Page 1 of Playboy’s Purgatory

PROLOGUE

MONROE COUNTY FAIR

LARA

The lights are already flashing on the rides filling the Monroe County fairgrounds. The fair arrives every year and it’s become something I look forward to. I’m not the only one. The entire town of Dogwood Ridge, and most of the county, attends the fair to make memories and because it’s tradition.

I’ve learned a lot about traditions since moving to this small town. The community is threaded together with them.

One tradition is the final night of the Monroe County Fair. No matter what, you show up for the last night.

People don’t miss the chili cook-off or the cake eating contest. Both are entertaining. And I’m not just saying that because the nightlife around here would leave some people wanting more.

I don’t need my nights to be exciting. Quiet suits me just fine.

Especially because my ten-year-old daughter deserves a simpler life. Growing up is hard enough and some truths, hard to swallow as they are, seem to be universal. How those lessons come remains to be seen, but they’ll arrive in due time.

In Dogwood Ridge, Vanessa is learning about tradition. She’s learning about loyalty. She’s learning about gentle rhythms which become constant and laughter without calculation. She’s learning that people can see her and not judge her. She’s also, finally, learning that the woman who gave birth to her is never going to change.

That last lesson hasn’t been easy on her, but now she fully understands what I’ve always known. Maybe she couldn’t understand before. Or maybe she didn’t want to believe it. I hate that the naiveté of a child had to be shattered, and that her birth mother was the one to do it.

You wouldn’t know how well she’s learned that life is not always fair by looking at her right now. She grins up at me and tugs at my hand. We’re matching today in denim skirts and white tank tops with the Bunz Out logo on them.

When you sponsor the cake eating contest on such a big day, you gotta get in all the marketing you can.

Vanessa chirps, “Can I try to win a goldfish again this year?”

“Sure,” I answer without hesitation.

She hasn’t won one yet. I don’t think this is the year it happens.

The beauty of the goldfish game is that it seems like it would be easy to do. You just have to toss the ping pong ball into a fishbowl. You win the goldfish.

Easy.

Simple.

But it’s a lot harder than it looks on the surface because of the type of ball and the open spaces left between the openings. The bounce will get you most of the time.

I’m more than willing to pay a few bucks for her to have fun. Not to win a goldfish who probably won’t last two weeks.

Thankfully, I haven’t needed to plan a goldfish funeral. I’m thinking funeral pyre if I need to do it. A shoebox burial is classic, as is a toilet flush send-off, but I think she’ll appreciate a pyre.

There are flashing lights from a game booth not far from where the goldfish game is set-up. The workers are trying to entice people to play whatever scam they’re in charge of. When I look up, the high school club’s tent, the same club Ezra is the faculty advisor for, is crawling with people. It puts a smile on my face because it means the kids are closer to their fundraising goal.

They deserve it. Some of those kids are going to do big things, I can already tell. This year I was only going to donate one gift basket, but the kid that came by Bunz Out talked me into donating three of them. I didn’t even feel swindled by the end of it.

I probably should have.

“Hello there, little lady,” the guy working the fishbowl booth greets Vanessa. “You lookin’ to win a goldfish?”

When I look at my daughter, I can’t help but feel proud. She would have shied away from a stranger talking to her when we first moved here. It was a lesson she learned young—to be wary, to watch, to let someone’s actions speak for them instead of their words because those could be lies.

Now, she smiles at the man and nods enthusiastically. “Yup,” she pops the p. “I’m going to name her Ariel.”

She says it so confidently, I almost believe it myself. Which is worrisome.

And she already has a name picked out.