Pumpkin by Julie Murphy

Author:Julie Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

“Come out already!” I say, banging on the bathroom stall.

“Do I have to wear the bow tie?” Tucker asks.

“It’s a look,” I explain. “Besides, I paid money for it, and I wouldn’t call my current financial situation thriving.”

“To be clear, when you said matching outfits, I thought you meant like T-shirts from Walmart.”

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just insult me,” I say. I’m not insulted by the implication that I would shop at Walmart. I’ll shop at whatever store has clothing that will fit my body. What I am insulted by, however, is the notion that I would ever believe a T-shirt constitutes an outfit.

“I can’t promise the bow tie will last.” Tucker kicks the door open.

I gasp. “My vision! Yes!”

I turn around to see both of our reflections in the mirror. The first thing my brain wants to notice is how I’m fat and he is not, which is extremely apparent in our matching outfits, but I force myself to look past that. We both wear white coveralls and red bow ties with red-and-white-striped page boy hats. My idea was candy striper/milkman turned mechanic chic. Mrs. Leonard got us out of classes for Wednesday, so we both separately spent Tuesday scrambling around for important supplies. Matching uniforms, I decided, were very important supplies. We also had to get an announcement out to the teachers, but I pulled some strings with Kyle, who used his office aide hour to print and copy flyers for the faculty mailboxes. To be fair, I had just discreetly delivered a whole ton of booze to his house the night before. He owed me.

Tucker runs his hands over his name embroidered on his chest. “This is pretty cool,” he admits.

“My grammy embroidered them with her machine.” A fashion sense like hers is not direct from the rack.

He nods. “Grammy gets five out of five stars. But you know this white is totally impractical, right?”

I flip my invisible hair. “I never said my vision was practical.”

The two of us head back out to the parking lot, where our trucks are parked side by side. I brought a few boxes of doughnuts and Mom put together a few thermoses of coffee, while Tucker brought every supply for changing oil we could possibly need.

“Does she have a name?” I ask.

“The truck?” He smiles. “Xena.”

“Xena? As in the warrior princess?”

“The one and only. What about you?”

“Beulah,” I say.

He nods with admiration. “Beulah and Xena. They make a good couple.”

Why does the idea of our trucks being in a long-term committed relationship make me want to puke but also twirl around the parking lot like Julie Andrews? “I don’t think I’ve ever seen campus this early in the morning,” I say, changing the subject.

“Oh, I have during football season. Kind of peaceful, right?”

I begin to set up a little coffee bar on the bed of my truck using a tablecloth Mom lent me.

Tucker pulls a pen and clipboard from his backpack.

“Smart.”

He sets up all the tools and oils he might need in the bed of his truck.

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