New Release and Giveaway! BUCK UP, BUTTERCUP by Anna Alkire

From Chapter One of Buck Up, Buttercup by Anna Alkire:

The cab driver obviously smoked cigarettes and didn’t use his air conditioner. Or deodorant. Randi pulled off her thin cardigan in the stuffy backseat. It still felt like mid-summer down here, even with October twelve days away.

She would finish her degree and get out. Done is better than perfect, she told herself for the hundredth time. Companies hiring for business, marketing, and graphic design (her combined major) wanted graduates, not perfect grades. A good thing because she’d be lucky to pass everything.

At last, the car turned onto a gravel road winding into an orchard. The cab’s high-beams lit up the bushy branches and thick gnarled trunks of hazelnut trees. She couldn’t wait to see it in daylight.

“Shit!” the driver yelled. He slammed on the brakes and the cab jerked to a stop, swirling dust up from the gravel road. Randi gasped. Someone ran right in front of the cab, pink, naked skin glowing in the headlights.

Male butt cheeks sprinted up the middle of the road blocking them from passing. Pale, hairy legs ended in cowboy boots. One of his hands was holding a cowboy hat on his head. He whooped and veered off into the orchard.

They sat in silence for a stunned moment. If that was somebody’s boyfriend, she would be moving out.

“Did a naked guy jump in front of the car?” Randi said, taking her glasses off to rub her eyes. The cab driver grunted.

“Do you see that kind of thing often?”

“Hazing week,” he grumbled. “You want to keep going?”

She paused, her head a foggy cloud. What did he mean, keep going? Did he want her to

jump out and walk the rest of the way? Not with insane naked men running around. “Yes,” she said.

Belatedly, her brain caught up with the conversation—he’d meant he could turn the cab around with her in it. A lump the size of a fist lodged in her throat. Something was brewing up ahead and it wasn’t herbal tea before bedtime.

The cab rolled forward at a slower pace, veering around the largest potholes. Her clenching stomach churned with acid. She couldn’t think. They rounded a bend. Cars lined both sides of the road, wedged between the trees. Women came tumbling out of one of them—young, wearing cowboy hats, short shorts, and halter tops.

Randi’s mouth opened and closed. The cab kept going. Beer cans and red keg cups littered the gravel and the dirt shoulder. Noise was filtering in: shouts and high-pitched laughter. She realized the seat belt was clenched in both her fists. They drove out of the orchard. A sea of cars spread out in row after row on the grass in front of a farmhouse, like the parking lot of an outdoor concert.

People swarmed everywhere, blocking stairways, twenty deep around the sides of the house. A huge bonfire burned in front of a barn.

The driver turned off his radio. The overwhelming muddle of music, shouting, whooping, and a few hundred people talking at once brought reality crashing home. She sat suspended, unable to speak, chest heaving, panting in short gasps. Her sweating back could have been glued to the sticky leather seat.

“Hey, kiddo,” the driver said, “got a pickup in twenty minutes. You want a ride back into town?”

She stared at the house number. It was correct. Not to mention the old farmhouse matched the picture online. And so did the orchard. Over the summer, Trish had emailed her back promptly, answering all her questions. This was the house of “studious women serious about school.” When asked directly about parties, Trish had responded, “Little get-togethers— yes. Massive parties—absolutely not.”

Anger boiled up, burning away the paralyzing fear. She huffed in dawning realization. They’d taken her savings. Conned her. After working fourteen-hour days, seven days a week for three months in Buenos Aires, she’d spent everything to secure her spot living at this house. She would get her money back, tonight—first and last month’s rent, plus a deposit. Her stomach roiled.

“Meter’s running. What’s it going to be?”