Page 19 of It's Always Sonny

Jane glances at Millie before looking at me. I shoot a look at Millie, who smiles pleasantly.

Weird.

“The new booking website has some bugs, and someone reserved the farm for a family reunion next week when that whole following week should have been blocked off because Anita and Booker will be out of town. I’d cancel, but we’re still so new to events that I’m worried it could have a negative impact on our reputation.”

“I could help,” I say. Please let me help!

“I don’t know. It’s a big ask.”

“It’s not an ask, I’m offering.”

Jane’s upbringing caused her to feel like she’s ultimately responsible for the fate of everyone around her. She takes on too much stress and too much work because she’s so afraid of making things harder for other people.

As someone who thrives on accomplishment, it’s wildly annoying.

“Let me do this.” I urge. “I have a light couple of weeks, and I’ll just move some stuff around. If Anita can help me plan it this week, I’ll stay in one of the cabins on the farm next week and make sure it goes off without a hitch.”

Jane chews the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. You never get a break, Parker. Maybe you could use this—”

“I’ll go crazy if I take a break, and we both know it. It’s settled. I’m taking the reunion. I’ll call Anita.”

“Thanks,” she says, looking like an invisible burden has been lifted from her shoulders. “I can’t tell you how much this will help.”

Seeing my friend’s relief sparks pride in my belly. I so rarely get to help people like this. My friends can wiggle past my walls, but most people don’t have a desire to even approach them, let alone try to scale them.

It’s one of the reasons I love events so much. People are contractually obligated to let me help them, and the joy on their faces when things work out well makes me feel like I’m more than just the emotionless robot I was always accused of being in high school. I don’t have the Sonny or the Ash gene. I can’t smile and infect everyone around me with happiness.

I genuinely believe the realest kind of accomplishment is to make people happy. I just don’t know how to do it other than through good work.

Hence why my work is always good.

For the next week, Anita and I plan and plan. She deals with the guests directly but lets me put together an absolutely killer itinerary. The family coming is huge and spans three generations. It’s for the grandmother’s eightieth birthday, and all of her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids are coming. The youngest is a six-month-old infant. We give that family the coziest cabin.

Anita told me the people coming are incredibly close. They want to do activities together, not just share a space. We set up pickleball and corn hole tournaments and a farm-wide scavenger hunt. Anita arranges to get hundreds of family pictures and craft supplies so that they can make their own picture books in the pavilion. We prep for egg races, t-shirt decorating, and dozens of minute-to-win-it activities. The meals will be catered from our events chef in the permanent camp kitchen, but we stock up on tons of extra goodies, including a hot chocolate bar and a s’mores bar.

The weather is supposed to get colder by next week thanks to some crazy polar vortex coming down from the northeast, but the tiny homes and cabins are all heated, the canvas tents all have portable heaters, we have enough firewood for a pioneer homestead to last through the winter, and we even have backup generators.

On the morning of the reunion, I say goodbye to Anita and her husband and get ready for the family to check in at the main cabin, where the grandmother, her sister, and one daughter-in-law, whose husband passed last year, will stay. I over-prepared for the event, though, so I’m ready for the guests hours before they’re set to arrive.

With nothing else to do, I text my friend, Millie, who occasionally does animal-assisted therapy at the barn here on the farm.

PARKER: You around the farm today?

MILLIE: I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.

PARKER: Want to meet me in the cabin?

MILLIE: Why don’t you meet me at the barn? I want to see the new goats before my first client.

PARKER: That sounds exciting.

MILLIE: … and?

PARKER: What do you mean?

MILLIE: I’m waiting for you to add “not.” Like, “That sounds exciting. Not.”

PARKER: That goes without saying.

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