Page 6 of Let’s Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About

Upon arriving at the VFW hall, thirty or so people mingled in small groups. The crowd skewed older and white, and plenty of the attendees had some mud on their jeans, Josh included. Sadie stifled an urge to roll around in some dirt outside to give herself more credibility.

Josh greeted every attendee of the Growers Guild meeting warmly and by name. He folded Sadie into each of the conversations with absolutely maddening ease.

“You remember Sadie, Stu Fox’s daughter?” Josh asked Elaine, a sexy senior whom she remembered as a shockingly glamorous pumpkin grower.

“The long-lost daughter!” Elaine cried. She patted the top of Sadie’s head. “Taller than the last time you were at one of these meetings.” Despite this cutesy observation, she had fond memories of a number of people at this meeting, Elaine included.

Among them were Tony and Izzy, an elderly Mexican American couple originally from Chicago who’d been old when she was a kid and who were now positively wizened.

Her first taste of mole was their recipe incorporating pumpkin flesh and seeds.

Then there was Pawel, a genial middle-aged white man with a pronounced Polish accent and a wry sense of humor that constantly befuddled Sadie’s straight-shooting father.

And then Delphine, an older Black woman, loved the artistry of crafting with homegrown gourds.

Her competitive side came out once she discovered giant pumpkins.

Sadie could relate, as a fellow artist with a competitive side.

The only person Josh hadn’t known was new to the guild herself, a younger Black woman named Andrea. She was a teacher in Indianapolis and a pumpkin novice who had started a gardening program for her students.

While nostalgic memories and rogue pumpkin facts bobbed to the surface, the primal urge to run far away from a public-speaking obligation threatened to take over her rational mind. She hated attention; it was why she wore black all the time.

Directing Sadie toward some empty folding chairs, Josh asked Sadie, “You doing okay?”

Was the flop sweat that obvious? She was here to impress these people, so she needed to get her game face on. “I’m fine.”

“You know so many people here.”

“I may be the only person to have left rural Indiana in the past twenty-five years.”

The meeting commenced in a dull parliamentary fashion, with a vote to approve the previous meeting’s minutes and old business preceding the new business.

Sadie’s attention drifted as she studied the pattern on the silk scarf Delphine had artfully draped over her shoulders.

Josh sat, straight-backed, nodding with interest at each business item. What a fucking brownnoser.

When Sadie’s agenda item finally came up, she stood and explained the circumstances, all without crumpling to a heap on the floor.

She was expecting Josh to jump in and add further explanation, but he sat and held her gaze with that same open, encouraging expression he’d given everyone else at the dais at the front of the hall.

“I know it’s unconventional,” she explained.

“But now that my father has lost his chance to participate in the weigh-off, I was hoping I might get a chance of my own. Josh’s seeds are from Fox Family Farm stock, his land is adjacent to mine, and I’d like to think I can still sway the outcome with my skills. ”

The faces in the crowd mostly looked happy, except Pawel’s, but he’d dozed off.

She couldn’t blame him. As a guiding principle, the guild wanted more people to grow giant pumpkins, right?

Turning Sadie away wasn’t in the spirit of promoting their mission.

There were still questions to be raised, however.

Tony piped up. “If we allow you to adopt one of Josh’s pumpkins, and that pumpkin wins, what happens to the seeds?”

“I would gladly leave that decision to the Growers Guild,” Sadie explained.

“The proceeds could go to the guild’s treasury, or the seeds themselves could be distributed among members.

Or if people wished for the money to go to my father, to compensate for his losses in the wake of all this, I’m sure he’d be grateful for it. ”

“Your poor father,” Delphine said, shaking her head.

Sadie’s father was doing just fine, by the looks of it.

That morning, he’d sent Sadie photos of himself hoisting a fish he’d caught while his brother was back in the hospital for some minor procedures.

She’d never seen him smile so wide. Briefly she wondered who’d taken the photo.

And who’d let him on their fancy boat. But it didn’t matter.

After being tied to Fox Family Farm his whole life, a little freedom seemed to agree with Stu Fox.

Izzy, presiding over the meeting as president of the guild, called for any last questions before she called for a motion to put to vote. But everyone’s curiosity had been duly satisfied.

