The Homecoming Benefactor

7 | the pineapple

"How the hell are we gonna build a giant pineapple?"

That was the question of the night in the Eta Pi arts and crafts room, located next to the chapter room. We had mostly gotten done with all of the corals and smaller decorations for the float, but we didn't know where to start with the pineapple, and it was already almost 9:00 PM. The most productive thing we had done all night was memorize the lyrics to Cupcakke's "Squidward Nose."

Nick and I had been working on that extra credit project for a little while before it was time to start the work on the float, so I decided to bring him to the Eta Pi house as the token male help.

Nicole, a sophomore, was the first to offer a suggestion. "What if we put papier-mâché on a hot air balloon?"

"Nicole," Emma sighed, holding the bridge of her nose. "How about you don't share any more ideas?"

Nick looked at his phone for a few seconds, and then looked back at us. "They're still in stock!"

"What's in stock?" Anything would have been easier to find than a hot air balloon, so I was intrigued.

"The Halloween store has these giant Russian nesting dolls that are supposed to be, like, yard decorations," Nick explained, holding up his phone. "The tallest one is eight feet tall, and they're hollow inside, so I could just decapitate the tallest one and use its body as the bottom of the pineapple."

Cruel and unusual punishment toward Halloween decorations was not on my agenda tonight, but we really needed to make the pineapple. Nick and I got in his truck and headed to the store.

"I didn't want to ask this in front of everyone," Nick said, turning the truck on. "But what happened to your neck?"

"I don't think you really want to know that," I muttered, turning toward the window.

"I know it was Bryce, Francie," he replied, putting his hand on my back. "What did he do to you?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat before answering. "He's... a rough person. Not the softest kisser."

"You don't get marks like that from just kissing, Frances," Nick deadpanned, emphasizing my government name. "That's not what love is."

"Why the government name?" I turned toward Nick.

He laughed a bit and said, "I knew you'd fully listen. Sometimes you act like you've got selective hearing."

"I do not," I teased, nudging his shoulder. "Let's go find this nesting doll."

We walked into the store, a picture of the nesting doll pulled up on Nick's phone. I made a beeline for the first employee I saw and asked her where it was. She pointed toward the back, and we could easily see it after making it halfway across the store. Nick, with that stupid farm worker strength, picked up the eight foot nesting doll like it was a feather. For a split second, I wondered what he could do to me.

"You like what you see?" Nick took one arm off the nesting doll and pretended to flex with it.

"Quit that shit, we're in the store!" I wanted to slap him, but I also thought it was kind of endearing.

We headed to the register, and Nick refused to let me use the sorority credit card to buy it and insisted he would pay. "Y'all have enough going on this week, I can get this one thing."

"Yeah, except the one thing is three hundred dollars," I scoffed, putting my hands on my hips. "We have the credit card for a reason."

"We'll let the cows get this one," he drawled, swiping a credit card with the name Donovan Costa across the bottom. That was his father's name.

"I think that's the most redneck thing you've ever said, and there's a lot of contenders for that," I joked. "But thanks, though, for real. We'd have been screwed tonight without you."

•••

We parked outside the sorority house and called Hazel to let her know we had the goods. Nick had put the nesting doll in his truck bed, and he wasn't 100% that it would survive the ride. We got lucky this time and found the nesting doll in perfect condition.

I gave Nick a puzzled look. "Do you even have a saw?"

Nick opened his back door and pulled out a saw that looked like it belonged in a serial killer's closet. It was about four feet long and wobbled like one of those metal sheets they used for sound effects in movies.

"Why the fuck would you ever need that?" I guess this situation was why he needed it, but I still wanted to see what he would say.

"I just have a glass box of shit in my truck that says 'break in case of Francie's emergencies,' you've never seen it?"

"You're sassy today," I prodded, crossing my arms. "Are you having fun for once?"

"Psh, I'm always having fun! I'll have even more fun when I get to decapitate this thing," Nick scoffed, referring to the nesting doll.

I opened every door for Nick as he carried the nesting doll inside to the arts and crafts room. It wasn't able to stand upright without hitting the ceiling, so we had to lay it out on the floor. When Nick began sawing, everyone in the room began chanting, as if they were watching a tiebreaker for a drinking game. The chanting turned to cheering once the head was severed from the body.

"I'll let y'all keep the smaller ones in case something else comes up," Nick said before taking the saw back to his truck.

"You're really choosing Bryce over this guy?" Hazel, not normally one to comment on relationships, apparently had enough.

"Look, it's really complicated," I stammered, watching Nick from the window. "I'll know for sure on Thursday."

"We're worried about you. Not just because of what frat Bryce is in, but because of what we're seeing," Hazel explained. "We see those bruises on your neck, and they say more than you ever could about what's going on between y'all."

•••

Seven cans of spray paint later, the Russian nesting doll transformed into the yellow part of a pineapple. We used fake palm leaves bundled together to form a stem for the top. To make the lines, we used a light brown paint, and then we glued on windows and doors we made out of cardboard. Everything was starting to come together.

"If they picked our chalk design for first place, they'll definitely pick this," Hazel remarked. "As long as Francie doesn't get wasted again."

Depending on how the rest of the week went, I was not making any promises.

• AUTHOR'S NOTE •

This is honestly one of my favorite chapters because of how absurd it is. I wanted to write something lighthearted before we really get into the rough of the story.

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