A Cup of Jo Read Free Page B

uncharacteristically mellow all of a sudden.
    Unfortunately for Sarah, Anita never failed to put me in a bad mood. '"Chillax"? What the hell is "chillax"?'
    'The kids use it. It means chill and relax. Chillax, you know?'
    No, I didn't know. Eric was my one lifeline to things current and he now lived three hundred long and, in my case, suffering miles away. So when Sarah exchanged a 'what a dinosaur' look with the mime, it set a match to my already shortened fuse.
    'You!' I said, wheeling on him, 'I don't want to see you here again, is that understood?'
    At my tone, the mime convulsively stepped back, then back again. Because his face was still toward me, he couldn't see where his body was going.
    Whoosh went Kevin's air hose. Down went JoLynne's mime.
    And my giant cup? It shuddered more than shimmied, the jet stream of escaping air itching to topple the balloon off its perch and onto the boarding platform and adjacent stage beneath it.
    I began scrambling up the stairs to the gallows. Halfway there, I made a grab for the edge of the saucer. It seemed to be weighted at the bottom and maybe adding my poundage (no wisecracks) could keep the thing in place.
    'Are you crazy?' Sarah yelled from two steps behind me. 'That Paul Bunyan-size mug will take you with it.' She grabbed the back of my Uncommon Grounds T-shirt to hold me stable, but even as she did, the overall load of the inflatable shifted, sending the top of the imploding cup tipping over the edge like the leading coil of a Slinky.
    Sarah was right. I let go of the saucer.
    The two county execs – Brewster Hampton of Brookhills in a neat dark suit, Wynona Counsel of Milwaukee, a conservative slate-gray dress – came off the train and on to the platform as Anita Hampton moved to meet them.
    'Look out below,' Sarah bellowed.
    Both execs obeyed her immediately and saw the huge, white balloon sliding over the edge of the gallows like an avalanche down the wintry slope of a mountain.
    Not so, Anita. 'No, no,' she was saying to them. 'Better you pose facing each—'
    Brewster dove to the right, Wynona the left.
    Anita glanced one way, then the other, before finally looking up herself.
    The deflating inflatable missed her nose by maybe eight inches, landing saucer-first with a thud at her feet.
    Anita stared down at the now collapsed coffee cup, seeming dazed. 'Joe?'
    Talk about dinosaurs.
    I might not know what 'chillax' meant, but I was damned if I was going to let my old boss brand my new endeavor a Depression era 'joe-joint.'
    'LaMinita ,' I corrected as I climbed to the top of the newly vacated gallows. 'A delicious brew of hand-roasted beans from Costa Rica.'
    A hundred faces were tilted up as Sarah joined me on the plywood platform and peered over the edge. 'Wow. Shriveled like that, it looks less like Paul Bunyan's coffee cup and more like his used condom.'
    God, what a public relations nightmare. Lynched on our own gallows.
    'Sorry,' I said weakly to the crowd below. 'But –' gesturing toward the fallen cup – 'it's not just "joe".'
    'Oh, but it is .' Anita Hampton ignored the solicitous hand Brewster laid on her shoulder. Delicately, she nudged aside a wall of our collapsed cup with the toes of one impeccably-shod foot.
    A tangle of dark hair was exposed.
    Not joe.
    Jo.

Chapter Two
    Missing Brookhills event manager JoLynne Penn-Williams was sprawled in the bottom of our cup. The lip of the still-inflated saucer made her look like a rag doll left behind in an empty kiddy pool.
    I felt a full-body shudder, fearing history was repeating itself. Again.
    'JoLynne, damn it!' Rebecca Penn said, marching over to look at her fallen sister. 'Must you always be the center of attention?'
    JoLynne wasn't rising to the bait. In fact, she didn't look like she was rising, period. Not that it stopped Rebecca.
    'Really. Popping out of this cup like it was a giant cake at a bachelor's party?' She leaned down to give her older sister's shoulder a shake. 'Jo, do you have no sense of