Page 94 of Friendshipped
For the ride back home, I climb into Dad’s SUV between Memaw and Trevor. Just as we’re getting in the back seat, all of our phones sound with a simultaneous alert.
34
Trevor
My phone makes that telltale sound and then I hear Lexi’s, Memaw’s and Lexi’s parents’ phones go off throughout the car. It’s the weather alert system informing us of a tornado watch. If you live in the Midwest in June and July, storm watches are a somewhat normal part of life. It only means the conditions are right for a tornado, not that one has been spotted.
Still, an apprehensive air settles between all of us as we check our phones and process what this could mean for Lexi’s birthday and even more seriously for our city if an actual tornado were to come through. We’ve lived through multiple tornadoes and seen neighboring towns decimated by them.
“Tornado watch,” Lexi’s dad says from the front seat.
“Oh, if I had a dollar for every one of these I’d lived through …” Memaw says.
“You’d have a hundred bucks!” Lexi’s dad says with the right dose of levity.
“You’re as ornery as you ever were,” Memaw says to her grown son.
“I learned from the best,” Mr. Billington says, reaching around to pat Memaw on the knee.
The tornado watch won’t stop Lexi and me from doing her scavenger hunt. It just means we have to keep an eye out on the conditions around us, and if they issue a warning, or say to head inside, we’ll change plans right away.
I shoot a text to Laura telling her we’re leaving Frisch’s and we’re still on for the scavenger hunt. She texts back the “Okay” emoji and says she’s sending Lexi her first instructions.
I’ve been trying to sneak time to text Lexi on the dating app as TJ. She’s starting to warm up to him and it’s the weirdest feeling. Can a man be jealous of himself? She’s flirty and open with TJ in ways she usually isn’t with me. What we have runs deeper.
I’m letting Laura lead this, but not without some misgivings or hesitation on my part. A little voice tells me things could go south if Lexi feels tricked by me when she finds out I’m TJ. I avoid my inner voice like Pinocchio avoided Jiminy Cricket. Then again, come to think of it, Pinocchio ended up turning into a donkey.
Lexi’s phone vibrates a few seconds later. She holds it so we can both read the text at the same time.
Laura:Okay, birthday girl, this hunt is all themed around you turning twenty-three! (Did I tell you you’re growing up so nicely? Or is that Memaw’s line?) Anyway … I’ll be sending you places, and you have to do or find what I say. Insert evil laugh here. When you finish one challenge, text me the proof and I’ll send you your next scavenge. Is that such a thing? A scavenge? Well, it is now. For your first stop, you’ll be going somewhere to find twenty-three ears of corn. I know! Ohio, right? But you have to take a pic with the corn and send it to me. On your marks, get set, go! … oh, and yes, Trev is going with you on this whole adventure. You’re welcome.
Lexi:Got it! Thanks, Laura. You make me feel so loved.
“Let’s take my car when your dad drops us off,” I tell Lexi while she puts her phone back in her purse. “I’ll drive and you can tell me what’s next.”
“As if you don’t know,” she teases.
“I know the things we brainstormed at Rob’s. I don’t know how you’ll choose to do them, and I don’t know what order our fearless leader put everything in.”
“Laura’s something else,” Lexi says.
“You have good friends,” Memaw says from the other side of Lexi.
Lexi’s parents drop us off at our house and we grab my car and take off for the nearest farm stand.
We hop out when I park and Lexi hands me her phone. She walks to the stand and we’re greeted by Jed White.
“Well now,” he says. “If it isn’t the birthday girl.”
“Mister White,” Lexi says with a smile. “How did you remember it was my birthday?”
“Oh. I always remember on account it’s two weeks after the Fourth and if my corn grows in just right, I’m always at the height of my first harvest right around the day you were born. That makes you as corn-fed as any Ohio girl I ever knew.”
Lexi blushes.
“Well, thank you, Mister White. Can we have five ears? And then Trevor just needs to take my picture.”
“Here now,” Mister White says. “Lemme have that there camera on your phone and I’ll take a picture of the two of you. And the corn’s on me being that it’s your birthday.”
