Page 52 of The No Touch Roommate Rule
“Ten bucks on Speedy Gonzales,” I tell the bookie, who’s running odds from a lawn chair.
“That one ain’t moved since we put him in the starting area,” he warns, even as he reaches for the bill.
“I don’t know, he looks like a winner to me,” I say. “I think he’s just conserving energy so he can leave it all on the field.”
Makena puts a fiver on Princess Pinch, and we find a spot in the crowd near the ropes with about twenty other people. The heat begins with the blast of an air horn, and soon we’re cheering our lungs out for crustaceans who want nothing more than to return to whatever ditch they came from.
“And they’re off!” the announcer shouts, even though they’re definitely not. “And it’s Princess Pinch taking the lead straight outta the gate.”
“That’s it, Princess!” Makena cheers, jumping up and down. “That’s my girl!”
“Come on, Speedy,” I shout. “It’s not too late, buddy. Wake up and move those little legs.”
Princess Pinch stalls out pretty quickly, but still ends up winning by default when all the other crawfish in her heat crawl over the pool noodles to pile up in a corner. Speedy Gonzales is disqualified for being asleep.
Or dead. Hard to tell.
“I won!” Makena turns to me, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from the sun. “Parker, I’m a champion!”
“I hope you’ll still be my friend,” I say. “Now that you’re crawfish racing royalty and all.”
Clearly fighting a grin, she says seriously, “I’ll try not to let it go to my head. It’ll be hard, but…I’ll try. Now, let’s go collect my winnings. I’ll buy you a beer to help you feel better about being a loser.”
“Technically, Speedy is the loser,” I say as we head toward the guy in the lawn chair. “But I appreciate that.”
Beers and a big bowl of gumbo to share acquired, we head to the eating contest. We don’t enter that one, thank Christ, but we watch from the stands as grown adults shovel mudbug butts into their faces with the desperation of people who’ve made questionable life choices. The winner—in a stunning upset, not Ricky Weems, who choked on a drink of water five minutes in—manages nearly thirteen pounds.
“That’s going to revisit him later,” Makena observes, draining the last of her beer.
“Revisit is a precious way of putting that.”
“Violently exodus?”
“Better.”
We grab another beer and wander to the shade to watch the costume contest, both of us happy that it’s human beings who are dressing up like crawdaddies, not costumes on actual mudbugs. It kind of feels like the crawdaddies have been through enough today, though they are way more delicious than I remember.
The costume pageant is a blast, and watching people of all ages strut down the catwalk, showing off their homemade costumes, inspires me in unexpected ways.
“If we come back next year, I’m entering the pageant,” I whisper to Makena as the little girl on stage answers the MC’s question about her favorite part of the Mudbug festival.
Makena grins. “Of course, you are.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“I know you’re not,” she says, sipping her beer. “I’ve always known you had an inner theater kid under that jocky exterior, Leo Parker. Your Halloween costumes were way too elaborate for a kid who didn’t want to be onstage. At least a little bit.”
“Valid.” I laugh as I lean back against the bleachers behind us. “Though, to be fair, being on the ice in a sold-out arena isn’t that different than being up on a stage. You just don’t get to know your lines ahead of time.”
Makena shivers. “Which makes it way scarier. I could never do what you do.”
“And I could never do what you do.”
“Oh, sure you could,” she says, dismissing her bravery with a flutter of her fingers.
“No, I couldn’t,” I maintain. “I’ve always been part of a team. The thought of opening a business all by myself, with no one to back me up, scares the shit out of me. The paperwork alone would probably give me a mental breakdown. You’re a badass, woman. Own it. And promise you’ll enter the costume contest next year, too. I need to see you in a crawfish costume. A pink one. Wearing a blue bikini.”
She glances my way with an arched brow. “That’s weirdly specific.”
