1
My great-aunt Nadia says thatin order to seduce a man successfully, one needs:
The scent of roses (somewhere in the vicinity of the copulation location, I presume);
Fresh-ground cinnamon in the kitchen molcajete (with a pinch of salt if one feels particularly kinky);
And lastly, a pitchfork (stuck right into the black garden dirt).
The Pacifica’s Persian Rose perfume (stolen from my sister Sage) I have sprayed on my barely there cleavage should work, I think, for the rose part.Check.
I couldn’t find any sort of cinnamon besides a jar of already ground cinnamon from Value Vince’s Corner Store, so that’s what went in the molcajete. And since I’m feeling not just particularly kinky, but more likeinsanelykinky, I went ahead and dumped a tablespoon of salt right on top of it.Check.
The pitchfork was the one task that I couldn’t complete. I literally spent all morning looking for it. I even asked the pigeons to help me look for one—yes, they can help with that sort of thing, as I am, as my family says, the Witch of Criaturas, or Creatures—but nada. I called my sisters, my tía, but everyone had a different place for me to look, and it wasn’t in the garden shed, or leaning next to the side door, or next to Nadia’s flower-potting station on the porch. I finally gave up after two hours of relentless searching with a bird on each shoulder, each one cooing little warm pigeon-songs beside my ears.
Long after Grayson Baker—a twentysomething real estate agent who I’ve gone on exactly four and a half dates with—arrives, long after we’ve made out on my bed, over my new, fancy comforter printed with watercolor woods, and he’s breathless and hard and saying (sort of) sweet things like “Damn, you’re hot” and “Damn, this ass” I’mstillwondering where the hell I’d last seen that damn pitchfork.
It’s on the tip of my tongue, the periphery of my memory, and then…as Grayson’s mouth hovers over my right nipple, it finally hits me.
“Wait, wait,” I say, gently pushing him back and jumping up off my bed. I grab my fuzzy pink Juicy Couture robe from one of my bedposts. “Just a sec. I’m so sorry. I need to do somethingsuperquick.”
“Uh.” Grayson sits back on the bed, looking me over as I tie the robe across my belly super tight with a double knot. The last thing I need is one of the neighbors to see my tits. They already think I’m a little bit—or a lot, rather—nuts as all hell.
After all, it’s not every day that a woman goes into a magical, Rip Van Winkle–esque sleep in the woods for eight whole years.
It’s not every day said woman is awakened by her sister andgreat-aunt and returns to the Land of the Living—what Nadia calls this realm—telling the town only the truth of where she’d been.
So, naturally, everyone in Cranberry just calls me a liar and wants nothing to do with me except, on occasion, to spy on me so they can spread nasty rumors.
And the last thing I want to hear while I’m shopping at the supermarket this week are whispers about how I kidnapped Grayson and had my way with him, then ran around my yard completely topless while waving a pitchfork around. Hell, by the timethatgets through town, they’ll claim I had Grayson’s body dangling on that same pitchfork and then I’ll be literally banned from all two grocery stores in Cranberry. Not to mention arrested.
Grayson clears his throat and stares at me without blinking. “What’s happening right now?”
“I just have to do this one thing. Fast,” I promise.
He tilts his head and furrows his brows. With his pink cheeks and tousled hair from making out, the whole effect makes him look adorable, actually.
I’d spent the last six months on a local dating app, swiping left and left and left, with only the occasional right, chatting with men who, with only a little bit of prodding, were all too enthusiastic about revealing how disgusting and sexist they were. I’d gotten so sick of it that I came to a decision.
Last month I told myself I would go on an actual, real-life date with the first man on the CDS (Cranberry Dating Scene app—terrible, terrible name) who didn’t seem like a psychopath.
And I get it. That probably sounds pretty expected and kind of the way these things inherently go. Going on dates isliterallythe point of joining dating apps in the first place.
But honestly? Given the way I’m treated in this town? The prospect of getting dressed up and meeting an actual man in personfelt like I was walking off the ledge of a cliff with nothing but long trails of misty, blue-gray clouds beneath me.
Willinglyfalling off a cliff, this time, I mean.
