Page 14 of Work It Out
The 66th Annual Poisonous Spiny Hunt is less than eight weeks away. Best start practicing your spiny calls. With this year’s prize, you won’t need the legend to fall in love.
-Z
Two nights on thin mats in her office were hell on Rayah’s bad shoulder and worse on her temper. The shoulder was painful for her. The temper was painful for everyone.
That Jake still wasn’t well didn’t help her mood. The trip had done him good, but when her meeting with the Sedona resort turned up bupkis, he’d talked her into returning to Bigbone that evening. He’d relapsed some that night, but was much improved again by the next morning. She’d threatened to toss him on a plane herself if he tried to work out. That was yesterday. She had a sneaking suspicion she couldn’t force him to rest much longer.
Rayah pushed that worry aside as Bigbone’s biggest claim to fame opened the door to Frankie’s Fixin’s, the only diner in town. He moseyed in like an old-timey cowpoke, weathered and bowlegged and utterly lacking the shits to give that might make a man hurry. His thick Sam Elliott mustache twitched when he caught sight of Rayah in the back corner booth. “Mornin’.”
Rayah returned his smile with genuine affection. “Good morning, Mr. Roberts.” Six months ago, he’d helped her persuade five other local business owners to form an official Bigbone Chamber of Commerce. They’d spoken several times a month since.
Settling onto the bench across from her, he waved her off with one hand and picked up the menu with the other. “I’ve told you, girl. Call me Zandar. All the earthlings do.”
She might’ve balked at being calledgirl, but he didn’t mean any harm. Zandar was a kind older mountain man with little concern for politically correct language and an unhealthy obsession with aliens. As in, he thought he was one, placed in the body of an earthling over sixty years ago to observe humanity’s ways. He would, of course, be retrieved when his host body was no longer of use. Despite his age, she doubted his reclamation was coming anytime soon.
She finally gave in. “Zandar, then.”
“Now, what can I do for you?” He flipped through the menu he’d likely memorized twenty years ago. A sparkle snuck into his eyes when he paused to look up at her. “Not that I ever mind a beautiful woman asking me to breakfast.”
She placed her menu on the table, giving him her undivided attention. “I’d like to propose an idea at the next Chamber meeting, but I wanted to run it by you first.”
Both bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Oh? What sort of idea?”
She dug the sample pamphlet she and Jared had made from her bag. This was the delicate part, and delicate wasn’t her forte. Plopping the brochure in the middle of the table, she said, “It’s about the Hunt.”
A frown plowed deep furrows in his forehead. “You ain’t never been to the Hunt.”
“That’s true. We moved to Indiana when I was six, but Grandpa told me the basics.”
He scoffed. “I bet. That old coot quit comin’ when your grandma died. Can’t blame him. Probably hurt too much.” He flipped the page on his menu. “You coulda come last year,” he muttered in a tone dangerously close to a pout.
She knew he’d make her pay for that. “I had to finish moving my things out of storage in Phoenix. My lease was up.” The mulish lines in his forehead eased, but he didn’t speak, so she went on. “I know the Poisonous Spiny Hunt is a sacred rite around here, as well as extremely personal to you. I don’t want to take away from that.
“Grandpa Wyatt said your people use crystals to power everything from lights to spaceships, and that they sent you here with a pair of spinies to search for more.” The mountains around Bigbone were famously riddled with quartz. “They got away from you, and Bigbone being Bigbone, no one would let you look by yourself. I didn’t include any of that in the marketing materials, though.” She opened the pamphlet and pointed to the left column explaining the history of the Hunt. “It just describes poisonous spinies and says that they were once used to root out crystals near the surface the way hogs find truffles.”
Zandar tapped a finger against the rendering of what looked like a porcupine/pig hybrid. “That’ll need redone. My babies are a whole lot cuter than that.”
She hid her grin. “Not a problem. This was only a placeholder until you could sit down with the artist.”
He sat back and motioned toward the brochure. “What exactly are these for?”
Rayah took a deep breath. “I’d like to do some marketing for the Hunt. Outside of Bigbone. Actually, I’d like to turn it into a full-blown festival.”
Zandar was already shaking his head. “I can’t have them paparazzies poking around again. If Janet’s kids find out she married an alien, she’ll divorce me for sure. And the government won’t move me again, not unless it’s to New Mexico, and you know how I feel about that place.”
Everyone knew his feelings on Roswell.
“Trust me. I don’t want paparazzi around, either.” She wouldn’t sic those bottom-feeding scum-suckers on her worst enemy, let alone a man she liked. “I’m talking about local press and some strategic publicity aimed at families who like day and weekend travel. I’ll drop off brochures in tourist traps and travel centers as far out as Phoenix, maybe buy some ad space on small Arizona travel sites. Nothing major.”
Fran, owner of Frankie’s and another member of the Chamber, chose that moment to sidle over. The woman couldn’t be a day under seventy with a constitution that had her working circles around the teens on her staff. She didn’t even pretend she hadn’t been eavesdropping. “What kind of festival?”
Zandar’s expression gave nothing away, but he didn’t object again, so Rayah answered. “I’d like to have some food trucks, maybe a couple of carnival rides to really open the Hunt up to families with little ones, and booths for any local businesses that want to participate. This year will probably be pretty small, but the idea is to make it an event that could grow large enough to bring couples and families back for holiday shopping and winter getaways.”
It wouldn’t mean a huge influx in business for her, at least not right away. November and December were notoriously slow in the fitness industry. People were busy and perfectly happy to gain a little weight so long as they could hide it under a sweater. They came to her in January to work it off.
She might raffle off a gift package for personal training and hope to sell a few more, but the real point was to make enough of an impression to create name recognition and hopefully draw people back for her services first of the year.
It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.
