“Careful, sweetie, you might cut yourself.”
Montana Baxter pushed the sleeves to her flannel shirt up to her elbows before gently taking the small hand of the little boy sitting on the picnic bench in front of her. The boy removed his hand from the knife and started kicking his feet back and forth in the hay, humming happily, patting his thighs with the flat of his hands. She maneuvered the cut through the bumpy and uneven exterior of the pumpkin that sat in front of him.
It cut through the vertical groove of the pumpkin before she angled it downwards, the best she could over the rib, to help him cut out the rest of his eyes. “I can do it, I can do it,” the boy complained, tired of sitting and doing nothing. He started patting his hands on the table. He shifted the plastic covering towards him, pulling a pile of pumpkin seeds and guts towards him.
“Whoa, whoa, Alex,” Montana said, grabbing the table. “Shoot, you don’t wanna get yourself dirty.” She sucked in a breath of air before blowing a lock of her dirty blonde hair out of her face. “Or anyone else,” she muttered under her breath. “I don’t have many trash bags left.”
She let out a sigh as she straightened, standing up. She massaged her shoulder with her knuckles as she looked over at the little boys and girls lined up on either side of the picnic table carving pumpkins. Black trash bags covered their torsos, holes cut out for their head and arms.
“This stuff smells yucky,” a girl without two front teeth shrieked as she pulled a string of pumpkin guts out of the triangle nose of her tilted pumpkin. Montana made a face, covering her nose and mouth. The thought of watching these little kids pick their noses and continue working on their pumpkin rivaled…well, a kid picking the nose of a pumpkin.
“It is pretty yucky, isn’t it?” she asked, forcing herself to put a smile on her face. She made her way over to the girl’s side. “Why don’t we leave that inside the pumpkin, hun?” I should’ve double checked hers was empty.
It was the Clinton, Mississippi annual Halloween festival and she was in charge of the pumpkin carving station. Since the start of the carnival she had seen families drop by, couples, kids, and loners. With her being the biggest loner there. Not that she didn’t enjoy working the station but all her friends were working stations closer to each other.
There were a lot of activities for everyone that wanted to stop by for a minute or even longer. And they usually stayed for longer. Corn hole tournaments, face painting, cake walks, bingo, hay rides, allowing kids to play in the hay, petting zoos, cookie decorations, corn maze, apple picking, and a whole lot more. Loud music played from the speaker systems and from the crowd of college students tailgating in the parking lot to celebrate the latest Homecoming win.
The joints in Montana’s fingers popped as she curled them into fists, stiff from the cold, slimy pumpkins. Her wrists were starting to hurt from scooping out all of the pumpkins, and she was sure the guts weren’t the best Neosporin for the paper cuts she’s received from kids snatching paper stencils from her hands. Her feet were throbbing with how long she had been on her feet, and she was craving some hot apple cider, but this was something she looked forward to every October.
“Miz Montana, Miz Montana,” a pig tailed girl said, waving her small hand in the air. Globs of pumpkin guts flew off, landing in the hair of the two kids next to her. “Kyle’s eating the seeds again.”
“Oh, no, Kyle!” Montana hurried over to the boy who looked up at her with innocent eyes. A seed was stuck to his bottom lip, strings of orange guts hanging out of the sides of her mouth, one long one, holding a slowly spinning seed off the plump of her bottom lip. “Spit it out. I told you these weren’t to be eaten.” She held her hand in front of his mouth. “Spit it out, now.”
“My momma says we can eat ‘em,” Kyle whined. Montana sighed, knowing that whatever was in his mouth was now gone and sitting in his stomach. “It’s what she said.”
“After you clean them, dry them, and cook them, sweetie,” Montana explained, ruffling his hair. She then reached for the stack of napkins on the table and started to clean off her fingers. “Then you can put some salt on them and make them yummy. Ok?”
“Ok,” Kyle replied with a nod.
“Now, no more eating slimy seeds, ok?” Montana asked.
“Kay.”
“Excuse me.” Montana felt a tap on her shoulder. “Do we just grab pumpkins and start?”
Montana waved her hand in the air. “Yeah, there’s a free table over there,” she replied, pointing in the direction of the only empty table in her section. “Let me just clear it for you.” Sliding the used tissue into her pocket, she stepped over the hay and made her way to the empty table. Grabbing the corner of the plastic table cover, she rolled it up into a ball and shoved it into the large round; trash can before sliding a new one on. “Ok, there you go. Markers, knives, and stencils are over there.”
“So who do I have to go to for a hug, then?” the voice asked before Montana felt a tug on her ponytail. Montana grabbed the back of her head, lips poised to give the person a barrage of words. She already had to deal with childish behavior from the kids; she didn’t need it from someone else. As she turned around, her scowl turned into a smile as she gave Lance Bass a hug, careful not to get pumpkin on his clothes. “Lance! I didn’t expect you. What are you doing here? Have you seen your parents? When’d you get in?”
