In the immediate aftermath of the assault, I expected an apology.
Of course, I assumed it was an accident, an honest mistake made by a trigger-happy Bath & Body Works newbie who would thank me profusely for not bitching to her boss because she really, really needed this job. But I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. There would be no apology, no gratitude from the itty-bitty blonde with the crispy bangs. Only this unmistakable battle cry:
“Die, Mono Bitch!”
Followed by two more shots to the face and one to the chest.
The tiny sniper struck all my important orifices—eyes, mouth, nostrils, ears—leaving me gagging and gasping for air.
“Hell, no!” Troy yelled. “Hell, no!”
At least that’s what I thought he was saying, but who could tell for certain with all my senses clogged by a cucumber-melon fog. Troy took me by the arm to the relative safety of the break room at America’s Best Cookie. I splashed cold water on my face at the Employees Only sink.
“Did you get a good look at the wild animal that did this to me?”
I wiped my nose and blotted my eyes with a rough paper towel. My sight slowly adjusted to the break room’s patriotic décor, a kaleidoscopic riot of red, white, and blue. Troy’s face was still too blurry to read.
I wish I could say I had figured it out at that point. But this was Troy. My trustworthy boyfriend, Troy, who had dependably called me every day, twice a day, during my quarantine. One call before work and a second call after. Like clockwork. Literally. The phone rang at 9:45 a.m. and 6:15 p.m., and Troy gave me a rundown of his day, regardless of whether he had anything interesting to share or not.
“So random, right?”
“It didn’t seem random,” I said. “She screamed, ‘Die, Mono Bitch.’”
“What?” Troy asked. “Are you sure?”
I held my head under the faucet, swished water around my mouth, and spit it out.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“No, it was definitely: ‘Try Melon Spritz,’” Troy replied. “Maybe the mono damaged your eardrums.”
I doubted very much that mononucleosis had damaged my eardrums. And that became obvious enough when I very clearly heard the killer right outside the door.
“I know you’re in there, Mono Bitch!” And then, most significantly, “I know you’re in there, Troy!”
“Troy?”
“Open the door, Mono Bitch!” She pounded furiously on the door. “Open the door, Troy!”
I still hoped against hope that Dr. Barry Baumann had misjudged my recovery. Perhaps I was still gravely ill, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. An aural hallucination had to be the only explanation for what was happening.
“You thought you could sneak around with Mono Bitch, and I wouldn’t find out? Well, guess what, Troy? I’m everywhere!”
“Just give me a second, okay?” Troy pleaded. “I can explain everything.”
Before I could process or protest his request, he slipped out the door to face the madwoman on the other side. There were a few seconds of incoherent shrieking, followed by sudden silence. Against my better judgment, I crept to the door and peeked out the small window. I half expected to see a cucumber-melon spritz murder-suicide crime scene. What I saw was worse.
Way worse.
My boyfriend of two years had subdued my executioner by shoving his tongue in her mouth.
My head got hot and fuzzy, like I was coming down with mono for the second time this summer. I definitely would’ve chosen another trip to the emergency room over this. Okay, maybe I had actually died from the mono and was now living in my own personal hell? Appropriately enough, that was when I heard the creepiest whisper in the underworld.
“Fat-Free Fudgie.”
I turned around and would’ve screamed if I’d had the ability to scream. I was apparently being haunted by a female poltergeist pierced at the eyebrow, nose, and lip.
“Fat-Free Fudgie.”
The monotone was equal parts talking calculator and the teacher futilely taking Ferris Bueller … Bueller … Bueller’s attendance on his titular day off. Her haunted appearance and affect were so at odds with her rah, rah, rah America’s Best Cookie apron that I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of what my life had become. But Ghost Girl didn’t flinch. She kept her tray steady, right under my nose.
“They’re fat-free. And fudgie.” She swirled the tray beneath my nostrils. “Fat-free. And fudgie.”
Her tongue was pierced too. And her ink-black hair was swept up in a hairnet, which somehow enhanced the overall creepy occult vibe.
“Fat-free…” Swirl … swirl … swirl. “And fudgie.”
Troy reentered the room. And he wasn’t alone.
“Cassandra, we need to talk.”
He and the miniature murderess were holding hands. And by that, I mean all four hands, all twenty fingers tightly interlocked in a way that didn’t seem at all romantic, but more like an improvised form of restraint. The assassin smiled at me menacingly, but at least I could see that she was unarmed.
