Any concerns Harper had vanished. Meeting Lulu was the next logical step, and she had no need to be worried. Making friends was what Harper did. It was how she’d survived eight different schools before the third grade. Sure, she was quirky and sometimes a bit awkward, but she was real, knew how to listen, and, most importantly, she had heart.
Lots of it.
Obviously, that was what Chantel saw in her. It was why she was giving her a shot to prove herself. And Harper wouldn’t let her down. She was going to make that shop and display come to life. She was going to take her concept, which she’d dubbed real women want real men, to the next level, and make sure Lulu saw that same potential and determination as Chantel.
“And what a face,” Chantel said, her voice going breathy. “One wink from Adam and I wouldn’t be surprised if Lulu agreed on the spot. Oops, that’s the other line, I have to go. Have Adam wear plum—it’s Lulu’s favorite color and the accent for Swagger.”
Thrilled at the idea of spending more time with Adam, and terrified of pulling off their ruse for even longer, she said, “You bet. We’ll see you soon.”
“I don’t care how big your banana is, that dipstick is not welcome anywhere near my booth or my houses,” Nora Kincaid said to Ida Beamon, all piss and vinegar, jabbing her cane toward her handcrafted mailboxes that resembled miniature Victorian houses, and nearly poking out Adam’s left eye. Adam managed to dodge it and took in the remaining chaos at the registration table.
“My dipped bananas are the crowd favorite. Grabbing one on the way into the fair is tradition for families all around town,” Ida argued, pointing to the TOWN FAVORITE star on her I TAKE MINE DOUBLE-DIPPED AND WITH NUTS shirt. “Veteran vendors get first dibs on last year’s booth. Last year I had booth one, like I had it the thirty years before. And just because some bonehead didn’t consult the map doesn’t mean you get to run me out of my booth.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” Nora said, raising her cane to smack-down level. “I was here early so I could get in line first, then I turned in my form. First!” She shot up a finger, then pointed a more appropriate one at McGuire. “Where that bonehead there assigned me booth one.”
Adam grabbed the cane before it struck bone, and when someone lobbed a chocolate-dipped banana at the registration table, he put himself between the blustering old biddies. After a few kicks to the shin, an elbow in the ribs, and someone goosing him from the sidelines, he knew he had to change tactics—and fast.
A mob of ladies swarmed the registration table, demanding to see if they still had their promised street-facing booth.
Not just ladies—angry old biddies with a bone to pick. It was as though every quilter, crafter, and banana-on-a-stick master, from the dawn of time until the present day, had been promised a street-facing booth. Adam felt genuine fear take over.
“One more elbow flies and I will give the entire front row of booths to the Gardening and Flower Club.”
A collective gasp came from the crowd, but the elbows lowered and everyone took a step back. Everyone, except Ms. Moberly, the town’s librarian. She stepped forward and looked over the rim of her glasses at Adam in a move that was pure velvet and steel, and had silenced rowdy kids for over four decades.
“Well, that would make for some interesting talks at home,” she said. “Since the garden club is doing a presentation on orchid pollination, they will be selling their giant white asparagus by the bunches.”
“So?” Adam said, pinching the bridge of his nose, not making sense of any of it.
“This year’s crop has been quite the talk. It’s bigger than normal and quite impressive with its thick stalks and bulbous crowns,” Ida added, the if you know what I mean clear in her voice.
“Oh geez,” Adam said, holding his hand up.
Ms. Moberly pushed her glasses farther up her nose, and suddenly Adam felt as if he were twelve again, slipping The Joy of Sex in his backpack. “Putting the bananas and asparagus together would negatively influence the topics for the Build Your Own Book project I have planned.”
“Like her dipped bananas and melons won’t give Dick and Jane a whole new spin,” Nora argued. “Which is why my wholesome mailboxes will be street facing.”
“I’m selling my apple pie by the slice,” someone else said. “It doesn’t get more wholesome than apple pie.”
“Well, that young man there promised me booth one,” Nora said, pointing to McGuire again, as though there would be no further argument.
McGuire smiled. Ida did not. Neither did Peggy Lovett, owner of the Paws and Claws Day Spa.