Absolute Zero: Misadventures From A Broad (Val & Pals Book 1) Read online

  Absolute Zero

  Misadventures From A Broad

  By Margaret Lashley

  “Life is a four-letter word, but it doesn’t have to be a curse.”

  Val Fremden

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  “Val’s Top Ten Survival Tips for Starting Over.”

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  http://www.margaretlashley.com

  See the last page for an instant peek at book two:

  Glad One: Starting Over is a %$#@*!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Excerpt: Glad One

  Chapter One

  Sideswiped by unexpected turbulence, the commuter plane’s wheels hit the tarmac hard and bucked three times like a kicking rodeo bull. The first bounce tossed my distant thoughts clear out the window and sent me skittering like a duck on ice into the present moment. I clutched both armrests in a death grip, as if they might save me from the oncoming disaster. But it was too late. My life already hit the skids months ago.

  “Whoa! That was a close one!” I said to the elegantly dressed woman in the seat next to me.

  She eyed me strangely, as if she didn’t understand. Then I remembered that there was a darn good chance she didn’t. The realization made me squirm inside.

  The plane settled down and taxied normally toward the terminal. For the pilots and crew, it was just another ordinary day. For me, though, it was anything but. I peered out of the small oval windowpane at the unfamiliar countryside surrounding the small airport. This was for real. I’d gone and done it.

  The plane came to a halt. A mechanical bell binged. I looked around nervously. I slung my purse across my shoulder and sardined myself into the line of passengers inching their way down the narrow aisle. When I reached the plane’s exit door, I paused hesitantly, like a convict who’d gotten free of her cuffs without anybody noticing. My mind swirled with excitement and abject terror. Goosebumps rushed across my body. The hair at the base of my neck pricked up like a scaredy-cat.

  What the hell was I doing?

  Mere days before, I’d slammed every single door, including the screen one, on my life back in Florida. The last chance to change my mind had come and gone, as unheeded as a speed limit sign at a NASCAR rally. Every safety net I’d ever known was thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean, out of sight and out of reach.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself, then stepped off the plane into the complete unknown. I glanced back and waved goodbye to the Air Italia flight crew. I turned again and meandered down the gangplank behind a frail, elderly couple holding hands. Their long-standing marriage triggered flashbacks of my own, long-suffering one.

  Seven weeks ago, I’d signed the final divorce papers ending fifteen-years of matrimony to Jimmy Johnson, a man I no longer knew. I envisioned the beautiful house Jimmy and I had shared together. I’d sold it and my advertising business just days before the flight. After splitting the pot with Jimmy, I’d netted a hot-damn $473,000. I pictured my best friend, Clarice Whittle. I’d left my Ford in her garage, along with a few boxes that held the final remains of the cranky, resentful woman I hoped this trip would get rid of for good.

  I’d brought next to nothing with me. I’d left even less behind. No kids. No pets. No job. No husband. No responsibilities. No nothing.

  I’d spend the last forty-one years in perpetual motion – Val Jolly’s non-stop stint as dutiful daughter, long-suffering wife and brown-nosing business woman. I’d catered to everyone else’s needs for as long as I could remember. Somewhere along the way I’d turned into a crabby, shrill woman that even I didn’t like. I’d forgotten who I was and what I wanted. This trip was going be my R&R&R – relaxation, romance and re-invention.

  I was in Italy to try my hand at living irresponsibly, like my trampy cousin Tammy Jeter. She’d always done as she damn well pleased. Up ‘til now, I’d thought she’d been selfish. Especially when she left Whitey Large and their five pit-bulls (One with puppies!) to run off with Tater Johnson. Turns out, that girl had had it right all along.

  Unlike Tammy, I’d done everything society said I should do. I’d been a faithful wife. I’d worked my fingers to the bone. I’d racked up all the major merchandise. But instead of feeling victorious, I’d felt shackled like a poor old pack mule, burdened with an impossible load of stuff I couldn’t work up the feelings to care about anymore. A big-old house full of junk to dust and polish. A never-ending stream of pointless tasks to juggle. A distant, thoughtless man to resent the hell out of….

  If that’s the American Dream, shoot this pack mule now and put me out of my sad-ass misery!

  I sighed, then scolded myself for it. As of late, it had become an annoying habit.

  “Signora?”

  I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around to find myself eyeball-to eyeball with a man who made Billy Meyers, our high-school homecoming king, look like a toad-frog.

  “Yes?”

  “Oh. English. Yes. You…move it? Yes?”

  I looked around. I’d gotten lost in my thoughts and was clogging the exit line like a lump of greasy hair in a bathtub drain.

  “Oh! Sorry!”

  I scooted along the corridor connecting the plane to the terminal. I’d taken a fashion tip from Tammy and worn a short, flouncy brown skirt and a button-down, white cotton blouse. After two flights and twenty hours of traveling, my skirt was wrinkled to hell, and I’d spilled coffee all over my blouse. I’d come to Italy to find a new Romeo. What could I hope to catch with rag-bag bait like this? I drew in a deep breath to sigh again. But, to my surprise, I jumped and let out a high-pitched squeal instead. A stranger had just pinched my bottom! I blushed with embarrassment and…what was it? Yes! Southern Pride!

