Grapevines: Part 5

Rachel busted through the door of the on-call room; Dr. Adams had told her she could find her delusional girlfriend napping in there. What kind of freak plays a fake death joke? All it took was one phone call to have half the city presenting casseroles on Naya Johnson’s doorstep. Rachel was on her way over there to offer her condolences to a woman she’d never met for a man she’d spent all morning trying not to loathe, when Mrs. Williams’ called her up to tell her Tyler Johnson had walked right through the door of her bakery at 9:17 on the dot.

“What the hell, Mack?” Rachel shook her girlfriend awake, startling her out of a dream. She ducked to narrowly avoid Makena’s tiny fist flying through the air. “I should be the one punching you. Telling me Tyler Johnson was dead when he really spent all night sleeping in his bed, safe and sound, instead of lying in a morgue.”

“No way,” Makena jumped up from the bunk bed, knocking her head on the frame, jostling the intern in the bunk above her. “Ty’s alive? Man, must have been his twin in here last night. Guess I shoulda looked at the chart to double check right?”

“You have got to be kidding me, Mack,” Rachel said as she ran her hand through her bright red ringlets. “Half the town gave his wife a wakeup call this morning. She’ll be eating free casseroles for weeks for having a husband who looks like a dead guy.”

“You don’t say,” Makena zoned out, no doubt imagining how she could fake her own death to get her fridge full of free food. “That was what like, what, five hours ago? The whole town of Garner found out about a fake dead guy in five hours…”

“Yeah, remind me why you made me move out to this God-forsaken place again?” Rachel glared at her girlfriend, wondering how she could continue to be so happy go lucky before remembering that she didn’t spend her morning failing to cook broccoli casserole and settling for apple pie.
Makena shrugged, flashing a smile at the fuming redhead in front of her.

“An entire town spent valuable sleeping time doing the only thing they knew how to do in time of crisis: cook somebody they hardly knew a damn casserole.”

And with a flip of her ponytail and an extra bounce in her step, Makena skipped out the door, leaving a high-strung city girl to finally understand the fascinating pull of a little southern comfort.