Under the Influence by Noelle Crooks

Author:Noelle Crooks
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2023-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Harper surprised herself by checking the Vine the minute she landed at LaGuardia Airport. It wasn’t that she expected to find some crisis; it was that she wanted to see what her colleagues at The Greenhouse had posted while she was in the air. There were lots of selfies of her coworkers loading up the trunks of their cars, a whole thread about suitcases, who could pack light and who couldn’t. Then there were photos of everyone’s travel meals, polls about the best and worst Thanksgiving foods, and a list of the most dreaded questions people were expecting from their families. The mood on the Vine was lively and fun, and Harper couldn’t help refreshing her feed in the hopes that there would be more updates. Normally she would’ve used the train ride from the airport to her parents’ to catch up on her neglected New Yorker magazines or to make a sizable dent in the latest hardcover from her to-be-read pile, but Harper hadn’t read anything other than Charlotte’s books since landing in Nashville. There just hadn’t been time, a fact that was sure to disappoint her father, who loved to read and compare notes with Harper in their unofficial book club for two.

Except for herself and a handful of other employees, everyone was in Tennessee and had already arrived at their family’s homes for the weekend. Harper watched the cute videos of her colleagues being greeted by family dogs and laughed at the sight of faces being licked and tails wagging at double speed. She made sure that she liked each one that she watched, so engrossed by the lives of her colleagues that she didn’t even notice the glorious fall colors of the trees that carpeted the Hudson Valley.

This year, Harper’s mother had invited all her sisters from San Francisco to stay for the long weekend—one widowed, one divorced, one with a husband that had moved back to the Philippines—all of whom had married daughters who would thankfully be spending the holiday with their in-laws. It wasn’t that Harper didn’t love her family, but they were just so different from her. For starters, most of her cousins were parents who brought their kids with them everywhere they went, so every occasion felt larger and noisier and longer than it needed to be. For some reason, they were unable to get together like normal families, arriving for dinner and leaving shortly after dessert.

Even though Harper’s mom tried to do what she thought other families did, her mom’s family was Filipino. And just as Charlotte had Green Time, the Cruz family had Filipino Time. Everyone liked to get together early and hang out, but they wouldn’t actually eat until the last person arrived, hours later, indulging in a never-ending array of dishes. Their get-togethers always involved a huge group chat and endless correspondence until the event started. There would be a theme, dress code, and itinerary with time marked off for things like charades and poker. Each

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