Life After Perfect

by Nancy Naigle

  Derek gave the rookie a nod. “Let’s wait and see how it all shakes out.”

  Two other firefighters joined the conversation. One of them elbowed Patrick and said, “Justin’s going to be having way more fun than us today. If you know what I mean.”

  Derek knew exactly what they meant, but somehow he had a feeling that Justin was probably wishing he was back in Boot Creek, even if only for a few hours, to hang out with the guys after nearly a week of lovey-dovey honeymooning.

  Patrick cursed as he worked a wrench on the chain of his chain saw.

  “What’s the matter, man?” Derek walked over and watched for a moment. He remembered what it was like to be the new guy in the department. “You need a new chain.”

  “I know. I should have brought one with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it. I’ve got two in my locker at the station. Just forgot to put them in my bag. I don’t have time to get them. I have to do the announcements for the next hour.”

  “I’ll drive over and get them for you,” Derek offered. “My round isn’t until one o’clock. I’ve got plenty of time. Hang tight.”

  Derek walked back up the street, stopping at one of the stands to get a blackberry limeade along the way. The flavor was so fresh that it reminded him of the days he and the guys would walk out behind the fence at school and pick thumb-sized ones right off the wild bushes at lunchtime.

  Those were good times, well, not the picking part. Blackberry picking was kind of like going for the prettiest girl. Between the stickers and the chiggers you were likely to get hurt or not be able to ignore the itch, but you wanted to get to the prize. And it was worth the aggravation.

  He made the drive across town to the firehouse, then stopped for gas on the way back.

  Derek pulled his white King Ranch pickup to the pump. As he started fueling up, a sporty red Mercedes pulled up.

  He half-expected a sparkly, jewelry-dripping doctor’s wife to step out of it. Several of his doctor friends’ wives in Durham drove these cute little rides, and they’d all been that type. But to his surprise, the woman that stepped out was more like the girl next door. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head as she walked around her car to the gas tank. She barely wore any makeup and even though she was wearing a skirt, it wasn’t a tight sexy number. It was long and looked so light that even the slight breeze this morning moved it as she walked.

  She clicked the lock button on her key fob and put her credit card in the pump.

  City girl, he thought. No one around here would lock her car just to pump gas. “Nice morning,” he said casually.

  “Hi. Yeah. Not bad for June.” She pivoted her back to him. “At least there’s a little breeze.”

  “You in town for the Blackberry Festival?” And where the heck had that come from? He wasn’t one to just strike up conversations with strangers, but then something about being at the festival this morning had him yearning for some interaction.

  “Just passing through,” she said with a shake of her head.

  Her voice had a nice southern drawl. He cleared his throat. “We have the biggest Blackberry Festival in the state. People come from all around for it.” Okay, that was just lame.

  She smiled, but didn’t encourage any further conversation. Maybe he wasn’t as charming as he used to be.

  “Free blackberry cobbler while it lasts . . . and it usually lasts.” He nodded toward the traffic. “We could probably rack up one of those Guinness World Records for the amount of cobbler they prepare. All-day party and then dancing in the streets under the moonlight.”

  “Dancing in the streets?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t need help with a hookup, but then why did he suddenly feel his palms sweating a little? He’d started the conversation. “And blackberry wine. You should check it out.”

  “Maybe I will.” She ran a hand through her hair, and adjusted her sunglasses.

  He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, mirroring her. “You won’t.”

  She swiveled her head around, and this time her eyes locked with his. Pretty brown eyes. “And what makes you so sure?”

  “I can read people.”

  “You a psychic or something?”

  Oh, great. Swing and a miss. Now he was coming off as the creepy guy. “Nothing like that. I just have a knack for knowing when people are giving lip service.” It was an occupational hazard. He couldn’t help it. He shrugged in an effort to look more casual. “Being polite.”

  Her tank was already full, his probably not even halfway, but he had her attention. He could tell by the way her arm flexed in that sleeveless white blouse when he’d said she was just being polite. He’d struck a nerve.

  “Nothing wrong with a little politeness.” Her stare held his gaze for a moment too long.

  “Right. Yeah. No. Polite is good.” And what the heck was he doing? Just mumbling random words.

  She put the nozzle back on the pump, and rubbed her hands together. “Where is this amazing street festival that no one should miss out on?”

  “Up this road just over a mile. And it stretches further than that. Just head out of the lot that way.” He propped his leather cowboy boot up on the yellow painted curb. “There are signs everywhere. You can’t miss it.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  He held her gaze a moment longer than he intended, but then she smiled. And that was reward enough for the awkward moment. “Good. Maybe I’ll see you there.” He didn’t bother filling the whole tank. That took way too long. He stopped pumping his gas and tore the receipt from the pump.

  “Maybe you will.”

  He hopped into his truck and pulled around in front of her car; she was just starting to get in. “Oh, and some local advice. Don’t pay more than three dollars to park. Trick is if you go all the way into town, through all of the festival stuff, you can park in the market or church parking lots for just three bucks. Everyone always thinks that it will be more expensive closer to the action and they get sucked into the private five-dollar parking. The three-dollar parking is closer to the action.”

