Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words(29)

I bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing.

“No. No I am not smoking weed.”

“Then there’s nothing for me to worry about. You do whatever you need to do to bring a smile to that pretty face of yours. Even if you have to do it working in a place where they record P-O-R-N,” she says, spelling the word out in a whisper.

I never thought in a million years I’d ever be having a conversation like this with my mother, the woman I thought was incapable of change.

“I can’t believe you actually asked Aubrey to bring you some of her books. What are all those Post-It notes doing in them?” I ask, pointing over to the stack she left on her other seat, where all sorts of multicolored pieces of paper stick out between the pages.

“Oh, I asked her to mark all the dirty parts so I can skip over them. I also bought some pretty rolls of contact paper I’m going to cover them with before I give them to the girls,” she tells me happily.

Okay, so not everything has changed, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. I should probably take this moment to tell her about my podcast, but I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day.

“So, tell me about this Brent person Aubrey mentioned before you got here. Is he single? Does he have a good job? What do his parents do? Does he want to have kids? What’s his last name? I’ll send him a friend request on The Facebook and invite him over for dinner.”





Chapter 14





Heidi’s Discount Erotica, Episode 4


“Welcome to Heidi’s Discount Erotica, do-do-do! I’m going to try something completely different for this podcast: no wine. I know, I know, it won’t be as magical as the other three previous podcasts, but at least I won’t make any poor choices when it’s finished. Hopefully.

“Anyhoo, I see I have a bunch of new listeners since my last podcast, which is just crazy. I don’t know where you’re all coming from or why you’re here, because honestly, this thing is a train wreck, but welcome! And I’m sorry if you only tuned in because you heard from a friend that some awkward woman does nothing but drink an entire box of wine and then records herself rambling nonsense, mostly about her good-looking neighbor who is way out of her league. Don’t worry; there will still be rambling. It’s what I do. But for the time being, the wine is safely locked away in the back of my fridge, behind the jar of pickles that is roughly two years old that still has one lonely pickle floating in the juice that I will never eat and will also never throw away, because that’s just wasteful, and the Tupperware container that could be leftover spaghetti from three months ago or homemade slime I made for one of my classes and forgot to take to school when I still worked there. The color suggests slime, but it could really go either way at this point.

“Let’s see. What’s happened since my last podcast a week ago? Oh! Yes! Well, my mom now knows where I work. It went much better than I expected, and she’s actually reading some of the books that are recorded at my place of employment. Well, she said she would read them, and she seemed really excited about it, which might be for the best since some conversations with your mom are better left un-had.

“Meanwhile, I know you’re expecting an update on my hot neighbor. Well, I don’t think I told you guys about how I tried to kiss him and it ended very, very badly. Let’s just say, at the end of the last podcast, I sent him a text I shouldn’t have. He came over to make sure I was okay, and wine made me go in for a kiss and accidentally punch him. Now I’m back to hiding in bushes whenever I come home and he happens to be outside, because the thought of making eye contact with him again after the last time I saw him makes me want to throw up a little. I spent three hours in my hydrangea yesterday afternoon, and today I have scratches in places no woman should ever have scratches because of that stupid bush.

“Another listener named LoveMyBoo4Ever commented on my last podcast, ‘What’s the worst that could happen if you just ask sexy neighbor out?’ Um, well, he could say no! He could laugh in my face. And then I’d have to move, and I really, really like my cute little bungalow and the street I live on. I don’t want to move. But I also can’t live like this. I need to be bold and fearless. My mother knows what I do for a living now, and I didn’t spontaneously combust when she found out. I know I won’t actually die if I face him again, but it sure feels like it right now.

“Which brings us to today’s reading assignment, given to me by my new friend, which will hopefully get me back on the bold and fearless track. Have I mentioned to you guys that she’s an author? She’s in the middle of writing a new book and gave me an excerpt from one of the chapters she just finished for me to try out. So, here goes.

“Ahem.”

*Cough, cough.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. I can do this without wine. Just read it really fast and get it over with. Don’t think about the wine in the fridge behind the lonely, old pickle and spaghetti slime. It’s probably fermented by now and doesn’t taste good. Who wants to drink wine that doesn’t taste good? Certainly not me.

“Ahem.”

*Cough, cough.

“Do you think wine gets sad if you don’t drink it? I mean, I know it doesn’t have feelings. That’s just ridiculous. But when I was little, I had a huge collection of stuffed animals in my bedroom. Probably around two hundred, littering every surface. I remember going to school and almost crying, because I just imagined them sitting on my bed, being all sad and lonely that I left them there and wasn’t home to play with them. I swear I could hear their little cries of pain all day long. What if that box of wine is in my fridge, crying? It’s so cold and dark in there, and it doesn’t understand why I’ve abandoned it.