Page 39 of Love me, Maddie Mendoza

Cute. Adorable. Very Maddie.

“Can we just go with salt?” Aisha shrugged.

“Salt? We’d still spend money and be wasting a lot.” Nick tsked.

“It will get the job done.” Aisha challenged.

“Just not in a smart way.”

“Getting it done is smart.”

I knocked on the table, grabbing their attention. “I agree it would be better if we have an alternative that we don’t need to buy. But no one came up with anything free. So shaving cream or salt?”

They all remained in silence for a beat, just drinking whatever was in front of them, thinking in how to fix the problem, it was when Maddie and I were having an argument how much salt we needed buy, that Jason stood up with a manic smile.

“I have an idea!”

We were directed to the old factory warehouse as Jason told us about his simple plan.Wood shavings.

I had to give it to him; it was a genius idea. The warehouse wasn’t far from us. Every time we passed it the wood shavings were all over the ground. Jason was so pleased with himself, he insisted on being the angel maker. Maddie accepted promptly.

As we parked in front of the warehouse, another car was just on our heels. As clever as he thought we were, someone else thought of the same thing. And I had to smile when I saw Cathy coming out of the car.

She and another three friends wearing purple exited at the same time as us, and our two groups stood opposite to each other.

“There’re enough shavings for everyone.” Aisha joked, and the girls smiled.

“Don’t tell then what we are doing here.” Jason whispered.

“What the hell do you think they are doing here?” Aisha wanted to know.

“I don’t know what the devil’s minion has planned.” Jason spat.

We all turned to him quickly. What the hell was that? I never saw him saying a bad word about anyone, and suddenly he was calling strangers the devil’s minions?

“Stop being melodramatic, Barlowe. Give us all a break.”

And that came out of no one’s mouth but Cathy. It was our turn to gape at her. The porcelain doll? Maddie was thinking the same because she tugged on my sleeve. I turned just a little to face her, and her eyes were wide like saucers. “Oh, my god!” she mouthed.

“Excuse me if I find hard to believe you came up with this on your own.”

“What do you think? I was spying on you?”

“Nothing would surprise me!” Jason roared.

“Oh, please!” Cathy rolled her eyes. “Like I have nothing better to do than follow a dumbass around town?”

From there, I lost track of the insults. Cathy’s friends looked taken aback by the fight, too. No one seemed to understand exactly what was happening. We were told Jason was a melodramatic man-baby (true) and Cathy was a heartless cold princess that might as well be the spouse of Satan himself (not confirmed).

I shook my head as their voices flamed, bringing one palm up, and being taller than them all, I whistled. “What the hell!” And they finally shut it. “Can we just take this stupid picture and stop fighting in front of a warehouse?”

Jason grumbled, but he brought his nose up and with a last look went inside, hopefully to talk one of the employees into letting us take the stupid picture. One by one, our group went in, and then the only ones left were Cathy and me.

She looked up at me and cringed. “I’m sorry!” It was the first thing out of her mouth.

“So you hate Jason?” I almost found it funny. The man liked to bake with Maddie. They now had a special recipe of mini apple tarts called Mason’s Tarts (Maddie and Jason). He had two helicopter dads who sent him care packages and updated him on the last news of musical theater. The man was likable. How the hell didn’t she like him?

Cathy lifted a shoulder, “Barlowe annoys the life out of me.” She rubbed her fingers to her temple. “Forget that you saw that.”

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