Food Fair Frenzy

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Yes. That’s fine,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Good. We don’t usually bring the cart onto the grounds, but I’d feel better about you not having to walk that far.”

  We hopped on the golf cart and drove to the main gardens. We entered the garden area, and like the entrance there was a center fountain. This one much larger, though. From the middle of the fountain stood a greenish figure of a naked man carved out of a smooth stone. He had one hand stretched toward the sky, the other folded at his waist. He looked upward and water sprouted all around him. The fountain had a marble base with a border around the top wide enough for sitting. Water bubbled up from the bottom of it as well, shooting almost as high as the center figure at what seemed like timed intervals. Just the sound of the water was soothing.

  But then, along the four walkways that branched out from the fountain, there was a profusion of flowers. Each section had a little sign that pointed the way to different gardens with a bench next to it. I couldn’t see how there could be more flowers than the ones right in front of us.

  The sun was rising in the sky, and its light seemed to make the flowers glimmer. There were butterflies and a sweet fragrance that filled the air. Miss Vivee almost jumped up with glee when she saw all the flowers. She nearly hopped off the cart and acted like a kid in a toy store - which one to see first.

  Camren Wagner noticed her excitement. “Here,” she said. “Let me show you what we have.”

  We got off the golf cart and circled the perimeter of the fountain. Camren spouted out flower names, the varieties and their origins like she was reciting the alphabet.

  “And down each pathway are more flowers?” Miss Vivee asked noticing the signs. Her face was beaming.

  “Yes,” Camren Wagner said nodding and smiling.

  “Well let’s see them!” She said to Camren then turned to me. “You stay here,” she ordered.

  “You can wait here, by the fountain,” Camren said in a nicer tone than the one Miss Vivee had used. Then she turned to Miss Vivee. “Are you ready? We can’t stay too long, I have work, but there is a lot I can show you.”

  “Wait,” Miss Vivee said to Camren Wagner, then looked at me. “Help me.” She walked over to me. “Hold this.” She handed me her purse, clicked the clasp open, and then dug down in it. “I need to put my sunglasses on.” She pulled out her prescription glasses, then as per her usual, put her sunglasses on top.

  Camren Wagner chuckled. “They make prescription sunglasses, you know?” She looked at me. “You should know that if you’re her caregiver.”

  Yeah, I do know that, I thought. And I’ve told her that a thousand times.

  “They make them all in one?” Miss Vivee asked as if it was the first she’d heard of it. “Why haven’t you suggested that to me,” she said, looking at me and tilting her head. “I would really like something like that. Wearing two pair can be so cumbersome.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wagner said. “Perhaps you should think of getting some better help.” Her accent much stronger, she looked at me down her nose and took Miss Vivee’s arm. They started to stroll down one of the pathways, but were still in earshot.

  “I know,” I heard Miss Vivee say. “But I just feel bad for her, bless her heart. Sometimes she needs more help than I do, if you know what I mean?”

  I plopped down on a bench and watched as they disappeared down a path. I didn’t know if all of that was part of her act or not, but then and there I decided I would get Miss Vivee a pair of corrective lens sunglasses. I’d find out from Renmar her optometrist and get a copy of the prescription. I remembered my mother had gotten my grandfather a pair from Walmart.

  Whether she really wanted them or not.

  I took in a breath, blew it out and checked the clock on my phone.

  Wonder how long they’ll be gone . . .

  I took a look around and smiled. What could be a better place than this to wait? I stood up and walked around the fountain and took in the beauty of the flowers that Jack’s widow had shown us with pride. There were hundreds of them. Flowers of all colors and sizes, and from places all over the world. She had pointed to each and named it – snap dragons, dahlia, Gerber daisies, geraniums, petunia, and gladiolas, I remembered her rattling them off.

  Yep, I thought and surveyed the flowers at my feet, I remember the names, but I know I can’t point out which is which.

  Camren Wagner knew her stuff.

  Oh, I chuckled, except for that sweet potato vine. I’ll always remember that one.

