The Great Peach Experiment 1, Erin Downing [books to read romance .TXT] 📗

Dad nodded, looking delighted to see his kids’ math skills hard at work. Lucy gingerly poked a piece of shriveled lettuce with the toe of her shoe and muttered, “Dad…do you actually think this trip is going to get off the ground? Or is this just another one of your big ideas that’s going to fizzle in a few days?”

Herb’s head swiveled from his sister to his dad, waiting for Dad’s answer. Freddy, however, was nowhere to be seen. Herb had noticed that his brother often disappeared when they talked about Mom, or when Lucy and Dad started bickering.

In Lucy’s defense, Dad had come up with lots of ideas that had gone all wrong over the past few years. But maybe that was because Mom had been the fun, adventurous one and, well…Dad was great, too, but in a different way. After Mom died, Dad had talked about planning family trips to some of Mom’s favorite places—the Icehotel in Sweden, the Black Hills, Scotland, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness—but they hadn’t happened yet. Then there was the skydiving trip for four that Dad had paid for, in full, before he realized he was the only one old enough to actually jump out of a plane (and Dad was scared of heights)—so that idea had been a bust, too. Herb still got sad whenever he thought about the cat, Cream, they’d adopted before realizing Freddy was allergic.

Dad cleared his throat. Patches of bright pink suddenly colored his pale cheeks. “Here’s the thing,” he began, his voice soft. “Many years ago, your mother and I used to plan for and dream about all of the nutty things we might someday do with our lives. When I was younger, I dreamed of writing short stories or dabbling in the arts. I took a sculpting class in college, you know?”

Freddy poked his head out from under the counter, where he’d been hiding. “You took an art class?”

“Indeed.” Dad nodded. “But once we started grad school and teaching, and got wrapped up in our research,” he said, running a shaking hand through his wispy hair, “there wasn’t time for that kind of nonsense anymore. Your mom continued to talk about those someday dreams—her hope of eventually sailing around the world, and exploring hidden cities in Europe. She longed to open a small inn, where she could get to know adventurous travelers from near and far. In the year before she died, she talked often about how much she would love to run a food truck as a family.” Dad propped his foot up on the truck’s giant back bumper. “She thought it would be something fun we could do together. Mom loved that a food truck offered the best parts of so many adventures: a chance to meet new people, travel, and experience the thrill of building something from the ground up.”

Herb wished he could remember his mom talking about this kind of stuff, but the truth was, he couldn’t. Then, all of a sudden, he remembered playing with an old plastic food truck with his mom. They would set up tiny plastic food on the counters and use his collection of LEGO people as customers. They had called the game Restaurant, and sometimes Mom would hide real treats inside the food truck for Herb to find—chocolate chips, silver and gold Hershey’s Kisses, a handwritten note wrapped around a piece of hard candy.

Dad’s voice broke into Herb’s memory. “Way back when, your mom put all her big ideas on hold so I could pursue my career,” he said. “I always promised her we would do some of those crazy things later.” He didn’t say it, but even Herb knew they were all thinking the same thing: there had been no later for Mom.

“Getting all this money from one of Mom’s big ideas…well, it feels like a sign,” Dad said with a shrug. “It’s like Mom is telling me it’s time to go for it.”

Herb didn’t remember as much about their mom as Freddy or Lucy did. He had just turned six when she died. One of his favorite memories was from a regular day when she’d brought him to the park, just the two of them. He’d been nervous to go down the biggest slide; it was tall and steep, and there was a mound of scratchy sand at the bottom of the plastic chute. But Mom had convinced him to try it. When he got all the way up to the top, he’d leaned down to see if she was watching. The wind was blowing her big, soft, fluffy hair all around, and Herb had giggled because it looked like a tumbleweed. She’d given him a thumbs-up and a big, confident smile, and said, “Go for it, Herbie.” Herb liked the idea of this food truck being some kind of sign, and he liked thinking about his mom telling them to go for it. “Then let’s go for it,” he whispered. “It can be our very own family experiment, for Mom. She always loved experimenting.”

Freddy crawled out from under the counter and crept closer to Dad, who was still standing alone outside the back door. “The Great Peach Experiment,” Freddy added with a little smile. “For Mom.” He nodded and whacked one of the counters with his fist. Then he got right down to business. “So, Dad…you’re saying we’re actually going to be running this food truck? What kind of food are we going to be selling?”

“Aha!” Dad hopped up to join the kids inside the truck. It suddenly felt quite squished with all four of them squeezed in together. And Dad had to stand slightly stooped; if he stretched up to his full height, his balding head scraped the ceiling. “I thought that could be our first order of business as a family. We need to pick a theme for our truck. Something catchy. And uniquely Peach.”

“You’re telling me you bought a food truck