by Jess Lourey
After closing up the library, I stopped at Larry’s Grocery to pick up a veggie tray for tonight’s August Moon Festival potluck. Unfortunately, the deli had been picked over by like-minded festival-goers. I settled for a family-pack of Pringles and a bag of after-dinner mints. As I turned west on 210 for the three-mile drive to Hershod’s Corn Maze, I reached for the New Orleans Mardi Gras mask on the seat next to me. I didn’t know who had come up with the idea of wearing costumes at the Festival, but I enjoyed the tradition. Being anonymous in a small town was a rare treat and lent an air of decadence to the gathering.
I crested the hill before the maze and realized I should have taken advantage of the shuttle bus ferrying attendees from Ben’s Bait to the Festival. I ended up parking three-quarters of a mile away and schlepping my Pringles and mints.
“Ah, the breakfast of champions.” I turned to the voice. It was a family walking alongside me to the maze. The father was nodding at the white-trash food I was bringing. “Larry’s sold out of deli trays?”
“Yeah, I should have planned ahead.”
“Nothing wrong with Pringles,” the mom offered. She had her hands full with a dessert tray of bars and cookies on top of a clear salad bowl full of cole slaw, ramen noodles, and sunflower seeds. The family looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t know anyone’s names.
“I guess not, except that I look like a freeloader next to what you’re bringing. Do you all have costumes?”
The four children, all boys ranging in size from toddler to teen, held up their masks—one ninja, a Superman, a Grim Reaper, and a Spiderman. The father grinned at his brood and threw his arm around his wife. “We’re hoping the Festival brings us some rain. Our crops are thirsty.”
“You’re farmers?”
“Back three generations. We live over by Amor.”
“Well, I hope it rains for you, too.” The crowd was growing thicker, and I threaded my way under the Hershod’s Corn Maze arches, the closeness of the crowd intensifying the heat of the afternoon. The grounds were vast. The maze itself was nearly three acres resting in the center of the grounds. Butting the east side of the corn maze was a thick, hardwood forest. Directly west was an ocean of picnic tables. North of both, out of sight on the other side of the maze, was the stage where the band would be playing later.
I slid my food onto the nearest picnic table so it wouldn’t be associated with me and took stock. I counted fourteen picnic tables laden with saran-wrapped dishes, most of these thinly disguised vehicles for Cool Whip or Miracle Whip, the Whips being a west-central Minnesota food group unto themselves. I estimated over 300 people here already, milling around the food, laughing, and making loud conversation. The ground was covered in straw as golden as liquid sunshine, and the air was rich with the smell of hotdishes, fresh-baked bread, and beer. I sidestepped the kegs and made my way to the entrance of the maze.
Corn mazes are a funny concept. You take a field of close-planted, super-high, super-fast-growing, super-tough corn, the more acres the better, and you cut a series of four-foot wide paths through it. Most are dead ends, but one of the paths leads out the other side. At Hershod’s tonight, Bad Brad’s band, Not with My Horse, would be playing at the “out” end of the maze at nine o’clock. I planned to avoid him. Run-ins with exes were bad, but run-ins with cheating exes with low IQs were worse. It meant second-guessing your ability to make sound judgments every time you saw them.
The sun was beating iron-hot on my head even though it was pushing seven o’clock. The food appeared to be all set up, so I pulled on my mask and grazed from one picnic table to another until I had tried at least one item on all fourteen tables. The beauty of the Mardi Gras mask was that it only covered my eyes, so eating was easy. Pity the Richard Nixons and Spongebob Squarepants who had to leverage their food under the plastic. As more people arrived, the combination of masks, unlimited beer provided by the Chamber of Commerce, and a white-hot summer made for a festive and raucous mood. I was just about to steal away to a quieter spot where I could people-watch when a hand grabbed my shoulder.
“Mira! I was hoping I’d see you here.”
Next to me was Weston Lippmann in his trademark black cape over a red sweater vest and short-sleeved shirt, sweating furiously. Mrs. Berns was leaning against him, all white in her superhero-support outfit. Neither had a mask on, but they were definitely in costume. “You two made it!”
