Jake and I were already halfway down the corridor, when unbeknownst to either of us, my phone finally came to life on Jake’s nightstand, sending a stream of pings into the otherwise calm room. The only living creature that saw the strings of frantic messages filling up the screen, one after another – was Tiki.
Had anyone been in the room as the phone pinged to life, blinked and flashed – they would’ve laughed as Tiki’s copper eyes dilated wide as if he’d just taken a hit of fresh catnip. He pounced on the nightstand, knocking the pinging, ringing thing to the floor and batted it back and forth across the tile entry way.
The phone seemed to ping in protest, and Tiki leapt onto it for a kill shot, biting the side of the screen, before firmly whapping it under the chintz sofa.
Tiki mewled in satisfaction that he had defeated yet another electronic enemy. The other victory had come last night. Another chirping, pinging, ringing phone had sprung to life near the coffee table – only this one had had a cord, and took a little more effort to tug under the sofa.
Where it joined another ill-gotten prize.
A tooth-marked note from the front desk, had asked Molly to please phone once she received the correspondence. But, as cats can’t read, when the paper envelope came shooting under the door after several polite knocks – predatory instinct took over, and that too met its demise under the feline demigod.
Satisfied with his morning kill, Tiki found a ray of brilliant morning sunshine, flopped onto his side and stretched out for a well-earned nap.
As Jake and I walked leisurely down Main Street, soaking in the excitement of a fresh, fall morning, I couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that something was wrong. Jake patted my hand and tried to reassure me.
“Could it be that it’s been so long since you’ve had a day to yourself, that it almost feels like you’re being a rebel. Doing something you’re not supposed to do?” Jake said.
It was a fair point. I couldn’t remember the last time my day hadn’t revolved around someone else’s. Slowly, but surely, I had learned to ask what everyone else’s plans were. Everyone except myself.
“Do you ever get tired of hearing you’re right?” I asked, and leaned into his shoulder.
“Nope. Tiki doesn’t talk much.”
I burst out laughing. “Your cat is adorable by the way. And I love his name,” I said, as we eased into seats in one of the tents, avoiding a pack of eagle-eyed elderly women. I nervously scanned the crowd for Debbie Fortenberry, and sighed in relief when she appeared to be nowhere in sight.
For the next hour, we laughed until our sides hurt as we listened to the completely charming tales spun by one of the Appalachian comedians of the festival. He shared the woes of traveling to Europe for the first time, getting pickpocketed by gypsies in Paris, subsisting on nothing but beer and pretzels for a week in Germany – as that was the only thing he could pronounce, and thrilled when some Eastern Europeans mistook him for a famous country singer – to which of course he was obliged to play along.
As the session ended, announcers urged everyone to meet in the courthouse square for the festival’s grand prize giveaway. The lime-green Porsche from Johnson Motors.
Jake and I meandered into the square along with the rest of the crowd, everyone buzzing with excitement.
“Somebody has to win it, so that somebody may as well be me,” a woman with a thick North Carolina accent standing next to us declared. Her friend asked a very natural question, what on earth she planned to do with a fancy-pants sports car the color of a frog.
“Drive around town like I own the place is what I’m gonna do, that’s what,” Mrs. North Carolina snapped.
Jake cut his eyes to me, and we giggled as we continued to eavesdrop on the women’s conversation.
The runner-up prizes consisted of a 50-inch flat-screen tv, a new laptop, a set of bedroom furniture, and car washes for a year. A loud “SHOOT!” came from the women each time a prize was drawn and they didn’t win.
The announcer was certainly taking his time, enjoying his captive audience and drawing out the raffle as long as possible. I laughed when I heard Jake’s stomach groan.
“Want to just head to lunch, before the crowds beat us there?” I asked.
“You read my mind,” Jake said.
We had just reached the edge of the crowd, and were almost out of earshot when we heard, “Jake Hall!”
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, then smacked Jake on the arm. “I think you just won!”
