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I answer her by grabbing a pumpkin funnel cake out of the box and letting out a loud moan of happiness when I take a big bite. Ford doesn’t use bribery to get what he wants; he would never stoop to that level. He only got me pumpkin funnel cakes because he knows I might have wound up in jail again, this time for murdering my family if I didn’t get any. Which is evident by the note that’s taped to the top of the box that reads,Don’t kill anyone.—Ford.
“No more getting your damn hopes up, just for him to drop you like a bad habit at the end of the month to disappear back to his fancy life that you’re not good enough to be a part of the rest of the year.”
Ginger’s words are a direct hit to the black, rotting organ that sits in my chest, almost delivering it that final blow. Thankfully, Callie is the only one who knows it. She gives me a wincing smile over the top of her coffee mug, and I console myself by grabbing another funnel cake out of the box and double-fisting them as I take a bite out of each one. My happiness about my favorite month and the joy of being able to spend time with Ford again fade away, while the sugary dough in my mouth suddenly becomes hard to swallow.
There’s nothing like having your own insecurities thrown in your face first thing in the morning by your family. I stopped dreaming about any kind of romantic future with Ford a long time ago, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting any less every time he leaves and every time he cuts me out of his “fancy life” for eleven months. The reminder that I’m only good enough for him in October, in Harvest Grove, is not something I needed right now, when I was still floating on the high of having my friend back in town again.
Year after year, I let my guard down, and I let him steamroll my life. I let him make decisions, clean up messes, tell me what to do, give me a shoulder to cry on, and just generally take care of me. Which all sound like things I really shouldn’t complain about. Hearing my cousin voice the thoughts that have plagued me for six years just makes me feel like a fool for always getting so excited about Ford’s return. I’m tired of spending thirty-one days getting used to having someone take care ofmefor once, only to have it all taken away in the blink of an eye. For the first time in six years, I’m suddenly pissed off about it. He put me under his spell just like always last night, but that’s it. I’m putting my foot down.
I’m done letting Ford take over my life and do all kinds of nice things for me, when he doesn’t care about me the rest of the year.
You know… as soon as I finish inhaling the entire box of pumpkin funnel cakes. One does not just let pumpkin funnel cakes go to waste.
He’s my friend and my boss. My one-month-a-year friend. It is what it is, and that’s fine. But letting him take over like this every year is not good for my sanity. It gives me hope. It makes me want to find the closest notebook and doodleSidney Prescotton every page, no matter how many times I tell myself that I stopped feeling this way about him a long time ago.
This is the year I finally put the last nail in my coffin of hope. I don’t need him to take care of my life. If I can do it on my own eleven months out of the year without him, I can damn well do it for the one stupid month he’s here.
“Dumb bitch, dumb bitch, dumb bitch.”
The tinny, robotic voice coming from my living room makes me slowly turn my head in that direction, while everyone else in my kitchen laughs.
“Who in the hell added a new phrase to my cat’s talk buttons?”
Everyone continues to chuckle while I glare at the black cat in the other room, with her paw still resting on one of the many, multicolored buttons grouped together on the floor in the corner, waiting for her moment to call me a dumb bitch again. Yes, I taught my cat how to talk using battery operated, recordable buttons she can press when she wants to tell me something, and I can’t understandmeow.
I am a single woman, living alone, and when my family isn’t here to annoy me, it can be quite lonely at times, okay?
“If you’re going to teach your cat how to talk, at least make it exciting.” Penny rolls her eyes, basically admitting this was her doing. “Treat, outside,andpet meare entirely too basic.”
“Dumb bitch, pet me,”my traitorous cat adds to prove Penny’s point, stepping on the newly added pink button and then the old blue one.
“Can we get back to the important matter at hand, please? Kenny, go arrest Ford for ruining October,” Aunt Dawn tells the man with a pat to his shoulder, while I wander over into my living room to do my cat’s bidding before she calls me another name.
“I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Then get the hell out of here!” Ginger points to the door. “We’ve got felonies to plan.”
With that, Kenny jumps up from the table, taking his cup of coffee with him and promising me he’ll return the mug after he washes it.
“I’ll stop by the station before work and take care of those charges from last night,” I tell him after giving my cat a few head scratches, hoping I have enough money in my account to cover everything.
Kenny pauses in my open doorway when he starts choking on the sip of coffee he took.
“Oh, it’s fine.” He chuckles, wiping off the coffee that dribbled onto his chin with the back of his hand, not meeting my eyes as he stares down into his pumpkin mug and shuffles out onto my porch. “No rush. Take your time. Or, you know, don’t even worry about it at all! It’s fine. Come up, don’t come up, whatever. Okay, gotta go!”
With that confusing exchange, Kenny is quickly slamming the door closed behind him.
“That was weird,” I mutter, making a mental note to stop by the station anyway.
One of the best things about Kenny is that he’s pretty much left to his own devices as far as keeping the residents of Harvest Grove in line. The County Sherriff Station that every town reports to is over fifty miles away, and they only send someone out here to check on things a few times a year. Kenny, his father before him, and his grandfather beforehimare the only reason no one in my family has ever donerealjail time over the years, and we don’t have real arrest records. Along with half the town, although my family definitely gets to benefit from this little perk of being friends with the Stuart family more than others. As long as no one in Harvest Grove actually murders someone or causes anyone real harm, Kenny and his predecessors have always been pretty good about “losing” the paperwork for minor offenses. And as long as the Tanner women remember to pay their fines, we will never have to know whether or not we look good in an orange jumpsuit.
“We need to leave too. We’ve got a meeting with a potential client for FMI who seemed very interested in our October bonus package.”
Watching Penny and Ginger get up from my table, I don’t even bother wasting my breath lecturing them. Fuck Men Incorporated, shortened to FMI for obvious marketing reasons, is a private investigations business the two started the day they turned eighteen. Well, the day theylegallystarted it. Under normal circumstances, I would be incredibly proud that these two young women became entrepreneurs at such an early age, obtaining their PI licenses in record time. But these are not normal circumstances, and Penny and Ginger are not normal people. The October bonus package gives clients the opportunity to not only catch their lying, cheating significant other in the act, but to also get a little revenge on them. The October bonus package pretty much pays for all of the girls’ expenses for the entire year it’s so popular. It’s also the reason I find myself spending more time than usual with Kenny in jail or running away from something on fire.
Fucking October bonus package….
I manage to shove my mom and aunt out the door along with Penny and Ginger with minimal arguing, when Callie’s phone chimes from her hoodie pocket.
