Mallory: Love that guy.
Mallory: Sometimes, anyway.
Jolene: Do you miss me?
Mallory: It's been six days since I've seen you.
Jolene: Not the question I was asking.
Mallory: I miss you.
Jolene: Want to know what I really miss? The appointment I was going to with you. You know, the one where we were going to find out if you're having a boy or a girl?
Mallory: I only pushed it out to next week.
Jolene: STILL.
Mallory: I have to get going. The Olive Festival waits for no woman.
Jolene: Nooo I want to hear more about Hugo.
Mallory: I already told you, he's kind and obviously still very wounded.
Jolene: Likeyou.
Jolene: I want to hear you describe how gorgeous he is. How all that olive farming and fencing has worked in his favor.
Mallory: You don't need me for that. Consult your old pal, the Internet.
Chapter 11
Mallory
From my research,I learned Simon was murdered on the day of the eighth annual Olive Festival.
He'd left Summerhill earlier than his wife and kids, with plans to help his employees set up the Summerhill booth. When Sonya and their children showed up at the booth and learned nobody had seen Simon, Sonya located a rookie police officer put in place for crowd control and told him. Using his radio, he'd alerted the officers at the station. According to an interview given by Sonya at the time, this is when her heart sank. She knew something was very wrong.
Simon was found lying beside his car on Six Digit Road, not too far from where the festival was taking place. The investigation went on for months, and the family went quiet. The police exhausted their resources, and for the next two years, the Olive Festival was shuttered. Nobody wanted to gather on that day for any reason other than to remember one of their belovedtownsmen, a man whose family had been a fixture of Olive Township, and even the reason for its name.
Though I searched, I couldn't find online when the festival had resurrected, or who was responsible for bringing it back to life.
The park where the event is held isn't too far from the inn, and I'm on foot. Yesterday I'd gone on a bit of a shopping spree, picking up two new sundresses, a cute pair of court-style tennis shoes, and a few loose tops. I'd also stopped for more toiletries, and snacks and water to keep in my room. I'd forgotten to refill my water bottle before I left, and I'm regretting that now. Pregnancy makes me thirstier, makes physical exertion more tiring. Growing a human is hard work.
Is that perspiration I feel gathering at my hairline? I've only been walking ten minutes. I either need to exercise more, or never exercise again. Right now I'm leaning toward the latter. Good thing I chose to wear one of my new tank tops, and a pair of linen shorts. Any more fabric and I'd be roasting.
The park that holds the festival gets bigger and bigger the closer I get. The faint offbeat of a song reaches me, the lonesome sound of bluegrass.
Hugo's face pops into my mind. I've known him less than a week, and already I've seen him wear numerous expressions. Flirtatious, surprised, tense, angry, resigned, sorrowful. The many faces of Hugo De la Vega.
For a man so guarded, he's easy to be around. Does he do that on purpose? Make being around him effortless so nobody knows how deeplyhe's hurting inside?
Takes one to know one.
An old defense mechanism I didn't know I had until I began taking psychology classes in college. I've met plenty of people who've experienced tragedy, but none who chose to deal with it the way I did.
Until now.
Hugo, and the way he palms the back of his neck, how he looks down at the ground when he's weighing his response.
