the worst way possible. I mean, Blake only revealed that I’d said their peach products make me sick, that I don’t want to live in my own home town, and that I’ve been sneaking charity orders to them for the last several years. I hit them right in the pride.
But we’re family, and we need to repair this. I have no qualms whatsoever about showing up and doing some groveling. I know sooner or later they’ll pick up the phone, but I don’t want to wait any longer, and this is the kind of apology best delivered in person anyway.
As we round the corner onto Peach Tree Lane, I’m bracing myself for all kinds of things – but not for what I see up ahead of me.
News trucks. A forest of antenna masts pointed at the sky. A group of reporters milling around outside the white picket fence. And, as we glide to a stop…my mother throwing a pie over the fence, splatting into the face of a reporter.
Oh, cow flops. Just what my parents need.
Whatever’s happening, I’m sure Blake’s behind it somehow.
“Stop here,” I say hastily. I throw a handful of money at the cab driver, grab my suitcase from the seat next to me, and leap out of the car.
The reporters all swivel to stare at me. The front door of my parents’ white bungalow-style cottage flies open, and my father comes barreling out. He dashes across the yard, flying past my mother, and throws open the gate. I lower my head like a linebacker and run towards it. When one of the reporters tries to block me, I slam the corner of my suitcase into his crotch, and he doubles over, howling in pain.
“Are you Winona?” a man in a seersucker suit yells. “Are you going to forgive him?”
What has he done?
“What has he done?” a lady with a blonde perm shouts at me.
Exactly.
I leap nimbly through the gate, and my father slams it shut behind him.
“Dad, I came to say I’m sorry!”
“Forget that. We’ve got bigger problems.” He glowers at the reporters.
“Yeah we do,” I mutter.
They’re pressing up against the white picket fence, threatening to topple it. My mother comes dashing up, her garden hose clutched in her hand. Uh-oh. She’s got the pressure washer attachment clamped to the end of it, and as my father and I fly past her, she lets loose at the reporters.
“Run!” she howls. “Save yourselves!” I don’t even look back; the shrieks and squeals of outrage tell me she’s hitting her target.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see that my Aunt Loretta’s Range Rover is parked in the driveway to the side of my parent’s house, behind their pickup truck. This day just keeps increasing in awesomeness.
We scramble up the front porch steps. For some reason, there are ten enormous vases full of wilting flowers lined up by the porch swing, taking up half the porch. They’re easily waist high. The monster trucks of flower vases.
Oh. Blake. Of course.
My father and I fly into the house and watch through the front door as my mother sends the reporters running to the other side of the street. They end up standing on the Widow Baudelaire’s lawn. She’s a hundred years old and mean as a rattlesnake.
“Mistake,” I observe to my father.
He drops my suitcase on the floor and nods. “Wait for it.”
Five, four, three…
The sprinklers turn on, sending the reporters dancing and leaping.
“Now, there’s something you don’t see every day.” Dad nods to himself with satisfaction.
The sopping wet reporters quickly retreat to their news vans. My mother stalks through the front door and slams it shut behind her. Then she walks over to the living room windows, grabs the brown and yellow sunflower curtains, and yanks them shut.
“Don’t just stand there gawping, shut the curtains!” she yells out to me and Dad. We hurry through the room, pulling the remaining curtains shut.
Loretta’s nasal squall drifts in from the kitchen. “What in tarnation is happening out there? What kind of three-ring circus are you running here?”
“Why is she even here?” I ask my mother, shooting an annoyed look in the direction of the kitchen.
Mom waves her hand helplessly. “Well, I can’t turn her away. She’s family. She came by to tell me about that billboard. Then the reporters showed up right afterwards.”
Billboard? What has Blake done?
Loretta strolls into the living room, her quilted Vera Bradley purse dangling from her arm, and looks at me with a smirk.