I hear a knock at the door downstairs and a huge smile spreads across Emma Jo’s face when she jumps up from the bed.
“The cavalry is here!” she announces.
“Finally,” Bettie sighs. “Any more of this After School Special bullshit and I was going to slit my wrists.”
She gets up from the bed and stands next to Emma Jo, the two of them looking down at me expectantly.
“What’s going on? Who’s here?” I ask when we hear another, louder knock at the front door.
“Just a few neighbors and friends I invited over. They’ve heard some rumors about how you have this amazing coffee machine that makes delicious coffee and they’re pretty excited about trying it. Some of them have even started up a petition that you should open up a Liquid Crack, right here in Bald Knob, can you believe that?” Emma Jo asks slyly.
I can’t believe it. Not at all. Which is why I’m still sitting in bed, staring up at her like she has two heads.
“Now would probably be a good time to get out of bed and get cleaned up. No one will want your coffee if they’re too busy being disgusted by your atrocious appearance,” Bettie states, yanking the covers off of me, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of bed.
“I’ll go get the door and get everyone comfortable while you get ready. While you’re busy making coffee for the good people of Bald Knob, we’ll come up with a plan for how you can grovel at Leo’s feet, profess your undying love to him, and show him that you aren’t really a crazy person, you just play one on TV,” Emma Jo informs me as she hurries around the bed and leaves the room to answer the door.
“And while she’s doing that, I’ll call the spa. Leo will never want you back if he has to bring out the hedge trimmers and chop shit down between your legs. That’s too much work for any man,” Bettie states, pulling her phone out of her pocket and tapping on the screen as she too leaves the room.
“YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE, YOU KNOW THAT?!” I shout after her.
“LOVE YOU TOO, BUSHY BEAVER, MEAN IT!”
CHAPTER 37
I’m sorry for what I said before I had my coffee.
—Coffee Mug
“You guys didn’t have to come with me.”
Emma Jo takes one hand off the wheel and reaches over to the passenger seat to pat my arm that’s currently wrapped around baby Cecil resting in my lap.
“Of course we did. We’re here to support you. Right, Bettie?” she asks, glancing up to the rearview mirror.
“You’re the moral support chick. I’m just here to watch her walk into the danger zone and crash and burn.”
Turning around in my seat, I glare at Bettie in the back.
“What? I’ll make sure you’re okay first before I point and laugh, like any good friend does.”
She holds her hand out for a fist bump and I ignore it, shifting my body back around to face forward, looking out the front window at the passing landscape of farmland, my leg bouncing nervously in my seat.
“You’re lucky I’m not sitting back there with you, or I’d open up the door and shove you out into oncoming traffic,” I mutter.
“See? That’s the spirit! But FYI, we’re literally in bum-fuck nowhere. We haven’t passed another vehicle or human being since we left Emma Jo’s house,” Bettie reminds me.
“Fine. I’ll push you out in front of a tractor, you cow,” I grumble.
“Alright, children. Don’t make me turn this car around. It’s going to be fine, you’ll see,” Emma Jo reassures, giving me another pat on the arm before putting her hand back on the wheel to turn down Leo’s road.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I should have called first. Given him some kind of warning,” I mutter, adding my second leg to the nervous bouncing until Baby Cecil is flopping around on my lap.
“Never give a man a warning. If he can see what’s coming, that just gives him a chance to run. A sneak attack is always the best maneuver,” Bettie states.
The next few miles pass in complete silence, aside from Bettie singing the song “Danger Zone” under her breath, making my nerves skyrocket and I contemplate asking Emma Jo to turn the car around.
If you would have told me when I first got back to Bald Knob that I’d never want to go back to Chicago and actually wonder why I left in the first place, I would have called someone to have you committed. There is no one more shocked than me that I’d come to that conclusion long before Bettie and Emma Jo kicked my ass out of bed the other day, I just hadn’t realized it until they called me out on it. My decision was cemented when I got out of the shower and joined my friends downstairs to find out that Emma Jo wasn’t lying. Half the town really had shown up to her house to try my coffee.