5. Emergency Chickens May Be Reported
EMERGENCY CHICKENS MAY BE REPORTED
Felicity
Thirty minutes. That’s all I had before my life officially imploded.
I scrolled through my contacts with the desperate optimism that it would suddenly light up with a godsend of names, a hidden roster of emergency contacts I’d completely overlooked until this moment, courtesy of my fairy godmother.
Spoiler: I did not have a fairy godmother.
What I had was Nonna, who’d just called to tell me she wouldn’t be able to watch Mav today and then proceeded to spend three solid minutes describing her stomach bug in the kind of graphic detail that should be illegal before 8 a.m. “Singing to the porcelain gods” were her exact words.
I’d never look at a toilet the same way again.
My eyes swept Uncle Walter’s living room like I was expecting a responsible adult to materialize from behind one of the moving boxes—a surprise babysitter, a kindly stranger, anyone.
But it was just the two of us. Maverick, four years old and completely unbothered by my downward spiral, his entire being absorbed by Transformers, and me, a woman so deep in existential dread she was considering calling her dentist as a childcare solution.
Five minutes until I was supposed to drop him off. Thirty minutes until I was supposed to be at the ranch.
Something told me today was about to get spectacularly worse.
“What’s wrong?” Mav asked, his eyes not leaving the screen, just sensing panic by the radioactive waves I was giving off.
“Nothing,” I lied, the way mothers everywhere have been lying since the dawn of time.
He glanced over in time to catch me chewing on the cord of my hoodie—the same nervous tic he’d inherited, because children are nature’s way of showing us our worst habits in high-def.
I dropped the string and smiled at him, hoping to convey confidence—nothing to see here, everything’s fine. When his attention turned back to the screen, my smile fell.
Seattle-me would have scrolled through contacts until I found someone.
Seattle-me had a bench so deep with backup and backup-for-the-backups that I’d once attended a Child-Free Friday wine tasting and had three different women lining up to watch him.
I was child-care rich. But this was Valentine Bay, and here my entire network consisted of an eighty-two-year-old woman with a constitution of half espresso and half pure willpower, currently incapacitated by a stomach virus she’d most likely caught because, for the past five days she’d taken my son to the park filled with germs.
I’d only lived here a week, and my social circle was still more ‘awkward pleasantries in the grocery store’ than “hey, can you watch my kid for eight hours while I wrangle an influencer high-visibility wedding?”
Calling out was not an option. Not my first week on the job.
Not on the day of my first event—my first as the newly minted events coordinator for Lockhart Ranch.
I’d already had to reassure the bride three times that yes, the horses were included in the package and no, they would not “smell up the reception.”
I yanked Maverick’s backpack off its hook. “Okay, bud, we’re going with Plan B. Nonna isn’t feeling so good, so you’re going to be Mom’s sidekick at work today.”
Maverick’s head snapped around like a dog who’d just heard the treat jar rattle. The cartoon didn’t even matter anymore. “Do I get to see the horses?”
“If you listen while I work, then when I’m done, I’ll take you to see the horses, the goats, the cows, the chickens—”
“Everything!” he finished for me, all but vibrating out of his skin.
I gestured at him with a stern but loving finger. “Get out all your wiggles here, because at work, I need you to be calm, quiet, and have your listening ears on. If you can do that all day, you and I are getting ice cream afterward.”
To be honest, that one was more for me than it was for him.
His mouth dropped open as if I’d just promised him a personal jet pack. “Ice cream and horses!”
“Yep, but only if you can be the best listener. Like, best-in-the-world listener. Deal?”
He nodded so hard I worried his neck might snap.
The next few minutes were a blur: him dashing from the couch to the bedroom to put on his shoes, while I packed enough snacks to feed a soccer team, plus his iPad, headphones, coloring books, markers, even the weird old Etch A Sketch that kept him quiet for three minutes at a time if I was lucky.
I checked my own bag to make sure I had my planner, the wedding packet, two phone chargers, and my backup deodorant, because there’s no anxiety sweat quite like wedding coordinator anxiety sweat.
