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Authors: Erin Emerson

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BOOK: What Would Oprah Do
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“Listen here, you little bitch,” she seethed, “if I never see you again, it will be too soon.”

Hating that I wasn’t eye level with her, I said, “Alexis, no one likes a potty mouth.”
I kept walking, and smiled as Cooper and I made our way back to the fenced area, where Todd stood with all of the other dogs.

 

CHAPTER 8

Dear Oprah,

I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the girls at your school, who are ce
rtainly more deserving than I am and have a greater need. Despite that, I can’t help wishing that you would adopt me. I feel lost. Look at all you accomplished by the age of thirty-two, yet here I am, a mess on the road to nowhere. I want to be a good person, and I want to do good things. Maya Angelou brilliantly said, “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.” I’m sure you’ve heard this, probably straight from her own mouth. I’m doing my best to follow those pearls of wisdom, don’t let my whining give you the wrong impression. Writing to you helps, bringing strength and clarity during these momentary lapses of weakness.

Regards,

Cate

P.S. If by some chance you do want to adopt me, I am available.

 

After I left the kennel, I went home to clean up before heading out to meet Jill for drinks. After chasing Cooper through the woods, I looked like an unholy mess with a hole in the knee of my warm-up pants and a few scrapes to show for my efforts. When I got to the pub Jill wasted no time, pointing out that life’s too short to needlessly put up with the likes of Alexis. “I know,” I said. “But I’m starting to feel like it’s me, like I have bad juju or something.”

“Juju?
What the hell is Juju?”

“It’s like karma, but for other people...”
I tried to remember where I’d heard the term, and couldn’t recall the source anymore than a way to elaborate on the meaning. “Maybe you know bad juju when you’ve got it. And I’ve got it. I should go down to Little Five Points, find some mystical store and a voodoo woman to fix it.”

“That’s hullaballoo.”
Before I could ask Jill continued, “I don’t know exactly what that means either but while you’re throwing out words like juju, it seems appropriate to me.”

“Well what am I supposed to think? I can’t get anything right these days. I’m an ass clown without a calling.”

“You’re supposed to keep going. A couple of small bumps in the road don’t mean anything. What happened to that long list of ideas you had? Remember? All the things you wanted to do?”

“They all seem stupid now. How did I think I was going to walk into a different life? ”

“They’re not stupid. You need to get back to where you started
and have a little faith in your sign. So what if things aren’t exactly what you pictured? You wanted a garden and time with a dog, and now you’ve got Vivian and Buddy. That has to mean something to you.”

Jill gave me a much needed boost of confidence. We stayed out later than we should on a week night, but trivia was starting and Jill wanted to play. I didn’t have anywhere to be in the morning, and reasoned that maybe we could win our next bar tab since it was getting hard to justify going out for drinks without real income.

The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover, and my despondency had returned. I had nowhere to be, and all of my friends were at work. Instead of being productive, I laid on the couch watching TV. As I flipped channels, I stopped on a Lifetime movie about Coco Chanel. As I watched, sipping coffee, her story unfolded as she started her design business with hats. It was another sign. Jill’s words from the night before kept going through my mind, “Cate, if you want to find the path for you, focus on that. Don’t waste energy on what didn’t work. Think about what you haven’t tried yet.”

Coco started making hats from her lover’s house. Yes, she had a background as a seamstress, but I didn’t want to actually make the hats. I wanted to create jewelry for hats, which could be worn separately or together. I had seen the jewelry that people made from beads
. I could do this! You can’t make people sick from hats, so worst case scenario; it would have to work out better than my last venture. I started making a list, determined to look at every possible angle and prevent any foreseeable problems.

I looked online
for hat wholesalers and settled on a plain black straw hat, perfect with spring approaching. I measured my head, deciding it was average in size, making sure I would get the fit I envisioned. I could get ninety six hats for just under four hundred dollars. I hadn’t factored all of the startup costs into my small budget, but how else was I going to get my new business and life off the ground? After all, the movie showed Coco in her shop without heat, wearing a blanket like a shawl around her shoulders and look at her empire now! I continued my internet search, looking up information on making beaded jewelry.

