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Living History Illinois Flockify DM, Thursday 10:30 PM
SingerQueen: Sorry I haven’t been online much. Swamped!
AlCaponesGhost25: Seems to be a busy time of year for everyone.
SingerQueen: #holidayfun
AlCaponesGhost25: Travel plans?
SingerQueen: No, but I picked up a commission for a Lincoln masquerade ball costume. It’s this annual Halloween party in downtown Chicago.
AlCaponesGhost25: I’ve heard of it. That’s good. Congrats!
SingerQueen: Thx. It’s a big job, so don’t take it personally if I’m on here less for a bit.
AlCaponesGhost25: Whatever will I do?
SingerQueen: Shake your little tush on the catwalk?
AlCaponesGhost25: Bah-ha-ha
SingerQueen: *blows kiss*
T his is a shit-ton of pumpkins,” Micki says upon entering the store Saturday before opening.
She’s helping organize the crafting extravaganza I have planned as part of the two-week countdown to Halloween. I was prepared to do it inside the store, but because of the gorgeous blue skies, we’ll be setting up a couple of tables outside.
“That’s what Leo said, too. It’s not that many.” His exact words at the pumpkin patch were “The dogs are going to have to ride on the roof if you keep this up.”
He was grossly exaggerating, of course. I have twelve full-sized pumpkins and ten smaller ones interspersed around the store and in the entryway, and I didn’t even get all of them at the patch. I picked up a few more at the grocery store yesterday.
I’m balancing on top of a ladder by the window, stringing up leaf garlands I found in storage. It wobbles precariously beneath me. “All of those supplies need to be set up outside. Start with that.” I point to bins of foam pumpkins, popsicle sticks, felt scraps, glitter glue, crayons, stickers, and googly eyes. I’ve posted to social media and put fliers up all over town. The idea is that families will stop by to make their own pumpkin to display in my window, and then people vote for their favorite. I’ll announce the winner on Halloween, and they get a twenty-dollar gift card to the store.
Micki pulls out her phone and takes a picture of me. “For your Instagram. It’s cute. Very Martha Stewart.”
“Because that’s the image I’m going for.” I finish tying the garland and climb down.
“It’s personable, and that’s on-brand for Happy Paws.” She shows me the photo. “See, you look pretty, too.”
The morning light from the window hits my face like a diffused spotlight, and she’s right, it does do me favors. Unlike some other candids she snapped of me this past week, I don’t hate this one. “Okay, send it to me.”
“So, do we not get to actually carve pumpkins?” Micki asks, tucking her phone back in her pocket.
“Maybe later. We can’t have knives lying about with kids around.”
“Because I’m freaking fabulous at pumpkin carving. Where do you want these?” She holds up an armful of cornstalks I got from Diane and Dawn.
I look around the store, and it’s pretty darn festive already if I may say so myself. No way is Leo going to beat me at this. “How are things outside? Maybe put a few next to the door in the corner there. Can we tie some of them to the tables somehow?”
“If we trim them shorter maybe?”
We’re trying to figure it out when Leo comes up behind us. “What’s going on over here?” His gaze skims all my decorations, lingering on the stacked pumpkins framing the entry to Happy Paws.
“A small event I’m doing today.”
“The pumpkin craft thing.” He nods. “I saw your post.”
“Yeah, our girl is rocking the interwebs these days,” Micki says a little too loudly.
Our girl? I throw her a glare, but if Leo thinks she’s being overly familiar, he doesn’t show it.
“I’d like to make one,” he says. “Or are you not open for business yet?”
“See, I told you,” Micki says to me. “He doesn’t hate Halloween.” She hands him a foam pumpkin. “Knock yourself out.”
Leo takes it but doesn’t move. He looks from her to me, a smile lighting up his already bright blues. “You’ve been talking about me?”
Crap. I take my time finishing tying a stalk to the table leg and stand up. “Only to tell her I’ll be winning our bet since you don’t care for the holiday.” Nice save.
“Ah.” He reaches for a popsicle stick, glue, and felt. “Dream on.”
I take a step closer to him. “I don’t have to. My position is firmly anchored in reality, thank you very much.”
He mimics my stance, and now there are only feet separating us. I’ve been close to him in the car before, but face-to-face like this, a weird tension forms between us—like a tether. It makes me want to hook my fingers through his belt loops and tell him all about my favorite memories from childhood. The mild, chalky-sweet scent of the open glue stick he’s holding ties the past and present together.
