Page 20 of Rise After Fall

Morris picks up a piece of okra and flings it at him.

“Hey, no food fights,” the lady behind the counter shouts.

“Dammit, Morris, you got us in trouble with the cafeteria lady,” Scooter barks.

Joanna and I giggle, and the woman narrows her eyes at the two of them.

Morris

The last few weeks have flown by.

Weston and I walk into the Halloween Trunk-or-Treat event at the festival grounds with Kaela. the baby girl of his girlfriend, Anna.

She is dressed as a little duckling with a fuzzy bodysuit, yellow tutu, white tights, and orange boots.

We find Anna, who is wearing a duck onesie to match her daughter, seated on the tailgate of Weston’s truck. She’s passing out candy bars with hemp lip balms to the kids who are walking through with their decorated paper bags, donated by the general store.

Weston owns Balsam Gold Hemp Farm and grows and produces his own line of legal CBD products.

“Hey, thank you for picking her up for me,” Anna says as Weston lays a kiss on her.

“Did you get her a bag?” Weston asks.

Anna reaches behind her and produces a bag.

“All right, Baby Duck, let’s go get some loot,” he says.

I take Anna’s place so she can join them.

“I’ve only been giving the lip balm to the older kids. So, if they look like they’re ten years old or above, they get a chocolate bar and a balm,” she instructs.

“There isn’t any CBD in the lip balm. It’s just hemp. Why can’t the little ones have it?” I ask.

Anna laughs. “You’ve obviously never seen a toddler trying to eat a tube of ChapStick before.”

Oh.

“Gotcha. Candy for the littles and candy and lip balm for the middle schoolers.”

I’m filling up bags for a group of teenagers when Joanna and Zoey appear. They are both dressed as Britney Spears. Zoey is in pigtails and a sexy schoolgirl outfit, and Joanna is in a red latex bodysuit and long blonde wig.

Once the children have moved along, I let out a low whistle.

“Looking good, ladies,” I praise.

“It’s Britney, bitch,” Zoey corrects.

I laugh.

“Are you two enjoying yourselves, walking around here, making all the teenage boys drool?” I ask them.

“It’s fun. So far, we’ve bobbed for apples. Well, I did. Zoey here thought it was gross and refused. We got lost in the corn maze for an embarrassing amount of time. Ate our weight in hot dogs and fried pies, and now, we’re walking around, seeing how much candy we can talk folks out of,” Joanna says.

“Bobbing for apples is gross?” I ask.

Zoey scrunches up her nose. “I don’t know how many people have had their mouths in that water.”

I look at Joanna. “She has a point.”