The Mix-Up Ch. 04

By the time he reached his limo, his heavy panting fogged the tinted glass.

"Hit the 190, Leo," he said to his driver. He wiped his face with a fine linen from the well-stocked wine cooler. "I got some studying to do." The driver knew all too well what that meant, raising the glass barrier between them. The hunchback fished the picture of Taryn from his pocket.

~~~~~

Lester's drool leaked all the way to the car floor when he abruptly snorted awake, grasping his green shirt and smearing his spittle off his face as best he could. His feet kicked outward. Where the hell was he? A vast empty highway stretched around him, dotted by trees on the horizon. The last thing he remembered he'd been driving and on a roll delivering orders.

"Zero left, zero left. Powering down, goodbye." The Tesla's console flickered and turned black. Cold food orders sat in Styrofoam boxes in the passenger seat. He glanced down at his oversized watch - 6:37 PM. No way it was right. His timer since he last ate blinked 5:13. Five hours? No wonder his stomach rumbled. He shoved Long John Silver's biscuits into his mouth and flushed it with his flat soda from hours before.

He had several missed calls and texts, including one asking when their seafood would arrive. He crunched a crab leg with extra relish.

"Not today, that's for damn sure," he mused, drops of tartar sauce trickling down his unkempt beard and staining his grungy bedsheet. He waved a flabby arm at a passing school bus to ask where he was, but it roared by. It read Fulton Kentucky Public Schools on the side. He frowned.

That's a long ass trip for a football game. He didn't recognize the highway around him. A dump truck was the next passerby a few minutes later. Only after Lester's frantic arm flapping did it pull up next to him. Its blue Kentucky plates were fading their way to grey. His heart sank. The driver leaned his head out and spit a healthy wad of dip on the simmering asphalt.

"Bub, you out of gas? I can give you a lift, but not in the front - company policy."

"How far to Little Rock?" Lester asked. The driver looked on dumbly.

Lester clenched his fists. "The hell with your company, I ain't getting' back home in the back of no garbage truck!"

Its big tires eased forward. "Suit yourself, bud. Best I can do is get you to Union City - in the back."

With nothing but circling vultures above and limitless yellow lines reaching toward the horizon, Lester threw his hands up. "Aw hell! Shoulda known a Tes-Ra was good for nothin'! Wait - wait up!" Exhaust belched into his face. He coughed, scowling as he raised his elephantine leg against the back bumper. His ragged shoes rose an inch off the ground. He pointed to his knees.

"Damn Grenada, air drops ruined 'em." The operator nodded, hiking his sleeve to show his own army airborne tattoo with its double As back-to-back. He rolled the truck back. The side crane extended in robotic suddenness, its hydraulics groaning as they lifted the squirming Lester and dumped him in the back. The whole truck shuddered at the 400-pound deposit of human lard, his sprawling mass landing on the Fulton bakery's bags of recently spoiled flour. The resulting powdery cloud blew out the top of the truck and caked Lester in flour from head to toe.

"Dammit I can't see back here!" His call went unheeded above the roaring engine as the truck jostled down the highway. He blindly patted around and wiped his face with what he hoped were napkins. His sausage-sized fingers pecked out his boss' number by memory from all the mornings of waking up late from his late-night jerkoff sessions. He coughed, flour tickling his throat.

"Hoss I'm in a garbage truck - yes - mhmm, the back - yes - yes - uh huh - in Kentucky. Er - yeah, I delivered the crabcakes..."

He picked his nose during the pause. "What! Well, they're lying! Oh, come on, I ain't on strike 3! That's not how baseball works! You ain't given me any balls!"

His flour covered face contorted to a rageful purple. "'cause that's you ain't got any balls ya little soy boy!" He snapped his flip phone shut and clutched his thin wad of bills close.

~~~~~

At her dad's house, Taryn's phone buzzed at the end of her old bed. She'd watched it with mild amusement as it slid closer to the edge before she snatched it and plugged it in. The battery dropped to 4%, drained by unceasing texts since she'd made her last Instagram post an hour ago. The list of comments began with a string of blue checks - the verified accounts of her Ford Agency sisters who came out in force.

"Cutie!"

"Ow OWWWW, Taryn this is so HOT."

"OMG, you're slaying it."