“We almost didn’t.” Weston shot Mrs. Berns an odd smile, the kind you give to a host who has just served you jellied clams. It was a mixture of forced politeness and fear. “Mrs. Berns wanted me to stop at the Senior Sunset to look at her room.”
Mrs. Berns winked at me and took a chug off one of the two cups of beer she was holding.
Cripes. “You remembered what I told you about saying no, right Weston?”
“That worked at first, but it turns out running away works even better.”
Mrs. Berns cackled. “Or it would have, if I hadn’t lifted your car keys! It was just a little harmless fun, anyhow. You didn’t have to scream.”
Weston pulled on his collar like a practicing Rodney Dangerfield. “Of course not. I apologize. You caught me off guard when you put your hand in my pants.”
“Just looking for your laser beamer.”
Time for a change of subject. “What’d you bring for the potluck?” I asked brightly, indicating the pack of crackers stuffed into Mrs. Berns’ utility belt.
“Communion wafers. All Sarah Ruth’s talk of Jesus makes me hungry.”
I coughed on my own spit, and Weston just nodded weakly in agreement.
“Pastor Winter wouldn’t give me any wafers to go, even though I’ve been going to Nordland for seventy-five years, and it’s not easy to find these outside of a church,” Mrs. Berns continued, “but Larry’s has a new hippie section with all sorts of dried fruits and natural beans, like there’s any other kind. That’s where I got these glue-free Communion wafers.”
“You mean gluten-free?”
“Whatever. Want one?”
“I’ll pass. Thanks.” Weston looked like he was about to pass out, and I didn’t have many safe conversational options left. “Are you two enjoying the Festival?”
“I would be, if Party Pooper Man would start drinking.” Mrs. Berns nodded at his empty hands.
“I don’t drink.”
“That’s another thing we have in common,” I said. I kept to myself the fact that I had only been a non-drinker for three days. “We don’t like birds, and we don’t like drinking.”
“And we like to read, listen to jazz, and spend our evenings engaged in deep conversation?” Weston asked hopefully.
Mrs. Berns looked disgusted. “I think I hear someone calling my name.”
“Hunh?”
“Over there. Can’t you hear it?” She pointed toward the keg, and when both Weston and I looked that direction, she said, “Mrs. Berns! Mrs. Berns!” in a high, quiet voice. We turned back to her. “Gotta run! Thanks for the ride, Weston! If I need you, I’ll call real loud, so make sure your super hearing is tuned into my frequency.”
She strolled off, her cape hung between her legs like a flashy dog tail. Weston looked immensely relieved to see her go. “She has a lot of energy for a grandma.”
Point of fact, Mrs. Berns actually was a grandma. Curtis Poling at the Sunset said she had five kids and seven grandkids, and I have never met a one of them. “I warned you. Have you had a chance to eat yet?”
“I don’t have much appetite this evening. It must be this sun.”
Or fending off the advances of an octogenarian in a white velvet unitard, I thought to myself. “You must be hot. How many layers do you have on, anyhow?”
“The cape, a vest, and a shirt.” He rumbled in the back of his throat, like he had swallowed a bug. “I’m usually cold-blooded. Ever since I was a kid, I needed layers. Even growing up in the balmy South, I’d need fleece pajamas. You know the kind with feet?”
I smiled at the mental picture of a grown, gangl
y Weston in footie pajamas. “I do, but I can’t believe you’re not burning up. It’s pushing 100 degrees, and this is the coolest it’s been since noon. You sure you don’t want to take off the cape, at least?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
I shrugged. He didn’t look good. He looked hot. “Then you could try the corn maze. I bet if you stick to the sides, it’s cooler.”
Weston adjusted his John Lennon glasses with his pointer finger and shuffled uncomfortably. “I don’t really like crowds. I don’t suppose you’d like to take a walk in the woods with me? It looks like there’re paths. Who knows? We could find a new sub-species of wood tick!”
If words were wine, Weston Lippmann would be making Boone’s Farm. “I don’t know. I should probably stay out here, to cover the Festival for the newspaper, you know?”
