TO BE CONTINUED
Meet Cut(e)
Tiffany Carby
Chapter One
Aggie
“You’re seriously going through with this? Moving to Podunktown, USA, all by yourself?”
*think, think, think*
“Yes...yes, I am,” I told my college roommate of four years, who knew good and well I was going through with it. My bags were packed. Literally—we had just slammed the trunk of my red Focus shut—and I was ready to roll.
“There’s still time to change your mind,” she said, echoing the same sermon she had said over and over since I positively decided to take the job a month before graduation. Lindsey and I had met our freshmen year of college at the University of Florida and were stuck with each other as roommates. Neither of us knew another soul and we became instant best friends.
“I’m gonna miss you too,” I said and squeezed Lindsey’s neck. “I know you’re just looking out for me, but it’s going to be fine. I’ll adjust and we will keep in touch.”
"You will be fine; I'm just a worrywart," she said. "I'll subscribe to your newspaper when you get settled. I want to read what's happening in that Hicktown you’re going to!”
One thing I kept as a safeguard in the back of my head was that Lindsey's parents would be closer to my new home than my folks and, if worst came to worst or I was terribly homesick, in just a two-hour drive to Indiana, I could seek shelter and comfort food—my goodness her mother made the best chicken and dumplings. Lindz planned to move back to her parent’s but was waiting until the end of the month when the lease on our apartment was up.
Together, along with thousands of other UF graduates, Lindz and I had walked across the stage, conferred our degrees, and closed the chapter we called college.
I didn’t have time to wait until our lease was up to leave Florida though. Earlier in the spring, I started applying for any and all writing jobs I could find. Several interviews later, I only had one job offer, and thanked my lucky stars for that one. The Hazenberg Herald had offered me the job of columnist, particularly to head up what would be their new “Dear Aggie” blog and column. Refreshing the old Dear Abby idea and spinning it into a modern, technological resource was the plan.
Sadly, the Kentucky newspaper would be moving me from a big city like Jacksonville, population 900,000, to small-town Hazenberg, population not-even-9,000.
Talk about culture shock. Lindsey joked about me moving to Podunktown, but she wasn’t far from wrong. I think that’s probably what worried my best friend the most. Lindz had grown up in an even smaller town than Hazenberg and knew what I was getting into.
“When I make the trek to Mom and Dad’s at the end of the month, I’ll stop by on the way and see you,” she said.
“It’s a date,” I told her and got in the car to drive north to Kentucky.
The gas station for a fill-up and the biggest fountain Coke they had was first on my list. I grabbed a few snacks as well and a large bag of jerky. It was my favorite junk food, and I convinced myself it was okay because it was, for the most, part low carb. If a girl's vice was jerky, things could be worse.
I slurped and chomped my way up the interstate, thinking about how to answer all the Dear Aggie questions that would be flooding my inbox. But then I got to thinking about what might happen if nobody wrote to me. Oh god. What if they hate me? What if they ignore me?
I needed some reassurance.
“Hey, Mom!” I said into my car’s Bluetooth.
“Hey, honey! Are you on the road?” she asked.
“Yep, heading north into foreign soil. How’s Dad?” My father was cleaning the gutters of my childhood home a week before my graduation and fell off the ladder, breaking his ankle. Surgery prevented them from traveling to Florida for the ceremony and even though I wouldn’t admit it, I was missing them.
"He's all propped up and doing okay. We watched the live stream of your graduation and then re-watched it again with the family after dinner last night.”
“Yeah? Was it as boring on your end as it was mine?”
"Oh Aggie, it wasn't that bad. But I will confess the second time around we fast-forwarded to the good part." My mother chuckled.
“What if they hate me, Mom?” I blurted out.
“That’s not possible, dear,” she said.
“I know I was on staff at the college paper, but I’m more cut out writing fiction and plays, not journalistic stuff. I’ve never covered a car wreck or a city council meeting. Much less this Dear Abby column!”
“Just because you’ve never done it doesn’t mean you won’t learn how,” she explained, “and besides, they know they are getting a fresh fish. This is part of gaining experience...it’s also why you won’t get paid much until you get some experience under your belt.”
“I get it, I do. I’m just nervous, I suppose.” A mother’s reassurance was what a girl needed sometimes.
“Of course! And you have every right to be nervous! You just graduated from college...yesterday, dear! And this is your first big girl job. You’re going to be fine. I promise. I just wish we were there to see you graduate and help you move.”
I explained it was no big deal and it really wasn’t. Some people might be upset their parents missed their college graduation, but it was just another day for me. Another thing to do. I was probably too laid back, truth be told. I think I just missed seeing them in general.
And though it was appreciated, I didn’t need their help moving either. Lindz and I had no trouble packing up my Focus, and her boyfriend was going to load the moving trailer she’d hitch onto her SUV when the time came for her to head north. She was planning to bring my large trunk when she passed through too, so I didn’t have to ship it.
The furnished apartment in Hazenberg seemed nice in the pictures I saw online, too. I’d have to buy myself a bed when I got there, but the first few nights would be fine on my air mattress.
I hung up with my mother, turned on the playlist Lindz had made me to listen to on the trip to Kentucky, and opened my package of jerky.
Chapter Two
Drake
“Good to see you, Mr. Griffith,” I greeted one of my favorite customers who came into the shop.
“Nice to see you too, son. What do you have for me today?”
Mr. Griffith, or Fred as he always insisted I call him but could never bring myself to do so, came in every Tuesday morning. I'm not sure if he figured out that was when I typically had a lull in business or if he just liked to "shoot the shit," as he called it, when fewer people were in the store.
Mr. Griffith, like most people in town, knew my grandpappy. So when he passed away several years back, they made sure I felt at home running the place by myself.
Just about every Tuesday the two of us made a menu together for his family dinners for the rest of the week and upcoming weekend. He and his wife were both getting up in years, but their minds were still strong. Anabelle’s arthritis in her hands kept her from doing much cooking, so I helped him out with recipes here and there and taught him a few tricks to make evening meals a little easier.