“Is there a Jake Hall in the crowd from,” the announcer paused, “Colorado Springs? Jake Hall from Colorado Springs – where’re you at?” the announcer drawled.
Jake yelped in delight and picked me up, swinging me off my feet. The crowd parted for us as we scooted our way through and up to the podium near the courthouse steps. A photographer appeared, and although I tried to get out of the picture, the announcer had already firmly clasped both my hand and Jake’s – clamping us in place, along with himself, for a publicity photo.
“Vernon Howell – nice to meet you both,” he beamed, enthusiastically shaking our hands. “You and the missus are going to look great driving this.”
Neither of us bothered to correct the statement.
“Tell you what, Jake. Why don’t you two go get some lunch, while we get all the papers ready for the transfer and notary. Then I’ll meet you at First Jonesborough, down there on the corner – oh say ‘bout an hour?”
“Sure – sounds like a plan,” Jake said, in a bit of a daze.
Vernon shook our hands a final time, slapping Jake so hard on the shoulder he took a step sideways to keep his balance.
“Well, what do you say? Ready for some lunch, missus?” Jake asked, winking at me.
I blushed as he took my hand.
A missus? A Mrs.? It was an absurd thought, as fanciful as a dream. Completely unrealistic.
But it felt so good to dream – even for a day. My cheeks flushed several shades of pink as dreams of a dozen varieties floated in and out of my thoughts.
Someone else’s face was flushing too – only this scowl was a dozen shades of red, as they took advantage of the heavy crowds and trailed behind us, staying just out of view.
22
As we slid into a booth, and waited for our sandwiches, Reubens-on-rye, both of us squirmed in our seats, completely unable to sit still.
“I cannot believe you won,” I said. Jake had been smiling when I first met him, but now, he was in absolute bliss.
“Me either. I keep thinking Vernon Howell is going to come running back in here, tell me there’s been a mistake, and then I’ll wake up,” Jake said.
A server eased our sandwiches onto the table, and we practically inhaled our lunch.
“Have you told your brother yet? Drew? He’s the one in Colorado Springs, right?” I asked.
Jake shook his head. “No, not yet. I was going to wait until I had the keys in my hand. You know – make sure it was real?” he laughed. “I think he’ll be even more excited than I am.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I’m not sure I follow? Because, to be honest – you look pretty freaking excited.”
At that, Jake grew a little quiet. “I’m definitely going to sell the Porsche. No doubt about that. The Boy Scouts had been right in that regard. But, between the Porsche, and well … the proceeds from the pie truck sale, my brothers and I are going to have plenty of capital for our business start-up,” he said, laying down the reality as softly as possible.
And he was absolutely right. I felt my shoulders deflate as that knowledge came crashing home. I had been foolish to pretend this weekend could be anything but a fling. A bit of fun before the demands of the real world came calling again.
A group of leggy blondes dressed in perfect, slim-fitting dark jeans tucked neatly into tan riding boots scooted into the booth behind me.
Their voices rose over the clatter of the diner.
“Did you guys see the story this morning?” one chirped. “About the pumpk
ins?”
“Oh, my good gracious – yes!” another one screeched. Her voice was nails on a chalkboard, and I felt myself instinctively hunch my shoulders forward to shield myself from it.
“I mean – I guess good thing the restaurant was closed, or at least that’s what the paper said,” one of the women said.
Their voices had started to blend together into a cacophony of squawking grackles, and I was just about to ask Jake if he wanted to leave when I heard a snippet of conversation that would’ve buckled my knees, had I been standing.
“I wonder if the big, hot-shot celebrity chef is going to write a book about that!” and the women erupted in giggles.
I stood, shaking and stumbled out of the booth.
“I’m sorry to interrupt ladies – but the pumpkin story. What paper is that in?” I asked, shivering even before I heard their response.
The blonde closest to me answered. “Honey, it’s on the front page of The Tennessee Sun. I think they even have copies up there by the register,” she said, in a completely friendly tone. If she realized who I was, she gave zero indication.
