“Enjoy your morning off, sweetheart,” she called to me. She opened the outer door, and a blast of cold air blew in with a bite, making me wish I could just hibernate inside all day, but I had a list of things to accomplish, and not getting all my color-coded boxes checked off would put me behind. Mentally, I made a plan of attack and went to town on my list—literally.
* * *
From a distance,I saw the platinum-blonde, old-fashioned beehive hairdo making a beeline straight for me.
Crap! I only have two more things to do!Whydidn’t I go to the hardware store first?
I turned and headed in the opposite direction down the sidewalk, but before I could duck behind anyone or bolt into a store to escape, I heard, “Yoo-hoo! Emalee Dawson. Don’t you go anywhere.”
A couple of passersby offered me a sympathetic look but scurried off like a mountain lion was stalking them. In a sense, they were right. Everyone knew when the Sterling Mill Project Chairperson singled you out, either run and hide for the next month or understand you were about to be volun-told to work on an event. There was a reason her name had been turned into a verb.
I will not be Beverly-ed. This time, I will be strong. This time, I will say no.
I took a deep breath, plastered on what I hoped passed as a genuine smile, and spun on my heels. “Good morning, Mrs. Seymour.”
“Oh, goodness, young lady,” she chortled. “How many times do I need to tell you to call me Beverly?”
I tipped my head. “Beverly. What has you out and about so early?”Like I didn’t already know.
She leaned in as if she was going to tell me a secret. “Well, as you recall, Harriet Bergenstock planned last year’s Derby Day. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it was adisaster.I guess that’s what you can expect, however, from a thief.”
The quarrel between Beverly Seymour and Harriet Bergenstock was notorious in our town. It had been going on ever since Harriet moved to Sterling Mill almost eleven years ago. Beverly had been all too happy to welcome the newcomer to town by recruiting her to help with Derby Day, our big annual springtime festival.
It had seemed all was going well—until each of them showed up with the same broccoli casserole. Other folks might have let it slide, but not Beverly. She accused Harriet of stealing the recipe from her notebook. Harriet swore it was a family recipe that had been passed down for years. But she was so mad at the accusation that she published “her” recipe in the local newspaper. People had been thrilled to finally get the secret recipe and nominated her to run the Derby Day celebration every year since. Worse, most folks thought Harriet did a better job than Beverly.
Until last year.
It hadn’t been Harriet’s fault, but people were still talking about it. No one quite knew how, but it was believed a raccoon had gotten into an unattended bowl of mint julep and become drunk. Somehow, it climbed the temporary outdoor stage platform where the “best hat” awards had just finished being passed out. The rascal then ran under the chairs of the guest of honor and the judges, including the mayor’s wife, who jumped to her feet, lost her balance, and fell face-first into the lap of Pastor Olsen.
The startled animal then leaped from the stage to the food-laden tables, where it paused when it passed a silver bowl full of ambrosia salad and reached for the matching shiny spoon. From there, a couple of dogs, who’d been part of the parade earlier, saw the bandit and took up the chase.
Then, in a domino effect Rube Goldberg would have been proud of, the Great Dane plowed into a guest near the banquet, who fell into his wife, who fell into the ambrosia on the table in front of her. The King Charles Spaniel used her as a ramp to lead a pack of other small dogs onto the tables, knocking over several plates and bowls of food as they raced after the raccoon.
By the time it was over, dozens of people were wiping Jell-O salad and custard pies from their hair and clothing, the raccoon had escaped, and the dogs were feasting on the barbecued pork.
Locals had been horrified, and outsiders couldn’t stop laughing. It even made the news as far away as Nashville.
Harriet had immediately pointed the finger at Matilda Espey, better known as Crazy Tilly, who had an unofficial pet raccoon. Tilly, in turn, claimed she’d seen Hans Zimmerman spike the punchbowl with moonshine and claimed it must have been a stray raccoon because Rocky would never do such a thing.
It was a well-established rumor Hans had at least one moonshine still hidden in the woods, but to date, no one had found them, so nothing could be done about it. Not that anyone seemed all that keen on trying, anyway. There seemed to be a secret society of those “in the know,” however, because most citizens knew someone, who knew someone else, who could get their hands on the hooch. I’d gotten some a few times from my cousin, Chase, but I never asked where he got it. And, if I had to guess, the sheriff himself had enjoyed the taste more than once.
Not to stand idly by while he was accused, Hans claimed Tilly harbored an entire menagerie of raccoons she sent into people’s houses to steal things. While no one really believed there was an army of four-legged bandits, quite a few people reported shiny objects that mysteriously went missing from their yards, porches, and sheds at night, only to see them turn up later in the yearly community yard sale.
Over the ensuing months, a rivalry between the two had built up until everyone was wary when either of them came into town. People took sides, some believing Tilly’s raccoon was a thief, or they blamed Hans for spiking the punch that set off the chain of events that became known as the Derby Day Debacle.
Unfortunately, Beverly held Harriet ultimately responsible for the fiasco.
“So, this year, we need to make it the best ever,” Beverly continued. “And that’s where you come in, Emalee.”
“Oh, I can’t—”
“You do such an amazing job at The Dogtrot. Everyone just raves over your baking and organization skills. And since you live and work right across from the park where it’s held, it will be easy for you to be available to any vendors we have.”
“Vendors? But that’s—”
“And I just know that adorable little boy of yours loves Derby Day. All the kids do. That’s what this is really about, don’t you think? Bringing community together.”
Shewouldhave to bring up Iain. As long as I lived in Sterling Mill, I’d probably feel the need to pay back the community that had rallied around me during an extremely difficult time.
