by Diane Kelly
When the student dressed as the beloved beagle waved a paw at Jesse, she waved back and hollered, “Hi, Snoopy!”
Each of the town’s pecan companies had a float in the parade, including the two competing furniture makers who made dining room tables, dressers, and headboards from the wood. The employees rode upon the floats, holding up signs that noted anyone placing an order at their company’s booth today would be entitled to a special Pecan Palooza discount.
The man next to me, a fortyish dark-haired, bearded guy, readied his cell phone to snap pictures. “Here they come!” he called to the sandy-haired woman standing next to him. She raised up on tiptoes for a better look.
The final float approached, a monstrosity festooned with approximately eight-million yards of pink tulle. On an elevated chair covered in white velvet sat the young woman who’d reigned as Pecan Princess since winning the title at the preceding year’s Pecan Palooza. She wore a blue satin off-the-shoulder dress with a sequined waistband. Her blonde hair was swept up in a pile on her head, the coveted Pecan Princess tiara—adorned with glitter-coated pecans and Swarovski crystals—twinkling atop her glossy locks. She perched primly on the edge of her throne, waving to the crowd in that rotating-hand manner à la the Queen of England.
A dozen pretty young women who’d be vying for this year’s title—and the grand prize of a ten-thousand-dollar college scholarship—formed a semicircle around the back of the throne. Despite the fact that a mere twenty minutes earlier the clock had struck nine a.m., each of them wore an elegant evening gown, as if on their way to Cinderella’s ball. They wore practiced smiles, too, as they waved to the crowd.
The man standing next to me cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Looking great, Cassidy!”
A girl with glossy black hair, a silvery sequined gown, and an abundance of scarlet lipstick blew a kiss to the man, who beamed with pride. He turned to the woman next to him, who I took to be his wife and the girl’s mother. “I guaran-damn-tee you she’s going to win this thing. None of those other girls hold a candle to Cassidy.”
While their daughter was certainly pretty, the other girls were, too. Some might even be prettier. And the one with the ginger curls and the purple polka-dot dress who waved happily with both hands had a lively, unique style that was sure to score her extra points. Still, I couldn’t fault Cassidy’s father for being biased, could I?
Her mother, though, was more realistic. She looked up at her husband. “Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched, Wyatt. Cassidy’s got some tough competition. The important thing is that she’s willing to put herself out there.”
Wyatt scowled down at his wife. “That’s a bunch of bull crap. The important thing is winning.”
His wife shrugged, apparently already tired of bickering. “Well, I suppose that attitude is how you led the team to the state championship in ninety-four.”
Wyatt rocked back on his heels and beamed. “You got that right.”
Chapter Two: Lest Ye Be Judged
Once the parade ended, we headed back to the midway. Country standards and old pop classics filtered through the loudspeakers, creating pleasant background noise, while the game area pinged and popped with the sounds of rings bouncing off milk bottles and darts hitting their balloon targets.
Jesse skipped along a few feet ahead of us, passersby smiling as she bounced along. When she spotted an enormous unicorn with a silver horn strung above a booth, she stopped and stared up at the stuffed beast, her mouth hanging open.
Nick sidled up next to her. “Want me to win one of those for you?”
“As if you could beat me,” I teased, stepping into place next to Nick. The booth housed a shooting game, and if anyone knew how to shoot it was me. They didn’t call me the Annie Oakley of the IRS for nothing. Of course the ammunition in this booth was water rather than bullets, but that didn’t worry me.
“Is that a challenge?” Nick asked.
“Yep.”
He cut a squinty-eyed glance my way and slapped four singles down on the wooden counter, two for him and two for me. The carnie operating the booth scooped up the bills, slid them into the pocket of the apron tied around his waist, and stepped back. Nick and I picked up the water pistols from the counter. I gave a small tug on the hose to ensure the liquid ammunition would flow freely, assumed my firing stance, and took aim at the round target—a bull’s-eye no bigger than a quarter. Every cell in my body was focused. I’ll win Jesse that unicorn or my name isn’t Special Agent Tara Holloway.
