In reality, Sara had spent her weekend gardening. She’d pulled weeds and then she’d picked rosemary and basil and put it in Ziploc baggies to give to her neighbors.
The teacher had been cool about it and thought that it was funny once Sara had explained. But the parents were another story. Her phone had blown up for a good three weeks. Half of the calls she got were about her being unfit and the other half were parents looking for a hookup. She’d explained the situation to both the agitated and drug-seeking, but the outraged parents thought she was just trying to cover up her drug dealing ways, and the parents looking to get high thought she was holding out on them.
PTA meetings had been a nightmare after that—not that they were real fun before. Some good did come out of it though. It had given her material for a blog post Felony or Floriculture that had been shared over three million times.
She wasn’t sure what Trevor had said to make Ali stare at her like she was, and she was scared to ask.
“You’re Sara.” Ali said as if that was totally unbelievable.
“I am.” Sara wasn’t sure why that was so remarkable. Sara was an extremely common first name.
“And that’s Charlotte and Trevor.” Ali pointed at the kids respectively.
“Yep.” This was the strangest roll call Sara had ever been involved in. She was starting to think it might not have been such a great call to leave her son alone with these people. Her instinct might’ve made a very bad call.
“Aunt Ali, why are you acting so weird?” KJ blurted out, obviously as weirded out as she was.
Yes. Her intuition was still batting a thousand.
“Sorry.” Ali shook her head and blinked as if she was snapping out of some kind of trance. “I’m sorry, I’m just so shocked. I knew you looked familiar, but then when you said Trevor’s name I put it together.”
“Put what together?” KJ shook his head.
Yep. She really liked this kid.
“What the F Mom Blog!” Ali shook her hands out in front of her.
“You’re Sara, Charlotte, and Trevor from What the F.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sara had only been recognized a handful of times, and she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it.
She only had one picture on her website. Shelby had taken it. It was Sara sitting at her computer and the kids were running around her. Trevor was holding a roll of toilet paper above his head with a train of it unraveling, flowing out behind him as Charlotte chased him with chocolate smeared around her face and spaghetti noodles in her hair. The photo shoot had been staged but it wasn’t like that scene hadn’t played out in their house before.
Ali smiled from ear to ear. “I can’t believe you’re really here. You have no idea how much your financial tips helped after—” Ali’s eyes shot toward KJ, and Sara noted a definite moment pass between them before Ali looked back at Sara. “After I took over this business. They were a godsend.”
Sara was pretty sure there was more to that story. Charlotte lost interest in the conversation and pulled her chubby hand out of Sara’s and walked over to stand by her brother, who was cracking up at a video on KJ’s phone.
“Jess, my best friend, and I have read every single post…Oh my gosh! Jess is gonna freak!” Ali gasped and pointed. “She flipped when you posted the video of her proposal on your Friday Favorites.”
Sara used her favorites section to post about any and every thing she liked. It could be anything from a new pair of socks, a television show she was binging, an at-home wart removal remedy, to a video of a proposal. She’d posted a few, so she wasn’t sure which one Ali was talking about. “Which one was hers?”
“It was the Dirty Dancing one.”
“Oh that was amazing!” Shelby had actually been the one to send Sara the video. She and her sister had watched it at least a dozen times. Wow, between the reality show being filmed here and the dirty dancing proposal, her sister was going to flip out. A thought struck her. Sara walked out of the office and pointed out the window to the pier that she and the kids had just been on. “Wait, is that the pier that he—”
“Yep.” Ali followed her. “That’s the one.”
“Wow.” Sara couldn’t wait to tell Shelby. She might even take a video of it and send it to her.
“And it was during my wedding reception.”
“Congratulations!” Sara enthused, turning back to Ali. They were standing just outside the office and Sara could see the kiddos out of her peripheral.
“Thanks.”
Ali shook her head slightly. “I still can’t believe you’re here. Are you visiting someone or on vacation or business?”
“Um, none of the above. It was actually…it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”