“Oh, sure, I suppose,” he said, his weak flirting attempt phlooshing to the ground like a popped balloon.
I gave him a “it’s the best thing for both of us” smile and was about to make myself scarce when someone slapped me on the back. “Mira James, so pretty she gives you heart pains! How’s it going? I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
Christ on a cracker, if it weren’t for bad luck…was I emitting some sort of loser-pheromone? Had I been emitting it my whole life? I was a nice person. I held doors for old people and said my pleases and thank yous. I even considered myself fairly intelligent. Of course I loved to read, and I stayed on top of current events by perusing magazines at work. I was a little clumsy and for sure a dork, but what had I done to end up as a librarian and reporter in Battle Lake, Minnesota, mysterious-murder capital of the Midwest and home to one too many exes? I turned to glare at the body attached to the hand. “Hi, Brad.”
“You come to hear me sing? My new band is the pazizzle wadizzle! We do a techno-punk-grunge cover of ‘Proud to Be an American’ that’ll make you cry. People around here love it. Can’t get enough.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Say, who’s your friend?”
I looked reluctantly at Weston. I wanted to get away, not make introductions. “Weston, this is Brad. Brad, this is Weston. He’s in town for a couple weeks doing scientific research.”
“What’s up with the cape, dude? That’s so weird!”
This from a guy who wouldn’t eat bleu cheese the whole time we dated because he thought it would make him sad. “Don’t you have to do a sound check or something?”
“Totally! You want to come with me? It’ll be like old times.” He grinned, counting on his Jim Morrison–good looks to sway me.
“That’s a great offer, but Weston and I were just about to take a walk in the woods to search for wood ticks.”
Weston’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed him by the elbow and led him away. This town was getting much too small. Ironically, that’s exactly what I was thinking as I bumped into Kennie with a fire burning in her eyes.
“You said you were going to come to my place yesterday morning.” She wore a flowing bohemian cotton top over a pair of stretch pants that were earning their name. One sneeze from her and we’d all be covered in spandex.
“I’m sorry, Kennie.” I didn’t even have the guts to lie, and that had a lot to do with the three coffins lined up behind her. They were simple pine boxes on four legs that stood around two feet off the ground. The tops were closed. I preferred to imagine them empty. “What’s with the boxes?”
She placed her hands protectively on the one nearest her. “These boxes are pure money, but it’s too late for you to get in on it, so don’t even ask.”
“Get in on what?”
“The entrepreneurial deal I’ve been trying to offer you a cut of all week.”
My guess that she was selling penis enlargers was clearly off base. “Coffins have already been invented.”
“These aren’t just coffins. They’re coffin tables.” She moved aside and showed me the sign she had been blocking, outlining it with a Vanna White flourish.
Coffin Tables By Kennie©
Beautiful centerpiece while you’re alive, eternal resting place when you’ve gone on to the Next Place. Custom made to your specifications. Buy the one piece of furniture that never goes out of style.
Behind me, Weston coughed uncomfortably. The poor man had now been in close range with Battle Lake’s two most extreme women in less than an hour. He was probably going to get the bends. “The wood grain is very nice,” he offered.
Kennie smiled proudly. “I had a local carpenter make up these demo models. See the legs? They fold up when it’s time for you to be buried. We’re even offering a glass-topped one so you can fill it with potpourri or dried flowers, or magazines while it’s in your living room. Then, at your final viewing, your loved ones can polish the glass so everyone can see you as they say their farewells.”
I shivered despite the heat. “Who would put a coffin in their living room?”
“Not a coffin. A coffin table.”
“Who would put a coffin table in their living room?”
At that moment, Chief Gary Wohnt materialized out of the crowd. He had on his impenetrable sunglasses and was in uniform. “Kennie.”
“Chief Wohnt,” she said icily, crossing her arms in front of her.
“Do you have a license to sell those?”
The energy between them was flinty. Gary used to be Kennie’s number one supporter, and to have him embarrass her like this was painful to witness.
“They’re not for sale.”
