A Sweet Talking Man Spells Trouble
#3 The Girl Gets to Choose
The Girl Gets to Choose is a story about love, in all its messy forms. You can find more of my work on my website.
This is a story about how young love is intense and impulsive, trusting and naïve, and how mature love fulfills a deep need within us. It is about love overcoming obstacles and how friendships are bound together by love.
Most of all, it’s about the importance of loving yourself.
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Rick had a honeyed tongue in more ways than one.
She loved it when he told her how beautiful she was, whispering sweet words as he kissed every inch of her skin. His voice was deep and warm and her heart would race with yearning when he spoke.
He knew how to turn on the charm, even when he wasn’t saying anything important. A special knack for seeing all the angles in every situation let him turn circumstances to his advantage. Calling waitresses 'honey' and addressing men as 'boss' was his favorite technique. If you watched, you could see the effect his words had on people.
Even his way of looking at you made you feel special. Most people stood a little straighter and smiled a little harder when they were around him.
Rick would always get little extras in a restaurant, a larger piece of pie, or extra cream for his coffee. He was a player, that’s for sure. A pool shark. Most of the time he could make a bit of money at the tables. It gave him an excuse to go to the bar. People were drawn to him. They wanted to be part of his circle of friends. It made them feel special.
Alicia fell for him, hard.
When he asked her to move in, she was thrilled to say yes. It was all she ever wanted. A home of her own with a man who loved her. At first, she luxuriated in the warmth of his compliments and caresses. Her concerns were brushed aside with a ‘don’t you worry’ and ‘I’ll take care of you’.
As time passed, she started to wonder whether she’d made the right decision. Rick always made some kind of deal with the new landlord to get cheap rent. They ended up moving three times in 6 months.
Sometimes they had to clean up after a shitty tenant. Other times they did repairs or renovated the place they lived in. It was a good idea- doing work in exchange for reduced rent. But it meant they lived in some pretty sketchy places.
Their new place was a good example. The last tenants had left in a hurry and the place was a pigsty. There was a lot to clean up before they could even think of moving in. Once the garbage was cleared away, the entire place had to be scrubbed and they still couldn’t seem to get the cat stink out.
That night they woke to a screeching and wailing coming from the floor beneath them. That’s when they realized the crawlspace was home to a den of feral cats.
“How do you get rid of problem cats?” Alicia asked everyone she knew.
The solution came from the janitor at work. “Pepper,” he said. “Buy a lot of bulk pepper and dump it where they hang out. They can’t stand it and they’ll leave.” She was surprised and grateful when it worked.
He didn’t seem to notice the bills that came in the mail with red “Past Due” stamped on the outside of the envelope. Sometimes he wouldn’t even open them, leaving them for Alicia to deal with.
Most of the time she would call and ask for more time to pay, especially if they were threatening to cut off their power. No power meant no heat, and it was getting colder.
That was the part she hated the most; the lying. She’d make a promise to pay them, knowing full well that they wouldn’t have the money on time. Then she’d have to call and make another excuse to buy more time.
Sometimes they would move and try to leave the bills behind, but eventually, they would find them and the calls would start again. Sometimes she took a bit of money from the store where she worked. It was risky, but easy enough to do.
Once in a while a customer would buy smokes and pay cash. Usually, they had the right amount, but sometimes they’d hand over the bills and tell her to keep the change. When that happened, she wouldn’t ring in the sale and no one ever noticed the difference.
She told herself it was like being a waitress, taking tips for great service.
The tricky part was getting the cash out of the till and into her pocket. Usually, she waited until the end of her shift, when she did the final cash out. The owners trusted her so they rarely came by to check on her. All she had to do was drop the deposit bag into the safe and lock up.
She hated to do it, but she was so tired of moving and her pay wasn’t enough to take care of them both.
They were watching TV when the lights went out.
“Hang on, I’ll find a flashlight,” Rick said, feeling his way to the kitchen drawer. “It’s probably the storm.”
“The neighbors still have power,” Alicia could see their lights were still on through the living room window. She found a couple of candle stubs and lit them, arranging them on the table.
“Damn hydro, when I called them last, they said we had until the seventeenth. I told them I’d pay them off by then,” said Rick.
When the hydro was cut off for the second time that year, Alicia started to come to her senses. She realized things weren’t going to change.
His spell wasn’t completely broken but cracks were opening up. Little things were fine, but the big things were starting to bother her more.
She hoped things would get better, but there was a little part inside of her that knew it wasn’t going to happen. Faced with a situation where most women would simply leave, she refused to notice the impact things were having on her.
And on her friends.
The final straw came when her girlfriend came to visit. They were in the middle of yet another move and the new place was a mess.
“How can you stand living like this?” Penny said as she hauled another bag of garbage out to the truck. “I wanted to spend my time hanging out with you, not cleaning up some dump of a place.”
Instead of being frustrated that they had to spend most of our time together clearing garbage out of a house, Alicia refused to admit there was a problem. She kept changing the subject, trying to make the most of the situation.
“Í know, I’m sorry, but at least we get to hang out. Let’s have another toke and it will make it more fun.” That was usually Alicia’s solution – get high.
“No, I’ve had enough. I’m going to check into a hotel,” she said. “If you come too, we might have a better chance to visit.”
“There’s so much to do here.” Alicia grimaced as she picked up a mouldy pair of pants and stuffed them in a bag.
“Why is this your problem? I don’t see him here helping.”
That’s true, Alicia thought. Why do I put up with this? He’s probably hanging out at the bar and here I am working my guts out, cleaning up this shithole. It was a wonder she had any friends left at all.
“Wait for me,” she said, “I’ll just be a minute”. She grabbed her things and ran out the door.
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Fun story... looking forward to seeing how it devlops!