Troy turned to Ghost Girl.
“Zoe, can you give us some privacy?”
“Ms. Gomez,” Ghost Girl corrected.
Troy sighed. “Ms. Gomez, can you give us some privacy?”
Without further acknowledging Troy, Ghost Girl—aka Zoe, aka Ms. Gomez—set down the tray of samples on a nearby table. Then she floated toward me, pressed a cold hand on my shoulder, and whispered what I’d hoped would be words of wisdom from beyond the grave.
“Fat-Free Fudgie.”
I don’t know why I expected anything different.
“Cassandra.” Troy stood straight and tall, projecting the matter-of-fact confidence I’d seen him use to great advantage as the lead attorney for the Legal Seagulls. “Meet Helen.”
My throat collapsed in on itself.
“Helen,” Troy repeated. “Like Helen of Troy.”
Troy had always loved that our names were heavily featured in Greek myths. Troy was the city fought over in the Trojan War. Cassandra was a princess of Troy, who saw visions of the future.
Clearly, I had not seen this coming.
“Helen,” he added, “whose great beauty caused the Trojan War.”
I choked. This Helen was not beautiful. She was tiny and terrifying like a feral Chihuahua with a horrendous home perm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I somehow managed to ask.
“I thought it would be disrespectful to break up with you over the phone.”
“So, this is better?”
He shrugged and sheepishly looked at his feet. Helen bared her yellowed snaggleteeth. She was a smoker for sure. And her receding gums were common for a non-flosser. My parents would be appalled by her poor oral hygiene.
“So, you expect me to be okay with working next to you two all summer?”
Troy and Helen exchanged knowing looks. They released each other from their four-handed death grip, and Helen slid her palms into the back pockets of Troy’s pleated khakis.
“No,” Troy replied. “We don’t expect that at all.”
“Didn’t Zoe fire you?” Helen asked.
“She’s the assistant manager,” Troy said.
I leaned against the wall for reinforcement. Ten minutes into what was supposed to be my triumphant return to the Parkway Center Mall, I’d lost the job, the boyfriend, and—worst of all—the plan.
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
I wanted to return to my blanket igloo and never come out again.
“I’m sure you can get hired somewhere else,” Troy said.
“Maybe another Steve Sanders,” Helen offered condescendingly. “Or at least a David Silver…”
A rush of angry adrenaline shot through me. I seized Troy by the strings of his ABC apron and shook him. Hard.
“You told her? She knows the 90210 Scale of Mall Employment Awesomeness?”
Troy had let Helen in on what was by far one of our best inside jokes. This betrayal was even worse than the kiss or anything else they had surely done together. And by the overly familiar way Helen was massaging his butt right in front of me, I assumed they’d done a lot.
“We never meant for this to happen,” Troy insisted.
“I had a boyfriend when we met.” Helen stopped groping Troy and casually twirled a crusty curl around her finger. “I was only at the Pineville prom because I went with Sonny Sexton…”
This was just about the only part of this whole sordid situation that made any sense to me. Sonny Sexton was legendary at Pineville High for being the first twenty-year-old senior in school history. Obviously, we’d never had a single class together. But I couldn’t avoid passing him in the halls, this denim-on-denim dirtbag who reeked of weed and Designer Imposters Drakkar Noir even at a distance. Sonny Sexton and Helen made sense. Troy and Helen? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“It’s kind of funny,” Troy said. “If you hadn’t insisted I go to the prom without you, Helen and I never would have met.”
My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend rested her head on his shoulder, releasing a brittle crunch of Aqua Net dandruff onto his ABC polo shirt.
“We have you to thank for putting us together…”
For thousands and thousands of years, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, four types of body fluids—or humors—were believed to influence personality and behavior. Bad moods were blamed on too much black bile in the spleen. I got off easy with an IV and six weeks of bed rest. In the fourth century BC, Dr. Hippocrates might have treated a “splenic” temperament by surgically removing the bulging, bilious organ without the benefit of anesthesia or antiseptic. I know all this because Troy left a copy of Apollo to Zeus: Greek Mythology and Modern Medicine in my mailbox as a get-well gift.
Blame a buildup of bad humor for what happened next.
I grabbed the only weapon within reach—the tray of Fat-Free Fudgies—and chucked it directly at Troy. I only wish I’d felt more satisfaction when it smacked him right between his lying eyes.