  I leaned in and touched one of the wide leaves. The vine-like chartreuse and purple foliage of the plant had stuck with me because it didn’t look anything like the top of a potato.

  Miss Vivee was right, they were stirring and inspiring.

  Then that note popped into my head.

  I thought about that poem and how it had listed all those poisonous flowers. I had looked at it again while Miss Vivee bathed and washed her hair after we had decided to come to Krieger’s Garden. I had sat down on her bed and tried to memorize it. My mother had an eidetic memory and I had wished for one as I read. But I did it.

  I went over it, and over it again until I had seared that poem into my brain. That note seemed to bother Miss Vivee so much. I wanted to know it – to learn it, understand it, and maybe – hopefully – solve it.

  I knew though that even if Miss Vivee didn’t remember the entire poem, she remembered the name of each and every flower on it. And I wasn’t sure, but I think she’d signaled to me that she hadn’t seen all of them. Maybe that was why she wanted to look at more flowers.

  I walked over to the fountain and sat down. Staring into the blue-green water, one line of the poem came to mind.

  “So harken, and I will tell you true, for this will be your only clue . . .”

  What was the clue?

  I ran my hand through the water and thought about the poem. The flowers were listed after that line. Were the flowers the clue? Or did it just mean that the flowers were deadly? Something that just everyone wouldn’t know. I hadn’t known that fact until Miss Vivee told me.

  Or was it a clue to the murder – or murderer?

  I got up and flung the water off my hand, and rubbed it dry on my jeans. I walked over to a section of flowers, and standing among them I wanted to do just what the poem had told me to do.

  Hidden within, the truth they belie. Listen closely, and you can hear . . .

  I sat down on the bench. “Listen closely,” I whispered and bent over the arm of the bench to get closer to a row of white flowers. “What truth do you belie?”

  “What in the world are you doing?” Miss Vivee said and startled me. I sat up straight. “You act as if you’ve never smelled a flower before.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Did they have all the flowers that were in the note,” I asked Miss Vivee as we pulled out the parking lot from Krieger Arboretum’s greenhouses.

  “No,” Miss Vivee said and nothing more.

  Okay, I thought. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it.

  I prayed Camren Wagner didn’t talk to Gavin Tanner before we could leave the grounds because with his talkative self I knew he would have blown our cover. I could just picture her on her walkie talkie summoning guards who’d block us in. But we got back to the entrance and through the archway of trees without a hitch.

  I took the exit for the highway and glanced over at Miss Vivee. She took off her glasses, put them away, and stared out of the window. She had a look on her face that told me she was lost in thought. I didn’t want to disturb her. I knew that that note, with all the flowers she had in her garden, was on her mind.

  I need to help her find a place that has all those flowers.

  I decided to go back to the fairgrounds. Miss Vivee needed to see the flowers there again. Maybe there were new flowers there. Some that hadn’t been there when that sixty-five-year-old murder happened. New ones. Ones she hadn’t noticed when we were there, perhaps they were planted in an area other
than where we had been. Lincoln Park was big. It couldn’t hurt, I reasoned, to swing by there and let her get a closer look. Might even make her feel better.

  Without telling her, I took the exit ramp off of I-520 that led to the state route and Lincoln Park.

  “Where are you taking me?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “I have an errand to run,” I lied. She did it all the time so I figured my one tiny lie wasn’t such a bad thing.

  The flowers were visible from a half a mile down the road from the entrance to the fairgrounds. There was a whole field of them. And as soon as I saw them, it popped into my head that it was odd just to have a field with flowers. A waste of land use (using Robert Bernard’s words), and money wasted on landscaping on a backroad field that many people didn’t see. Did they do anything else on the land other than have the fair once a year?

  “Is this your errand?” Miss Vivee asked interrupting my thoughts as I pulled up in the parking lot. “Coming to the fairgrounds?”

  But before I could answer her, or get Miss Vivee to pay attention to the flowers, she noticed an old Volkswagen van covered in them. They were painted in psychedelic colors, and interspersed with peace and love symbols and words.