“Th-thank you,” I mumbled, and ambled toward the cash register and the haphazard piles of newspapers that had been piled up there. I frantically sifted through them until I found the most recent copy of The Sun, and promptly clamped a hand over my mouth.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
Danae Dawson had finally gotten her big story.
And it involved pumpkins, our farmhouse, and a certifiably insane family. The Daltons.
23
No one quite knows how long the Dalton’s have called the hills of Eastern Tennessee home – as over the generations, there have been several permutations. There are the Dalton’s proper, which includes Mabelle and Billy George Dalton, Senior, and their nine children, ranging from eighteen months to fifteen years of age. And the Dalton’s improper, who weren’t opposed to a little intermingling, if the situation warranted it. It seemed for a time, a Dalton occupied a seat in every grade at neighboring schools. If all permutations were present, they would fill up ten church pews.
Year after year, the Dalton lineage just kept going and going, wrapping around the southeast region like the green Tennessee kudzu vines that enveloped anything that stood still long enough.
It was a dangerous proposition to anger or heaven forbid, slight a Dalton. Many a man had fled for greener pastures after kicking the hornet’s nest that was the Dalton Family.
There were a few enterprising ones who circled those in key positions of power, such as Terry’s husband, Narland Beasley of The Knoxville Herald, a Deputy Chief of Police and a hotel assistant manager. Others were in more devious positions, such as the mechanics, the food servers and restaurant short-order cooks, where you trusted, or rather hoped, that they did what they were expected to.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
But, who really knew what went on in the dark underbellies of cars and restaurant freezers.
There was only one rule in dealing with a Dalton. Never, ever, insult one. That was especially true between kin.
And it had been a particularly well-placed insult between brothers that created the carnage splashed across The Tennessee Sun’s Saturday morning headlines.
No one was at the McGill farmhouse when Billy George Dalton’s oldest sons, fifteen-year-old Billy Junior, driving with a hardship permit, and thirteen-year-old, Kenneth Lee – who had no permit but drove anyway, pulled up to the restaurant late-Friday afternoon. With not one – but two – flatbed trailers loaded down with pumpkins.
The instruction from their father was crystal clear. “Come back with those trailers empty. No matter what.”
But, upon finding no one at the farmhouse – the boys wasted no time unloading the trailers themselves, with no adult direction present.
The boys had a birthday party that night to get ready for and if Billy Junior played his cards right, he’d end the evening in a barn loft – alone with Tobie Watkins – a girl he’d had a crush on ever since he met her last summer at church camp.
Billy Junior’s mistake had not been keeping a sun-faded copy of the church camp’s photo shoot in his pocket, but rather the fact that his brother Kenny caught him looking at it between pumpkin haulings and was now relentlessly teasing him.
“Tobie Watkins,” Kenny said as they sweated and piled pumpkins up by the restaurant’s windows. They had first tried lining up as many that would fit along the driveway and now were making pumpkin pyramids underneath the windows. “What kinda name is Tobieeeee anyways for a girl? Tobie. It sounds like a dog’s name.”
“You shut your fat mouth Kenny, or I’ll shut it for you,” Billy Junior said, picking up two more pumpkins and cramming them next to the growing pile of orange.
A few tense minutes passed as they continued unloading, and were nearly finished when the challenge of silence proved too much for Kenneth Lee.
“Tobie.”
“Kenny, I told you. Shut. Your. Mouth.”
But Kenny’s thirteen-year-old hormones just couldn’t resist. It was no different than threatening a five-year-old that one more time, and that’s it, we’re going home. He began to lightly growl, like a little Shih Tzu.
“Grrrr, errrrr, rrrrawr!” Kenny growled.
Billy Junior glared at him from the bed of one of the trailers.
“I am warning you Kenny,” he said trailing off.
“Tobie the talking dog!” Kenny shrieked before howling like a wolf between giggles.
“You sum’bitch that’s it!”
And with that, Billy Junior launched a pumpkin as hard as he could at his brother.
