Story Hour! Part Two

Last week on Story Hour: We met Louann, a seemingly idiotic woman who, until recently, lived a charmed life. She has been on the run from law enforcement and finds herself on a deserted island. She broke her own leg and keeps having flashbacks to Xavier and a mysterious murder.

After a night of disturbing dreams, Louann awoke with the sun. She fondly recalled the mornings in Bali when she watched the sunrise after a night of partying with the sketchy locals she had met in town on her frequent solo visits out to the bars. The headache she had now, though, was not from tequila and rum, but from the throbbing pain in her leg. The bone was reset but her leg was covered from knee to ankle in deep bruises. When she tried to stand up, she collapsed the moment she put weight on her scrawny little leg. She sat back down on the yoga mat she had stashed in her boat. Defeated, she knew she would have to stay put for awhile.

Back on the main land, Louann's parents hardly noticed she was missing. Her father, Lou, had been crazy busy at his job in Nigerian Business Opportunities. He had perfected his "I need your help getting my money out of a trust, and as thanks, I will give you $4.2 million!" emails and was well on his way to acquiring the company who makes those "Congratulations! You just won an iPad!" pop up ads. Louann's mother, Ann (see what I did there?) had always been crazy harsh on Louann. Instead of feeding her that fatty baby formula as a baby, Louann's mother instructed the nanny to feed Louann Slimfast. She didn't want no chubby baby. When Louann started growing in to her looks at 16, her mother got insanely jealous of the youth and beauty of her daughter and vowed to ruin Louann's life. After trying to poison Louann's vodka smoothie one morning, Ann was admitted, for the first of many times, to the looney bin.

The night Louann stole the rowboat and left, her parents had had a huge fight over finances. They were hemorrhaging money after Louann's mother had started paying off the doctors who kept insisting she needed to stay in the hospital. Lou had threatened to cut Ann off. Ann threatened to cut Lou up. They argued all night, and didn't notice Louann stealing her dad's glock and strolling out of the house at 3 a.m.

While Louann was leaving her house, Xavier was across town at a hipster bar, drinking PBR ironically, smoking a cigarette, and listening to bad hipster-y live music. He was handsome, no doubt. He had broad shoulders, the slightest hint of a 5 o'clock shadow, and thick black hair. That he could charm the robe off a nun would not be an overstatement. He, not surprisingly, worked in some obscure position at some generic advertising or marketing or graphic design company or something similarly cliche. But he made good money that he spent lavishly on skateboards and faberge eggs. Was he gay? No one knew for sure. Xavier was a lifelong bachelor, who was rumored to have bedded both Blake Lively and James Franco. But that night, at that hipster bar, he was interested in one thing, and one thing only. Louann and the money. Oh, wait. Two things. I guess he was interested in TWO things.

As Xavier finished his beer and his smoke, the bar door swung open and all the hipsters in the bar groaned as the outside noise interrupted their self-obsessed conversations. As Louann walked in the door, the terribly whiny band (mercifully) stopped playing and stared at the creature before them. Her long black hair tumbled past her slim shoulders, and her skin was smooth and golden - but kind of orangey too. Like the inside of Butterfinger. She looked around and her glassy, bright green eyes spotted Xavier. As she walked towards him, every one in the bar stared. She was beautiful, but she also looked like she'd be sticky.

Louann air-kissed his cheeks in that super stupid way people who want to appear rich and cool do, and then she pulled the gun out of her Prada bag to show Xavier. He nodded, took it from her and dropped it in his pocket. Then she handed him a crumpled up wad of cash. "Is this all of it?" he asked. "No," Louann said, "but you'll get the rest when it's done." Before she could walk out, Xavier invited her to sit for a drink. She hesitated, briefly remembering their passionate history together, but decided one drink wouldn't kill anyone, would it?