  Screw that tired, old American dream. I wasn’t in Florida anymore. I was in Italy!

  I rubbed the pinched spot on my butt cheek and looked around. The Bari airport terminal wasn’t even as big as Tallahassee’s. I wanted to remember the exact moment my new life of irresponsibility had begun. I looked around at the happy people passing to and fro, so content with their lives. In front of me, a tiny little girl in a pink dress let go of a red balloon. My eyes followed it upward. I spied a sign that read: Benvenuti a Bari.

  “Welcome to Italy, Val,” I said out loud.

  A sudden wave of giddiness washed over me. I burst out l
aughing. I never realized I could feel so…light. Like the balloon set loose by that child, I, Val Jolly, was at liberty to wander aimlessly, adrift in the world.

  I was free.

  ***

  I’d picked Italy as the starting point for my do-over life because, besides my home state of Florida, Italy was the only other place I’d ever been. Last year, my girlfriend Clarice Whittle and I’d won a five-day trip to Italy with a recipe we entered in Southern Taste magazine. It was a modern redo of the classic half-a-canned pear on a lettuce leaf. Instead of mayo in the center, we’d substituted Cheez Whiz mixed with a sure-fire crowd pleaser – crumbled bacon bits. We’d taken second place behind a brownie pie full of Skittles and marshmallow fluff.

  Clarice and I’d had a big time visiting Rome and Naples, and that place where the volcano turned everybody into Cheetos – Pompeii. So it came natural that when I’d decided it was time to get out of Dodge, aka St. Petersburg, Florida, that I’d chosen Italy. Besides, in all the romance novels I’d ever read, Italy was the number one place where middle-aged, burned-out Caucasian woman like me went when their lives had turned to crap. So in my book, it came bona fide.

  Before arriving in Bari, I’d landed in Rome on an overnight flight from Tampa. Naturally, the connecting flight to Bari had been overbooked. When I got up to the check-in booth, it looked like BOGO day at the Piggly Wiggly. There must have been thirty Italians yelling and making hand gestures at each other, the likes of which I’d never seen before. Like a nitwit, I’d run off to this foreign country only knowing three words of Italian, si, no, and ciao. So, I’d had no idea what was going on. I was just about to panic when some guy in a uniform grabbed my carry-on from my hand.

  “Hey! Gimme that back!”

  The guy eyed me like I was the last moron he could cope with for the day.

  “Signora, prego. Americana?”

  “Uh…si.”

  “I must a take your bag. No room over the head.”

  He’d raised both hands over his head and moved them back and forth in a way that reminded me of Pastor Piddleton on TV. I couldn’t help but giggle. Lucky for me, that softened him up some. He’d smiled and winked at me.

  “I take your bag to pass away. Yes?”

  I’d hoped he didn’t mean that literally. Seeing as how I didn’t think I had any choice in the matter, I’d agreed.

  “Yes…si.”

  The man looped a red tag around the handle of my brown checkered bag and snatched it away from me again. I’d held my breath as he wheeled my little darling away. I’d cringed when he tossed it in a heap like contraband next to the gate. I’d even frowned at it apologetically as I passed by it on my way to board the plane. Only after I’d been seated had I remembered that my hairbrush and all of my makeup were inside that bag. Dang it! I’d planned on fixing my face before we landed in Bari. But thanks to that overbooked flight from Rome, it was not to be.

  When we’d bounced down in Bari an hour later, I wasn’t the only one who’d looked a little worse for wear. The city’s tiny airport didn’t even try to make a good impression. In fact, it looked more like a hangar than a real airport. Bari wasn’t on the main tourist route, so I guess it wasn’t used to catering to the insecurities of sophisticated redneck foreigners like me. Under the Benvenuti a Bari sign were a bunch more notices pointing left and right, but none of the words were in English. I was as lost as a drunk man’s charm. So I followed the other passengers as they strolled along, hopefully toward baggage claim.

  Along the way, screeching kids, style-conscious lovers and gift-laden grandmas rushed to greet their kin. I’d never seen so many hugs or heard so much hollering outside one of our family reunions. I was totally taken aback by how affectionate, and loud, a couple of dozen Italians could be. Compared to Florida, everyone there seemed so well dressed, too. Even the old men wore respectable jackets and hats. Considering my sorry state, I must have stuck out like a pig in a petunia patch.

  Slept-in clothes. Two-day-old-makeup. Face it, Val. You look like a washed-up old cocktail waitress sneaking home from a one-night stand.

  I looked down at my tragic blouse and sneered. I tried to smooth my snarled, shoulder-length hair with my fingers. That’s how my genuine Diamonettie ring got caught in the rat’s nest at the back of my head. Aww crap on a cracker! I tried to pull the dang ring loose without making a spectacle of myself, but it just got worse the more I messed with it. I was just about to yank out a giant wad of my own hair when I heard a man’s voice so close behind me it made my back arch.

  “Prego, Signora,” he said softly.

  I felt his hand slip into my hair. He’s fingers intertwined with mine as he gently worked the ring free from my hair.

