The Enemy (It Happened in Charleston 2)

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop asking myself the same questions over and over. If I had weight trained more? Or not let myself get so comfortable around him? Would it have stopped him from cheating on me? Why wasn’t I enough for him?

A part of me works hard to fend off his callous words while another taunts that Ben wasn’t attracted to me anymore because of the squish on my stomach. Because of the extra Oreos at night. Because of the butter on my toast.

It’s fine, though. I’m fine. It’s in the past, and I’m a new woman. I don’t need a man to make me happy. I don’t even want one.

“Shoot!” Stacy says. “Miss Mable, I completely forgot to have you look at my slip. It’s about three inches too long for my dress and peeks out the bottom. Let me go grab it from my car.”

“Never mind that. I’m taking this dress home to work on tonight, so help me carry these things to my trunk, and I’ll get it from

you out there.”

And any minute now, my clothes will rain down on me like mana from above. Except, I hear the chime above the door, followed by the sound of it shutting behind them.

“Stacy? Miss Mable?” I call out to the empty room.

Well, shoot.

I have two options. 1) Stand here shivering until they return. 2) Make a run for it and retrieve my clothes with my newfound super-speed powers.

Ha ha, like I would ever pick option two! No way, I’ve seen all the movies, and the second my booty is in full view of the front door, Ryan will enter. No, thank you. I’ll turn into a human popsicle before I let that happen.

Just then, the door chimes again, and I sigh a breath of relief. “Stacy, you jerk! You left me in here naked without my clothes! Just for that, I get to wear your red dress to the rehearsal dinner.”

I wait for her teasing laugh, but instead, comes a rumbling voice that makes my world tilt. “You’re naked on the other side of that door?”

My stomach drops through the floor. Ryan. Does he have some sort of radar that goes off when I’m in the middle of a humiliating moment? Maybe if I just stay really quiet, he’ll think he was hearing ghosts.

“June?”

I hold my breath.

“June, I know you’re in there.”

Shoot. I need to throw him off my scent. “Umm, no hablo…eagles.”

“Your Spanish is just as bad as it was in high school.”

Time to bring out the big guns. I assume my very best ghost voice this time. “Whattt do you meannnn? I’m just a ggghooossttt.” Someone sign me up for a part in A Christmas Carol because I nailed that ghost voice.

“So, you’re a Spanish ghost now?” He sounds closer. Like he’s leaning against the changing stall door. I swear, if he looks through that crack, I will find a pair of trimmers and shave a stripe right down the center of his gorgeous hair.

“Yessss—I mean…siiiii.” It’s in this moment that I think I might have finally cracked under the pressures of life.

Ryan is quiet for a minute, and I’m hoping that maybe he left. But that’s stupid because I never heard the door chime. I would give anything right now for a magic blue genie to pop out of a lamp and give me three wishes. For the first, I’d selflessly ask to end world hunger. For the second, I’d give Ryan a permanent green booger that always hangs out of his nose. For the third, I’d beam him away to the farthest speed-dating service and lock him in for a million years, forcing him to go round and round a table of prying women until he loses his mind.

“So, why are you naked in there?”

Ugh. Still here.

“I’m not naked.”

“Oh, so I can look through this little crack and find you fully clothed?”

“DON’T!”

“Mmhmm. So, I’ll ask again, why are you naked?”

“Well, I’m wearing my…underclothes, but that old biddy stripped me out of my dress before she and Stacy left me in here to rot.”