| General Fiction posted January 26, 2023 | Chapters: |
...52 53 -54- 55... 
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Abby's grade school tormentor reappears.
A chapter in the book Some Call It Luck
Some Call It Luck - Chapter 54
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
| Background A brilliant and beautiful but insecure, nerdy young woman befriends a going nowhere older alcoholic caddie. Together, they bring out the best in each other and collaborate on a startling new invention |
Recap: After getting her master’s degree, Abby goes to work as an actuary at an insurance company. She has two children, and her boss, Leroy, welcomes her back each time after she spends a year at home with each child. Her boss retires and recommends Abby for his replacement, but the company hires an outsider who treats her poorly. She eventually quits.
She stays home with the kids for a few years but eventually wants to return to the workforce. After a lunch with E.J. who encourages her, she soon gets a call from her old boss, Leroy, who has taken over as interim manager of the actuarial department because Abby’s previous boss washed out. Leroy asks Abby to come back and take over for him as the new manager. Abby talks it over with Kenny and decides to go back.
After a year’s time, Abby has the place running smoothly and has earned the respect of all her employees, but she begins getting restless as the challenge of the job is no longer there for her.
Dana Griffin
Four years later
June, 2004
June, 2004
How did I end up here in Al-frickin-toona, Pennsylvania?
My third husband, Steve Griffin, is an investment banker who I met two years ago in Philadelphia. I loved Philly and could have spent the rest of my life there, despite the fact that my father, who pretty much abandoned me when I was eight, lived there. I visited him once about five years ago, but he had developed Parkinson’s disease, and I couldn’t stand to see all that shaking, so I never went back. Unfortunately, my husband would rather be a big fish in a small pond; hence the move to Altoona. At least it’s better than Butler, where I spent the first 25 years of my life.
I was Dana Padgett then—the queen bee in high school: captain of the cheerleading squad, prom queen, and girlfriend of Tommy Boes, who was captain of the football team and the hottest guy in school. Well, it was only right since I was the hottest girl in school. Always had been.
Mother used to enter me in beauty pageants from as far back as I can remember. She was attractive, but not striking, and I think she lived vicariously through me. These beauty pageants were very important to her, and I won a lot of them at first. But as I got older, I didn’t win so many, and Mother’s interest in me seemed to wane.
Mother and Daddy got divorced when I was eight. He moved to Philly then and married my stepmom, Eleanor, who I couldn’t stand. She was always touching him and was all lovey-dovey with him—almost like she was claiming him for her own. He made his choice, and I only got to see him every five or six months.
Mother’s boyfriend, Ray, moved in with us just two weeks after Daddy left. He had no patience for me. He also refused to shell out any money for my pageant dresses unless I did chores for him like shining his shoes and cleaning the inside of his car. Daddy never made me do chores like that. When I wanted to buy a new dress, I would just crawl up in his lap and say, “Pleeease!” and act all cute. He would tickle me, and I’d wiggle all around, and he’d say, “Give me a kiss first,” and when I did, he always said yes. Looking back now, I think it turned him on.
Ray moved out when I was 14. He had caught Mother with another man in bed and said he’d had enough of that. They had never married or had any kids together, so it wasn’t especially traumatic for anyone. We did struggle for a while, though, after that. Mother told me once that if you’re going to cheat, make damn sure you don’t get caught, especially by your meal ticket.
I went to the community college for two years following high school, then married Tommy Boes. He had gone to work for his father selling cars at the dealership his father owned. He wasn’t very happy there because his father was such a tyrant and rode Tommy all the time. He eventually got fed up and quit. He got a job selling seeds, fertilizer, and shit and traveled a lot.
I confronted him once when I discovered a woman’s panties in his suitcase after a business trip. He hemmed and hawed and claimed they were probably mine, but I know my own underwear. He finally confessed and promised not to be unfaithful again. It’s not as though I was totally faithful either, but I was always careful like Mother warned.
That marriage lasted about five years, when we realized that it wasn’t working and decided to call it quits. I got some alimony for a few years but figured I had to learn to support myself, so I moved to Pittsburgh and went to work in a real estate office.
I was young and sexy as hell, and they groomed me to be an agent. I was very successful and sold some lucrative properties.
I was not above using my natural assets to swing a few deals, if you know what I mean, and one of those clients showed particular interest in not only the million-dollar house I was showing him, but in me. I ended up marrying him, and we lived in that house for the next three years.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as careful as I had been with Tommy, and he caught me cheating on him a couple of times. He decided he’d had enough, and we divorced soon after.
