I need to get out of my own head.
“So you’re in too?” Mabel asks me while she finishes mopping everything up.
Fluffy hisses at her.
“Fluffernutter. Be nice,” Heath says.
The cat sploofs out on the coffee table and stares at him.
Samantha sneezes.
“I’m in,” I tell Mabel. “I haven’t found a new job, and I’m extra hands, and I like working. Helping. Being a team.”
“You paint?”
“I did a segment once on home renovations and got assigned painting and I—actually, I should probably stick to gardening and cleaning. Maybe setting up chairs outside.”
Ginny smiles at me. “You have lived the most fascinating life.”
My cheeks get hot, which is one more thing that’s happened more often since I went viral. “I swear it was only about three times in four years that things actually went badly. I’m usually good at whatever they ask—askedme to do. Was good.”
And we can addstutteringto something I didn’t do before my incident either.
With the clumsiness that’s still there, just not as much, the stuttering, and not knowing how to cope with having a crush on Heath, I feel like I’m in middle school again, and I’m grateful that most of the time here, no one’s judged me for being a complete disaster.
Honestly, staying here through the wedding sounds amazing.
Like a relief.
A purpose while I work through not just going viral, but all of the feelings and realizations I’ve had about my family and how I was raised and where I fit in the world too.
“No one’s good at everything,” Mabel says. “We’d love your help with the gardens.”
“I like dirt. You already know you’re getting dirty, and it’s hard to mess up planting a flower or pulling a weed.”
“Some of the weeds you’ve been pulling are flowering vines,” Samantha tells me.
Is she serious? “No.”
“No judgment, and they should have trellises to climb, but before we turn you loose, how about I show you what’s what so we can make an intentional plan around what we already have and where we want to go?”
“Who’s showing who their what-what?” Pip asks behind me. “About time I wasn’t the only one showing my what-what.”
“Samantha’s showing Cricket what’s what in the garden since Cricket’s enjoying working in it so much,” Mabel says. “Maybe you can help too? Give Dean a big middle finger and help us figure out how we can replace the trellises and trees he tore out?”
Pip steps up beside me, and I realize that while she seems to be pants-less, she’s wearing the brightest red lipstick along with my hot pink trouble-dick shirt, which covers her to her upper thighs.
“He was one of those,” she whispers loudly to me, pointing to the phallus design over her low-dangling boobs.
“I’ve picked up on that,” I murmur back.
She grins, her pale face breaking into wrinkles. “I like you. You’re a lot like me. Showgirl type. Dragon slayer. Black sheep of the family.”
The pride in her voice as she says it makes my eyes water.
Never would’ve called myself the showgirl type before, or taken pride in being the black sheep of my family, but Pip can call me whatever she wants so long as she beams at me like that.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
