“Auntie! You can’t scare him off. We’re already married,” Janie scolds.
Aunt Bobbie finally moves her keen gaze from me to my wife, but her expression doesn’t soften much. “I can still scare him straight. You’ve been yanked around too many times by—”
“Okay! Well, thanks for coming by, we have a competition to win here, so,” Janie replies.
“Consider me scared,” I say, one hand raised. Aunt Kim softens into a smile. Aunt Bobbie harrumphs. Damn, I’ll have to put in some work there.
“Don’t listen to these two, never had a nice word to say about nobody,” a stylish older Black man joins us.
“Uncle Tyrone! Babe, uh, remember he owns Let It Spin, not the grill,” Janie quickly says to me.
“Yes sir, I’ve heard so much about your…”What the hell is let it spin?“Store.”
The man laughs a huge guffaw at me. “Can’t bullshit a bullshittah, my boy,” he says as he shakes my hand. I smile, trying to pin his subtle accent. Jamaican, I’m guessing.
“You caught me, I keep getting the shops mixed up.”
“Records. Spin, get it? It’s a record store. Please don’t ask how it’s going!” He laughs again.
“Uncle Ty,” Janie starts, “I’ve told you before, let me look at your books. I’m helping Harper too, give me your spreadsheets and let me tinker.” She wiggles her fingers and her eyes genuinely sparkle at the idea.
“You see how she gets the crazy eyes?” He teases Janie and a flicker of something crosses over her face, but it’s gone as he keeps talking, “No, thank you, baby girl, I’ll let my store die a slow, dignified death an’ then Imma go too.”
“Oh, Tyrone, give it a rest,” Bobbie rolls her eyes at him. He makes a face at her. An actual tongue-out face like a toddler. I can’t help but laugh.
A bell chimes in the square and people start to take their places.
“Nice to meet you, Ben. Anybody good enough for our Janie’s good enough for me.” Tyrone says, grabbing the two women his age by their elbows.
“Good luck. You’re going to need it,” Bobbie says with obvious disdain before finally releasing us from her passive-aggressive vortex.
“Oh, Barbara Ann, give him a break, Janie’ll be hard enough on him.” Kim whispers as they leave.
I wince, “Well, that could have gone better.”
Janie snorts, “Not really. Tyrone loves everyone. Aunt Bobbie is the opposite. Gran was that way too. Aunt Kim was alwaysin the middle trying to make them be nice. The town called the three of them the trifecta. They knew everything and everyone and disapproved of most of it.” she says, looking at the retreating, grumpy women with respect and a bit of awe. I see where she gets it, then. She turns her head to glare at me, “But that’s why I put a note that said, ‘Do not try to charm her’ right next to her namein the spreadsheet.”
“I’m sorry, darling, I saw the title said events, below that was a list of events.” She’s still glaring. “I only opened it on my phone.”
Finally she blinks. “I guess it is hard to see the bottom tabs on your phone.”
“Sobloody hard. Damned Google Sheets app is a menace,” I say, going overboard. She almost smiles.
“When do I get to meet the third member of the trifecta?” I ask gently. I know her grandmother is not well, but beyond that, I’m unsure.
“Soon. Not today, though,” Janie looks away, clearly not wanting to explain.
“Alright everyone!” A loud, deep voice screeches through the square. “So glad you could make it to our twelfth annual Juniper Falls Scarecrow Creation Contest!” I spot a large man who looks as if he thinks he’s very important.
“Let me guess, that’s the mayor?” I ask, trying to make amends.
“No. The mayor is Bear, which was,” she draws out the word.
“In the spreadsheet,” I finish for her.
“Yes,” she clenches her jaw and quickly gets me up to speed. “That is the assistant to the mayor, a role filled by a human being because Bear the Reindeer is the mayor of our town. Yes, an actual mayor, and yes Bear is his name because he is supposedly huge but no one has actually seen him in like ten years.”
“The mayor of the town is a mystical reindeer.” I say, trying to keep a straight face.