By the time we reached the car, Maverick had burned off most of the morning’s sugar, but his excitement was still at a low boil. He bounced on the back seat as I buckled him in, reciting a detailed list of every animal he intended to meet today.
I tried to stay focused on the drive, tried not to let my pre-event jitters leak out and infect the rest of the day.
But my mind kept looping over the schedule: first the bride and groom prep, then the photographer’s walk-through, then the actual ceremony, cocktail hour, reception, and cleanup.
I was responsible for it all, and if anything went wrong, it would be me on the chopping block.
And it wouldn’t just be my reputation that would be ruined.
The bride had a following of over ten million on social media.
If the ranch did not only meet, but exceed her expectations, it could do real damage.
I’d never had that level of pressure in my life, not even when my ex decided he wanted to “take a break” from dad duties two weeks after Maverick was born and went to Canada for three months, leaving me with a newborn and no income.
I stole a glance at Maverick in the rearview mirror. He’d already opened his coloring book and was methodically peeling the wrapper off a red crayon. He looked so small and so determined. Sometimes I wished I could borrow his confidence.
“Are you nervous?” he asked, apropos of nothing.
I almost swerved. “Why would you ask that?”
“You’re chewing your thumb. And you always do that when you’re nervous.”
Busted. Why did he have to pick up on absolutely everything?
“I guess I am a little nervous, but it’s just because I want to do a really good job today.”
He shrugged, totally unbothered. “You will.”
His unfaltering belief in me was appreciated even if it wasn’t deserved.
The drive next door to Lockhart Ranch technically took three minutes.
Still, between Maverick’s running commentary and my own mental rehearsal of the day’s critical timeline, it felt more like thirty.
Mav kept up a steady stream of questions: Would there be horses in the parking lot?
Did all the goats have names? What if a chicken went to the reception and laid an egg on the cake?
My responses got shorter and less logical as the knot in my stomach tightened.
I think at one point I promised him he could ride a goat if he wore a helmet.
We parked and walked in through the side entrance of the main office,
First order of business: let Selma know I’d brought a plus-one to work.
I knew I owed my job to her. Dean, for some reason, had not been a fan, and I sensed from the moment he walked into the conference room that he was looking for a reason not to hire me.
He’d kept his distance the past week. I’d only seen him in passing, and he barely acknowledged me.
He had come back over and fixed the roof and ceiling and filled in the empty whack-a-mole holes with recessed lighting, but he did all that when we weren’t home.
He still had a key from Walter, and after getting my permission to check on the roof my first day on the job, he’d used it several times.
Each day I came home wondering what would be fixed next.
I tried to thank him and ask him how much I owed him, but he just avoided the question and barely spoke to me.
I poked my head in Selma’s office and found it empty and dark. The familiar smell of lemon cleaning wipes and Chanel No. 5 hung in the air. I left a note on her keyboard, then texted her a heads-up in case she checked messages before she checked her desk.
Me: Hey, brought Mav to work today—Nonna is down for the count. Will keep him in my office unless the barn literally catches fire. Sorry and thank you! Felicity
She instantly replied with a thumbs-up and a GIF of a toddler riding a sheepdog.
Next, I double-timed it to my own office and set Maverick up on a folding chair and side table.
He arranged his snacks in a precise semicircle around himself as he took in his surroundings, radiating the curiosity of a child who knew there were infinite ways to get in trouble and he wanted to explore them all.
“Remember,” I said, kneeling to his level and giving him my very best ‘serious professional’ face, “use your listening ears and stay here. The bathroom is right across the hall, but don’t go by yourself.
Make sure you tell me, even if I’m on the phone.
But only interrupt me if you need to go potty. ”
His brow furrowed as his expression turned grave. “What if I see a loose chicken?”
“Good point, you can report emergency chickens,” I humored him. “Otherwise, stick to the coloring books and video games.”
He nodded solemnly and pulled out his iPad to play his games, utterly unmoved by the magnitude of my trust and, let’s be honest, my desperation.