked if she did research. Lucy filed that letter in the trash.

She took the three remaining letters with her to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. She checked the date on the postmarks and opened the oldest, which had been sent mid-February.

I’m your biggest fan. I’ve read everything you have written and consider myself quite the Rothschild aficionado.

Aficionado? That was a little over the top, Lucy thought and leaned her behind against the counter.

I’ve followed your career closely and have read all of your books. I am in awe of your talent. You’ve kept me sane when I thought I would lose my mind in this insane world.

You’ve given me hours of nail-biting suspense, and I would like to return the favor. I would like to share with you my own little mystery.

Lucy took a drink of her coffee. For legal reasons, she did not read people’s unpublished manuscripts. She was going to have to write to this person and tell him or her not to go to the expense of sending it. She looked at the envelope sitting on the counter and noticed there wasn’t a return address. Weird.

I am sure you will appreciate my little mystery as much as I’ve always appreciated yours. Quid pro quo, I always say.

My story begins like this. A woman tired of dating losers just out for sex decides to take care of them one by one. Kind of like a vigilante. Ridding the world of perverts and degenerates. Men who can’t commit or who are whiners. Men who beat their wives or girlfriends, cheat on them and scam women out of money, to say nothing of the trail of broken hearts they leave behind. Have you ever asked yourself why nothing bad ever happens to them? Why they are allowed to go blithely on their way to the next victim? Well, something should be done about those men. They deserve to know the pain they cause as they draw their last breath.

At first I thought I would write a book about these dirty men, but I lack discipline. And re-ally, the odds of getting published are so slim. So, I’ve decided to live it instead.

Lucy straightened, and she felt her forehead get tight.

Read the front page of the Statesman dated Feb. 25th. What the paper fails to mention (because