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“Precisely!” His fist bangs on the table. “And you know…you know this has been years in the making.”
“The…chili?” She starts to lower the ladle back down.
“The win that is rightfully mine. That aunt of yours…you know just as well as I do that she cheats. I mean, have you had any of her food—”
“Excuses, excuses,” Riley tuts from her tent, and Rowen’s eyebrow twitches. I feel bad for the man.
“We all know Riley is the worst cook in Oak Ridge, so tell me how it’s possible that she manages to win this stupid contest every. Damn. Year.”
He’s got a point, but I like Riley, and she also kind of scares me, so I won’t say that aloud.
“I, um, I’ll try both. Best of luck, okay?” Felicity takes her bowl and I grab mine as we walk off.
“Wow,” I whisper. “He’s worse this year than usual.”
“I think it’s because he got second place last year so he knows he’s close.”
By the time we reach the nearby picnic tables, each of us have about five bowls of chili to eat and vote on. We try every sample and Felicity, Lottie, and Ada make comments and scrunch up their faces at each one like they’re Food Network judges about to ruin someone’s career.
“I think the vegan one had a touch too much cumin.”—Felicity.
“That one was all heat and no flavor.”—Lottie.
“That one tasted like sadness and beef.”—Ada.
To tell you the truth, they all taste like chili to me, all good and all spicy. In the end, I vote for Rowen just because he looks like he needs it the most, and I’m awfully curious to see what he’d do with a pedicure certificate.
After our food is gone and the votes have gone into the massive bowl at the end of the tables, we wander into the actual pumpkin patch. Everyone spreads out, Lawson pacing around on the phone with his girlfriend that literally no one likes, Ada taking pictures of all the tiny fifty-cent pumpkins. Lottie and Walker look at the biggest ones possible, scrolling through carving inspiration pics, while I follow Felicity to wherever she’s wanting to go, fanning through rows and rows of pumpkins in every size and color. She drifts toward the far edge of the field, hands tucked into her jacket pockets, studying each pumpkin.
She pauses in front of a small, lumpy pink one—pink like a rose petal, bumps like little thumbprints from the inside pushed out. She squints at it, then smiles the sweet smile that always feels like a direct punch to the sternum.
I’m about to offer to hold it for her while she keeps looking, but then Edith passes by with a cart muttering, “Mercy. That one’s ugly as sin, y’all should go check down by the gourds, those are much nicer,” before pushing her poodle mix in a stroller along to the more round, smoother pumpkins.
Felicity’s smile slips just a fraction. But I see it and look from her to the tiny vegetable resting on the wooden pallet.
She takes one last look at the pink pumpkin, sets it back down, and then wanders off to the next palette as if she hadn’t been interested in the first place.
Something in my chest tweaks a little at that, twisting and turning.
The second her back is turned, I scoop up the weird little thing. It’s heavier than it looks, and the leftover vines from the stem scratch my wrist, but I hold it tight to my chest. She wanted it, and if she won’t let herself have something just because someone who regularly yells at the school board over not having almond milk, despite having zero relation to anyone or anything at the school, made a dumb comment, then fine.
Before Felicity can circle back and catch me, I tuck the bumpy thing under my jacket like a smuggled ham and jog back toward the entrance where I parked while she catches up with my sister. I stash it in the bed of the truck under my discarded denim jacket.
When I return to the group, Ada is shouting at Lawson to correct his camera angles as he begrudgingly takes countless pictures of the three girls. Lottie looks at the results of whatever he’s taken and groans, “Point five lens, angled high, and take them while we’re mid fake-laugh, Lawson. It’s not that hard.”
Lawson mutters something about high-maintenance girls and Walker raises a brow at me. “You look guilty.”
“Nope,” I say too fast.
He smirks and mutters an unbelieving, “Okay.”
“Knox!” my sister shouts, and as I take a little jog to catch up, she claps her hands. “You’re used to this. Help us, since Lawson’s clueless.”
Lawson tosses his hands up. “I’m sick of this day. I’m getting more chili.”
She’s right, though. I have been trained since the moment my sister got a phone with a camera that angles, and candids matter an awful lot. I take at least fifty to sixty shots until all three girls are satisfied.
Ada and Lottie make a face at each other, and Ada says, “Now, you two.” She gestures between me and Felicity. “Squish together for one.”