  “Will you looka there?” Miss Vivee pointed to the Volkswagen in the parking lot. “That’s Martha Simmons’ van.”

  “Oh crap,” I said. “The killer pie lady?” I asked. “Please don’t tell me you know her.”

  “Don’t say that.” Miss Vivee swatted her hand across my arm. “Her pie didn’t kill that man. They haven’t always been the tastiest things, but lately her pies are much better. Amazingly better.”

  “She told me that her pies had always won every contest she entered them in.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but they have always won first place at the Freemont County Possum Pickin’ Fair.” Miss Vivee bit her bottom lip. “But I do know that they never killed anyone. Not even when they were bad.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “They certainly made everyone sick.”

  “Well, when we see her, don’t you say anything about that.”

  We got out of my jeep and walked into the fairgrounds. Miss Vivee yanked open the flap to the Plethora of Pie tent and like the last time I’d seen it, it was dark and deserted.

  “Maybe no one’s here,” I offered.

  “Nonsense, I’d know that Peace Mobile anywhere. That’s Martha’s van. Rode in it plenty of times.”

  What was this thing, people keeping vehicles twenty and thirty years? With all the snow and salted roads in Cleveland, I was used to people changing cars every three or four years.

  “Yoohoo!” Miss Vivee called out. “Martha? You here? I dropped by to give my congratulations.” She walked around the cherry pie counter and toward the back leaving me near the entrance. “Yoohoo, Martha!”

  Aunt Martha peeked out from the curtained prep area. “Vivienne!” she nearly shouted and came out with her arms outstretched. “So nice to see a familiar face,” she said and hugged Miss Vivee. Tightly.

  Miss Martha still donned her salmon color apron, but this time she wore a brown, cotton shift dress underneath. Her brown hair perfectly coiffed.

  “I say.” Miss Vivee held her head up, and outside of the hug, she stretched one hand up to give Aunt Martha a limp pat on the back. She acted as if she couldn’t breathe in Aunt Martha’s unyielding embrace.

  “What are you doing still here?” Miss Vivee asked, having to put a little ump into wrenching from Aunt Martha’s grip.

  “I had orders from people at the fair, and I told them to pick them up here because I still had to come and get my equipment.” Aunt Martha sniffed as she spoke, and after she let go of Miss Vivee it as obvious her eyes, like her cheeks and nose, were a rosy red.

  “What in the Sam Hill is wrong with you?” Miss Vivee asked noticing her face.

  Marigold came out from the back, just as Aunt Martha was dabbing her nose, and getting ready to tell Miss Vivee what she was crying about. Marigold had on blue jeans and a faded gray T-shirt with Stanford written in red across the front.

  My alma mater.

  “What’s wrong, Nana?” Marigold asked.

  “Nana?” Miss Vivee said and smiled. “Is this your granddaughter, Martha?”

  “Yes,” Aunt Martha said, her face brightening up. “This is my granddaughter, Marigold. Marigold Kent.” She pulled Marigold close to her. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Aunt Martha asked.

  “Yes, she is,” Miss Vivee said.

  “And although she’d never admit it, she’s a first-rate baker.”

  “Really?” Miss Vivee said.

  Marigold spoke up. “Not really,” she said and chuckled. “My grandmother says it’s in my blood, I should just be a natural at it, but I burn everything I put my hands on.”

  “Nonsense,” Aunt Martha said. “Now, Marigold, this is Vivienne Pennywell, an old and dear friend,” finishing up her introduction. “And this is -” She turned to me and stopped mid-sentence. Taking a good look at me for the first time, she hissed, “Good Lord! “What are you doing here?”

  Miss Vivee turned to me and back to Martha. “What is it?”

  “What is she doing here?” Aunt Martha asked. “She’s the one that accused my pie of making people sick.”

  “Oh pfft! She didn’t mean no harm.” Miss Vivee beckoned me. “This is Bay’s girl.” She nodded in a knowing way and leaned into Aunt Martha. “She’s from up north, bless her heart.”

  “Oh,” Aunt Martha said as if that explained everything.

