“Not for love.”
Lillian waited. Kia started with the meeting at the grange hall.
“Do you remember Alice Sullivan?” Kia asked. “The other woman at Jean Paul Molineux.”
“The kiss!” Lillian said. “Yeah, I remember her. That was rich. You’re not the grab-a-woman-and-kiss-her type. Wait. You’re marrying Alice Sullivan?”
Kia dropped her head into her hands, then remembered Georgie would cover up the camera. She sat back up again.
“Is that good?” Lillian asked. “You liked her, but have you talked to her since school?”
If only they were having this conversation because Kia and Sullivan had really fallen in love. If only Sullivan had swept Kia up in her arms.I always wanted you, Kia.
“I haven’t, and I had no idea she was going to be there. You know how my dad is always going on about serendipity. Serendipity is like karma. It’s not always good. I must have bad karma too. Or maybe I just fucked up. Obvs I put a bunch of stuff about the sale on my channels. And Sullivan wasn’t the only one who showed up.”
Lillian had never eaten at a Mega Eats, so Kia gave her some context for the next part.
“You remember that story about schoolchildren in Pennsylvaniabeing fed pink slime passing for ground sirloin? That’s Mega Eats slime.” Kia described the men from Mega Eats sweeping into the grange hall. “They outbid me. And they knew about the sale because I live streamed it.” The thought made Kia want to empty the contents of her stomach into the RV’s incinerating toilet and never eat again. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re an influencer. It’s your job to live stream things.”
It didn’t make Kia feel better.
“Sullivan lives right next to the land, and she owns a restaurant, and she’s all into the environment and hates food trucks and hates Mega Eats even more.”
“Kia, I’m so sorry. Was she pissed?”
“Really pissed. But there’s a clause in the land’s trust. It says if someone’s family has owned property in the neighborhood since it was incorporated, they get to buy the land at fair market value. No one can bid against them. So the only way I can compete with the highest bidder is to be a legacy owner, and the only way to become a legacy owner is to—”
“—marry a legacy holder,” she and Lillian said at the same time.
They could still finish each other’s sentences, even if Lillian had a new life with Izzy.
Lillian frowned. “Sounds kind of like redlining.”
Kia hadn’t even thought of that uncomfortable part of the scenario. In the past, people wrote laws like that to keep Black people out of white neighborhoods.
“I guess this is revenge?” She winced. “Now we’re using the clause so a Black woman can buy the land and rent it to minority-owned businesses.”
“It’s bold.” Lillian bobbed her head side to side as if considering which way she wanted to go on the topic. “So you talked Sullivan into marrying you so that you could buy the land instead of Mega Eats.”
“Yep. And now Sullivan low-key hates me… more than low-key. But she hates Mega Eats more.”
“So you got married?”
“Tomorrow. In court.”
“How did you talk her into it? I mean, anyone should be happy to marry you. You’re a rock star, but did you just catch her outside the meeting and say,Want to get married?”
“She ran off during the meeting. She was really upset. All through school I thought she was invincible. Nothing fazed her. She just floated through school dressing like some gorgeous nineteen twenties drag king. But she was crying outside the meeting. I made Alice Sullivan cry.”
This time Kia didn’t care that Georgie covered the screen as she rested her forehead on the keyboard, probably reprogramming the computer to do nothing but search the web for the life cycle of starfish. She didn’t care. All she could think about was Sullivan’s face contorted with the effort not to sob, then the cold resignation that had filled her face in the forest.What do you think you were going to do to me?
“So then I didn’t know what to do. I came up with this ridiculous marriage idea. I don’t have any contact info for Sullivan, and I couldn’t wait until her restaurant opens on Wednesday, so I walked to her house. I’d seen where she went when we were in the woods. It was raining. I showed up looking like someone had thrown me in a lake. I did bring her my signature Rice Krispies treats.”
“How could someone not marry you after having those?”
That was a huge compliment from a woman who’d spent most of her life declaring that carbs were the devil.
