Random Acts of Hope Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hmmm.
    “He was the stripper ? The son of a bitch dumps you over the phone while you’re pregnant and the first time you see him, years later, is at a sex toy party where he’s one of the sex toys?”
    “When you put it that way, it sounds so ridiculous…”
    “It is ridiculous.” She c ouldn’t stop gasping with laughter. “Are you okay?” Maggie flipp ed between being concerned for me and howling with uncontrollable laughter.
    I kn e w the fe e ling.
    “He, well, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” I added.
    “How?” She hooted. “How could it possibly get more complicated?”
    “His mother was there.”
    All her laughter died in her throat and she looked at me like I told her he’d just eate n cow manure out of a fellow stripper’s belly button. “His mom…what? Was she part of his act?”
    “GROSS!” I shouted.
    Tap tap tap.
    I shot her a look that could kill. “Get it together.” I frantically shuffled the stack of orders and shoved them in a desk drawer. Then I call ed out, “Come in.”
    It was Tessa from the third floor. Tessa wa s a fashion design major who talk ed at a rate of two hundred words per second. Her hair color change d with every boyfriend, and she’ d only been here for three weeks. Like Marian, she was a freshman.
    Unlike Marian, she was here every weekend and seem ed to enjoy sampling the local cuisine of men.
    “So, oh! Hi, Maggie. So, um, Charlotte, I’m, like, still having that problem with Becca. She’s using my special peppermint shampoo from back home, the stuff that costs $32 a bottle and that my hair stylist says I absolutely, positively must use for optimal scalp protein development. If I don’t use it my hair will be a crime. A CRIME! And Becca says she doesn’t use i t but I know she does because after her showers I can smell peppermint, and even though she says it’s her cheap generic knockoff, there’s a difference. A definite difference!”
    Tessa said all of this in one breath. Maggie and I exchange d a look as Tessa t ook in a great whoo p of air and continued .
    “So she’s, like, using my stuff and says she’s not, and I really wouldn’t care except she brings her smelly boyfriend over and kicks him out promptly at curfew, because she’s not a BAD person. Really. She’s not. But I hate coming home to find a scr u nchie on the door handle—”
    Maggie’s left eyebrow sho t up at this.
    “—and knowing I need to stay away. I mean, her boyfri e nd has his own dorm room over in Entenman! Why do I have to be the one to give in and sacrifice for her all the time? It’s totally unfair, and she even didn’t pay her share of the tip for the pizza we ordered last week because she said she only had $3 and everyone’s share was $3.50, but she had quarters to do laundry—”
    Maggie h eld up her palm and Tessa stop ped , panting hard.
    “T l ; DR,” Maggie s aid .
    Tessa underst ood internet speak, because T l ; DR stands for t oo l ong; d idn’t r ead on message boards.
    In other words: say it simpler.
    “Becca’s a mooch and kind of taking advantage of me and I don’t know what to do,” Tessa blurt ed out.
    Maggie smile d and st ood . “I’ll take care of this,” she whisper ed to me, patting my shoulder.
    Thank you, I mouth ed .
    “And let’s do coffee in the morning before staff meeting. We have more to talk about.” And then she wink ed .
    The door close d and I let out a huge exhale. My computer screen start ed blinking, warning me that the order I started entering before Maggie knocked wa s about to time out. I finish ed it, and move d on to the next one.
    The handwriting wa s a chicken scrawl, instantly recognizable.
    Liam’s.
    Liam ordered sex toys from my party? Oh, Maggie, the story just gets better…
    All the basics we re there, but he left off his address. Hmm. Credit card info wa s there. It wa s a fairly big order, and I’ d make about $25 in commission from it.
    That didn’t even cover the copay for my D&C five