Romina:?????
Alex:
This man has nerve.
I feel like an imbecile, wafting around yearning for him, but the longer I go without hearing from Alex, the more obsessed with him I become, to the point that I am completely useless at work. I know because my sisters have told me: “You are completely useless.”
“Look at this pencil,” I sigh. “Alex likes to keep a pencil in the pocket of his shirt.” I pick up a pineapple cupcake and take a bite. “This would give Alex mouth sores.” I look at the sky. “Alex’s eyes are blue, too.” Zelda locks me out of the store when I ride my bicycle back after lunch (at Half Moon Mill, because it reminds me of him).
“I’m sorry,” she shouts through the door. “It’s just that I really can’t stand you right now. Love you, though!”
It’s hardly fair, since Trevor and Teyonna have been just as bad. Teyonna hangs out at the store all the time now. They like to make animal crackers pretend to talk to each other and take turns finding “the worst picture of fruit.” Doodle on each other’s sneakers. Not to mention,lotsof making out in the storeroom. Teyonna is warm and kindhearted, softening Trevor’s energy without pouring water over it. An explosion transformed to a containable, brilliant ball of light.
On Monday, the twenty-ninth of May, I begin to hear whisperings.
The gossips of Vallis gather in the shop, because that’s where Morgan’s stationed, and he has the sort of charm that oozes your secrets right out of you, as well as a knack for overhearing conversations he wasn’t invited to. He absorbs all the juicy details about anything that goes on around here.
The whisperings go like this:
“Alex King is back.”
“From the dead?”
“Not that one. His boy.”
“Ohhh.Romina’sAlex.” A few faces swivel to stare at me, then flit away, pretending to act natural.
“I heard he’s renting the yellow two-bedroom on Hewett Fork that’s been sitting empty since the Pickards left.”
“I heard he has kids.”
“Two, I think. Heard him mention two boys. But no wife?”
“Mm-mm. No wife.” More long, persistent looks in my direction, hoping I’ll volunteer my knowledge. Hell if I know. I text Alex:You didn’t move to Moonville, did you?and he replies with a picture of a beagle sleeping on its back, paws in the air. I don’t know whose beagle this is. I ask if he has two sons, and he responds:Only one, unless a miracle happened on the night of the rehearsal dinner that you haven’t told me about. Why’re you asking me that?
I respond that word on the street is that he moved to Moonville with his two sons. He sends me a laughing emoji with no follow-up.
Gilda claims she saw him and another man lift a couch out of a moving truck into the little yellow house. I’m beginning to suspect folks are driving by that house on purpose now.
“I heard he’s gunning for the mayor’s job,” someone mumbles. “Ran into her this morning at the general store, she was all nervous about it. Who does he think he is, running for mayor? Lives here for two damn minutes—”
“If you lovely folks are going to hang out on top of my desk,” Morgan drawls, closing the lid of his donut box, “you’ll need to chip in for snacks. Somebody ate my last cruller when I explicitly told you they were off-limits.”
Ron, the manager of Moonville Market, is peeved. “He hasn’t lived here long enough to be qualified, in my opinion. And being born and raised here don’t get you ahead, neither. Where was he when we fundraised for the new playground? InOreton. What about when all the pumps at the gas station stopped working? Where was he then? Did he have to deal with it like the rest of us when that cow wouldn’t get out of the road? He most certainly did not.”
Titters and grumbling scatter through the room.
“Graduates from college, then moves toOreton. Way to turn your back on the people who helped you win that What I Love About My Ohio Hometown essay scholarship.”
I know these rumors are absurd and also that Alex is the one who got Alex that scholarship, but I’m losing my marbles here. I’m chasing them all over town. I break down and text him:Are you running for mayor?
Alex:Where are you getting your news? Do they deliver? Where do I sign up?
Alex:You look glorious in that purple dress, by the way.
I gasp. Plaster myself to the window. Smush it right and left to peer down the street both ways. I don’t see him anywhere.
Romina:How did you know my dress is purple? Where are you???