  I felt foolish just standing around while they discussed me. But Marigold, seemingly not remembering her disdain for me just the day before, smiled at me and nodded a hello.

  “Okay, well,” Aunt Martha started, “Where’s your manners, Vivienne? Introduce her.”

  “This is Logan Dickerson. She’s an archaeologist and soon to be granddaughter.”

  At least I’d moved up the career ladder with this introduction.

  “Really?” Aunt Martha said. She and Marigold looked at me. “There was a doctor at the fair that said she was his granddaughter.”

  “Oh. That was probably Mac,” Miss Vivee said and turned to me. I nodded. “You remember Mac, Martha. Macomber Whitson?”

  “Oh! From way back when?” Aunt Martha asked her memory apparently jarred. “That Mac?”

  “Yes,” Miss Vivee said. “That Mac.”

  “Well, I must admit I was kind of dumbfounded, but Marigold set me straight. She fussed that today there are blended families and I shouldn’t make a big deal with her being . . . well you know, not the same as he was,” she shot Marigold a smile. “You know, she uses the computer to study that ancestry stuff-”

  “Genealogy,” Marigold corrected.

  “Whatever,” Aunt Martha flapped a hand toward Marigold. “Had me racking my brains to remember our family’s history. Signing stuff, even swabbing my mouth for some mail in DDA test.”

  “DNA, Nana.”

  “Right,” Aunt Martha said and smiled at Marigold. “But now I understand.” She nodded at me. “She’s Bay’s girl.”

  I looked at Miss Vivee. She didn’t like people saying things about Bay, especially about him being half black. Bay had told me that his grandmother was the one who taught him to stand up to people who bullied him because he was the only black kid in the neighborhood. But Aunt Martha’s remarks didn’t seem to faze her.

  We heard a horn honk and everyone turned around to see a man and a boy getting out of a car.

  “Oh! That’s my customer,” Aunt Martha said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared into the back, and Marigold called out to her. “I’ll come help you, Nana,” she said.

  “No,” Martha shouted from the back. “Keep our visitor company.” Aunt Martha reappeared from behind the curtain with four pink boxes stacked high, nearly covering her face. “I’ve got this,” she said sounding a little winded. She walked toward the front and met the man outside of the t
ent.

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air, until Marigold spoke up.

  “So you’re an archaeologist?” Marigold asked. “Like Indiana Jones?”

  “That would be my mother,” I said. “I’m just the run-of-the-mill kind.”

  “I didn’t know there was a run-of-the-mill one. I mean you don’t run into one every day.”

  “No you don’t,” I said and smiled.

  “So you kind of study genealogy too, huh?” Marigold asked me. “In a roundabout way.”

  I chuckled. “I guess I do. It’s important to know family lineages when studying ancient civilizations and relating it to the people of today.”

  “Tell that to my grandmother. She doesn’t seem to understand that at all. I tried to do a genealogy for her side of the family and she can’t remember anything.” She gave me a sly smile. “No help, I swear. But I have my ways of finding out what I need to know.”

  I laughed. With my degree in anthropology, and all of my experience in looking at the lives of other people, I’d never thought to do one of my own family.

  “How do you become an archaeologist?” Marigold asked. “Is it like an apprentice program or is it a major? I’ve never heard anyone majoring in Archaeology.”

  “I actually got my graduate degree at Stanford.” I pointed to her T-shirt. “And they do have an undergraduate in it.”

  “Really?” she raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know they offered archaeology there.”

  “Yep.” I nodded in affirmation. “They do. I didn’t go there for my bachelor’s, though, I went to school in Ohio, where I’m from. And my graduate degree is in Anthropology with a track in archaeology.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “What did you study at Stanford?”

  “I have a degree in Nutrition.”

  I had a questioning look on my face that she must have noticed. She may not have known that they offered archaeology at Stanford, but I knew for a fact they didn’t offer nutrition as a major.

  I looked at her then down at her shirt. She followed my gaze and rubbed her palm down the front of it. “I didn’t get my degree at Stanford. Not that smart,” she said and smiled. “I participated in their annual Food Summit.”