Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
To quit.
So I nodded once, accepting his terms.
“Good.” He grinned at me for real, then slapped the table and pushed himself to his feet. “Now, I’d like to head to the festival and meet up with your mother. Violet’s sending over a photographer to capture us shaking hands while the volunteers set up the booths.”
When we arrived in the center of Honeybridge, people were buzzing around bundled in their parkas, all bright eyes and friendly smiles. Thankfully, the sun shone brightly, and despite my mother’s dire predictions, the temperature wasn’t as bad as it could have been in mid-January. I’d never understood why our town insisted on holding any outdoor event this time of year, but once something was declared a tradition in Honeybridge, it became sacrosanct.
My mother stood in the middle of the crowd, holding a clipboard and directing the action. A chilly breeze stirred the hem of her long, red cashmere coat, but her blonde bob did not sway one inch. At her side stood a balding man with a camera—no doubt the photographer Violet had hired—and the poor guy already looked harried and exhausted. I felt for him.
“Ah, Trent!” She waved at my father from two feet away like he was a solider coming home from war, and the photographer dutifully stepped back to capture their joyful reunion. “And Reagan, darling.” She cupped my cheek with one hand and beamed at me lovingly. “You didn’t even try to make time for a haircut, did you?” she said, voice low and reproving. “Tsk. What’s done is done, I suppose.”
When the camera shutter stopped clicking, she stepped back. “Doesn’t everything look particularly lovely this year? I do think we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations. Now, where will we begin? We want to get some shots of the Senator interacting with the townsfolk,” she instructed the photographer. “But we’ll want to be careful about where we go first. The Senator’s endorsement is bound to draw attention.”
“Oh! There’s Willow Honeycutt,” I said, waving at Flynn’s mother, who was decked out in a colorful, hand-knit hat, scarf, and mittens. “Why not start there? They’re practically family now.”
“Darling, while I have accepted that your brother’s inamorata may become a Wellbridge at some point in the future, let’s not be too hasty in using the f-word when describing Willow’s brood, hmm?”
I fought not to roll my eyes. “Right. Of course not.”
“Besides, she’s on that Clean Waterways committee that’s looking to clean up Lake Wellbridge,” my father pointed out.
“Hmph. As though the water needs protecting now that the beavers are gone,” Mother scoffed. She touched a hand to her perfect hair. “Oh, look, Trent. There’s Justine with a group of young mothers. That would be a perfectly wholesome photo op.”
My cousin Justine waved from where she sat in a folding chair, attempting to nurse her newest baby while preventing her other two kids from knocking down a folding table and using it as a snowball shield. I grinned and waved back.
“Indeed.” My father smoothed his coat and checked that his lapel pin was straight before heading us in that direction. “Nothing says family values like mothers and their precious babies.”
The photographer and I stood back and shared a look that clearly said, I’m not telling him, YOU tell him. Apparently, sharing the Senator’s DNA meant I’d drawn the short straw.
“Uh, Dad? I do think this could make for an awesome photo, but since the women are here representing the La Leche League, we’re going to have to stage the photos a certain way—”
“The what?” My father stopped dead. “What’s that?”
My mother seemed to be equally mystified, though I wasn’t sure how that was possible.
“It’s a group that advocates for breastfeeding mothers—” I began.
“Oh, my word.” My mother grabbed my father’s arm and wrenched him away. “Under no circumstances will the Senator be photographed while those women…”
“Feed their precious babies?” I finished, deadpan. “It’s simple biology, Mother.”
“Exactly,” she exclaimed, scandalized. “Reagan, avert your eyes. It’s inappropriate.”
I rubbed the spot between my eyes where a headache was beginning to form. “What would be appropriate, then?” I demanded, unable to hide my impatience.
The four of us—if I included the hapless photographer—turned in a slow circle, surveying the various clusters of Honeybridgers, but my parents found a reason to quickly and quietly veto each, from the local organic farmers’ guild (“It’s not that I don’t support organic farmers; it’s just that I don’t know if I do support them.”), to a troop of lollipop-selling Wild Explorer Girls (“Do we really want to encourage wildness in our youth?”), to a bake sale to benefit the Senior Center (“Trent, you cannot be photographed with Ernest Chandler and his fig bars after what he said about my hibiscus lemonade at the Arbor Day Foliage Fiesta.”)
Finally, at the end of the row of stalls, my father found a group he approved of.