Page 31 of The Fall Back Plan
“None at all. I’ve got anything you normally mix with alcohol.”
She grins. “How about a Shirley Temple then?”
“You got it. What’s up?” I pull a glass and scoop in some ice, then fill it with Sprite while I reach for the grenadine.
“I can’t stop thinking about the trivia night you were talking about. When do you think you’ll start those?”
I eye her in silence until the glass fills. “Funny you mention it. I was just figuring that out when you walked in.”
Her expression brightens. “I want to host it.”
Her words come out in a rush, and I pause for a second, unpacking them. “You want to host?”
“I do. And I’d be really good at it too. I know I would.”
She’s been a good business neighbor, so I’m open to considering it. “I’m not totally sure of the details, but it would only be one night a week. Maybe even only once a month at first.”
“That’s fine,” she says. “But my husband has his travel softball team, and I need an outlet too. I’ve been doing macrame at home, but ever since you mentioned it, I keep thinking about how I need time out of my house that’s not just the store. Something that’sfun.”
“You don’t want to just compete?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. To be honest, I doubt anyone can beat me.”
That wins a small laugh from me. “I get it.”
“For me, it’ll be fun just to be there facilitating it, getting the answers correct in my head. It’s enough for me to know I’m winning.” She grins and adds, “I don’t need to demoralize everyone else.”
I slide her drink to her, complete with a twist of lime and a cherry on top. “You’re that confident?”
A shrug. Acockyshrug. “Gotta stay sharp somehow.”
I like her. But that doesn’t mean she’ll make a good host. It does mean that I want to give her a shot. “Care to put that to the test?”
Her eyebrow goes up. “What are you thinking?”
I glance over to Ry, who has just finished with the applicant he’d been interviewing. “How about you and I go head-to-head, best of twenty?”
“Challenge accepted. Format?”
Ry walks the applicant to the door, and as the guy walks out, Mary Louise walks in.
“Hey,” I say to her. She answers with a nod that includes Sophie. “Would you be willing to run down to Church of Play and pick up a game of Trivial Pursuit?”
Shrug. “Sure, Jo.”
“Thanks.” I open the register and hand her some cash. “Text me with which editions they have.”
“There’s more than one?”
Mary Louise’s question makes Sophie laugh, but not in a mean way. “So many more,” Sophie tells her. “There is so much useless knowledge in the world.”
Mary Louise shakes her head, clearly wondering how many editions ofTrivial Pursuitany one society would need, but less than ten minutes later, she’s on her way back with our selection from the four options the game store two blocks over had to offer. Sophie and I agreed to theTotally80sedition, a challenge since neither of us was even born yet.
Several minutes later, she and I are seated at tables next to each other, each with a call bell, the ones we use at the bar when a patron can’t get Ry’s attention. Ry is standing in front of us, Mary Louise beside him.
She’s looking doubtful about the situation, and Ry is already shaking his head. “The second one of you chooses geography, the odds of me pronouncing the place names correctly drops to half.”
“You’ll be fine,” I tell him. “There’s no geography in this edition. And we can get anything else you mangle from the context clues.”