Kenny was able to turn halfway, but being a traditionally big-boned Dalton boy, couldn’t fully get out of the way and the pumpkin caught him, spewing orange mess onto his shoulder.
Kenny returned fire, but a glop of pumpkin caused his aim to slip and he only succeeded in hitting the edge of the trailer.
By this time, Billy Junior had launched another one, hitting Kenny square in the butt as he turned to grab another orange cannonball, knocking him off balance causing him to fall face-first into the pile he’d been working on.
True to their nature, both boys were now beady-eyed and furious. And a combined five-hundred pounds of angry Dalton’s declared war and began throwing pumpkins at each other, intending to do real damage.
Billy Junior enjoyed his high ground advantage standing in one of the trailers and got in a few more good hits, as Kenny tried to shuffle around the other trailer before he ran out of pumpkins.
Kenny seized his chance and before Billy Junior could reload, grabbed one of the largest pumpkins – and with two hands like a soccer player throwing the ball back in play – flung it at his brother with all his might.
It hit Billy in the face and knocked him asshole over elbow out of the trailer. Kenny went to grab another one, but slipped on a busted pumpkin hull and went down hard on his right knee.
Billy was in a half-squat when he threw the next one at Kenny, then grabbed the stem of a smaller one. That one sailed straight into a restaurant window, shattering it.
Both boys had bloody noses, matted hair filled with pumpkin and were covered in grime and orange mess. The restaurant would go on to lose three more windows in Dalton’s v. Pumpkin and would have likely lost more, had the boys not finally realized an intrusion alarm was ringing inside the restaurant due to the broken windows.
Against a common enemy, the boys reunited and hauled ass back into the trucks and drove away before the cops could answer the alarm, leaving a trail of orange carnage in their wake.
But they had accomplished exactly what Billy Senior had told them to do.
Make sure to come back with those trailers empty. And empty they were.
Danae Dawson had simply followed the news from the police scanner she had propped up in her living room, and produced the following article – which made it in time for the Saturday morning press.
IT’S THE GREA
T PUMPKIN, CHEF JAMES McGILL!
LOCAL PUMPKIN FARMER FILES SUIT AGAINST CELEB CHEF
East Tennessee pumpkin farmer, William George Dalton, Senior looks balefully at two empty trailers, that just yesterday afternoon were filled to the brim with prize-winning pumpkins. What should have been a fruitful haul turned into chaos when he was notified that the man who had ordered the pumpkins, none other than celebrity chef James McGill, has refused to pay him.
“I’m just at a loss for words,” said Dalton as he wrung his hands in front of his empty trailers. I mean that was the whole harvest, it’s not like I can go out and grow another batch right quick and recover my losses. I mean that’s it for the year. And now I’m told I ain’t getting paid. What’s a man s’pposed to do? I ain’t got me no choice but to sue.”
Although William Dalton, Senior is adamant that James McGill ordered the pumpkins, McGill maintains that he was strong-armed into buying the harvest. He also claims he ordered one trailer, not two, as Dalton maintains.
An anonymous source stated that neither James nor the farm’s primary caretaker, sister Molly McGill, were home when the trailers of pumpkins were delivered. After what appeared to be a verbal altercation, according to The Sun’s sources, the two drivers (presumably two of Dalton, Senior’s sons) began a fistfight with pumpkins. McGill claims the boys threw pumpkins through the restaurant’s windows and caused other damage, but William Dalton, Senior doesn’t put much stock in that version of the story.
“They’re good boys,” stated Dalton. “That’s just crazy talk, sayin’ they messed up the place. He wudn’t even there when it happened, so how’d he know what did or didn’t happen – that’s my question. He ordered those pumpkins, and he’s gonna pay for ‘em.”
The restaurant’s co-owner, Molly McGill was not available for comment.
24
Wordlessly, I handed the newspaper to Jake, and watched his face as he read it – still trying to comprehend what had happened myself.
Sweetest Obsessions - Anthology Page 130
