My mind flashes back to how he accused me of trying to get myself killed. He was the one going a gazillion miles per hour. The nerve of him, mansplaining where I can stand in the road.
Hmm. I wouldn’t mind him mansplaining what to do in the bedroom.
Oh my gosh.Quit it right now.You’re never seeing his hotness again, Rowe. Cool your jets.
I mean, what sort of person blames the almost-victim for being run over?
A seriously privileged jerk.
“Did you get his number?” Clarice calls as her tractor tires keep spinning way too slowly down the road.
“No, I sure didn’t.”
“Huh.” She picks at a spot on her chin, which may or may not be growing a hair. “Maybe you can catch up to him in your truck.”
I laugh again. “I’m not getting his number. He wasn’t from around here. He didn’t even know what a piggycorn is.”
“Whodoesn’t know about piggycorns?” she says, voice overflowing with disbelief. Then she considers her statement and backpedals. “Besides us, I mean? And a lot of the world, I guess.” Clarice scratches her chin. “Does anyone in the outside world know or care about piggycorns?”
“That is beside the point,” I snap.
“Well”—she cups a hand beside her mouth and yells loud enough for folks one county over to hear—“maybe you still got a chance with those Collins boys. Everybody knows you’ve got cobwebs growing in your coochie, Rowe. You gotta get back out there and find you a man.”
Uh. It’s official. Worst. Day. Ever.
When a geriatric, tractor-riding farm woman tells you that your vagina is atrophying, the day officially sucks.
I back up into the yard, trying to put as much distance between me and Clarice as possible. “Great seeing you, Mrs. Sinclair!”
“Maybe one of them Collins boys will take you. Rhett’s acne ain’t as bad as it used to be!”
“Bye, now!”
I shut the gate behind me and quickly pinpoint the piece of fencing that the pigs squeezed through.
“You little weasels. Y’all need to stop getting out.”
They snort in reply, foraging through the brittle late-summer leaves that blanket the yard.
I push the fence back into place and head inside, scrubbing my feet on the doormat and slipping out of my boots.
A new vine emerges from under the floorboards, picking up the old shoes and depositing them in the corner where they belong.
If there’s one perk to living on top of magical soil, it’s that the vines outside the house tend to do nice things for you.
“You are never going to believe what happened,” I start, charging into the kitchen and slapping Sally’s hat on the counter.
I don’t expect my mom to be in there, figuring she’s still hiding upstairs to avoid talking to me. But when I enter the rooster-decorated room, she’s sitting on a stool at the counter, phone in hand, talking to Bill, whose face I see on the screen.
“You’ve got to tell her,” he says.
I fold my arms and frown. “Okay, what is it? What’s going on?”
“Swing the phone where I can see Rowe.”
She does as Bill says, and there he is, his bright-white teeth smiling at me. They nearly glow against his dark skin and the ivory beard that covers his jaw and mouth.
“Hey, Bill. You about to head over?”