And way below, Amy chimed in:

"All y'all stay away from MY BESTIE! <3"

She smirked. The post wasn't even that good. Definitely not a thirst trap like Amy posted sometimes. It was of her outfit at the Opera, the red dress that clung to her every feminine curve. Discerning eyes would have noticed the premium silk and fit was from the Cattarossi Spring Collection, officially unreleased due to the fashion show cancellations of COVID. The same girls who sang her praises in Instagram comments would have breathlessly gossiped about her for being in talks with one of the premium Italian luxury brands so early in her career.

Her phone buzzed again. The baseball player from her recent date had been texting her increasingly despondent messages the last few hours. She'd seen the routine after other dates, how guys attempted to sound carefree and unworried while their chances with her dried up. She didn't enjoy it. Even if Amy loved gossiping about boys, Taryn placed it somewhere between bikini waxing and going to the dentist.

By the time he texted 'Are you alive?' she sent a short "Thanks for the date, I'm not feeling it" reply and deleted his number, purposefully repressing the activities she'd done that night after their date.

Her phone rang immediately, but she let it ring out. She sighed. He might call her a stuck-up bitch to his friends. Was she going to have to block him? Unfortunately, it'd become frequent on Instagram or TikTok for guys to shoot their shot at the hot blonde with unearned bravado. The baseball player's nervous date performance was still probably better than 99% of them could ever have hoped for with Taryn. Most were polite. But those other few... dear lord. Vile didn't describe it. One told her he'd make her into a baby factory. Another message offered to feed her sweets nonstop, transforming her from 124 pounds to 340.

She shuddered, mostly grossed out but also curious how someone knew her weight to the pound. Do I have a creep watching me weigh myself? Thank God they locked up the last one. She scrolled to another message. It simply said 'LOVE the dress. Is that Cattarossi??? Are you signing with them?? If so, congrats!'

Aw. It was her first model mentor she'd reached out to in Little Rock earlier that summer. She needed to give her a call and catch up.

The next message said they fantasized about being her, having her "perfect" body. She frowned. What does that even mean? She clicked on their username, which took her to a picture of a sparkling green geode on a black background. No posts or followers, but they followed her.

By the time she read a blurb from a short-haired, plaid wearing lesbian about how she wanted to take the shine off her, Taryn tapped a manicured nail against her head. She prayed she'd forget what the messages said lest her pretty lips spill their vileness during a bout of hormone-fueled lust.

She dialed Mr. Redding and leaned back on her bed. Up until a few months ago, after graduation, she'd stayed in this room. The can of hairspray sat innocently on her dresser. She blushed and turned away. The call rang through and as she headed out the door, Mr. Redding's number flashed on her phone.

"Taryn, dear, if I could parallel park one handed, I'd never miss a call. I have news."

She smirked, imagining him in a three-piece suit parking an ancient British roadster.

"Ca--"

"Do you--"

Their voices talked over each other for a second.

She laughed. "How many posts do we need to do on Insta? The other girls are doing like tons more than me, and I don't want to get in trouble."

He took a more serious tone. "Taryn, you don't need to worry about the other girls, because as I was about to tell you, Cattarossi called. Forget about their posts. He apologized for the last go, and should you choose, he just sent over the biggest contract offer Ford's gotten this year. The original number was $600,000. I guess the extra $200,000 was an apology. Or you're a good negotiator."

Her face burned. She should have been more excited, but she knew what could happen around a disgusting pig of a man when her hormones surged. The windfall felt more like a curse.

"Let me think about it, okay?" She paused. "I don't want to seem like a brat or anything..."

He quickly asked about her dog and soon the two said their farewells. How am I am ever going to explain that? That he heard Lester's snorting sounds when we were fucking and assumed I have a dog.

The moving boxes from her apartment piled in the corner. Her anger at her apartment's response to Lester and Gary flared in her mind for a moment. I wouldn't be sitting here if they could protect their damn residents, and it's all their fault. As she went downstairs to her car, she noticed a piece of paper stuffed between books in one of her dad's moving boxes. Not used like a bookmark on a half-read book, but as if it'd been hidden. Odd. It looked like any normal bill, but her eyes widened at its contents.

Andrew Addington c/o Elizabeth Addington

Baptist Health Medical Center

Outstanding Balance: $527,082.21.

