Page 1 of Tizzy's Little Thanksgiving

Prologue

Eddie

Eddie Mayer stood staringat the massive display of apples in his grocery store’s produce department. Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp, it was all gibberish to him. His housekeeper, Jeannie, usually did all his shopping and she knew what he liked better than he did.

“It’s only apples. How different can they possibly taste?” he muttered to himself. “Just pick one. It’s not brain surgery.”

His choice of saying was playfully ironic because Eddie was, in fact, a neurosurgeon at Methodist Hospital in Houston’s famous medical center. One of the top specialists in the nation, he could successfully perform feats most surgeons wouldn’t even touch and yet he couldn’t pick out his own damn apples. It was kind of ridiculous now that he thought about it.

“Dammit, Jeannie, you’ve spoiled me,” he grumbled, ripping a thin plastic bag off the dispenser, and advancing on the display.

Sure, he could just text Jeannie and ask her what kind he liked, but she was off on a well-deserved vacation, paid for by him, and he didn’t want to bother her with such a mundane task. He didn’t want to be one of those people who couldn’t figure anything out for themselves. He’d hired Jeannie back when he was still an intern, as a favor to his mother who swore she would get off his case if she knew there was someone around making sure he was eating well and taking care of himself.

He stared again at the pile of apples like it was his own personal Everest. “I’ll just get one of each,” he decided, still talking to himself out loud under his breath.

He grabbed a Gala, and a Honeycrisp, and walked around the display toward the Fujis. He was just about to grab one when someone else got there first. They’d come so fast he hadn’t even seen them approaching, reaching for the pile at the same time he did, but just as they grabbed for an apple, they also slammed into the display, causing dozens of apples to fall to the floor in a pile, bruising instantly.

Eddie looked down at the now damaged fruit with growing annoyance.

“Someone is going to have to pay for that.”

“Oh oopsies! I’m so sorry! I guess I didn’t realize how fast I was going or how hard it was going to be to stop! Anyway, I think this is yours.” A shiny Fuji apple, somehow saved from the avalanche appeared in front of him, curled into a feminine, ring-adorned hand, with long, sparkly orange fingernails each adorned with a purple gemstone in the shape of a star.

He’d seen those stones before. He’d heard that voice before.

It couldn’t be.

With his stomach lurching from a combination of excitement and dread, he looked up. Straight into the face of his sister’s best friend, Teresa, or as he liked to call her, Tizzy.

Tizzy because she was a high-energy whirlwind, somewhat of a human tornado, but also because she was a worrywart of epic proportions who could take the tiniest thing and worry herself into a tizzy over it.

“Oh gosh!” she exclaimed, looking first at him and then down at the mess at their feet. “Oh gosh! Oh wow! It’s good to see you! Oh no! I’m so sorry for running into you this way. Literally, right? I mean what are the odds?”

So far she was just living up to the human tornado side of her nickname, but the worrywart part would soon kick in.

In three, two, one,he thought to himself.

And just like that…

“Jiminy Cricket! Look at this mess!” She dropped to her knees, and started grabbing apples up by the handful, pulling up the hem of her shirt to make a basket to store them in. She had about five in her designated shirt basket before she stopped what she was doing and looked up at the display in horror. “Oh what was I thinking? I can’t put these back. They’ll get all mealy and rotten and someone will bite into one expecting a nice crispy bite of juicy fall goodness and instead they’ll just get rotten mealy mush.”

She looked down at the pile still on the floor. “I guess I should get an employee. I’m honestly surprised one hasn’t gotten here by now.” She shook her head. “All these apples will have to be thrown out and they’ll probably go to waste. And oh my gosh, what if they get so mad at me, they ban me from the store? This is my favorite place to shop! Oh crap! What if they call the cops? Eddie! I can’t go to jail—even for a night. Not even for an hour. I won’t last in a holding cell with all the drunks and junkies and god only knows what else, and I’ll probably lose my job!” She looked horrified at the possibilities. “Is there a law against roller skating in a grocery store?”

There she went, working herself into a tizzy, worrying so fast he couldn’t even get a reassuring word in edgewise.

She finally stopped to take a breath, tears welling in the corner of her eyes, and he opened his mouth to reassure her that she wasn’t about to go to jail over a few dozen bruised apples when the last part of her frenzied rant finally registered.

“Roller skating?” He looked down at her feet, folded underneath her as she knelt on the tiled floor, and sure enough, they were encased in bright orange roller blades.

Who wore roller blades to a grocery store?

“I was out for my afternoon skate—practicing because I missed your sister so much I went out and joined a roller derby league of all things—and I remembered I was out of apples for tomorrow’s lunch. I eat one every day because you know what they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and so I figured, no problem, I’ll just grab some before I head home and then…” She looked down at the floor again and wailed, “And now I’m gonna be banned for life if I don’t end up in jail somewhere!”

Eddie shook his head. He knew Tizzy well enough to know reasoning with her wouldn’t work when she was in a state. He wished his sister were here; somehow Georgie always knew just what to say when Tizzy launched into one of her episodes while Eddie usually fumbled it all up.

But Georgie wasn’t at the store, or even in the town. Georgie was, of all places, at a kink ranch over a thousand miles away, living with his best friend.

He was going to have to handle Tizzy all on his own.

---