Josh offered the motion. “I move that Sadie Fox be allowed to exclusively tend one mutually agreed upon giant pumpkin plant from Josh’s Squashes, to be eligible for the weigh-off at the Seasonal Produce of Indiana Celebration and Exposition.”

Everyone in the room was beaming at him like he was their own prize-winning pumpkin.

This is what tech billionaires are good at , Sadie thought.

Making themselves look good at all times because they don’t believe they can lose.

Sadie relished her chance to hand him a loss.

Tony seconded, and the motion carried with no one voting against it. Pawel abstained, still asleep.

After the new business was concluded, the meeting proceeded with some presentations from members who wanted to share what they’d been learning in their quest to grow comically huge—or long, in the case of certain gourds—vegetables.

Sadie practically felt all her latent knowledge elbowing its way back to the front of her brain.

Like she was a giant pumpkin sleeper agent, trained from infancy to attune herself to the land and water and air that comprised Fox Family Farm.

She would never tell Josh how thrilled she was to take over some small section of his patch.

She couldn’t give him the satisfaction. What she could do was kick his ass at pumpkin growing.

She wanted to go back to LA with a blue ribbon she wouldn’t have to share with her father.

Even if she hadn’t unstuck whatever was going on with her creativity, that would make this whole trip worth it.

After the last presentation, Izzy called for any last motions.

Pawel, refreshed after his nap, piped up. “I move we adjourn this meeting and eat pie.” Izzy’s gavel came down with a resounding clap.

Elaine, a three-time champion of the SPICE tablescaping competition, had prepared the spread. Chrysanthemums, decorative gourds, and earth-toned linens nearly crowded out the pies. Where the fuck does someone learn how to fold a napkin to look like a maple leaf?

Sadie had to hand it to Hoosiers, who knew a thing or two about pie.

There was, naturally, a pumpkin pie made from puree frozen from one of last year’s pumpkins, grown by Izzy.

She savored every bite, trying to remember the last time she’d had pumpkin pie.

It was a “Misfits’ Thanksgiving” in Silver Lake, held by a woman she briefly dated and stayed friends with, but she never attended again and eventually stopped getting the invite.

Maybe I should try a little harder to invest in my friendships. She looked down at the pie, the inviting dollop of whipped cream spilling over its edge. Or I could make my own damn pie and never share a bite. This one was good but a little heavy on the nutmeg.

Josh came over to her, his plate bearing nearly a full circle of pie wedges. “I’d never heard of sugar cream pie until I moved here,” he said.

“Here’s my theory on that. If a food doesn’t make it past regional boundaries, it’s more of a Stockholm syndrome situation than a delicacy.”

Josh laughed, taking a big bite of the Hoosier dessert.

She was beginning to believe he genuinely enjoyed both the cloying pie and living in Indiana.

He was thriving in the place she dreaded returning to.

His ease didn’t give her hope about how Indiana would treat her, exactly, but it did make her curious.

“I don’t mean to rush you,” he said, “but I’ve got one other stop to make before we head home.”

“Do I have to get out of the car?”

Josh laughed again. “You don’t have to, but I promise you’re going to want to.”

Sadie beheld him with skepticism. “I’m not someone who likes surprises.”

Josh ate a big forkful of coconut cream pie and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I could have guessed that,” he said after he’d swallowed. “Dang, that’s good. We’re going to see the world’s second-largest ball of paint.”

His eyes were dancing with delight at this announcement. Hers, less so. Nevertheless, she could feel his weaponized charm working on her.

Surely another bite of pie would quash the flutter in her belly.

“How do they know it’s the second largest?”

“We’ll have to ask.”

“Okay. Why?”

“For the Gram. Josh’s Squashes has a pretty big social media presence.”

Her art also had garnered a bit of a following. She was thankful her agent’s assistant managed the account and engaged with promising clients. “How many followers?”

“Just hit two million.”

And she thought she was pretty hot shit with a hundred thousand. This smiling asshole was a full-on squash influencer and she had no idea.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I get a lot of people asking me to do, like, promotions for them or whatever.”

“Sponcon.”

“Oh, I don’t take any money. But I will check out a local business and promote them if I think they align with my values and aesthetic.

The ball of paint is good old-fashioned fun, a roadside attraction, and it’s here in Thornville.

The guy who has it told me I could paint it orange. Like a pumpkin.”