He looks down at me. “And mine’s not?”
I pull my gaze off his and direct it toward Canine King where Jaz is waving through the window. “You have one sorry pumpkin outside your store. Winning!”
He scoffs. “Maybe I have plans you don’t know about.”
An alarm goes off in my head. Maybe he does. I should prepare. I cannot let him win.
“I could seriously watch you guys do this all day,” Micki says with a giggle from the other side of the table. “You’re too much, both of you.”
I take a step back, the bubble we were just in now burst. “Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
“Which is why I interrupted that whole thing.” She waves her arm in a circle to encompass Leo and me. “We don’t have a ton of time here.”
Leo has dived into his crafting as if our exchange never happened, so I settle for side-eyeing Micki on my way back into the store. “I’m going to get the tape.”
Back in the storage room, I sink down onto a box by the door, my hand pressed to my chest. What was that even? When Leo looked at me like that, challenged me, it was like a powerful surge knocked me into overdrive. I usually back down from situations like that. What a rush.
“There. Done,” he says when I return. He holds up his pumpkin as if it’s a rare painting.
“Look at that. You made Cholula,” Micki exclaims. “It even has her dangly tongue.”
The resemblance is uncanny—if we inflated Cholula and turned her orange that is—and as much as I don’t want to be, I’m impressed.
“Admit it, you’re impressed,” Leo says as if he can read my mind.
I scoff. “No.” I take the Cholula pumpkin from him. “It’s average at best.”
“So cruel.” He feigns a shot to the heart.
I pull off a piece of tape and excuse myself to put it up on the window inside. When I return, Leo stares at me with a mix of humor and befuddlement.
“Let me guess, you have an opinion about the placement of your masterpiece.” I don’t have time for this. We open in thirty minutes.
He blinks a few times. “Not at all. I’m just… You put it up.”
I look at the largely empty window with the lone foam pumpkin. “That’s the whole point. All of them are going up. Did you want to take it home?” I ask this in the tone of voice I’d use with a small child. “Put it on the fridge?”
“I think it looks great there,” Micki chimes in.
“Yeah, no. I’m good.” Leo digs his teeth into his lower lip as if to stifle another smile. It’s futile. His eyes give him away every time.
The whole display does something to my stomach I haven’t felt in a good, long while.
He hikes his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll let you get to it. I have some decorating to do. Really looking forward to seeing you in a Canine King apron when you lose.”
He strides confidently back to Canine King, leaving, I admit, a bit of a void there on the sidewalk.
“Leo and Cora sitting in a tree…” Micki sings in a low voice.
I throw a popsicle stick at her.
I don’t have time for climbing trees, and if I did it with him, he’d probably make it a race to the top.
Jaz comes darting out of the store as soon as Leo’s disappeared into it. “I told him I had to run to the pharmacy real quick,” she pants, ducking down behind the table. “Come on, cover me.”
Micki and I do, though it’s a pathetic excuse of an attempt that wouldn’t fool anyone who was actually looking.
“What’s going on, sis?” Micki asks.
“I saw it. I saw the letter. Or at least I think that was the one. He had me bring Tilly upstairs yesterday when we got busy, and it was sitting right there on his kitchen table.”
I lower my voice. “Tell me you didn’t take it.”
“Of course not. What do you think of me?”
“What do I think… You literally told me you were going to steal it last we talked about this.”
“Okay, okay. Well, I didn’t. But…”
Micki and I both lean in.
“What?” Micki asks impatiently.
“It’s from someone named Samantha. Real pretty handwriting.”
“And?” I hold my breath.
“That’s it.”
“No, but where was it sent from?”
“I’m not sure. I only looked at the name.”
“You only…?” Micki stands back. “That tells us nothing.”
“Be nice, it’s not nothing,” I try. To Jaz I say, “Thanks for looking. I appreciate it. Stay alert, okay?”
“Roger that.” Jaz grins. “This spying stuff is fun. Okay, gotta go.”
Micki’s arms are crossed, and her toes are tapping the ground. “I mean, Boris would make a better sleuth.”
“It’s not a ton of info,” I concede. If anything, it adds questions about him to my already long list. Is Samantha the woman who took the #honeymoon photo of him? And if so, are they still a thing? Is she a family member? A friend? A secret baby mama pressuring him for alimony?
“Maybe you should ask him,” Micki says. “I bet he’d tell you.”
“Except then it would seem like I care.”
She watches me a long moment. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.”