Nancy Bartholomew - Your Cheatin Heart

"They'll just have to deal with me as I am," I muttered to the shower. "Success is success, no matter what the costume."

I tried to tame my hair, pulling it back tight against my head, but curls insisted upon escaping, ringing my face. I toned down my makeup, but that only made my freckles pop through, and I looked like a teenager.

"That's all right," I said to my green-eyed mirror image, "once they meet up with the 'personal power deep within me,' they'll know they've met their match and I'm the one in charge."

I ran downstairs and poured another cup of coffee to take with me as I hit the road. Caffeine was my friend this afternoon and I had a feeling I was going to need all the friends I could get.

I sang as I drove across town, a song idea popping into my head. "He was a one-horse town on my freeway to love." I thought for a moment, searching for the next line as I drove past the coliseum. "I blew right by him. What was I thinking of?"

It was a beautiful September afternoon in Greensboro. The rainy summer had turned the leaves bright with fall color. When I'd first moved to Greensboro with Vernell, many years ago, I'd been afraid to live in such a big city. Now it felt like a small town, full of parks and neighborhoods.

The VW rumbled along down High Point Road, turning left onto Holden Road. I was almost there. A little edge of excitement began to gnaw at my stomach, or maybe it was hunger, since I hadn't eaten since yesterday. "Cast a commanding shadow," I muttered to myself, remembering Mr. Motivation's mantra for success.

Vernell and Jimmy's Mobile Home Kingdom was wedged in with a half-dozen other mobile home lots, all situated alongside I-85. "Prime location, Maggie," Vernell had claimed once. "Prime in terms of your customer visibility and prime in terms of easy-on, easy-off for delivery."

I hadn't paid it much mind at the time. I hadn't been interested and back then, the Holden Road exit of I-85 had been viewed as out in the country. I'd never dreamed that Greensboro could extend so far in such a few years. Vernell and Jimmy's pasturelike lot was now a tiny wedge in a sea of single and double-wide trailers, all waiting for the right person to come along and claim their housing prize. Jimmy and Vernell specialized in "Been turned down everywhere else? Credit a mess?" customers.

"Hey," Vernell used to say into the camera, "if you got a job, we'll get you a home." The Mobile Home Kingdom, simply the best in the business. I laughed to myself as I pulled up in the parking lot, but it was to cover all the emotions and memories that threatened to spoil my good mood.

Vernell started the mobile home business with Jimmy right after we married. I'd been out to the lot countless times in the early days, even helped out with the office work back then. Now it was a thriving business that would live on without Jimmy. Jimmy'd been so proud when Vernell turned the day-to-day operations over to him. He'd strutted around the lot, sticking his chest out, prouder than Mama's king rooster. Where'd it gotten him? The business wasn't growing at the rate it had in the early days. It had "leveled out," as Jimmy liked to say, but he and Vernell were always arguing about it.

"What do you expect with all the competition?" Jimmy used to ask, but it was never enough for his brother. Nothing was ever enough for Vernell when it came to business and money.

I pulled the car right up to the double-wide that Jimmy had converted into a model/business office. There were plenty of customers, even this late in the day. The office had a ridge of brightly colored plastic flags flapping across the top of the roof, and country music blared through the loudspeakers. For a moment I was intimidated. What was I about to step into?

I didn't have time to give it any more thought. Just like a used car lot, the sales force smelled fresh meat and two salesmen started for me at the same time, coming from opposite directions. The larger man won, waving off his competition with a mere flick of the cigarette in his left hand.

He continued toward me, his eyes locking onto my face, but subtly taking in my physical appearance in a way that only a professional sleazeball can. He was over six feet tall, looked like he worked out with steroids, and had gold chains dripping down his chest like a throwback to Saturday Night Fever . He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with dull brown hair and hard, dark eyes.

"Hey, pretty lady," he said, as he got closer. He said it like we'd been intimate friends for years. "I'm Tommy Purvis, and this here's my lot I am just the man to put you in the home of your dreams."

"I don't think so," I said.

"Pardon me?" Clearly he wasn't used to being shot down.

I had come with good intentions, but this man was flying all over me. "My lot" indeed. I stiffened my shoulders and looked square into his wide brown eyes.

"I said, I don't think so. Number one, this isn't your lot. You work here, but you don't own it."

"Well, now," he sputtered. "Technically…"

"Technically, I think I'd come a sight closer to owning this lot."

"Yes," he said, "at the Mobile Home Kingdom, the customer is king. And a pretty little thing such as yourself doesn't need to worry in Tommy Purvis's hands."

"But I'm not a customer. I'm Vernell Spivey's ex-wife. So I need to see the manager, Mr. Purvis."

His face was running through some changes. When I'd been a customer, he'd wanted to please me, but now I was the big boss's ex. He wasn't sure he owed me anything.

"Now, if this is about alimony or something such as that, your ex don't exactly come around here too often and we-"

"Mr. Purvis, it does not matter what it is about. The fact is, I want to see the manager and I want to see him now. So, if you can't point me in his direction, I'll just go on inside and find him myself."

"I'll go get him," he said.

"Just tell me where his office is," I said. I didn't want Tommy Purvis to have the opportunity to warn him.

"His office is the last room on the left as you go inside," he said. "But he's kind of tied up right now, and it might not be such a good idea to interrupt him. Besides, I'm the assistant manager. I can probably take better care of you than old Don any day." He gave me his best smile and half-winked. I couldn't believe Jimmy'd hired an idiot like this, but then again, the boy probably led the lot in sales.

Behind us, a beat-up, blue pickup truck came skidding into the lot, roaring toward us almost as if the driver were out of control. I jumped forward toward the office and Tommy Purvis spun around to see what was going on. The truck stopped a mere foot or two away from where Tommy stood. The driver was yelling through the windshield, apparently at Tommy.

I took advantage of the confusion and headed for the business office. Behind me, I heard the truck's door swing open and a barrage of swear words, all directed at Tommy, his mother, and his future sons. Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd taken a disliking to Mr. Purvis.

When I stepped inside the model home and the door swung shut behind me, I could no longer hear the raised voices outside. I had entered Jimmy and Vernell's idea of mobile home excellence. It was quite different from the four-hundred-square-foot plywood shack Vernell had first erected on this lot. This was luxury and I found myself distracted.

The carpet was thick, plush, sculptured pile, the kind that swallows up your feet and sucks all the extra noise out of the air. Canned Muzak played softly in the background and the fireplace in the corner was lit, even though the air-conditioning had to run full blast to compensate for the heat. Ahead of me was a pure white kitchen, the kind I'd always dreamed of having, but never actually attained. Until Vernell's recent midlife crisis, he'd lived like a poor man, squirreling his money away or plowing it back into the business.