Of course it probably wasn’t fair for trained law enforcement to play against civilians, but I assuaged my guilt by reminding myself it was all for a good cause. The money raised by the festival went into the town’s coffers to help pay for the city’s playgrounds, its senior citizen center, and its beautification projects, among other things.
“Y’all ready?” the carnie called to me, Nick, and the three other players down the row.
Once we’d all murmured or nodded in assent, he said, “On your mark. Get set. Go!”
The five of us pulled our triggers. Psssssh. The stream of water I fired hit its mark, activating a racehorse that slid out from among the others at the starting line on the right, its progress fueled by the pressure of my steady stream on the tiny target.
Nick, who’d been off by an inch or two, adjusted his aim, and his horse darted out after mine. The other players found their sweet spots and their horses headed out, too.
Jesse cheered me and Nick on. “C’mon, Aunt Tara! Go, Uncle Nick!”
In my peripheral vision, I saw a smile tug at Nick’s lips. He wasn’t officially Jesse’s relative yet, but it wouldn’t be long now. He was clearly pleased that she’d thought of him as her uncle.
My horse galloped on, past the halfway point, then going into the final stretch. C’mon Seabiscuit! Almost there . . . almost there . . . BZZZT! As my horse crossed the finish line, an obnoxious buzzer announced the end of the race.
“Horse number four wins!” called the carnie, stepping over my way. He gestured to a row of small stuffed animals hanging along the side. A gray squirrel. A pink bunny. A smiling green frog. “Pick your prize.”
I angled my head to indicate Jesse and pointed up at the unicorn. “She’s got her heart set on the unicorn.”
“If you win three small prizes,” he replied, “you can trade ’em in for the big ’un.”
Sheesh. For the amount of money it would cost me to play the game two more times, I could buy a unicorn at the toy store at the mall. But when I looked down at Jesse’s face, I knew there was no way I could say no. Nick knew it, too. He slapped down a five this time, receiving a dollar in change.
Dad stepped up to the counter, too, and laid down two bucks. “I can’t let my little girl show me up.” He shot me a wink to let me know he was teasing. Dad had taught me everything I knew about handling guns. He was proud when I’d mastered everything he’d shown me, and even more proud when I’d gone on to become the best shooter in my special agent training class.
Once the barker had given me the frog I’d won and collected the bills, he leaned back against the wall and called, “On your mark, get set, go!” once again.
Our horses took off, my number four immediately taking the lead. Next thing I knew, Nick nudged me with his hip, his horse passing mine when my aim momentarily went off-kilter.
“Hey!” I cried. “That’s not fair!”
“All’s fair in love, war, and carnival games.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s this for fair?” I turned my stream of water on Nick, giving him a quick spritz in the chest.
He was unfazed. Dang. His shirt dripping, he pumped his fists in victory when his horse won. “I’ll take a squirrel.”
We played another game before turning in our three small prizes for the unicorn. When the man handed it to Jesse, she cradled it to her chest, the majestic creature nearly as big as she was. “I love it!”
Nick plunked down another fee to play the game ag
ain.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “We’ve already won the unicorn.”
“I’m going to win a squirrel to take home to Daffodil.”
Daffodil was an Australian shepherd mix Nick had adopted from the Dallas animal shelter. The poor thing had been nothing more than skin and bones and patchy hair at the time, afraid of her own shadow. You’d never know it to look at her now. Thanks to Nick’s tender loving care, and dozens of my fried baloney sandwiches, she’d filled out, furred out, and left her fears behind.
Nick raced against two other players, easily trouncing them.
Once Nick had won the squirrel, we moved on. My mother and Bonnie detoured to take a look at the crafts booths, where festivalgoers could buy anything from handmade jewelry to homemade jalapeño jelly to pottery. Nick and my father ventured over to watch a chainsaw artist take his noisy tool to a sizable pecan tree stump. Jesse and I made our way to the Octopus, where we took places in line.
