Page 36 of Possibly Texas

“She…slipped…on a…pimento cheese sandwich…and broke her leg?” I didn’t believe anything Auguste was telling me.

“Yeah.” Auguste sighed and turned to look at Agnes with pity as she rowed her wheelchair up to the front of Blooms. “Her doctor had been telling her to eat right for ages but she just wouldn’t listen.”

“Okay, okay.” I laughed as I held up my hands. “I don’t believe any of that. You’re just pulling my leg or something, man.”

“Hand to God.” Auguste put a hand over his heart and the other he held aloft. “She stepped on a pimento cheese sandwich and…weeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

I laughed loudly.

“Okay, fine.” I relented. “If you say so.”

Auguste grinned and then he was pointing at a building across the street.

“Red-striped roofs?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“One on the right is Samuel’s Soda Spray,” he said. “Samuel’s a nice guy. Obsessed with all things bottles, bottle tops, road signs, Rorschach ink blots, and—”

“Wait.” I stopped him. “What?”

“You’ll see.” Auguste waved me off. “We’ll go get a soda sometime. He makes really good floats and milkshakes, too.”

“All right?”

Auguste turned so he was looking towards the creek, so I followed his lead, turning so that the bridge that led into town came into view.

“Lovelorn Bridge Pass,” he announced.

“Okay?”

“Legend has it,” Auguste said, “that if you can’t get over a lost love—or unrequited love—that if you climb up on the rail and shout the name of your beloved, then dive into the water, it will help you get over it.”

“Ah.” Things were making sense in a really whacky way. “I saw some guy do that. A couple of times. Does it work?”

Auguste shrugged. “Haven’t had to find out yet. Grandy’s is down there.”

He pointed in the direction of the gas station off in the distance.

“Yeah,” I said. “I met him. I had to pick up some cigarettes for Jack and I bought a soda. Took a soda. He didn’t want to work that day.”

“He’s a philosopher.”

“Who?”

“Grandy,” Auguste said. “He’s a horrible gas station attendant—most of the time he forgets to order gas when he runs out—but his real passion is philosophy.”

The question Grandy had asked me about caterpillars and butterflies popped into my head.

“He spends most of his days sitting outside, enjoying the weather—when it’s permissive—and thinking about life’s deepest questions,” Auguste continued. “He’s super nice, too. He’s just not super talkative most of the time.”

I nodded along.

“And then,” Auguste looked around, trying to figure out what he’d forgotten, “there’s Mystic Molly.”

He jabbed a thumb down the street towards the reddish-orange miniature circus tent. My eyes landed on the tent and I felt my stomach flutter. Mystic Molly.

“She tells fortunes, does Tarot readings, that kind of thing,” Auguste said. “Wanna go have her read your palm or something? It’s totally free the first time.”