The Opportunist (Love Me with Lies, #1)(3)

Around midday, I roll out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom. There is still electricity despite the category three hurricane that is rattling my windows. I take advantage by running myself a bath. As I sit in the steaming water, I replay the whole thing in my mind for the millionth time. It all ends with, he forgot me.

My pug, Pickles, settles herself on my bathmat and watches me carefully. She is so ugly, I smile.

“Caleb, Caleb, Caleb,” I say it to see if it still sounds the same.

He used to have a weird habit of reversing people’s names when he heard them for the first time. I was Aivilo and he was Belac. I thought it was ridiculous, but eventually I found myself doing the same thing. It became a secret code that we used when gossiping.

And now he didn’t remember me. How could you forget someone you loved even if I did rip his heart to shreds? I pour some vodka into my bathwater. How was I ever going to get him out of my head now? I could make being depressed my full time job. That’s what country singers did. I could be a country singer. I belt out a couple verses of “Achey Breaky Heart” and take another swig.

I pull the chain to the plug with my toe and listen to the water gurgle into the drain. I dress and plod to the fridge, with the cheap liquor sloshing around in my empty belly. My emergency hurricane food supply consists of two bottles of ranch dressing, an onion, and a block of sharp cheddar cheese. I cut up the cheese and onions and toss them into a bowl pouring fat free ranch over the top. I put on the coffee pot and hit play on the stereo. In it was the same CD I had given to Caleb in the Music Mushroom. I drink a lot more vodka.

I wake up on the kitchen floor with my face pressed into a puddle of drool. In my fist is a picture of Caleb that has been ripped and taped back together. I feel pretty damn good even though there is a mild throbbing in my temples. I make a decision. Today I was going to start from scratch. I was going to forget what’s-his-name and buy healthy crap to eat and move on with my damn life. I clean up my drunken mess, pausing briefly to toss the torn and taped picture into the trash. Goodbye yesterday. I grab my purse and head to the nearest health food store.

The first thing that the healthy crap store does is puff patchouli scented air into my face. I scrunch up my nose and hold my breath until I pass the service desk where a girl my age is snapping gum and meditating behind a counter.

Grabbing a cart, I head for the rear of the store, pushing past the bottles of Madame Deerwood’s Aura Cleanser (it doesn’t work), the eye of newt, and the bags of Gota Kola.

As far as I am concerned, this is a normal grocery store and not a supply haven for every new age weirdo in a twenty mile radius. Caleb and I were never here together, making the Mecca Market a memory free zone for me.

I throw some seaweed cookies and baked chips into the cart and head for the ice cream aisle. I pass a woman wearing a shirt that says, “I am Wiccan, see me Broom.” She isn’t wearing shoes.

Turning down the ice cream aisle, I shiver.

“Cold?”

I swing around so fast my shoulder upsets a display of waffle cones. I watch in horror as they crash to the ground, scattering and skidding like my thoughts.

Caleb!

I watch him pick up the boxes one by one, stacking them in his free hand. He smiles at me and I get the feeling he is amused by my reaction.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”



So polite. And there was that damn accent again.



“What are you doing here?” The words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them.



He laughs. “I’m not stalking you, I swear. Actually, I wanted to thank you for the music suggestion in the store the other day. I liked it—a lot actually.” His hands are in his pockets and he is bouncing up and down on his heels.

“Wine,” he says, spinning his thumb ring with his forefinger. He used to do that when he was nervous.

I stare at him blankly.

“You asked me what I was doing here,” he says patiently, as though he were speaking to a child. “My girlfriend likes this wine and one can only get it here…Organic.” The last word makes him laugh.

Girlfriend? I narrow my eyes. How is it that he remembers her and not me?

“So,” I say casually, opening one of the coolers and grabbing the first thing I see, “You remember your girlfriend?” I was trying to sound nonchalant, but I couldn’t have sounded more strangled if he had his hands around my throat.

“No, after the accident—I didn’t remember her.”

I feel a little bit better.

I immediately think back to the first time I set my blues on her, three years ago when I was performing the ritual of post breakup spying. I decided that I needed to see my replacement for closure. It was crazy really, but we are all entitled to a little bit of stalking.

I wore my grandmother’s red derby hat because it had a ridiculously wide rim that would hide my face, and it was as melodramatic as my personality. I took Pickles for support.

Leah Smith. That was the little beast’s name. She was as rich as I was poor, as happy as I was miserable, as redheaded as I was dark. He met her at some swanky party about a year after we broke up. Apparently, they hit it off right away, or maybe he hit it right away, I can’t be sure.

Leah worked in an office building ten minutes from my apartment. By the time I slid my car into a parking spot, I had an hour to spare before her shift was over. I spent it convincing myself that my behavior was normal.