Chapter 15

“Life’s a Bitch”

by James Prudden

Yeah, great, but whatever happened to Stacy?

Stacy’s plans were thoroughly shot through, Swiss-cheesed by a pistol-packing muthuh called Fate, while Henry, or Hank, or whatever his name is, ended up fat and happy with no Stacy in sight. Henry dumped her right after Judge Jolene banged her gavel like a cudgel on the head of a miscreant, which is something she secretly loved doing. Banging her gavel that is. BANG, case dismissed! Satisfying, no?

There was something clarifying about the case that left Henry no longer in doubt about the best path for his family: dump Stacy in a nanosecond for being the narcissistic nutjob she is, and do so with alacrity, and maintain and strengthen his relationship with Finn, who he loved more than ever.

And things worked out pretty damn well for a while, thank you very much. Stacy had custody, but Henry got a place nearby and saw Finn regularly.

Finn didn’t grow up to be tall, but he did grow up to be a sinewy exemplar of a fit squash player, thanks to years of indulgences bestowed upon him by the GLA-PACS organization. The many hours of instruction on the game from some of the top coaches in the country, coupled with regular visits from orange-bedecked Princeton players and alumni, helped fire an innate drive to maintain discipline, shape his body and, ultimately, master the game. Finn, inexorably, climbed up the ladder of achievement and became a top player, widely courted by the best universities in the country. (Fred the Red, meanwhile, always big, kept getting bigger, eventually forcing semi-successful bariatric surgery that kept her off the courts but allowed her to indulge her unusual interest in polka dancing—but I digress….)

By the time Finn’s college days rolled around Princeton had fallen well off its perch as the country’s number-one educational destination, while Columbia had taken its place, both academically and in the sport of squash, at which point it had just enjoyed two undefeated seasons in a row. Finn had no trouble picking an obvious winner, shedding his ties to Princeton and choosing to don the light blue of a Columbia Lion instead. By the end of his freshman year he was already playing #2, and from the start of his sophomore year until he graduated he took the lead position, and the team’s captaincy.

Henry was abundantly proud of his son, even traveling across the country to watch him play in a few matches. They were undefeated all four seasons Finn was there, a feat all the more surprising because there were only two Egyptian guys on the team and all the rest were red-blooded Americans!

Finn graduated with a degree in computer engineering, with a specialty in digital visualization and enhancement, knowledge that proved valuable as several divergent schemes to transport humankind to Mars—all of which were hatched by a group of bilious billionaires, anxious to circumvent any governmental meddling—began, much to everyone’s surprise, to look promising. Finn got in on the ground floor.

While Finn was taking steps to ensure his success on and off the court, his dear mum was floundering. When the divorce from Henry was stamped final, she had clearly lost more than she had gained. She got half of their combined wealth, true, but because she was the one caught philandering she did not get any future payments. That was it, and like driving a car out of a dealership, from that moment on her wealth was in decline.

She also lost her job at the drone startup—the gal owners and designers of the GAL-9000 had been replaced by a band of over-confident guys, all of whom also doubled as jerks. Stacy belligerently nicknamed the company Drunkin’ Drone-nuts, perhaps because she had a budding sense of humor, but more likely because she herself had begun to focus on the joys of drink. Eschewing Pellegrino, she found alcohol, when liberally imbibed, proved balm for the soul, and some of the hurt from her precipitous fall dissipated magically away, at least for a while.

She realized for the first time in her life that her position was dire. The first thing she did was to go running to Reid, reasoning that he was a decent guy, always wanted to have her, his marriage to Elena was officially over, and, what the hell, at least they could amuse themselves playing squash.

And their first sexual encounter was indeed a wonderful experience, but before too long their relationship devolved into something closer to slapstick.

Bed sports were noteworthy for Stacy’s alcohol-fueled imagination getting the better of her, once falling off the bed nearly on her face while attempting a complicated position that as far as Reid could figure only increased the burn in his thighs, which was not the place where he would have directed more intensity of feeling. Once Stacy vomited before things could heat up; that sure sucked the romance out of the room. Often she just lay back and drooped her eyelids, a position not conducive to enhanced feelings of love.

Her diet suffered; she just liked to drink. Her weight yo-yoed, gaining an unfortunate 50 pounds not long after she first started going out with Reid, then plummeting as drink began to overtake just about all other pursuits, including eating. Her fitness suffered and she gave up squash.

When drunk Stacy would produce verbal darts that she would hurl at anyone around her, and there were plenty of nights during which Reid felt like a bad imitation of Saint Sebastian, shot through with arrows. It wasn’t too long before Reid’s nascent feelings of doubt grew to be an open wound of festering disgust. The relationship crumbled acrimoniously.

Finn grew aware of his mother’s troubles and distanced himself from her as much as good manners would allow. It helped that they were on opposite sides of the country. He tried to offer verbal support but nothing he said made a difference.

Throughout these events Stacy’s increasingly pickled, demented brain perseverated on the idea of applying some sort of coup de grace on the outstretched neck of either Henry, who she despised for his success, or Cav, whose continued insouciance had seemed to mock the gravity of her own existence.

Both men had had her at her height, when most alluring and most powerful, and both men had ultimately dismissed her. Henry, of course, had been the one who originally was going to be dismissed, but after Judge Jolene’s verdict—BANG!—Stacy was hopeful they could reconnect. No way that would happen….

And Cav felt that his time with Stacy, though a kindred spirit, ultimately had been a waste. Nice sex, stimulating conversations about how best to scam people, but after all that, nothing, so it was time to move on. Stacy’s calls originally went unanswered, but ultimately Cav told her the truth. Stacy slammed the phone down and let out a primordial scream. And then she poured herself a nice stiff one.

Now, a decade and a half after that fateful court decision, Stacy had been forced to move into one of those dark two-bedroom rental units that are liberally sprinkled on either side of the highways around inner Southern California. There to choke down another drink and plot her revenge. Revenge that mandated the death of Henry, or the death of Cav, or maybe even Reid, or what the hell, maybe all three at once.

Now wouldn’t that be something?, she mused. Her unfocused eyes, still a dazzling blue, grew clouded with hate….

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.