Her throat tightened as she leaned against the wall. Her dad had done everything for her mom Liz, holding her hands and paying for every experimental medical treatment, staying up night after night with her as cancer chipped away at her health. By the end, the twinkle in his eye was replaced with dead eyed grief. He'd taken his wife out to the oak tree they'd planted in the front yard twenty years before for one last picnic between lovers.

A tear smudged her mascara and ran down her cheek. He's been through enough. My turn to help him. No wonder he's moving, he can't afford to live here anymore. The lump in her throat grew when she called Redding back.

"I'll doing it. I'll sign," she said. She breathed deeply, gazing out the window at her parent's tree. "I want you with me for every meeting with him," she blurted. "No alone time, nothing sketchy. Can you get that in the contract?"

"I'm sure if he agrees, of course... Taryn, are you okay dear?"

She raised her chin, fighting the tears sure to come.

"Sure. I gotta run."

~~~~~

A couple days later, Lester stumbled out of a pickup truck and handed his last dollar bill to a Mexican roofer. He tried a few times to remember the code to get into Gary's apartment before finally throwing his hands up. Two women with buzz cuts walked by, giving him curious looks. Women that he normally would have lingered his gaze on, fantasizing about, but the old boy's eyes barely stayed open. After hitchhiking 280 miles, every inch of his body ached. The countless highway miles in the back of assorted vehicles exposed him to fierce winds, new shreds in his bedsheet exposing one of his sagging, pepperoni-sized nipples.

After a little wrestling with the door and a lot of body lean, he burst through and slammed it flat against the floor, again falling in the entrance of Gary's studio. His ears rang from the explosion of wood and his weight slamming into the floor like a crashing anvil. The splintered wood crunched under his weight.

"Dammit to hell!" he hollered, slapping the floor, glass shards sticking to his hands. Out of money and patience, Lester's blurry eyes fixated on the ceiling, the paint cracks morphing to faces that spoke to him. He thought of his sign on his RV that he'd made during the many hours he had alone.

Be better. How many times life hadn't gone his way... Picking a glass shard from his bleeding hand, he sniffled, and then blew his nose into his billowing shirt, the discharge making a dark, sticky circle.

Be better. He'd read it on a bumper sticker at the body shop as he flipped through the dirty magazines he'd brought. The phrase lingered in his mind on all the solitary food trips, as his brother's words had. That he'd been bad news for everyone he'd ever met. It was true. His friend Gary was languishing down in the Forrest City Pen because of him. The little perv never would have made it into the girl's apartment without the key Lester gave him. It was time to make amends. His big hand engulfed Gary's plastic Yoda phone.

"Forrest City Correctional Facility, Sherese speakin'."

"It's me, Les." There was silence. "- uh- Lester Burns--"

"Lester! My goodnis' gracious. I was prayin' you'd call, your little friend almost got hisself killed today. Told the Mex'kins he was in here for stealing panties or something."

Lester shook his head. "Little twerp hasn't even been in for a week! That little..." He steadied his breathing. "Just let him know I'm gonna get him out next week."

"You're gonna make his day, you know. You wanna talk to him, hun?"

"Not really."

"Alright... alright, you take care then."

Lester studied himself in the mirror. He had to take a step back to fit his stomach folds in the reflection, his bedsheet streaked with flour and snot. He looked like the Jolly Green Giant had found crack. Hot summer night air blew in where the door used to be and flipped the few strands of his hair on end.

"Be better," he whispered. He had no job, a damaged car in the shop, no money, a littering fine due, a friend to bail out of jail, and a brother who hated his guts.

"I got a hell of a lot to work on." And where to start? The bubbling fish tank drew his lumbering steps. His pockets were empty of their usual KFC crumbs.

"Not my first choice either, boys," he said, dumping a dash of the gluten-free fish food in the tank. The pieces drifted slowly down in random angles. The largest fish approached it with a casual movement of its tail before flashing away.

The few hours of Lester's corrupting influence had done a number on the apartment. A bull in a china shop couldn't match Lester Burns' ability to accidentally break things. The broken video game monitor and splintered door each contributed their share of shattered glass on the floor. Every step crunched. The bedding sprawled over the floor with the mattress well ajar of its original alignment. Tucked within the messy bedding, Taryn's panties were curled into a flimsy ball. The skimpy red g-string sent blood rushing to his face at the thought of their wild night.