“We’re off for the next couple of days before our show in Biloxi so I decided to stop by,” Lance explained, his green eyes twinkling in the setting sun. “I saw my mom and dad before I came here, they’re doing well. I got in last night.” He slid his hands into his pants pockets and shrugged. “You’re not doing the Festival Pageant this year?”
“I can only take not being crowned Pumpkin Queen for so long,” Montana replied and Lance let out a laugh. In a town where beauty pageants were a normal past time, it wasn’t every day where one stipulation was whatever dress or outfit was being shown off, it had to be made out of corn shucks or hay. “You know how much I love working with kids.”
“Well, you’ve got the biggest kids coming to carve pumpkins now,” Lance said with a laugh, turning to watch his friends hurry to the cleared table, clutching pumpkins to their chest, talking loudly about what they wanted to make and whose would look better.
She recognized them instantly: J.C. Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, and Justin Timberlake. How could she not? *NSYNC was one of the biggest bands out there, if not the biggest. She was known to blast a few songs in her car every now and then, but Lance was a local celebrity. She had to show her support somehow. Plus, their songs were really catchy.
Once upon a time, she would be as star struck as the next *NSYNC fan, and had some embarrassing moments she tried to keep locked far, far into the back of her head. Now, it wasn’t any different than seeing a family member or a classmate on the street. It was normal. They were all still level-headed people and just wanted to lay low and spend time with their family and friends.
Lance was a year behind her in school, but everyone knew who he was. They were in Attaché together and while she quit to focus more on her future career working with kids, he went on to bigger and better things. He was a natural born performer and she wasn’t at all surprised that an opportunity as big as *NSYNC came his way.
“I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing,” Lance said, stepping forward to give her another hug. “It was great to see you.” He snapped his fingers before pointing at her. “Apple cider on me?”
“Ya still know how to get a girl’s heart racing,” Montana said, putting a hand over her heart, fluttering her eyelashes. She and Lance shared a laugh.
“No problem,” Lance replied, removing his hand from his pocket, to give a wave of his hand. “Come find me whenever you have free time. We need to catch up.”
“Oh, there’s nothing exciting going on here, hun,” Montana said, waving her hand in the air. “It’s just little old, Clinton.” She let out a sigh when she heard a scream and turned to see a girl turning bright red in the face, pointing down at the glob of spilled pumpkin sitting on her lap. “Duty calls. Ok, Susie, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Silently wishing and praying for the next rotation of kids, Montana continued to help the kids with carving the rest of their pumpkins. She took pictures of the child smiling happily next to their pumpkin and attached nametags to the stem for families to pick up and helped light the candles to give them the full effect. Seeing their faces light up and show off their pumpkins to each other put a wide smile on her face. She really did enjoy working with kids but sometimes they just knew how to push her buttons and knew just how far across the line they could go with her.
“Ok, now everybody, hands up,” Montana dictated, putting her hand up into the air. 10 pairs of little hands did the same, smiling and giggling happily. She walked behind them, lifting the garbage bags over their heads, bundling them together before throwing them in the trash before stepping over to the last table, tapping her hand on the side of a tub filled with water. “Rinse your hands in this tub and then line up over there to meet Mrs. Bristow.”
One by one she watched the boys and girls dipped their hands in the tub of warm water, cleaning them of all traces of pumpkin before she dried them with a towel. “All right,” she said after drying the last pair of hands. She tucked the cloth under her arm before clearing the table. Humming to herself, she removed the plastic table covering and threw it away.
Brushing loose strands of hair back behind her ears, she sat down on the edge of the now clean picnic table, stretching her legs out in front of her. She tensed every muscle in her body before slowly relaxing it, allowing herself some reprieve before the next group of pumpkin carvers came. She glanced over at the *NSYNC boys and found J.C. looking back at her.
Montana blinked, before looking over her right shoulder and then her left finding no one there. J.C. started to laugh quietly. She felt her face burn that even the chilliest October breeze couldn’t cool down. It was the kind of embarrassment she’d feel when she would wave back at someone she thought was waving at her and not their friend behind her.
“What?” she asked, her voice cracking just slightly.
“Sorry,” J.C. apologized as he turned back to face his pumpkin. He grabbed the knife sitting beside him with a closed fist and jammed it into the eye of his pumpkin. As he pulled it out, the chunk of pumpkin came with it and he set it down on the table. “You’re good with kids.”
“Well, I still act like one, so…” Montana said with a shrug. J.C. laughed good naturedly. “I don’t know if you remember me. But, I’m—“
“Montana,” J.C. finished for her with a nod. “I remember.” Half of his face scrunched up. “And also because I just heard Lance say it.”
“Way to go, C,” Joey said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Because every girl wants to hear that you forgot their name.” J.C. rolled his eyes.
“Right, like you’re Casanova yourself, Fatone,” Chris replied as he dug through his pumpkin with a spoon.
“I prefer to think I’m more like Romeo, thank you very much,” Joey said, sticking his nose in the air.
“So you woo a girl and then she wants too—“
“Ok,” Lance said, cutting across Justin and his smirk of amusement. Montana bit her bottom lip, holding back a laugh. She didn’t get the chance to spend time with the boys over years, with their busy touring schedules and heading home as soon as they had some free time being the main reasons, but she liked seeing them as down to earth people. She had seen in interviews and TV spots that they referred to each other as brothers and she could certainly see why. “Tana, could you judge our pumpkins?”