  Now what? All that for . . . what the hell was all that? Practice?

  Chapter Seven

  Katherine was so hungry that she’d have eaten that crunched-up biscotti from yesterday at this point. She’d been just a moment away from running inside to grab a candy bar or chips when the guy in the truck decided to give her the chamber of commerce spiel. Of course, if he was any indication of the bell curve on good-looking men in this town, the town of Boot Creek probably had a pretty catchy slogan. Berry good-looking men came to mind, and that made her laugh. And a laugh felt pretty darn good right now.

  “Lighten up,” she said out loud. This situation wasn’t going to get any easier if she allowed herself to get caught up in the drama of it all. Let Mom and Jacqueline fear the worst. Heck, they did it way better than she did anyhow. Today she needed a well-deserved break, and Peggy’s words reminded her of that.

  What better place for something different than a festival? After all she’d been through, she deserved a little fun.

  Besides, why should she miss out on a giant cobbler? Wasn’t that her right as an American? It wasn’t like she had anywhere to be.

  Katherine took the stranger’s advice and turned left out of the parking lot. She cruised right past the action to the very end of the festival route. A huge Baptist church up on the rise had a big yellow sign that read PARKING $3.

  “Just like he said.” She pulled into the lot and paid a white-haired man three dollars to park. He handed her a brochure and waved her up toward the front of the parking lot.

  The slick pamphlet listed the events, times, and locations of all the activities. There were a lot of them, too. On the back, a hand-drawn map of Boot Creek and the festival layout appeared across all six panels.

  She spun it around, trying to get her bear
ings. The church parking lot she was standing in was well marked. Grabbing a pen from her purse, she starred the location where she was parked so she’d be sure to find her car later, then took some cash from her purse and tucked it into her front pocket. Her hand grazed that little yellow ribbon.

  She wondered how Peggy’s day was going. She hoped it was better than her evening with Mom and Jacqueline. She took her phone out of her purse, and then put her purse in the trunk.

  Music and the sweet smell of sugary treats filled the air.

  She let the crowd just move her along, then stopped to watch a group of kids lined up at long tables, hands tied behind their backs, at the ready for a blackberry-eating contest.

  At the blow of a coach’s whistle that reminded her of her days watching Ron on the college swim team, all heads went down. Only instead of hearing a splash, there were loud, wet slurping sounds and there wasn’t a face to be seen across the table. Just the bobbing of heads and the sound of parents laughing as they cheered the contestants on.

  Katherine placed her fingers between her teeth and let out a whistle. She was rooting for the little towhead boy, third from the left. His hair was so white that she wondered if the blackberries might stain it for good. Though he was little, he’d looked determined.

  She’d been a blondie like that as a child, and short. He was the spitting image of the little boy in her fantasies of being a mom.

  At last, an air horn blew and the contestants raised their messy faces.

  The whole crowd cheered, but the little blondie she’d been rooting for had been defeated. His face was purple and most of his hair was too, but he was grinning like he’d won the whole thing anyway.

  A girl in a giant blackberry costume hobbled toward the winner and lifted the kid’s arm with a victorious whoot-whoot.

  Katherine moved on. There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to how the booths were set up. Food was next to art, which was next to candles, which was next to a yoga demonstration. This setup might be to the vendors’ benefit, since people would hate to skip even one for fear of missing out on something superspecial.

  Ahead she saw a banner that read LARGEST PATCHWORK BLACKBERRY COBBLER IN THE WORLD.

  As she got closer, it was clear what all the fuss was about.

  The guy at the gas station was right.

  This had to be some kind of record. According to the banner floating above the flatbed trailer, there were two hundred and twenty individual casserole pans of homemade blackberry cobbler nestled into this one giant blanket of yumminess.

  The creation covered a whole flatbed trailer that couldn’t be less than twenty-six feet long from the looks of it.

  “Is this really the biggest one in the world?” she asked a man in line.

  The man looked at her like she’d just called his dog ugly. “It is until someone steps up and says it ain’t. It’s over 26,000 square inches of cobbler. Just sayin’.”

  Clearly, this guy had done the math beforehand.

  Her mouth watered at the sight of the perfectly browned crusts, and the variety in the pans was what made the plethora of goodness look so pretty. Some cobblers had crumbles on top, some looked more like pies, and some had crisscrosses of pastry that had black gooey syrup baked right into it. She stepped up to the counter.

  “Ice cream or whipped cream?”

  “The works,” Katherine said.

  The girl dished the cobbler into the bowl, dropped a scoop of ice cream on top, and then squirted four little flowers of whipped topping around it. “Enjoy!” she said as she tucked in a wooden spoon.

  Katherine smushed the ice cream down into the cobbler and took a bite. The warm crust and tartness of the berries against the cold ice cream flooded her mouth.

  She tugged her phone out of her pocket and took a picture, then texted it to Peggy.

  KATHERINE: Hope things are going okay. Wish you were here to have some of this cobbler. It’s as amazing as it looks.

  PEGGY: Where the heck are you?

  KATHERINE: North Carolina.

  PEGGY: Your mom’s?

  KATHERINE: No. That was a disaster. Headed north.

