Page 7 of Fangirl Down

Chapter Four

Josephine hung up the phone with a shaking hand, a wounded sound escaping her mouth as she surveyed what used to be her family’s pro shop. When law enforcement had officially declared it safe to drive on the roads, she’d jumped into her ancient Camry immediately, steeling herself for the worst the entire way. Yet she still hadn’t been prepared.

Half of the inventory of clubs was gone. Floated away in the flood waters or possibly looted. The cash register was on its side in a bank of sludge. The display of rangefinder binoculars she’d arranged only last week was sticking out through the broken back window.

All she could do was stare at the mess. She had no idea where to begin cleaning up. If there was a place to sit down, she would do it now. In her haste to get out of her apartment, she’d forgotten to eat breakfast and the beeping on her phone reminded her of that now. Her low-blood-sugar alert was going off.

Movements lethargic, Josephine rooted in her purse for her plastic roll of glucose tabs and popped a few into her mouth, chewing, willing the sugar to bring her back up quickly, though the movements of her jaw felt unnatural. At least the deafening buzzing in her head had one advantage—it was drowning out the conversation she’d just had with the insurance company. The one who was no longer providing coverage.

She centered herself with a deep breath and called her parents.

“How bad is it, kiddo?” asked her father right away.

“It’s bad, Dad.”

Her parents both let out breaths that brushed up against her eardrum. She could picture them standing right beside each other in the kitchen, sharing the single phone they owned. Her mother would still have a pink towel on her head from the shower, her father sans pants. “That’s okay, you two. We knew it was going to be a challenge, but the Doyles are up for it,” said her mother, always the optimist. Forever finding the bright side. “We have flood insurance on the shop. It’ll take a while to come through, but that’ll just give us time to plan our grand reopening.”

Josephine’s legs turned so rubbery, she almost sat down in the foot-deep water.

She could see the late notice in her hand, remember reading the order to renew four months ago. Where had she stuffed it? Was it floating in the debris somewhere?

Oh God.Oh God.

Josephine looked around, swallowing hard at the sight of black-and-white pictures stuck in the sludge, their frames shattered, along with the frame holding the first dollar bill ever spent inside those walls. Her grandfather had opened the Golden Tee Pro Shop in the mid-sixties. It was attached to Rolling Greens, a landmark golf course in West Palm Beach that was open to the public. The little shop, where customers could rent clubs, buy merchandise, and talk golf, had seen much better days, before the ritzy private clubs had started popping up all over southern Florida, but Josephine had aspirations to change that in the coming years.

A putting green out front, more on-trend merchandise, a beverage bar.

She’d been giving extra lessons lately to save up the money to make those dreams a reality, but in one fell swoop, those possibilities had been swept out to sea by Mother Nature.

The Golden Tee belonged to her family, though she largely ran it solo these days. She’d been a late-in-life baby for her parents and they’d retired a few years ago. But the shop was still their very heart and soul. How would they react if they knew business had dwindled so drastically that she’d used the insurance money to buy insulin, instead?

She absolutely, 100 percent, couldnottell her parents that. They were hoverers by nature. Throw in the fact that she’d been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age six and she’d grown up with two full-time human helicopters that watched her every move. In her late teens, she’d managed to convince them that she could take care of herself. They’d stopped following her on the app that allowed them to see her blood glucose number. They’d trusted her to makegooddecisions.

Failing to renew flood insurance in Florida wassoooonot a good decision.

Nor was forgoing her own private medical insurance at age twenty-six so she could afford the monthly rent on the Golden Tee. Buying insulin out of pocket did not fall under the category of smart moves. Sure, several drug companies had capped insulin at thirty-five dollars recently, which was a tremendous help, but those vials were small and the costs added up. And insulin was only one component of living with diabetes in the age of smarter technology. Medical devices, such as her glucose monitor, had an astronomical price tag out of pocket. Necessary trips to the endocrinologist weren’t cheap, either, without that little white card with numbers on it.

She’d hoped to skate by for a super brief period of time without a policy, borrowing supplies from the doctor when possible,but she’d leaned on that goodwill too long... and now her chickens were coming home to roost.

“Joey?”

She gulped at the sound of her mother’s voice. “Yes, I’m here.”

“Do you want us to come down?” asked her father.

“No.” She molded her palm to her forehead. “You don’t want to see it like this. I’ll, um...” She turned in a circle, ordering the prickle behind her eyes tocut it out. “Let me clean up a little before you come by. Maybe a few days?”

“Joey, you don’t have to take this on alone,” her father said sternly.

“I know.”

That’s what she said out loud. However, the truth was that she took oneverythingalone. She didn’t know any other way to feel like a capable adult. Growing up as a diabetic meant a lot of people assuming she was incapable of certain things.Are you okay? Do you need a break? Should you eat that?That constant concern from others had led to Josephine’s being determined to prove she could doanythingwithout issue or assistance. And shecoulddo mostly anything—except for be in the military or fly a plane.

Unfortunately, staring at the mess that was her family’s shop and having no clue if she’d be able to salvage it, she didn’t feel capable of diddly-squat.

“I’ll call you guys back in a while, okay?” she said brightly. “Love you.”

“We love you, too, Joey-Roo.”

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