As I typed, I noticed that the fleshy part of my right palm was tender. Remembering what Vivian had said about watering the garden being too much for her hands, I couldn’t imagine how sore it would be on top of arthritis. I decided to add ‘volunteer free watering service for Vivian’ to my growing To Do List.

There was more than I would have thought to beaded jewelry design: classes, patterns for purchases, downloaded instructions for a fee. Needing to conserve my resources, I decided that a book from Barnes & Noble would give me all the information I needed at the lowest cost.

With Christian’s eye for style, I decided he would be the perfect shopping partner for my beads. I found a bead shop in town and called him with an invitation for drinks in exchange for help with bead choices and a trip to Barnes & Noble. He instantly agreed to help but couldn’t go out for drinks afterwards, insisting that he had to go to the gym. Officially done with my ‘sporty attire’, I dressed for creative inspiration, putting on a vintage Betsey Johnson corset over a fitted long-sleeve tee, jeans and tall boots. We met at the bookstore, where Christian greeted me, “Hello, hot mama! Corset becomes you!”

“Betsey Johnson,” I said, “Or as I like to call her, the woman behind the only brave fashion choices I make!”
Christian perused the fiction section while I searched for the perfect how-to guide. Settling on a book for all skill levels, we were ready to head to the bead store. Keeping in mind that the beads would be against black straw hats, we went for a complimentary mix. I was overwhelmed by the variety: pressed, Venetian glass, cats eye, gemstones. If Christian hadn’t been with me, I probably would have turned on my heels in ten minutes, overwhelmed and empty handed. He made it fun, arranging different styles and shapes on the counter, seeing which colors and textures complimented each other. “Christian, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t think I could do this without you.”

“You don’t need to thank me. This is a blast!”
He held up sky blue faceted ovals, “These are fantastic, Cate! You have to use these.”

I added a few strands of those to my basket and went to the checkout counter with enough to decorate at least thirty hats. As the woman rang them up, I watched the growing total, swallowing hard as I
reminded myself to relax. Two hundred and eighty dollars later, we left the store. “Do you have to go to the gym?” I asked. “Can’t you go tomorrow instead?”

“I’m sorry. I have to go. I didn’t go yesterday, and I have class and work tomorrow.”

I dangled the carrot, the hip bar with incredible sushi, “Are you sure? I’m going to Happy Fingers, right down the road.” Slight guilt, at my attempt to be a bad influence nagged at me. “If you change your mind, that’s where I’ll be, but I understand. Those biceps won’t define themselves.” He hesitated, like he might change his mind, before saying that we would have drinks another time.

As soon as I sat down at the bar I got a text from Christian, ‘The devil wears Betsey Johnson. D
amn near impossible to get into my workout now.’ My sake set down in front of me, I opened my newly purchased book on beading. I had just gotten through the intro when I felt a hand on my back and the presence of a tall man behind me.

A deep voice asked, “Interesting reading?”
Thinking Christian had given into cocktails over the gym, I turned around smiling. My face fell when instead of Christian; the voice belonged to a guy who looked like the cuter Wayans brother.

“Oh no
.” I said, without trying to hide my disappointment. He was my worst nightmare, tall, handsome with a devilish grin.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, slithering into the empty stool beside me. With a smirk on his face, he
might as well have had on a shirt that said ‘Cheating bastard who will charm you and squash you like a bug’.

Not caring that I was already over my budget I said, “No.” and turned my head and tried to resume reading.

“Why not? What’s the problem?” he asked. I felt myself growing angry. Did I have an asshole magnet in my pocket?

“The problem?
I’ll tell you what the problem is! Why can’t you people get it through your heads?”

He stood up. “You people?” he asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what kind of playboy he was.

