#107 Mid-Afternoon Snack

by Wendy Russ, Guest Writer

“Where are they?”

“Where are what,” he muttered, then began re-arranging the salt and pepper shakers on the breakfast bar.

“You know what. They’re gone. You ate them, didn’t you?”

He cleared his throat, then burped quietly behind his hand. “I’m not sure I get what you’re saying.”

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to make that batch?”

“How long,” he asked, not really caring.

“Two weeks! Or a week and a half if you don’t count the time I spent defending my recipe to your mother during her visit.”

“Pff,” he spewed. “Hardly seems worth it.”

He backpedaled when he saw her scowl. “No, I mean, it was fabulous, but all that work and then it was gone so quick. That’s all I meant. It was good... no, better than good!”

She looked through the leftovers he’d hidden in the pantry. “Wait… wait. WAIT. You ate the blue one? That one? It took me six whole days just for that one.”

He nodded. Now he was starting to feel bad. Six days WAS kind of a long time. “I’m sorry. It was really juicy and had some kind of nice spice or something that the others didn’t have. Really, I’m certain this is your best batch yet. I think you’ve about got it mastered.”

“Those were PEOPLE, asshole. That’s the part that took me longest. Why couldn’t you have eaten Mercury or Venus?”

“Honey, you know the hot and spicy stuff make me gassy.”



Kate Pearson heads west from Arkansas in an old jalopy with two parakeets, a job offer and a half-baked plan: Dreamboat celebrity chef Warren Hoffman has offered Kate a job—and himself—if she will relocate to Oxnard, California. The catch? Kate soon discovers Warren has a Big Secret. And that he's possibly crazy.

During her journey, Kate stumbles into the lair of paranoid militants calling themselves the League for the Suppression of Celery. When they learn her destination is Oxnard—celery capital of the world—they stop at nothing to indoctrinate her into their nefarious cult.

Her escape from the League sends her racing toward her happily-ever-after while being pursued by members of the League who want her back, and by the compelling new friend who inexplicably quits his job to travel across the country to find her.

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