Page 44 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
‘Remind me again why we decided to leave the fate of the farm, Agnes’s roof, and approximately eleven squillion helpless cats and dogs to an auction ?
’ Rosie stood at a safe distance from the intermittently working microphone, rearranging her paperwork and giving her somersaulting stomach a rub.
She had what Agnes would call the collywobbles .
‘Auction basically means huge, terrifying gamble, doesn’t it?
Like when you put your best designer coat on eBay, and it only sells for a pound. ’
Luna took the papers from her and put them down gently. ‘If you shuffle those any more, people will think you’re a magician.’
‘Maybe I’ll need to be.’
And where on earth was Agnes? She’d promised to help Rosie to run the auction, in place of Zain. If Rosie was forced to be in the same square hectometre as him, she would not be held responsible for the ensuing devastation.
‘You have some great auction lots though,’ said Luna. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t want a year’s supply of wonky parsnips?’
Rosie couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her. Sometimes laughter was the only medicine. ‘You’re right. I’ll fight you for those.’
The opening event had brought a string of surprises, but so far Rosie had been dealing with them.
It was surely a good sign that the night sky was dry, and the stars were twinkling.
Lukas Knight’s Michelin-star-worthy pumpkin-inspired menu had been served to countless guests in small bobbing boats and on picnic blankets around the lake.
Most of the carved jack-o’-lanterns were still glowing, and nobody had caught their dress alight on a campfire.
If Rosie could just get through this auction and raise the funds Agnes and her animals needed, she could bow out of there with grace.
She was ignoring the occasional tug on her heartstrings that reminded her of everything she was leaving behind. Her heart had already been crushed like a Ritz cracker, so there would be no getting swept away on a wisp of nostalgia or mistaking pumpkin fizz merriment for actual life.
In real news, Luna was right. They did have some excellent auction lots.
With everyone helping to spread the word online, they’d had donations from not just local businesses, but pumpkin enthusiasts, cat and dog lovers and kind benefactors from all over the place.
Lexie, who’d helped with the blogging, and her partner Ben had donated a weekend stay on their huge Tewkesbury estate, complete with slightly scary peacocks.
The mysterious Farmer Wilbur had donated a date in a cherry picker, even though Rosie had precisely no idea what that was all about. There were gift hampers and meals, mini breaks and artwork, event tickets and some particularly interesting services. They’d even had online bids in advance.
‘Ooh, it’s the waiter from the boats,’ Rosie heard her sister, Flick, stage-whisper. ‘Hotness alert.’
Every internal part of Rosie sank as she turned to see Zain approaching. He was not meant to be part of this – Rosie had given strict instructions to Agnes on that point. Though Agnes was a law unto herself.
‘Hotness is ridiculously over-rated,’ Rosie hissed back.
Zain walked towards them with less confidence than usual, apparently not in his element in the presence of so many living things that weren’t vine fruit or cats.
Rosie chose to have no sympathy. She vaguely registered that he was wearing the same navy suit and tight-across-the-chest white shirt he’d worn on their own floating date.
He’d probably consulted some software on the prescribed amount of shirt buttons to leave undone to make seventy-four per cent of women want to caress his pumpkins. Well, it wasn’t working on her.
Rosie heard her sister let out an impromptu whimper, even though Flick wasn’t the whimpering sort. ‘If he’s your colleague, no wonder you’ve been keeping this place to yourself. Your life is sooooo on the up.’
Rosie could only guess that her sister hadn’t yet had the pleasure of using the compost toilets or being duped by Zain.
‘What are you doing here?’ Rosie hissed at him. ‘And where’s Agnes?’
‘Busy on the gate.’ He shrugged, still keeping a distance in case Rosie swung at him. ‘She told me to come and help you. Not my idea.’
Rosie’s lips pressed together like two cross sausages. She knew full well that the gates would be closed by this point. Agnes was meddling.
‘I don’t need you,’ Rosie replied. ‘I have...’ She looked around, but her friends and family seemed to have dispersed. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m sure you’ve got it under control,’ Zain replied. His voice aggravatingly genuine – though it was probably an act. ‘I’ll just pass the auction lots and keep notes. I need this to go well too.’ He pulled some notepaper out of his pocket.
She barked out a disbelieving laugh. ‘Sure that’s not your script?’
His face tightened, a small jaw muscle twitching. ‘It’s Agnes’s list of auction items. I haven’t consulted the chatbot in a long time, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘No, I hadn’t. I have literally no idea which bits are you and which bits are from the cunning computer mind of Kimberkoo Chat.’
He huffed and grabbed the first auction piece, stepping in and thrusting it towards her. ‘You seemed to know which bits were me when you described my throbbing penis and put the ins and outs of our sex life into your novel.’
The intermittent microphone chose that moment to transmit Zain’s voice, at full blast, to the gawping audience. Rosie could have died at the looks on people’s faces as they kicked off the auction with the words penis and sex life .
‘Well, that got their attention!’ Agnes clapped with glee from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, before bobbing out of view.
Rosie had known the woman wasn’t busy on gate duty.
Even though things got off to a painful start, Rosie couldn’t help getting pulled along with the excitement as the night’s bidding progressed.
Zain dutifully passed her items, giving her the occasional strange jolt when their fingers touched.
That was probably the dodgy electrics, or the fact he’d had his soul replaced by a microchip.
As things moved on, Rosie was amazed to note she was feeling proud of herself.
When it came to parties, she was usually the first to hide behind a plant or scurry off to the kitchen.
But tonight, despite its odd curve balls and the passive-aggressive jibes between her and Zain, she was enjoying this role.
Being the slightly precarious heroine of her own story felt good, even if it was only for one night.
And the auction itself was blowing Rosie’s mind.
Arms had been waving as bid prices escalated.
Rosie had brought her notebook of figures, and as she recorded each total, she could see they were edging towards being able to fund Agnes’s roof repairs and keep the land safe, even if there was still a good way to go.
‘I can’t believe how much that lady paid for Gretel from the village to recreate her house in gingerbread,’ Rosie said to Zain, before remembering they weren’t on speaking terms, and pretending she was thinking out loud.
They were taking a short break for Bonnie and the gang to refill glasses, which Rosie noticed had a favourable effect on bidders’ enthusiasm for even the quirkiest of auction lots. And it was all in a good cause.
Mags had become the proud owner of one of Agnes’s stray cats, Orangeade, after donating a princely sum. Agnes had refused to auction animals, but she knew Mags had already met and loved this little one. Mags was now carrying Orangeade in a thrown-together papoose like a teeny cat baby.
‘And my biggest Prizewinner pumpkin went for a crazy prize,’ Zain replied, even though he wasn’t meant to be talking to her either.
Rosie was still surprised he’d put it into the auction, but he was probably trying to make himself look good.
Rosie double-checked her notes. There was one last auction lot, and it needed to perform better than gold dust. There was still a big chunk of money to make.
‘What’s in the last box?’ Rosie pointed to it.
Most of the donated auction items had arrived well in advance, ready to be catalogued and placed online for early bids. But Rosie hadn’t seen this plain cardboard box before, and she certainly hadn’t had time to open it.
‘Not sure.’ Zain shrugged. ‘I’ll look.’
‘Come on. What else have you got for us?’ someone shouted from the crowd.
‘We’re ready to shop!’
Rosie lifted her head to the sea of people, noticing that glasses were full, and the audience was clamouring to bid.
It was time for the final auction lot. She took a deep breath and grabbed the box from Zain.
Then with clammy palms and a racing heart, because this was their final money-making hope, she began to open it.