Desperate Measures(2)
Her eyes lit up. Golf clubs! He had put his favorite set in the garage the other day when he’d run out of room in the trunk of his Aston Martin. She remembered seeing it propped up in the corner near the water heater when she’d gone out to find the mop earlier.
She put the phone down on the counter and ran to the three-car garage, flicking on the light absently while her eyes scanned the hyper-organized space, looking for the dark blue hulking figure of her almost-ex’s well-maintained, top of the line set. He called these golf clubs his babies. She remembered bitterly what he’d said when she saw the credit card balance and the ridiculous charges for the various drivers and irons.
“I have to spend my money on something,” he’d said. “You aren’t getting pregnant, so if I can’t have a kid, these new clubs will be my babies.” He’d poured himself another martini and laughed at his own cruel joke, as Aimee struggled not to wad up the credit card bill and throw it in his face. Instead, she’d calmly filed it away, as she was expected to.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was such a frigging welcome mat for him – always letting him wipe his feet off on me. Frigging jerk.
Her eyes lit up as they spied the leather bag that held Jack’s babies. He’d spent over thirty grand on them a year ago. That was just before he’d started boinking his assistant, Tiffany. Aimee’s upper lip raised in a silent snarl, just thinking the name. Tiffany. He’d stopped golfing so much after he started ‘working late’ and going on ‘weekend work retreats’. And after Tiffany had gotten pregnant? Well, these golf-club-babies had taken to hanging out in Aimee’s garage more often than not.
Apparently, Tiffany’s garage was too full to fit his clubs in. Too full of the new SUV Jack had bought her and all the baby gifts he and his friends had started collecting. Jack and Tiffany were having a boy, so there were a lot of things to buy, of course. And there would be no money left over for spousal support or food for an unemployed soon-to-be ex-wife. Aimee knew that short of a huge court battle, she wasn’t going to be able to depend on any financial support from him. She tried not to scream at the unfairness of it all, focusing instead on doing what needed to be done.
She walked over and grabbed the bag, wrestling it across the empty garage and into the house. She dragged it to the living room and dropped it heavily in the middle of the floor. She didn’t have to worry about hitting any furniture on her way, since most of it was gone now. Her ex was fond of making unannounced runs over to her house when she wasn’t home to steal furniture, paintings, and the knick-knacks they’d collected during their marriage, to bring back to his new girlfriend’s place. Aimee had heard from a neighbor that Jack actually brought Tiffany along when he came sometimes, which meant that the slutty husband-stealer had been walking through Aimee’s house as if it were a department store, picking out all the items she wanted to furnish her house with - the new townhouse that Jack had bought with their marital savings and put in Tiffany’s name.
Aimee had finally gotten wise to his deceit and had taken her favorite things and locked them in the trunk of her car. So far, he hadn’t figured that out. Not for the first time, she wished she had a friend who would take some things for her, to keep them out of Tiffany’s hands; but all of the people she had thought were her friends, were actually just wives of her husband’s friends. Once he’d declared his undying love for Tiffany, they’d all flocked to her like flies on crap.
Aimee left the room to retrieve her camera from her purse. She needed to get a shot of the golf clubs while there was still some good light in the front room.
Twenty minutes later, she had four nice pictures of the clubs, the bag, and all the little gloves and balls and tees and whatnot that had been in the pockets, loaded up onto the Internet and advertised on Craigslist. She rubbed her hands together, waiting for the emails to start flooding in.
The first one came within five minutes.
IS THIS FOR REAL? YOU’RE REALLY SELLING THESE OR IS THIS A SCAM?
She smiled, more than a little maliciously, her conscience only nagging her a little. She typed out her response:
YES IT’S FOR REAL, AND NO, IT’S NOT A SCAM. MAKE ME AN OFFER.
While she waited for the disbeliever to email her back, another email came in. And then another. “Thank goodness for golf nuts,” she said to her houseplant, as she replied to each message in turn. All but one sender wondered if she were off her rocker, so she started just cutting and pasting a standard response.