Gary removed his pot of Carmex, frosted his lips, and stuffed it back into his chest pocket. “You’re not selling these?”
“Not right now.”
“You’ll get a license when and if you do decide to sell.” This was a statement, not a question, and I wanted to kick him in the knee for how he was treating Kennie, like she was a stranger. I wasn’t ever going to be the president of Kennie’s fan club, but she had grown on me. A little.
Kennie covered the four feet between them, slow and dangerous. “I am the mayor of this town. I follow the rules. I recommend you do the same. Mira, watch the coffins for me, please. I have a date that I can’t miss.”
If her words affected Gary, he didn’t show it. She turned and stormed away angrily, slipping on her high madras heels, but not slowing her pace. I turned back to Gary. “You didn’t have to be such a hardass.”
He trained his black-mirrored gaze to me, twisted his lip, thought better of it, and stalked off in the opposite direction from Kennie.
“What was that all about?” Weston pushed his glasses up his nose and stared wonderingly from the retreating Kennie to the retreating Gary.
“I’m not exactly sure, but you still look pretty warm. We better get you in the shade.”
“What about the coffin tables? Don’t you need to watch them?”
“Nah. Kennie just needed to save face. Nobody’s going to take three pine coffins with legs, particularly if they have her name on them.”
Weston grinned happily. “To the shade, then. Onward, Christian soldiers!”
The phrase struck me as odd. “You’re a religious man?”
“Oh, no. It’s just a figure of speech.”
I remembered the caped figure I had seen going into the New Millennium Church the other day. I wasn’t sure if all my run-ins with organized religion had made me paranoid or if Weston was suddenly sending off a weird vibe, but the night was young, the air was festive, and the shade of the woods to the east of the corn maze entrance looked mighty nice. “Gotcha. Looks like there’s a main path here. I’m pretty sure it leads down to the lake.” As far as I knew, Hershod’s owned the land the Festival was on and about ten acres of the woods, but their property stopped at the small and expensive lakeshore lots. I thought I remembered a public access down there, though.
“We could dangle our feet in the water!”
“I thought you were cold-blooded.”
“Usually, but I’m beginning to feel a
little overheated.” Weston cut his eyes at me, and I purposely ignored the look.
“I’d like to keep my eye on the crowds,” I said, as I strode into the jungle-thick woods. “I love to people watch. How about right over here? I think I see a rock we could…” My words trailed off as I saw a naked white butt rear up on the other side of the large fieldstone. It was just a flash, but it looked wide and hairy. Then it flashed up again. And again.
“For the love of Pete!” Weston drew up behind me and clapped his hands. “There is a festival going on out there, and there are children not fifty feet away. Whoever is behind that rock better stop what they are doing, or I’ll come over and break it up myself.”
I, for one, wanted to see what sort of man was attached to that hairy ass before I made any threats, but I admired Weston’s forcefulness and wondered what reserve he had pulled it from. Regardless, it worked. There was some shuffling behind the riding lawnmower-sized rock, followed by fierce whispering. Then, two meaty hands appeared, followed by a meaty head and a meaty body. It was Tom, of Tom and Tina’s Taxidermy, and I felt the heat rise on my face. The last thing I wanted to do was catch those two going at it.
“Sorry. Guess we got a little carried away in the night air. You know how young love is.”
Young love? I saw a flash of blonde hair followed by a woman crawling away. The shade of the oak forest made it hard to make out the face, but I knew the Amazon body, even without its neon clothes and expensive jewelry. “Annika?”
She whipped her head around before dashing off deeper into the woods, toward the lake, clothes in hand, but that was enough. Tom had been boinking the new girl, which explained the disappearing cash from 4Ts. Either Annika was taking money to buy herself expensive jewelry and Tom was turning a blind eye, or Tom was taking money to buy her expensive jewelry, and probably more. The affair would also explain why Annika was coming in when it wasn’t her shift. I suddenly felt greasy. I knew what it was like to be cheated on, thanks to Bad Brad, and it was an awful feeling. “What are you doing?”
Tom chuckled ruefully. “Making a jackass of myself, apparently.”