That night he worked them down the former cheerleader's legs and her thigh high boots despite her faltering attempts to regain control of herself. His mouth grew dry. And just how damp the lace was when his hands wormed into them. As he was about to pick them up, one of the short-haired women from earlier peeked her head in.

"Um - hello? I'm calling the police."

He whipped around. "Holy hell! Oh - er - no, you see... what happened was..." His mind scrambled.

She put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow.

"Er, the lag bolts on the door were...bad. Stripped clean off." He gestured to the wood splintered door. "I'm a handyman, ya know. Demo ain't always pretty, hun."

"Right." She stared at him. "And who do you work for?"

He scooted the bright red underwear out of view with his foot.

"Uh -" he looked down to the tag on the panties. "Uh - Victoria's Sec - er - my boss Victoria."

"So, you work for a woman?" She seemed pleased. "That quiet guy, the pharmacist - I haven't seen him for a few days. Does he still live here? His car is still there."

A lightbulb went off in Lester's head.

She sure wasn't a good looking broad, but if she wasn't a genius!

That was it! Selling Gary's car would be how he'd get back on his feet! To help others, of course. The flabby pads of his hands rubbed together as he salivated over his potential newfound life of luxury - including all the KFC and Shasta Cola he could ever want. And after he got his Chevette out the shop, he could barge into his favorite gas station and buy the latest Playboy. Two copies.

His lips moved on their own. "One for collectin' and one for cummin'!"

"Excuse me?" She was still there, standing in the entrance of the bombed-out studio.

"Uhh, what?"

"You know there's supposed to be a huge storm tonight and tomorrow, right? I'd get that door fixed ASAP."

"You've said your piece, now run along," he said. He slapped his stomach and flashed his jumbled, yellowed teeth in a smile so vile she stumbled backward. His stomach was still rippling in gelatinous waves when the woman retreated out the entryway.

The skimpy panties slipped from Lester's mind as he overturned a bean bag and opened drawers and cabinets. Where were the damn keys? When the little twerp got arrested, he only woulda had one set... but where the hell where the other ones?

He plunked down on the bean bag, his huge ass bursting it from the seams and shooting its stuffing into the air, some of which drifted into the fish tank. The clock spun a full minute before his raspy panting slowed to tolerable breaths. Sweat trickled down his hairy back into dirt-filled folds that wouldn't see the light of day anytime soon. And how many more minutes did he have before that she-broad returned?

"He wouldn't a been little creep if he'd gone outside, drank real beer, met real women. 'twoulda put a little hair on his chest," Lester muttered. "And not wasted all his money on books. HOLY HELL!" His eyes nearly burst at the limitless volumes of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Kingdom of Arenth crap that were in crisp plastic liners. In the excitement of Taryn sitting on his face and wiggling her ass toward him over the sink, he'd neglected to see a bookshelf sagging under the weight of books. They were everywhere. Lester swept them all onto the floor with three motions of his arm.

On the third, metal bounced off the glass covered floor. Bingo! For once the gods had flipped a coin in favor of Lester Burns. By the time dark storm clouds hinted on the horizon, Gary's beige Volvo and his massive friend were long gone.

~~~~~

Across town at Apartment 204, encroaching lightning lit the curtain drawn windows in frightening brilliance, the glass vibrating with each subsequent rumble of thunder. The darkened swimming complex reflected weakly, big drops of rain breaking the still surface of the pool.

The sticky tape on the moving boxes glinted feebly in the dark. The usually neatly folded plaid blanket on the couch hung on the end before falling off in a heap. Taryn's foot bobbed quickly, and she flipped to her side on the cushions that bore all the comfort expected of a free couch. She squinted at the light of her cell phone, blinking her long lashes several times for her eyes to adjust.

She scrolled back to her Instagram messages. Don't do it. Don't give in. By the time she'd set her phone on the coffee table, she was twisting back for it.

Fuck.

I have a shoot tomorrow morning. Just go to sleep.

Sweat beads formed on her brow. Her collarbones glistened in the low light, and she sighed as she wiped her forehead with her white t-shirt. The urge swelled within her to rip her clothes off to get cooler, twisting naked on the couch to hopefully fall asleep and avail herself of her growing itch that wouldn't go away.