I had also had enough of Pittsburgh and wanted something bigger and better, so I moved to Philly and got another real estate job there, and that’s where I eventually met my third husband, Steve Griffin.
He was a moderately successful investment banker, but couldn’t seem to get his head around the growing tech sector. Many of his fellow bankers were making real money from their tech investments, but Steve was much more conservative and risk-averse.
He didn’t like all the competition and figured he might do better in a smaller place, and that’s how we ended up in Altoona. He did well enough that I didn’t have to work, so I had plenty of time on my hands.
During my years in both Pittsburgh and Philly, I had taken up golf and had become quite a good player. I usually shot around 80 and left Philly with a 9 handicap. I talked Steve into joining Kettle Creek Country Club here in town.
One day, soon after we had joined, I was practicing on the range when I noticed a little redheaded girl also practicing. She looked to be about 11 or 12. I stared at her, as she reminded me so much of a girl from my childhood in Butler. That girl’s name was Abby St. Claire, and thinking about her brought back some painful memories.
I had always been jealous of Abby because she was so smart. I can’t remember ever hearing her give a wrong answer to a question except for one time when she missed a simple multiplication problem. I never liked her because she was just different from the rest of us. She always wanted to play these weird games that no one else wanted to play.
We used to tease her because of her appearance. She was a skinny little thing with that bright red hair and those freckles and glasses. I gave her the nickname “Shabby” one day when she came in with an old outfit and a hole in her sweater. She mostly ignored us, but I could tell we really got to her.
Then the real capper came in ninth grade when I saw her and that stuttering Fred-something skating in an exhibition. I remember how gorgeous she was. I didn’t know it was them at first, but when she took off her turban after the performance and that red hair came spilling out, I suddenly recognized her. She must have gotten contact lenses because, from then on, she no longer wore glasses.
I couldn’t stand it. Now, she was not only smart, but a real looker too—maybe prettier than me, if I’m honest. She was also a damn good skater. Some people have all the luck. I told Mother I wasn’t feeling well and asked her if we could leave.
She even started dressing better after that. My friends and I purposely bumped into her a few days later while she and Fred were skating at the mill pond, and she fell and broke her wrist. Fred laid into us after that, and I actually felt pretty bad about it.
I didn’t mean to hurt her like that; I just wanted to make her fall on her ass and look foolish, but we ended up looking like the foolish ones. I almost apologized to her, but I lost my nerve. We pretty much left her alone after that; it stopped being fun to tease her. Hell, there wasn’t much we could tease her about anyway.
I don’t know what came of her after high school. I think she went off to Penn State, but I never heard about her or saw her again. But seeing that little redheaded girl practicing golf brought back those memories of her.
(10 more chapters to go)
Abby Payne: She has just completed grad school at Penn State University where she was a math major. She is intelligent and beautiful, yet shy and awkward with most people her age, having been picked on quite a lot while growing up. She worked at the snack bar and as a waitress at Brentwood Country Club during the summers where she met both E.J. and Kenny, who is a member at Brentwood and became her boyfriend and eventually her husband.
E.J. Budrowski: A 40ish alcoholic with a traumatic past (an abusive father and a mother driven to suicide) who is a caddie at Brentwood CC. One day he finds a dirty old golf ball on the edge of a pond that seems to have unusual powers, for he makes two holes-in-one with it. He and Abby become friends when she encourages him to take up both golf and bridge again after long layoffs. He finally quits drinking and returns to college.
Kenny Payne: Abby met him briefly at a frat party in her senior year and was intrigued by him, then she sees him again when he walks up to the snack bar several months later. Tall, good looking, and an all-around nice guy. After less than a year of courtship, he marries Abby.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. E.J. Budrowski: A 40ish alcoholic with a traumatic past (an abusive father and a mother driven to suicide) who is a caddie at Brentwood CC. One day he finds a dirty old golf ball on the edge of a pond that seems to have unusual powers, for he makes two holes-in-one with it. He and Abby become friends when she encourages him to take up both golf and bridge again after long layoffs. He finally quits drinking and returns to college.
Kenny Payne: Abby met him briefly at a frat party in her senior year and was intrigued by him, then she sees him again when he walks up to the snack bar several months later. Tall, good looking, and an all-around nice guy. After less than a year of courtship, he marries Abby.
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