“A girl can’t sit here with a book without you thinking it’s an invitation? Do I look like I’m trying to make conversation, like I’m not perfectly happy minding my own business? I know your kind, and I don’t want any part of it.”

His eyes narrowed, “My kind?”

“Yes, your kind.” I sat up straight, proud of myself for calling him out on what undoubtedly was his well practiced routine. The old Cate would have been putty in his hands.

“You could have just said no thank you, you racist bitch.”
He started walking away. I sat there flabbergasted. Why the hell would he call me a racist? The exchange replayed quickly in my head. He was half way across the bar before I figured out what he was talking about.

“Wait!”
I yelled. He didn’t turn around, but slightly slowed his gait. I started to jump up, and the book I had put in my lap hit the floor with a loud thud. I yelled, “I meant that you’re a man!” He kept going, and as he walked further away, in a desperate attempt to redeem myself I yelled “I love black people! I do! Ask anybody, ask Oprah!” With that he was out the door, and I was left at the bar with a room full of people, all staring at me.

I went straight to Kay’s. She wouldn’t be home yet, but I couldn’t bring myself to go home and face the emptiness of my condo. Besides, everything is better at Kay’s: bigger place, better food, even her couch is more comfortable and she has a love seat too. I went inside and helped myself to the opened bottle of red she had out on the counter. I went to her back deck, figuring I would smoke and try to calm down until she got home. I opened the door to a loud shriek. Lainey was sitting there.

“Oh shit, Cate! You scared the bejesus out of me! What are you doing here?”

“Sorry, I…I just didn’t want to go home. What are you doing here?”

Lainey smiled. “The same.”

“Are you staying here?”
It occurred to me that with her marriage ending she might have moved in with Kay.

“No, I just had to get out of the house. Everywhere I look there’s pictures of me and Michael, smiling back at me, mocking me like I’m a big joke. I can’t stand looking at them, anymore than I can suck it up and put them in boxes.”

“If you want, I can come to your house and pack them up.”

“Then what?
Where do they go? I’m sure Michael doesn’t want them…and I don’t want to get rid of them. What do I do, take them with me and hide them in a closet?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what you do.”

“I don’t even want to think about it right now
.”

“You don’t have to. Want me to get you a glass?” I asked, holding my wine out.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I would. I was eyeballing that bottle earlier.”

“What were you waiting for? You know Kay doesn’t care. If she did, she would have known better than to give keys to us!”

“I was waiting for five o’clock. I don’t want to turn into a wino.”

“Oh please” I said as I got up and looked for Dean Martin’s greatest hits CD. As soon as I found it I cued it to Little Ole Wine Drinker Me. “If it’s good enough for Dean,
it’s good enough for me.”

“At the rate things are going, I’m going to have to start drinking Vodka and Club Soda again. My ass is getting bigger by the minute.”

“If you want to come with me, I’m going to start taking yoga. I figure the inner peace thing would be good, and I want the yoga body.”

Lainey shook her head, “I’m not joining a gym. It’s too depressing. Every time I’ve joined, I end up paying every month and not going.”

“No, I mean real yoga. You read Eat, Pray, Love. I’m going to an ashram for the real deal.”

“Uh uh, not me, Missy.”
Lainey was emphatically shaking her head. “I read Eat, Pray, Love but more importantly I saw Slumdog Millionaire. You won’t catch me trekking across India to an ashram. That outhouse scene alone was enough for me.”

“Have you lost your mind? They have ashrams everywhere, even in Atlanta. If I had enough money to go on some spiritual quest, I would already be long gone…and not to India, somewhere tropical.”

“Ok, if you actually end up going, count me in for yoga. So what’s new with you? Why don’t
you
want to go home?”

I thought about my day, which even if it had started well, had gone to such shit that I couldn’t bear to talk about it. “I don’t want to talk about it. On a good note, I did get hats and beads to start a new business venture.”
I told Lainey about my plan to become a hat designer, and got the beads from the car to show her.

BOOK: What Would Oprah Do
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