As my niece and I waited our turns, I spotted a small woman in a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses standing under a tree nearby, enjoying the shade and a cold drink served in one of the festival’s plastic souvenir cups. A silver-haired woman in a purple blouse sat at a picnic table ten feet or so away. She, too, was sipping a drink. She stood and walked off, leaving her cup behind. Litterbug.
The woman in the hat walked over and sat down at the table, placing her cup right next to the one the woman had left behind. She pulled out her phone out and fooled with it for a moment or two before picking up the cup the other woman had left behind and heading off.
“Hey!” I called after her, waving my arms in an attempt to get her attention so I could tell her she’d picked up the wrong cup. “Ma’am!”
But it was no use. She was too far away to hear me. Oh, well. She’d probably figure it out for herself soon enough. Besides, the silver-haired woman hadn’t looked like she’d been suffering from any obvious communicable diseases.
“It’s our turn!” Jesse tugged on my arm. “Let’s go!”
The guy operating the ride held up his measuring stick beside my niece to make sure she was tall enough for the ride. Jesse passed with a mere millimeter to spare.
After safely storing the unicorn in a plastic bin, we entered the enclosed area. I helped Jesse into a car, climbed in after her, and double-and triple-checked to make sure her seat belt was on tight. When all the cars were full, the operator turned the key to start the ride. Our car slowly began to rise into the air and turn. Over the next ten seconds it sped up, going higher and turning faster, until we were at full speed. Jesse and I hung on tight to the grab bar until our bodies adjusted to the rhythm of the ride and we simultaneously raised our hands in the air. Jesse let loose with a loud “Woo-hoo!” Not to be outdone, I shouted a whoop of my own. The two of us giggled and laughed as the ride took us up and down and round and round and up and down again. After a couple of minutes it began to slow, and we took hold of the bar as it wound to a stop.
“That was fun!” Jesse called back over her shoulder as she hopped down from the car.
I waited a moment to let my equilibrium stabilize again, then climbed down after her. After retrieving her unicorn, we walked to the bounce house, which had been set up right next to the Octopus. With its gray color and its corners looking like guard towers, the inflatable loosely resembled a castle, but its net walls certainly wouldn’t keep out any marauders.
I paid the price of two tickets for Jesse to take a turn inside the bouncy castle and helped her out of her boots. The operator unzipped the door—zzzzip!—and Jesse climbed in. Five other kids followed. The operator zipped them inside and they began to jump up and down, slowly at first, but gaining height as they gained momentum. Soon Jesse was soaring six feet into the air, giggling all the while.
Having seen horrifying footage on the news of strong winds picking up inflatable rides and carrying them high into the air, I stayed close, ready to grab the tie ropes if any of them broke free. Fortunately, there was little breeze today and the ride remained grounded.
When the time was up, the operator unzipped the door. “Time to get out, kiddos!”
Jesse came to the door and stuck her head out. “Can I go again?” she called to me.
There were only two children in line at the moment, so she wouldn’t be cutting if she took another immediate turn.
“Knock yourself out,” I told her, hoping that she would not, in fact, knock herself out. Sheesh. As much as I worried about my niece, I could only imagine what a worrywart I’d be with my own children someday. I handed the operator two more tickets.
Jesse took five turns in the bouncy castle before she was all bounced out. After she slid out and put her boots back on, we went in search of the others. We found Nick and my father at a booth that sold old-fashioned handcrafted fishing poles and pole racks. As if either of them needs another fishing pole. Of course, the fact that each of them already owned an extensive collection of the latest high-tech rods and reels wasn’t going to stop them from adding to those collections. They picked up the rods and tested the feel, pretending to cast.
Nick turned to show me one of the rods. “What do you think?”
It looked like something Huckleberry Finn would have used, but no sense telling him that. He enjoyed spending time out on the lake in his bass boat. Daffodil and I often tagged along, sunbathing on the deck and taking cool dips in the water. Fishing wasn’t my thing, but I took advantage of the time to relax and catch up on my reading. I wasn’t about to say anything that would make Nick revoke my standing invitation to go with him on his fishing excursions. “It’s . . .” My mind searched for the right word to describe the rod, eventually spitting out “quaint.”