  “Thank you, sir!”

  “Ecco,” he replied.

  I turned around. There, standing in front of me holding my ring in his elegant hand, was a knight in shining Armani. He was slim, about six feet tall, with wavy dark hair and smoldering brown eyes. Just my type! He wore a tailored suit and a devilish grin. Oh, my goodness. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he told me he’d just dropped by on the way back to his castle.

  “Senta. Tutto va bene, Signora.” He handed me my ring.

  “I…I’m sorry. I don’t speak Italian.”

  “Ah.” He smiled in a sexy, playful way that made my gut go limp. “I speak small English. You make a trip, si?”

  “Si.”

  “Touristica, no?”

  “Si.”

  “You stay in Bari?”

  “No. Brindisi.”

  His face registered amused disappointment. “Ah. Too bad for me. We could be umm…friends, no? Allora. It is not to be.” He smiled, kissed my hand, and turned his attention to the baggage carousel.

  My mouth fell open like a barn door with a broken hinge. No American man had looked at me like that in at least a decade – even when I was dressed to the nines! I caught my breath and looked down at my wrinkled brown skirt and coffee-stained blouse. This was unbelievable! Eat your heart out, Tammy Jeter! My heart thumped with a strange new aliveness. I tried in vain to stop a simply unstoppable grin. I scoured my mind, trying to remember a phrase from Sex in Sorrento, the romance novel I’d studied to prepare for my trip. What was it? Oh yeah. Viva la dolce vita!

  Twenty minutes later, the handsome knight, along with his wife and kids and everyone else on the flight, were gone. I stood alone at baggage claim and watched the empty conveyor belt groan to a halt. Neither my suitcase nor my carry-on had made it to Bari with me. That weird, uncomfortable mixture of exhilaration and terror came rushing back. I clutched my purse a little tighter. It was all I had left besides the clothes on my back.

  I bit my thumbnail and thought about Clarice. Suddenly, I remembered a moment we’d shared in Rome together last year. After eating too much pasta and drinking too much red wine, we’d found our way to the famous Trevi Fountain. Like the tourists we were, we’d both tossed a coin over our shoulders into its dark, blue waters.

  “What’d you wish for?” I’d asked Clarice.

  She’d laughed. “A man with a good job and all his teeth. How about you, Val?”

  “I want to be somewhere where nothing reminds me of anything.”

  Well, like it or not, Val Jolly, you’ve just gotten your wish.

  There I was, in a foreign land, with nothing but a passport, a purse and a pair of sweaty panties. I was on my own. Totally free. I could do whatever I wanted, and be whoever I damn well pleased. There was only one flaw in my plan. I had no idea what I wanted to do – or who I wanted to be.

  I’d given myself three weeks to figure it out – as if reinventing my whole life was something I could do on a tight schedule. Hey, I was an American. I had no idea how much I had to learn.

  Chapter Two

  I’d been in Italy for half an hour and was already about to drown in my own stupidity. The lost puppy look on my face must have said it all. A man in a beige uniform came over and took me gently by the arm. He ushered
me to a window that read: Ritiro Bagagli Perso. In small print under it were the English words: Lost Baggage Claim. I’d sighed with relief.

  Well, I chatted and gestured and did everything but sing Boot Scootin’ Boogie with the surly clerk at the window, but nothing was going to break her foul mood. Finally, after a discussion as long and incomprehensible as one of Pastor Piddle’s sermons, I put my John Handcock on five undecipherable forms and was told I was free to go.

  I was free. Yay. Yeah. Hmmm….

  I walked to the exit and stepped into the warm, summer breeze. A gust of wind caught my rumpled skirt and lifted it to my waist. I swatted at it wildly, trying to hold down first the front and then the back, but it was as hopeless as trying to keep ten kittens in a box. I heard a catcall and looked up. To my utter surprise, my shabby-ass Marilyn Monroe impersonation earned me a round of whistles from a construction crew nearby! My ears reddened and my lips curled into a naughty grin.

  For some reason unbeknownst to me, in Italy, I was hot!

  Oh, man! I was definitely not in Florida anymore. Back home, I couldn’t get a rise like that if I stood on a street corner, naked, handing out hundred-dollar bills in a shiny red Camaro. But I wasn’t home. I was in a whole new world with a whole new set of rules….

  I leaned against the wall, admiring the crystal blue sky and keeping the back of my skirt down below my panty line. The heavenly smell of fresh-roasted coffee filled the air, threatening to lure me back inside to the airport coffee shop.

  I took a step in that direction and noticed a thin, shabby-looking fellow moving toward me. He approached gingerly, pausing hesitantly every few steps, as if trying to make up his mind what to do. His white shirt and grey pants were clean, but threadbare. His shoes were worn down at the heel. He wasn’t exactly threatening, but he did seem suspicious somehow.

  All of a sudden, he took a giant step forward and jabbed his long, pointy nose within an inch of mine. I looked around for help, but the construction crew was on break. Naturally, there was never another man around when I needed one. I fought the urge to belt the old geezer with my purse. I could feel his hot breath on my face as he spoke.