by L. L. Muir
“No. I haven’t changed my mind. But we can’t bring cars in here and load up until after ten o’clock tonight. I have to keep pretending until then.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Auch, I must away, lass. Dinna fret. I’ll think of something.”
He’d been gone only five seconds when she remembered she still needed to pee.
~
Running a business in a tent was similar to waiting in line all night for concert tickets. In the beginning, the Optimism Stage, vendors smile and nod at each other while they set up their spaces. After the excitement begins to ebb, and the crowds don’t arrive promptly when the coordinators promised they would, vendors begin looking to each other to keep their spirits up.
First, they take turns playing the role of interested shopper, scanning the products in the booths near their own. For a while, they can all pretend at least someone is interested in their products, and they are then content to wait for the real shoppers to come along.
Then comes the False Hope Stage. A little spurt of foot traffic, a small mob. Wonder of wonders, they stop and browse. You ask a friendly question. How are you? Whassup? How’s it going? You pretend you haven’t come all this way, done all this set up, just for them because hey, all desperation stinks and nobody wants to smell that.
Then those shoppers confess they are vendors from up the way a bit and give you a sales pitch for whatever they’re selling. This launches you into the Disgusted Stage. There is no skipping over this stage unless you are really talented in the Delusion Department.
Next is the Cruel Hope Stage. Just when you start worrying that you’ve wasted the booth rental fee, someone pops over to your table and buys something. It’s a magical moment. The moment you’ve imagined happening a thousand times with a thousand eager customers intent on cleaning you out and leaving you with nothing to take home again except a dirty table cloth and a bag of money. But even those miracles have to start with a first purchase, and by golly, you’ve just had it.
“Let the mobs come,” you say. “I can handle it. I’m all warmed up. Why, yes, I do have change for a hundred. Bring it on.”
But the flood of foot traffic you’ve envisioned comes in mobs of teenagers looking for bright, shiny, remote-controlled toys covered in glitter. They are not looking for the clever but understated product you’ve spent the winter putting together, or spent your bonus money purchasing.
After that, the Grateful For Anything Stage. You’re grateful—profoundly grateful—when anyone at all looks your way. You smile, but try to keep your desperation in check, hoping the smell of burnt caramel corn and the “no biggie” expression you’ve been practicing will help cover the truth. You answer questions and offer a fun little tidbit for free. Maybe a sample, a clever little brochure, all the while pretending that you won’t be devastated if they walk away empty handed.
Finally, mercifully, it’s afternoon. But the heat is not so merciful and the crowds go looking for food and cold drinks with funky straws and silly names. They’d come look at your booth, brimming with product, if only you weren’t directly in the sun. Instead, they go wander through the booths beneath the trees where the Tupperware Lady can’t really be surprised she hasn’t sold anything yet.
And you pretend your neck and the tip of your nose aren’t on fire.
You break out a paper fan, slap on a hat, and retreat into the shadows at the back of your tent. And you decide it doesn’t matter. If this festival is a wash, you just won’t come back again. You’ll stick it out, and if you sell something, you sell something. And if you don’t, you don’t.
You have now slipped into the stage with a title too rude to repeat in public. The Screw It Stage, let’s say. And it is at this point that every vendor has finally let go of their big dreams of selling out, and they’re ready to do whatever it takes to make this torture pass quickly.
But this is also the best stage of the day because everyone lightens up. You joke around with the neighbors who have also given up. And together, you shake your heads and pity the chick down the way who is getting every exposed inch of flesh sunburned because she’s going to hand-sell her product line no matter how small the crowd turned out to be. And hey, did she forget to mention they’re all half price?
And when customers aren’t listening, she vows to the other vendors that she will kill herself before she packs that crap into her van again.
Or maybe she’s the other type of vendor for whom it is impossible to give up hope. They’re the ones who really get their hearts broken when the final hour of the weekend comes, and they realize they’d been imagining a fantasy that hasn’t happened for anyone—except for that hard-seller with the shoulder massager and the two kids cleaning up with their remote-controlled, glitter-covered toy that every kid can almost afford.
One year, it was a guy who made catapults out of paint stir-sticks, a couple of clips, and a milk jug lid. The ammo was your everyday ping pong ball. Yeah, anyone could have made them, but why would you go to the trouble when this guy was selling them so cheap? Five bucks that saved you from going to the paint store was five bucks well-spent.
That year, when it came time to strike the tents and pack the vehicles with leftover product, the field was covered in smashed ping pong balls and half a dozen broken paint-stir sticks. Of course Mr. Catapult sold out. In fact, he was sitting at the back of his booth slapping those suckers together as fast as he could so those poor kiddies wouldn’t be disappointed.
Yeah, he’d been a saint. But he’d also been living the dream, and the rest of the vendors hated his guts.
But the most important part about the Screw It Stage was that no one was busy and there were plenty of new friends willing and able to watch your booth for you when you needed to go to the portable, plastic restrooms out by the road!