Nick gave me a nod and turned back to the salesman. “I’ll take it.”
My father bought a rod, too. Once they’d completed their transactions, we meandered along, looking for Mom and Bonnie, finding them at a booth that sold devices for harvesting and shelling pecans. While some of the nut-collecting machines were professional grade, the booth also offered one for the amateur backyard nut collector. The model had a long red handle with an oblong cage-like contraption on the end. A man in the booth demonstrated it for my mother and Bonnie, running it over a scattering of pecans he’d tossed onto the ground.
“You just give it a little pressure and roll it back and forth like so,” he said, rolling the device over the strewn pecans. The rungs scooped up the nuts while allowing the grass and dirt to fall back to the ground. “Nifty, ain’t she?”
“Beats bending over and ending up with a sore back,” my mother agreed. “I’ll take one.”
I was glad she’d found something to make the task easier, especially since the job often fell to me. I’d spent many backbreaking hours over the years collecting pecans on my parents’ property. In fact, collecting nuts had been used more than once as my punishment for breaking curfew. Good times.
Bonnie bought one of the nut picker-uppers, too. They each also bought a handy-dandy sheller that was guaranteed to shell pecans efficiently and effectively, yielding more “meat” than other types of shelling contraptions.
After paying for her purchases, my mother glanced at her watch. “Let’s stow these things in the truck and head over to the pie booth. The judging’s going to begin in just a little bit.”
We returned to the parking lot, stashed the loot in our vehicles, and headed to the pie booth. A fiftyish volunteer milled about, making sure everything was ready. The white nametag on her chest read CATHY. With her was an assistant, a twentyish girl with short brown hair identified as JORDYN. Both wore the telltale yellow shirts that identified them as members of the Pecan Palooza Planning Committee. But while the older woman had paired her tee with conservative khaki capris, the millennial sported a pair of tiny denim shorts that barely covered her butt cheeks.
Jordyn directed the five judges to their seats behind the tables while the contestants and their supporters gathered around to watch. A
mong them was the silver-haired woman I’d seen at the picnic table earlier. I wasn’t sure whether she was merely a spectator or a contestant, but judging from the eager look on her face, she had a stake in the outcome.
The pies, which were identified only by numbers ranging from 1 to 24, formed two rows of twelve across the front of the table. Mom’s pie was number 8, while Bonnie’s was number 9.
Cathy stepped to the front of the crowd and raised a bullhorn. “Good morning, everyone!” she cried with wide smile, her voice sounding buzzy. “Welcome to Pecan Crossing’s annual Pecan Palooza Pecan Pie Bake-off!”
The crowd applauded obligingly.
“We are proud to host a panel of esteemed judges.” She introduced each of the five judges, who included a restaurant reviewer from a Dallas newspaper, the chief of quality control at one of the local pecan processing companies, two chefs from area restaurants, and a cook from the elementary school cafeteria. “Good luck to all of you contestants!”
Introductions and niceties complete, the chief volunteer and her assistant scurried about, cutting slivers of pie from the first six entries, careful to include both crust and filling to give the judges a complete sample. Once they’d filled five plates with the first six samples, they ceremoniously placed them before the judges and awarded each of them a silver fork, a scorecard, and a pen.
The judges took their forks and sampled the first pie. The restaurant critic closed his eyes and let the sample sit on his tongue for a moment or two before opening his eyes and marking a score on his card. The man from the pecan processing plant chewed, swallowed, and nodded in appreciation, clearly enjoying his sample. The two chefs poked and prodded the sample, eyeing its texture before taking the tiniest of samples. The woman from the school cafeteria held her sample up to her nose and took a sniff of the pie before putting the sample in her mouth.
As the process continued, the crowd murmured among themselves.
“Did you see the way her nose scrunched up? She didn’t like that one.”
