Opening it up, she not only broke one of her nails, but she also got a papercut. The stupid thing was sealed up like it held national secrets, she thought. Once she was able to get a tissue on her bloodied finger and tape on her nail, she began reading what had been the cause of so many things she’d have to take care of today.
It read like instructions in putting something together. Not only that, but it was like it wasn’t in a language she even understood. It was in English, but it read like— “A divorce paper.”
Getting to a better place where she could spread things out, she put the paperwork on the dining room table. There it was, she saw—she was being sued. Not only that, but her bank accounts had been frozen, all her credit cards had been cut off, and even any kind of vehicle she might have driven was no longer there for her to use.
Missy needed to call her attorney. How she was going to manage that, she didn’t have a clue. Going to the neighbors seemed her best bet, but in the time she had lived there with Mark and now, she didn’t have any idea who they were. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with them in all this time.
Getting dressed, she had to change her clothing three times before she felt like she could go out and face the neighbors. All the time she was working on making herself look presentable, she tried to come up with a good excuse as to why she needed to use their phone. The power was out sounded the best, but that would only work until the person could see that the rest of the neighbors had power and she was the only one without.
Then there was the added trouble that she didn’t know any phone numbers. She’d gotten into her phone only to find out she didn’t remember the attorney’s name. After finding one number that had the distinguished title of being called “Fucker,” she figured it was him. If it wasn’t, she didn’t know what she was going to do.
When she was finally ready to go, she noticed the woman from this morning was standing at the end of her driveway. Missy asked her if she had a phone she could borrow.
“I do not.” She asked her if she had a phone. “Oh, I have a phone. But none that I care to let you borrow. Are you going somewhere, Melissa? Are you having issues you need help with?”
“What do you know about this?” The woman just smiled at her. “Listen. If you’re not going to be helpful, then I’d like for you to leave me alone. I have better things to do today than to banter with someone who is getting too much pleasure out of my woes.”
“Your ‘woes,’ as you called them, are about to get a great deal worse, I’m afraid. Well, not afraid, since I’m having way too much fun at your expense. But the neighbor, the one you think is going to lend you a phone, she’s not home. I made sure of that for you.” Missy asked her why she’d do that to her. “Why? Because I don’t like you. Not one bit. Not to mention, you’re not a nice person.”
“Why would you say that? You have no idea who I am.” The woman just smiled at her. “Whatever. Stay out of my way, or I’ll mow you down like I do people that get into my way. Stupid people mostly.”
Missy decided she’d walk into town. She had no reason to believe the woman standing in her drive, but for some reason, Missy had a feeling the people next door were indeed gone. Not that she had anything to do with it, but they wouldn’t be home, and she had had enough of wasting her time today.
It wasn’t such a bad walk. Missy enjoyed the fresh morning air as well as the smells that came from people mowing their lawns and such. Since she didn’t know anyone that nodded or waved at her, she did the same back to them. It was something she knew about, having grown up in a small town before marrying Mark.
Mark had been her way out. Missy had liked him well enough. He was a nice man, handsome as well as ambitious. He had courted her, wooed her in a way that made her heart strings pull. But she’d known she would never love him. Missy didn’t love anyone but herself.
She wasn’t stupid either. Graduating at the top of her high school class, she’d also excelled in college. Missy was going to be able to hold a conversation with someone and not just nod and smile. That had been her mother. Mom had been a good wife to her father, but she was also incredibly naïve and dumb when it came to social gatherings. Missy was smart enough to watch the other women and learn from them.
Not that she hated her parents. She’d loved them very much—as much as she was capable of, anyway. Her dad had died when she was seventeen. Her mother had taken it badly and had to be put into a nursing home until she passed away when Missy had been married to Mark. Her parents went out of the world much the same way they’d lived it, without much of a fanfare nor any kind of sadness.
The police went by her on her way into the hardware store, the only place she saw that advertised that they had a public phone. Getting seated in the back of the building, she laughed at the way someone had attempted to decorate the little room. There were fresh flowers in a small vase, as well as several pads of paper and two pens for her to use. Pulling out the phone number, she began dialing it—it was a real rotary phone. Dialing the number,