Hannah’s neighbors were having a Catapult Weekend. They had their side walls in place to discourage shoplifters. And the space behind her had been empty from the start because some vendor was a no-show. The corn dog guy was finally doing some business and the aisle between their spaces was far too wide for him to watch her stuff anyway.
And so, like many times in her life when she’d preferred to go it alone, she was screwed. And her bladder told her she was getting screweder by the second.
Why in the heck had she bought the large drink with her corn dog? What went in had to come out, no matter how hot the sun was. And an entire Mountain Dew wasn’t going to leak out of her sweat glands. And even if it could, she was pretty sure her sweat would be yellow.
Ew.
She was going to pee her pants, only she wasn’t in pants. She was wearing a summer dress.
The grass under her table looked…thirsty.
What if I knelt down behind the table? No one would know what I was doing.
But what if a little yellow stream leaked out from under the front edge of the long tablecloth? Hm?
Her rational mind thought that would be better than peeing down her legs.
Her bladder agreed. Do it! Do it!
Her chest tightened. She just couldn’t. She’d let her bladder explode first. And even as she thought it, her bladder inflated a little more.
She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.
“Excuse me.” A young guy with no shirt and a mass of dreadlocks stood at her table. “You Hannah?”
She nodded and blushed, imagining just what she might have been doing behind that table, at that very moment, if she hadn’t come to her senses.
“That Scottish dude asked me to come help you.”
“Really?” That was the quickest answer to a prayer she’d ever heard of. “You know what I really need?” She scooted around the edge of the table and into the lane. “I need to go to the bathroom. Can you watch my booth?”
“You betcha.” He scooted back the way she’d come and folded his arms like he was prepared to defend the place. Which he might need to do…
“Just don’t sell anything while I’m gone, okay
?”
He nodded. “Got it. Your friend explained what was going on.”
“Perfect. Thank you!” She started running.
Her friend. Well, even if he’d meant to steal her painting, he’d just earned absolution.
CHAPTER SIX
The gravel crunched under her shoes as she headed up the drive. She promised her bladder that, if it would just hang on a couple more minutes, she would never drink another drop so long as she lived.
She ran into a line as she rounded the last corner. Only the line wasn’t for some lucky vendor—it was a line for the bathrooms! A long line! And most of the people standing in it were women. It made sense, though, when she considered that guys could just head into the trees at the far edge of the field and relieve themselves anytime they needed to. It was a rural place, after all, not a city. Glorified camping on some guy’s property. Power lines tapped into the barn.
Problem was girls took twice as long to pee as boys did.
She eyed the line of trees, tried to guess how long it would take to reach them, and imagined how many people—standing in that line—would know exactly why she’d be headed that way.
The chick in front of her took three quick steps forward. The line was moving at least. There were at least two dozen portables. It shouldn’t take any longer to wait for one than it would to get across the field, so she decided to save her dignity and stay.
She relaxed a little and the urgency eased.
It was a good thing that kid had come along when he had. A few more minutes, and she would have had to leave her artwork unattended. With the “henchman” watching, she knew she would have returned to find an empty spot or two. Who knows which paintings would have been taken?
Now she hoped her emergency security guard wouldn’t get tricked into selling one. Maybe that thug in a suit had just been waiting for her to leave so he could move in and do his mistress’s bidding. And if Red Nails was as obsessed as Dougal thought, she might send anyone at all to buy the painting. Some little old lady, maybe. Someone sweet who didn’t look like a child-eater at all. Any of those people who had asked about prices could have been sent by her, now that she thought about it!
She was so glad she’d made her decision and stuck to it.
Inside her head, the wicked angel in her started celebrating and rubbing her hands together, wondering which wall would be best for which painting. She’d always kept her work in the studio to keep from getting too attached, but she no longer needed to pretend. Her children could come home.
She knew just where she’d hang Witch’s Mist!
The accountant angel tapped her on the shoulder and reminded her about that little choice she’d made. It wouldn’t matter that she was keeping the paintings—she would soon be giving up the walls she meant to hang them on.
Another three portables opened up. The line jumped forward.
Not long now. Hang on. Just hang on.
Another few minutes and she could hurry back to her booth and start packing up. No more pretending, not even for the event coordinator. She’d relax, read a book, and lord over her boxes and frames like a hoarder until ten o’clock.
She could just imagine how disappointed Red Nails would be when all her little spies returned empty-handed.
An old lady…
A guy in a suit…
Some girl musician…
Some kid in dreads and no shirt…
Her chest hurt. She forced herself to stop thinking.
Nope! Don’t even!
Her bladder reminded her she shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions, or jumping anywhere until she got inside one of those blessed plastic rooms. So she stood as still as she could and counted her blessings that she’d thought to wear the dress that morning. Thanks to the light, fluffy layers that went nearly to her feet, it wasn’t blatantly obvious that she was crossing her legs.
Another two steps forward. One person in front of her. Only one!
No reason to suspect the kid of working for Red Nails. She probably wasn’t the type who would speak to anyone shirtless…unless she was smarter than Hannah gave her credit for. But he’d said Dougal had sent him, and Red Nails didn’t know Dougal’s name.
