I stare dumbfounded at my father, his face filling with glee as he tells the story. Holy shit. It’s like I thought. I knew it had something to do with helping kids.
“I think I got a little carried away when I thought I recognized him, hoping maybe I’d get the chance to shake the hand of the man who single-handedly saved the lives of so many people.” He blows out a happy breath and shows me a brilliant grin. “But I would be just as happy to shake the hand of the man who helped my youngest daughter achieve her dream. Come on,” he says, opening the door with one hand, and looping his other arm through mine. “Come introduce me properly. I want to thank him for giving you a helping hand when you needed it.”
The sound of a roaring engine and squealing tires makes me jump, drawing my attention away from my father and the door. I spin around just in time to see my parents’ minivan screeching to a sliding stop by the curb. It rocks as it settles into position after stopping so abruptly, then every door opens and an army of black-haired women streams out, every one of them talking at once.
“Valentina.” My mother smiles at me with love in her eyes, running over to hug me. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”
“You’ll never believe what we found.” My aunt Vera says.
“It’s too good to be true,” Aunt Maude adds. “I love this town.”
“That’s the place for me.” Nonna Mona says, waving a handful of brochures in my direction. “They call themselves Spring Chickens, if you can believe it. My new friend Martha said she’d bring me to her gym so I can see the hot piece of ass they got running the place over there. She says his shorts are so short you can almost see his ding—”
“Ma!” my dad yells. “No one wants to hear that.”
“And she said the other guys they got running around there aren’t bad to look at, either. I can’t wait.” Nonna rubs her hands together, a gleam in her eye.
My dad cocks an eyebrow at my mother, who can only nod and smile. “She really enjoyed her visit,” she says. “The rooms are nice and the people living there seemed like they were having a great time.”
“But Mom,” my dad says, interrupting Nonna as she tries to continue her earlier statement about someone’s short shorts.I wonder if Nick knows exactly what those shorts do to all the women who see him wearing them? What they do to me? “I thought you didn’t want to move into a home.”
Nonna waves him off. “Eh,” she says with a shrug. “I didn’t before, but you should see this place, Stanley. It’s like living with a group of friends in college. Did I tell you they have a cornhole team? And they said I could join. It’s been a long time since I had my hands on a quality bag. I haven’t even thought about it since your father passed. Rest his soul.”
I snort a laugh, faking a cough to hide it, just as the familiar dinging sound of a brass bell gets my attention.
“Oh, what a sweet boy you are. Aren’t you the cutest little thing?” Aunt Vera’s voice carries over Nonna’s continuing talk of getting her hands on weighty bag, mercifully distracting me from (what I’m hoping are) Nonna’s unintentional innuendos.
I look past my grandmother as she squeezes the fingers of her empty upturned hands, demonstrating her method of testing a bean bag’s heft, to find Aunt Vera, Aunt Bernice, Aunt Dorothy, and Aunt Maude all cooing at none other than Mayor Winston, who somehow manages to look smug as he climbs out of the minivan.What the hell?
“Uh...” I screw up my eyebrows in confusion. “Why did you have a goat in the van?”
Aunt Vera answers without looking away from the goat in question. “This poor goat was walking in the middle of the road, Valentina. It’s not safe.”
“That is not a poor goat. That is Winston. He is an unrepentant underwear thief, and a general menace.” Winston looks directly at me with his creepy sideways pupils and licks his lips. The nerve of him!
“Nevertheless, he shouldn’t be walking around on his own. Anything could happen.”
“So your solution was to put a two hundred pound farm animal into a minivan? How did you even get him in there?”
She shrugs. “We had snacks.”
“You had snacks?” This group of ladies lured a farm animal into their vehicle with snacks, and they see nothing wrong with that? Worry races through me at the thought of Winston’s hot daddy finding out about this goatnapping because my crazy family fed his goat something toxic. “Please tell me you didn’t feed him anything that would be bad for him.”
Aunt Bernice laughs. “Oh no, dear. Of course not. We just gave him a few little peppermints.”
I blow out a relieved breath. I’ve witnessed countless people using peppermints to lure Winston away from things he shouldn’t be getting into. In fact, deputy mayor Verona uses them when she needs Winston to make a public appearance as the mayor. Apparently, the soft peppermints are his favorite. “Thank goodness that’s all you gave him. His owner won’t be happy that you kidnapped his goat, but I have a feeling he’d be even less happy if you’d poisoned him.”
“His owner? This goat was wandering in the middle of the street. I doubt his owner cares much about what happens to him.”
I swivel my head around, expecting to see Winston’s hot daddy storming up any minute. “He loves that goat like it’shis own child.” Or at least I assume he does. Winston’s hot daddy is notoriously hard to read. “This is a small town, and this particular goat just so happens to be the mayor. He’s allowed to go wherever he wants.”
I’m expecting laughter at my announcement, which is the usual reaction when outsiders learn of Winston’s mayoral status, but instead I’m met with silent mouths and widening eyes.
“What’s wro—” I’m interrupted by a firm tap on the shoulder, and it’s only then that I notice Winston’s mounting excitement. I turn my head ever so slowly, looking up and up until I spy the scowling face of Tuft Swallow’s favorite mechanic... also known as Winston’s Hot Daddy. “Oh, hey... you.” I’ve lived in Tuft Swallow for five years and I’ve yet to ferret out the name of the man standing in front of me. I know he’s lived here for years too, so someone around town has to know it, but most of us, women and men alike, refer to him as Winston’s Hot Daddy. Not to his face, of course.
He points at Winston, saying nothing.
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry about that. My family showed up for a surprise visit and when they saw Winston wandering around town, they were worried something might happen to him. So they... so they brought him here.”
