Shame on You

“Well, good morning to you too,” Griffin says with a chuckle.

Blinking my eyes into focus, I bolt up in bed and frantically look around, realizing I’m all alone with my cell phone up to my ear.

A dream? It was a fucking dream?

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be screaming curses at this point,” he says through the phone line while I try to shake the dream from my head. “Any idea how all of the keys on my computer got switched around and glued in the wrong place?”

At least that part wasn’t a dream.

“Or maybe you know how two-hundred Post-it notes with pictures of penises drawn on them were glued to every inch of my desk,” he deadpans.

Oops.

In my dream, I couldn’t speak. Now that I’m awake, I just don’t want to. Yes, I know I behaved a little childishly last night, but it wasn’t my fault. It was the wine’s fault.

“Really, it’s no big deal that since I don’t look at my fingers when I type, I sent out an e-mail to the state police that said ‘gfpwq7 exclamation point asterisk’ and my e-mail signature said ‘Griffin Crawford, King of All Penises,’” he adds.

“Well, it serves you right for not proofing your e-mails before you send them,” I finally say.

I hear him sigh on the other end of the line and I almost feel a little bad about our drunken escapade last night.

“Kennedy?”

When he says my name so soft and sweet I forget all about the bad dream I had.

“Yeah?” I reply quietly with a small smile on my face.

“Sleep with one eye open, babe. Game on.”

I hear the silence of the ended call in my ear and for the first time in my life, I’m dreading getting out of bed and going to work.

This is not going to end well.



I spent the next day and a half interviewing anyone and everyone McFadden ever knew, including all of his childhood friends. No one had seen or heard from him in months and they couldn’t give me anything to go on as far as finding him. On top of that huge waste of time, I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder waiting for Griffin to jump out from behind a bush and taser me to get back at me for that little superglue stunt we pulled.

Walking into Fool Me Investigations with a jumbo-size hazelnut coffee in my hand, I’m immediately assaulted by the sounds of phones ringing off the hook and Paige running back and forth between desks to answer them.

“Yes, I have your name and number and someone will call you back shortly. Yes, I wrote down that this is an emergency. Okay. Yes, we have a blonde that works here—why does that matter?” Paige asks into the phone as her pen pauses on the phone message pad. “Eeeeew, that’s disgusting! What is wrong with you?”

She slams the phone down and stalks over to me, clutching a stack of messages in her hand.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask her as the phone she just hung up immediately starts to ring again and when I glance at the phone console on my desk, I see that all twelve lines are lit up and blinking angrily.

“This has been going on since I walked through the door an hour ago. People are calling for our services left and right. And let me tell you something, the things they are asking for are illegal in fifteen states,” she tells me.

Grabbing the messages out of her hand, I skim through them and see that each and every one is asking for an immediate request to fix our back door.

“What the hell? Is our door broke? Are these all locksmiths?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. Whenever I ask them they just laugh and tell me they want the special that’s in the ad. Did you run an ad?”

I did place an ad in the local newspaper that was going to start running this week, but it was for 10 percent off for first-time customers. This makes no sense.

“Sleep with one eye open, babe. Game on.”

Griffin’s parting words on the phone this morning run through my head.

“Oh no,” I whisper as the door opens and I see my dad walk in with the morning paper in his hands.

“Kennedy, if you needed money, you could have come to me,” he says.

I snatch the paper out of his hand and flip to the classifieds. Right smack in the middle of the page is fool me once in big, bold letters. Underneath are the words “Looking for a good time?! Call Fool Me Once at 555-205-7201 for all of your escort needs. We have blondes, brunettes, and redheads. Make sure to ask about the Busted Back Door Special!”

“SON OF A BITCH!” I shout as I crumble up the paper and throw it in the trash.

“The guys at the VFW all want to know if they can get a friends-and-family discount. Tell me the truth, Kennedy. Is this business a front for prostitution?” my dad demands. “Are you a hooker? And when did your back door get busted? Is that a euphemism for something?”