Ron peeks out from behind the feedstore, motioning to me.
“What now?” I grouch.
When I reach him, he pulls me around the corner. “I feel awful bad about what happened in there and for everything that went on at your house earlier.” He rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment. “So here.”
He moves aside, unblocking from view a fifty-pound bag of feed. My heart leaps into my throat.
I throw my arms around his neck. “Ron! You are my hero! Thank you so much!”
“Now, don’t get excited,” he tells me, pulling back bashfully. “You’ll have to repay this pretty fast. Sally Ray keeps a keen eye on inventory, and if she notices that it’s missing, I’ll be fired.”
“Okay, I promise. Soon as I get home, I’ll take a look and scrounge up all the money that I can.”
“You don’t have to get it back to methatfast. You’ve got at least a week.”
By then my accounts might be accessible again. “Thank you. Now. Can you help me load this up?”
He nods. “Drive around back here so nobody’ll see.”
“And here we are—that’s been my entire day, and it sucks,” I say, my voice echoing in the now-bare living room.
I’m lying on a pile of quilts I brought down from upstairs. There’s a margarita in my hand, and I’m successfully wallowing in the evil I’ve endured in the last twelve hours.
Cristina, my ride-or-die, walks over and pours more frozen mango margarita into my green-speckled party-for-one glass. “Congratulations, my friend. You’ve officially had the shittiest day ever, and I’m pretty sure I have no interest in beating it. Though, when I think about it, the day that you had to give Stella to Sally Ray may have topped this one.” When I shoot her a look, she scoffs. “What? That was a bad day, too, though not as bad as when Tyrell left me by the side of the road after prom. Nowthatwas bad.”
“I’m not gonna disagree.”
She crosses back to my dad’s old recliner in her eggplant-colored jammie set trimmed in pink feathers.
She looks around the room and sits. “I have to admit, the place does feel empty.”
“That’s because it is,” I announce, listening as my words bounce around the empty room.
Cristina lifts her glass. “Cheers to things looking up!”
“I’ll second that.”
Every Wednesday, one of us hosts Margarita Night. Tonight was my turn, but when I called Cristina and told her how awful today had been, she insisted on making the drinks for me and coming over. We usually watch a movie in our pj’s and then call it a night before she heads home.
The only movie that could possibly make me feel better isTitanic, as it’s a worse disaster than what I’m living through. Unfortunately, the love story kills it for me. A romance like Jack and Rose’s doesn’t exist.
Cristina smacks her lips. “Have you looked over the financials?”
I point to my mom’s office, where her laptop sits on the desk. After I got home from town, I started poring over spreadsheets. I’m no accountant, but even I could tell that we are so far in the red that we’re now approaching the crimson gates of hell.
“Yeah, I looked. We’re screwed.”
Cristina passes me a bowl of chips. She’s on this new no-seed-oil, no-flour, and no-corn diet, so the tortilla chips are made from black beans and cooked in avocado oil.
I take one and drag it through homemade guacamole. It’s pretty good. Not gonna lie—I miss the corn, but these will do.
“Maybe there’s a way to salvage—” she starts.
“There’s no way.”
I throw out my one arm that’s not holding the margarita. No way am I risking any of this yummy goodness being spilled on the floor. With all the money Idon’thave, no food can go to waste, margaritas included. The last thing I need to add to my humiliation is hunkering over the floor and using my hands to scoop my slushy alcoholic beverage back into my glass.
“Even if there was a way to save the place, I don’t have the money to pay someone to look through things. Luke made sure of that.”
