“Are you sure that’s drinkable? Isn’t there, like, a health department code or something?” he asked me desperately.
“You want the free meal?” Zoe said. “You drink the smoothie.”
“Okay, okay,” Frank replied.
Zoe didn’t move.
“Right now?” Frank squeaked.
“They probably don’t want you to throw it in the bushes,” I offered.
“My friend Amy planted those roses, and she’ll kill me if you drown them with slop—excuseme, colon-cleansing health drink,” Zoe said.
Frank gulped.
Zoe crossed her arms.
I sniffed. The drink smelled like dirt.
“Guess you’re not going to want to make out after this,” he joked.
“She’s not going to be making out with you at all.”
It was all I could do not to tear my hair out. “Seriously, Hunter. Can’t you leave me alone?” I demanded.
He snorted. “Get over yourself, Meg. I’m here to support the…” He waved a hand.
“Intimate Pickle?” Zoe prompted.
“Right.”
“That you paid fifty thousand dollars for,” I reminded him. “And caused a traffic jam and probably some sort of public health crisis.”
Frank had taken a generous swallow of the brown drink and was now making wet, gagging noises.
“Not on my roses,” Zoe warned.
“The cleansing is in progress!” her grandmother, Edith, sang, sailing out of the restaurant in a colorful kaftan. “Look at all these people! Let’s all thank Hunter for his generous donation.”
“Wait,” one college-aged girl said, “you’re, like, giving out money, Mr. Svensson? Because I have this nonprofit? I, like, knit hats for the feral cats in the area?”
“In his campaign for mayor,” I told the crowd, “Hunter has generously set aside a large amount of cash to dole out to nonprofits. Isn’t that right, Hunter?”
He glared at me.
“In fact,” I drawled to the crowd, “the wackier and zanier ideas, the better! Don’t forget to stop by his campaign office with your presentations. They should be at minimum an hour and include lots of visuals and prototypes.”
“I’ll, like, bring the feral cat colony that lives behind Ida’s General Store?” the girl said. “They would, like, go great in your, like, campaign ads.”
I huffed out a laugh
“Oh totally. Hunter loves feral cats, don’t you?” I elbowed him. “In fact, he already told me how excited he is for the annual shelter day at the city pound.”
“I just want to say,” Frank slurred at Hunter, tree bark drink in hand, “you’re handling this all super classily.”
I peered at him. His eyes looked a little glassy. They had also dilated to the size of quarters.
“What’s in that drink?” I asked Zoe.
