Page 64 of The Floral Arrangement

“Hello.” Olivia smiled as she approached the steps.

“Olivia!” Mom embraced her, nearly knocking the pizza boxes Olivia was holding to the ground. “Can you please talk some sense into your girlfriend? She?—”

“Mom! That’s enough! Don’t rope Olivia into this.”

“We just want you to be happy,” Mom pleaded.

“Well, the car won’t make me happy.” I reached out and slipped the keys into the pocket of Dad’s shorts. “Our dinner is getting cold. Would you mind leaving? We can talk about this some other time.”

I put a hand on each of my parents’ backs and led them toward the parking lot.

“Just think about it darling. Surely you want a nice car when you’re driving outside the farm?”

“Actually, no. I want people to take me seriously around here. Driving an overpriced luxury car is not going to aid that cause.” I was surprised how little I’d missed my old car, and how little interest I had in getting a new one.

I opened the door to the Mercedes and ushered Dad in. “I’ll see you at dinner on Sunday.”

To my relief, Dad didn’t put up a fight. Mom grumbled as I accompanied her to her car and she slipped into the driver’s seat.

“We will talk about this more on Sunday.” Mom gazed up at me, and then yanked down her sunglasses.

“Bye, Mom.” I closed her door and stood with my arms crossed until they both drove off, clouds of dust swirling up from the dirt road.

I hiked back to the house and up the front steps where Olivia leaned against the wall next to the front door.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

I grabbed the pizza boxes from the wooden floor of the porch next to Olivia’s feet. “Just my parents trying to help me by giving me a new car I don’t want.”

Olivia turned her head to see Dad driving off in the car. Her eyes widened. “They bought you a new Mercedes-Benz?”

I shifted the pizza boxes in my arms, a comforting heat radiating through the cardboard. “Yes. I think their love language is gift giving. Unfortunately, gift receiving isn’t mine. And their gifts are usually over the top and unnecessary. Like a new car that’s completely impractical on a farm. I think it might be tied up in residual guilt for working so hard when we were kids and never being around.”

“Yikes.” Olivia grimaced, opening the front door wide.

“Yeah. They don’t seem to have gotten the message yet that I don’t need their money, despite me rebuffing their offers of help for the past twenty years.” I watched Mom turn out of the long driveway, already feeling a little lighter. “I also don’t need the judgement that would come along with accepting help from them. If I accepted the car, they’d be sure to comment if they felt I wasn’t taking good care of it, or if it got scratched.” Or run over by another tractor, god forbid. “Anyway, sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s go in.” I strode through the front door. “This is a lot of pizza, by the way. Did you invite the whole trivia team over as well?”

Olivia chuckled as she followed me into the house. “No, I just wasn’t sure what you liked so I got a selection. I don’t know about you, but I like eating cold pizza the next day. So, I’m more than happy to live off the leftovers for the next two days. I assure you, none of this will go to waste.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” I grinned. Olivia’s confident stride reminded me of the first time she’d come storming to my house, demanding to speak to me. It was hard to believe that was only two weeks ago. If someone had told me back then that we’d be having a movie night together, I would have laughed in their face.

“How’s your foot?” I asked as I led Olivia through to the living room.

“It’s fine, thank you,” she said. “Although, if you were planning to offer me another foot massage, then, uh, yeah, it’s excruciatingly painful.” Olivia’s cheeks flushed.

I laughed. “Well?—”

“Oh, my God!” Olivia exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. “What is that?”

“What?” I asked, eyes darting around. Had a gigantic spider made a nest here or had Louise broken in and taken a giant dump on the couch?

Olivia pointed at the television, her eyes wide. “That TV. It’s tiny. You didn’t tell me I needed to bring binoculars. Is it from the eighties or something?”

Hmm. It was rather small.“Jim left it when they moved out, because they were getting a new one.”

“I’m not surprised they upgraded.” Olivia stepped forward and inspected it more closely. “Can you even get any of the streaming services on it?”

Oh, shit. I hadn’t thought to check. I grabbed the ancient-looking remote and examined it. It didn’t look promising. I pressed the power button, and the TV came to life. A news show blared. I winced. The sound quality was terrible and a black line flitted a quarter of the way down the screen.Damn.

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