It Started with a Snap by Piper James

Fooling Around with Ford

Virginia

“The most wonderful time of the year. What a crock of shit.”

I squeezed my eyes shut against the bright Florida sunshine, berating myself for being such a Debbie Downer. Christmas was a perfectly wonderful time of year. In fact, it was usually my favorite season, with the beautiful lights, cozy sweaters, and the smell of pine that permeated the whole house from the brightly decorated tree.

But this year? This year I was a twenty-nine year old failure living on her parents’ couch in a retirement community on the west coast of Florida.

Three months ago, I was living the dream in San Diego. I was a high-level executive at a globally successful company, I drove a fancy electric car, and the view from the balcony of my expensive condo was a broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean. My coworkers respected me, my friends had my back, and I couldn’t imagine life getting any better than it already was.

But it sure as shit could’ve gotten worse…and it did.

I’d been walking around with blinders on for years, eager to please my boss and doing anything he asked of me…including handling the entire process when he wanted to fire certain employees. Certain female employees.

Looking back, I could see what a fucking idiot I was, believing his thin excuses for wanting me to handle that part of his job for him. Oh, the offenses he drummed up seemed valid—excessive tardiness or missed days, poor work performance, things like that—but what I didn’t realize was that he was the reason those women were late, absent, or unable to do their jobs properly.

Because he was fucking sexually harassing them in the elevator. The break room. Even the God damn parking lot.

None of them said a word to me about it as I fired them because I was Mr. Touchy-Feely’s right hand woman. They thought I knew. They thought I condoned it and was knowingly helping him clean it up.

And so did everyone else.

When the lawsuits started coming in, he was fired from the company immediately…and so was I. Each of the five women admitted in their affidavits that they’d never mentioned the harassment to me. There was zero proof I knew anything about it—because I didn’t—but that didn’t matter.

I’d already been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. I was a pariah. No executive team would hire me after that. My so-called friends deserted me, not wanting to be associated with the scandal whether they believed in my innocence or not.

So, in a pit of depression and anxiety, I packed my belongings, put my furniture and housewares into storage, sold my condo, my car, and my pride, and hightailed it to Florida to hide out at my mom and dad’s.

And the real kicker? I’d been here, visiting with my sister and her new fiancé when the shit hit the fan in San Diego. I was getting to know my future brother-in-law, having a great fucking time while my life was falling apart back home. It was a little ironic that I’d end up right back here three months later, not the prodigal daughter I’d been before, but a washed up former executive with no plans and no prospects.

I dropped my e-reader to the towel beside me. I couldn’t focus with my thoughts spinning like they were, and the words on the screen had melded into complete gibberish. Heaving a sigh, I pushed myself up. I’d been lying under the shade of a small orange tree on a towel, trying to read while my mother joined her friends at the pool for their weekly water aerobics class.

Leaving my towel and e-reader on the ground, I wandered over to the pool area to use the restroom and grab a bottle of water from the vending machine. The ladies in the water were bouncing and pumping their arms to an explicit hip hop song, and the sight of them nodding their heads and singing along made me smile. Mom spotted me, lifting her hand in a quick wave.

I shook my head and waved back before sliding into the bathroom. When I came out, pulled a dollar from the pocket of my jean shorts and fed it into the vending machine. Pressing the button for water, I grabbed the bottle and twisted off the top. I chugged a third of it down before using the back of my arm to wipe the sweat from my brow.

December in San Diego was never actually cold, but this was ridiculous. If it weren’t for the wreaths and light-up candy canes on the streetlights around town, you’d never know it was Christmas time. Even the blow-up Santa in the yard across the street was wearing a tropical shirt and a flower lei instead of his usual, fur-lined red suit.

I blew out a breath, letting my shoulders droop. I knew I was being a total scrooge, but how was I supposed to get into the holiday spirit when my entire life had collapsed around me? When I was living in Shady Springs with a bunch of senior citizens, playing bingo on Tuesdays, shuffleboard on Thursdays, and crashing on my parents’ couch by eight o’clock every night? Hiding from my problems in fucking Sweet Pea, Florida? Who even names a town something like that? It’s ridiculous.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. I knew I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself, pull up my bootstraps, and get back to the business of living, but I wasn’t ready yet. I just wanted to wallow for a while longer. I’d—

My thoughts cut off as the sound of a lawnmower rang in my ears. Giving Mom another wave, I hurried around the corner of the building to see a man riding a commercial mower across the wide expanse of grass on the back lawn of the condo resort…in the direction of the orange tree where I’d left my things.

“Shit,” I muttered, picking up the pace when it looked like he wasn’t going to stop.

I waved my arms and yelled, but I was behind him and there was no way he could hear me over the roar of the lawnmower’s engine. My eyes flicked between him and my stuff on the ground—an old beach towel, my sunglasses, and my e-reader. Thank fuck, I’d tucked my phone into my pocket instead of leaving it there, too.

I shouted again, my breath puffing as I charged forward in attempt to stop the oblivious idiot. He didn’t even slow down, just kept going as his head bounced in time with whatever he was listening to through the wireless ear pods I could now see sticking from his ears. His head was turned upward, the shades on his face protecting his eyes as he let the Florida sun shine down on him.

I ground to a halt, my mouth falling open as he drove right over my towel. The sound of my e-reader clattering against the mower blades made me flinch and squeeze my eyes shut as a string of curses poured from my lips.

“Merry fucking Christmas to me,” I muttered, then stalked toward the now-silent and still lawnmower and its stupid, blinder-than-shit operator.

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Fooling Around with Ford coming soon to Amazon!