  PEGGY: Hugs. Kind of a disaster here too. Will catch you up soon.

  The old saying that misery loves company had always sounded so mean, like you wanted other people to be miserable, but the truth was, it was somehow calming to know someone else was going through similar things. An understanding ear. A shoulder to lean on.

  Katherine strolled down the street enjoying the diversity of the vendors. Someone was even grilling blackberry-basted chicken, but she’d already filled up on cobbler. There were lots of crafts and even a fortune-teller. She felt bad for making that snarky remark about being a psychic to the guy at the gas station. He’d just been trying to be nice. She didn’t have any right to take out Ron’s bad behavior on every man she bumped into. Even if it did make her feel just a little bit better.

  Suddenly the low-pitched vroom and buzz of a motor came from the end of the street.

  She opened the festival brochure and scanned it for the details of what was going on. She looked at her watch: she was shocked that she’d already spent more than two hours here, but she didn’t feel ready to leave.

  SPACE 64—CHAIN SAW CARVING DEMONSTRATION—BOOT CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT

  Could be interesting. She’d seen an ice-carving competition once at the Hilton in Atlanta during some endless work conference or other.

  She followed the sound to two men with chain saws fired up, hacking at stumps of wood. She wasn’t quite sure what it was they were going to end up with, because at the moment it just looked like they were making big wood stumps littler.

  A large digital timer ticked away off to the side. Both guys were in great shape, but then weren’t firefighters always in good shape? Wasn’t like you could rush into burning buildings with a beer gut.

  The men’s chain saws roared, sending splinters of wood flying from the lifeless stumps, until right before her eyes two bear cubs were facing her. In less than five minutes that wood was art.

  All the proceeds from the sales of the cute critters would go to the local volunteer Boot Creek Volunteer Fire Department, so she figured she’d buy a miniature one as a souvenir. People hung around the tent watching the artists add expressions and even personalize a few carvings that were ordered onsite.

  Katherine paid for hers, and then stepped back, right into someone. She spun around. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m glad you took my advice.”

  It was the guy from the gas station. His eyes were even bluer than she remembered up close. North Carolina Tar Heels blue. “You made it sound so good. How could I not?”

  “Did I lie?”

  That word shook her. Lie? “No.” She swallowed back the sick feeling the word conjured up. “No,” she tried to lighten her tone. “It’s pretty amazing.”

  “I’m Derek.” He stuck a hand out.

  “Hi.” His smile was gentle. Perfect teeth and white, but not that trendy bleached-out white like Ron’s. Better looking than Ron too. And that was saying something. Ron was good-looking in a preppy way. Derek had rugged movie-star qualities that had her imagining him sweeping her into his arms in one of those over-the-threshold moves.

  Her eyes met his and for a moment she felt trapped. Like she’d been caught, like he somehow knew what was on her mind. The urge to bolt surged, but that was just silly. She tried to look at ease, but who didn’t hear their parents’ chorus of don’t-talk-to-strangers even as adults?

  She took his hand. She’d always liked a man with a firm and confident handshake. Like Ron’s, only Derek was naturally rugged. Ron had taken to that scruffy look recently. Maybe it was his attempt at looking rugged, but she’d never liked it on him. Maybe he’d grown it for that other woman. Was that how it was
going to be now? Was every little thing Ron had done recently going to just make her have more questions?

  “This is where you tell me your name,” he said. Not even a hint of a whisker.

  “Oh, yeah.” What did it matter? She’d never see him again. She was passing through and he knew it. “Katy.” But the truth was she hadn’t been Katy since college. Not since Ron had made such a big deal about how she’d never be taken seriously as a successful woman in the business world with a name like Katy. “My friends call me Katy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Katy.” He smiled, and what she wouldn’t give to reach out and just touch his smooth cheek.

  Katy. Derek repeated her name to himself to commit it to memory. When he had seen her standing in his booth, he’d had a rush of adrenaline that could only compare to the first sixty seconds gearing up for a multiple-alarm fire, and that had been unexpected.

  She looked like a Katy. Fresh, vibrant, but there was caution in her eyes.

  “Having fun?” he asked.

  “Yes. And you’re right. That cobbler was a must-see.”

  “I told you. Did you get some?”

  “Best I’ve ever had. Didn’t look like they’d run out anytime soon either.”

  “Well, what’s a blackberry festival if you can’t guarantee everyone some cobbler?”

  “Good point.”

  “Glad it was worth the ride into town.”

  “Definitely. Thanks for telling me about it.” She glanced across the crowds of people. “So you live here?” she asked.

  But before he could answer, Patrick called his name over the microphone. “I see Derek Hansen over there hanging in the wings. Wave to the crowd, Derek.”

  Derek waved his arm in the air toward Patrick, then glanced over at Katy sheepishly. Why did he feel like he’d just been caught flirting with another woman?

  Patrick’s voice bounced across the street, and the crowd started pulling in toward the fire department’s tent. Maybe Patrick had been a carnival barker in a past life. “I know y’all aren’t going to want to miss the Turnout Gear Challenge. Derek Hansen of our own Boot Creek Volunteer Fire Department is the reigning champion of the Turnout Gear Challenge.”