“Sure,” Montana replied with a nod of her head. She crossed one leg over the other, bouncing the heel of one of her cowboy boots off the rounded tip of the other. A cool breeze blew through and she started to hate her choice of outfit: cowboy boots (perfect for wading through wet hay and muddy grounds), a striped fall dress cinched at the waist from a large brown belt, and a light coat. Classic attired for these kind of festivity. Curse her for changing her mind about the leggings. Tugging down on the hem of her dress she tried to bundle up as much as possible. “Go for it.”
Lance turned his pumpkin around to face her. His was a pretty simple pumpkin; rounded eyes—nearly perfect circles—curved eyebrows, and a bright smile. Joey went the more traditional route for a scary pumpkin with jagged teeth and evil eyes. Justin’s went for the gross effect with pumpkin guts hanging out of its eyes, nose, and mouth to go along with its look of pain, and J.C.’s seemed to resemble the many kids that had come through; missing teeth and all.
“If we’re going for gross out, humor,” Montana commented, then I’d go with—“
“Gotcha!”
SPLAT!
Montana flinched as cold, slimy, pumpkin guts landed on her face, entangled with even slimier pumpkin seeds. The mildly sweet, yet strong pumpkin smell filled her nostrils more so than when she first started working at the station that day. As she stood open mouthed, suddenly aware of the silence surrounding her, she felt pumpkin seeds slowly slide down her face and into her open mouth.
“Pffft.” She flinched, spitting everything out of her mouth. “Oh, grossssss!”
“I’m…sooo…sorry,” she heard Chris say between his snorts and little slips of laughter.
Montana lifted a shaking hand and grasped at the fibers stuck on her face, shuddering as she pulled. The feeling resembled removing a spider web from her face that she suddenly ran into. Minus the spastic flailing anyway. Blinking open her eyes, J.C., Joey, Lance, and Justin stared back at her, jaws dropped, eyes wide. Chris had one hand covering his mouth, the other tightly holding a spoon which she quickly realized was the reason why she had suddenly been blasted in the face.
“Are you ok?” Lance asked quietly.
Montana looked down at the glob of orange and white in her hand. She felt something slowly slide down her face, closer and closer to her eye. She shifted her gaze upwards and blinked, trying to figure out what the large mass was.
“Ow!” Montana suddenly clamped a hand to her eye as it started burning with pain. She couldn’t even tell what she had been hit with. She just saw orange, white, orange, white, and then her vision shimmered as her eyes got watery.
“Oh, shoot.” She suddenly felt someone standing in front of her. A hand cradled the back of her head, slender fingers sliding through her hair, sending shivers rolling down her spine, firing off every electrode to the tip of her skull, to the tip of her fingers, to the tip of her toes. The coarse fibers of her towel scratched against her face, clearing her vision and her face from the slimy feeing. “You ok?”
“I don’t know,” Montana replied, rubbing at her eyelid. Her eye stung, throbbing with pain.
“Ooh, it might’ve scratched your eye.” Montana blinked open an eye and came face to face with J.C. Worry was etched into his face, eyebrows angled towards each other. His blue eyes, what many fans considered to be “kick butt” but now, in the dimming light of the sunset, they were simply indescribable. “It was a pumpkin seed.”
Montana pressed the heel of her palm to her eye. “Ow, ow, ow.” She sucked in a breath of air through her teeth before letting out a sigh. “I better get this cleaned up before the next group comes,” she said, dabbing at her eye, wincing just slightly as it stung beneath her touch. She blinked rapidly, trying to rid the discomfort. “Ow.”
“I’ll help,” Lance offered, removing a webbing of pumpkin guys from the side of his neck. He frowned as he started to shake his hands free from it. Montana suddenly realized just how much pumpkin bits landed on them from the chunk that was catapulted through the air.
“No, that’s ok,” Montana replied, waving her hand in the air. “It’s not the first time something like this has happened.”
“Well, let us at least clear this away,” Justin insisted, waving his arms around to indicate the tables covered in pumpkin. “While you get yourself cleaned up.”
“I appreciate it,” Montana said, giving them all a nod of thanks. She turned her head and used her shoulder to dab at her eye. “But, that’s ok. I don’t want y’all to spend your night helping me. Go on and enjoy the festival.” She stepped forward to start collecting the knives and J.C. gently grabbed her wrist.
“Go on,” he said, nodding his head to the side. He gave her a warm smile. “It’s ok. We’ve got this.”
Montana gave her best smile, trying to hold back her sudden urge to throw up (the pumpkin smell was getting too overwhelming and a sudden ache had appeared) before turning on her heels, making her way to the bathroom.
Not only was a cleanse of her clothes in order, but so was her brain. She didn’t do musicians. Or really anyone else for that matter, but the point still stands. It was best to distance herself as soon as possible. Besides, that touch…that soft, gentle touch, suddenly made her need to pee.