No, not Dougal. He’d called him the Scottish dude.
Dougal was pretty clever himself. He’d been smart enough to change clothes, to hide the painting—
She was finally at the head of the line. There was no more pretending she wasn’t desperate. She scanned the gray doors, waiting for one to open. There. To the left.
She hurried over and climbed inside, tried not to imagine the germs, and covered the seat with toilet paper. A few blessed seconds later, her bladder forgave her. She could finally think clearly.
It didn’t matter if the kid had been sent by Red Nails, she thought, while she scrubbed her hands and rinsed them in the clever plastic sink with water warmed by the sun. Even if Hannah had been suckered into leaving her booth, Witch’s Mist wasn’t there for anyone to steal.
Besides, the woman had plenty of money. She wouldn’t want to be accused of a crime. A public theft charge would do more damage to her pride than someone calling her a child-eater, right?
No matter how cool Hannah tried to act as she returned to her row, she couldn’t make herself walk at a normal pace. In fact, she was walking so fast, she passed her own booth. When she reached the electric massager guy, she looked across the way and realized the corn dog stand was four lengths back, which meant her booth was the same.
She turned and headed back against the flow of traffic.
The first weed-lovers booth. An empty space with a cloth-covered table in the middle of it. The second weed-lovers booth.
Where was her tent?
She looked at the empty table again and down at the grass in front of her. The little thirsty-looking patch was there. Still looking thirsty.
No shirtless guy. No paintings. No canopy. They’d even taken her tent!
This can’t be happening. It just can’t!
She couldn’t breathe. Absently, she wondered if her heart might have stopped beating. She was just numb. It was all so surreal.
She turned in a circle. There was the hot dog stand. Her neighbor. Then nothing. Her booth didn’t suddenly reappear.
No! Her purse. The keys to her pick up. Had hey stolen the truck too? Would they give her back her paintings if she let them have the pickup?
She had to find out who they were! Someone had to have seen something!
She went to the booth on her left and pushed to the front of the line. “I’m sorry. It’s an emergency. Did you see anyone taking my stuff?”
The Jimmy Buffet look-alike nodded while counting out change into a woman’s hand. “Red truck. Three guys. Loaded you up in like three minutes flat. I thought they were your guys.”
“Red truck?”
He waved her aside so the next in line could step up. “Yep. A new Chevy, I think. In and out before anyone had a chance to complain.”
She felt like The Grinch had just cleaned her out and left a little piece of wire hanging on her wall. Only there weren’t any walls. No canopy either. Only in her little story, she doubted The Grinch was going to have a sudden change of heart and bring her life back to her.
So she’d have to go after him.
She stepped back in the space that used to be her booth. It was the only place that felt like hers at the moment, and she needed to make a plan.
First, she was going to find a cop. And with help, she was going to hunt down a rich woman with long red nails, and a guy with a Mohawk and a kilt.
She decided to take just a moment to pray for help and sank down on her knees toward the little patch of colorless grass.
If only she’d sat on it earlier, none of this would have happened.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dougal hurried back toward the heart of the festival as quickly as his mortal legs could carry him. With that wicked woman about, there was no telling how she might vex Miss Hannah if
she were to stumble across her.
Everything had happened so quickly—indeed, he’d had no choice but to act quickly—there hadn’t been time to consult the lass. He only hoped she could forgive him.
He found the end of the row and joined the river of attendees flowing slowly past the stalls. He stepped into the empty space where the lass had tried to part with her precious artwork and found her crumpling to the ground in a balloon of yellow skirts. In a trice, he’d scooped her up into his arms.
She resisted until she saw his face.
“Miss Hannah?”
She was close to tears. Or absolutely furious. It was difficult to tell which. In either case, he’d frightened her, and he might never win her forgiveness.
“Hannah, listen closely. Yer paintings are safe, lass. We’ve but packed them into a truck and removed them from that woman’s reach, aye? She was gathering a wee army to trick ye, so I had to act swiftly. I told ye I’d think of something, did I not?”
He shook her a little and was pleased when her forehead furrowed into a frown. At least she was listening.
“All is well, lass. I’m right sorry for yer fright, but bringing a truck onto the property wasna allowed. With the aid of two fellows, we emptied the place before we caused much trouble.”
She blinked a few times. “You can put me down now.”
He lowered her feet to the ground, made certain she could hold her own, then stepped back. “I hope ye can forgive me for frightening ye so.”
She nodded. “I won’t believe it until I see them.”
He winced. “Auch, aye. Yer children are safe. I should have known better, lass. I wasna thinkin’ of anything but saving them from our child-eater. The blame lies at my own feet for frightening ye so.”
She reached out and absently patted his chest, her face still bloodless. He caught her again, only this time, when he scooped her into his arms, her eyes were closed.
~
She woke in a dome tent big enough for about three people. The music was much mellower than it had been all day, but still, her head pulsed along with the beat. She was glad the residents of Mendon weren’t going to be harassed by the loud music that had played so late the night before.
