Page 17 of The Wedding Favor

After I refilled everyone’s cup, I gasped. “Oh, no, that might be decaf. I am so sorry.”

I was not sorry at all. And it wasn’t decaf. But a girl had to have some fun when these three purposely came every week to heckle me.

“Gross.” Ali frowned. “What’s the point of coffee then?”

Ellie dumped her third teaspoon of sugar in her cup. “I think it’s yummy.”

Mae snorted.

“What?” Ellie asked.

“Would you like a little coffee with your cup of sugar?”

Pink tinged Ellie’s cheeks. “Sorry. I like it sweet. Leave me alone.”

“What’s all this?” I pointed at the papers spread out on the table.

Ali bounced in her seat. “We were going over some logistics for the Founder’s Day celebration.”

Every year, the town held a festival—a small parade, vendors, and a reenactment of the founding of Two Harts. (Which was written and performed by the fourth grade class at the elementary school.) This year’s Founder’s Day was a bigger deal than usual. We would be celebrating one hundred and fifty years since the two Hart brothers made their way to a small patch of land in Texas and called it Two Harts.

Ali had been talking about it non-stop. Each year since she’d become mayor, she’d grown the event a little bigger. Her enthusiasm was contagious, which was how she roped Mae and Ellie onto the planning committee. Personally, I tried not to make direct eye contact lest she think I was volunteering for anything.

“Actually…” Ali gazed at me, speculatively. “Did you hear we’re bringing the Miss Two Harts pageant back this year?”

“Why?” I couldn’t think of a more disturbing activity. Maybe falling into a pit of vipers?

“It’s tradition,” Ali said. “Or it was. It’s been forty years since the last one.”

“Why’d they stop?” Ellie had moved to Two Harts six years ago. She could be forgiven for not knowing all the lore.

Ali waved impatiently. “Oh, two of the contestants got into a fight over a baton. The thing was on fire at the time. It flew off the stage and caught a man’s toupee on fire. He happened to be a judge, some radio announcer from Houston with a popular morning show. To save him, the mayor ripped the toupee off his head and jumped on it to put the fire out.

“The guy was livid, went on his radio show, and ranted for days about it. The mayor figured we should take a break for a few years until it all blew over but a few years turned into four decades.”

“All over a toupee.” Ellie looked mildly impressed.

“Hell hath no fury like a man whose toupee has caught fire,” Mae said.

“Anyway, it seemed like the perfect time to bring it back.” Ali smiled widely. “The age limit is twenty-five, you know. How old are you again, Iris? Twenty-three?”

Three pairs of eyes swung in my directions. I stared back in horror.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not.”

“But it could be fun,” Ali said. “You could be the cool, edgy contestant.”

“Edgy?” I said, my voice higher than normal.

“She does wear black all the time,” Ellie said. “And those blue streaks in her hair… I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a dress. She’d look so cute all dressed up. You know I was once Miss Tomato Harvest. I could help you.”

“Leave her alone. She looks terrified,” my sister, my hero, said.

Ali grinned. “Calm down. It was a joke. Iris could never do a pageant.”

I frowned. It was one thing for me to be dead set against the idea. It was another thing for someone else to deter me. “What’s that mean?”

Ali shrugged. “It’s just not your thing.”