Interesting that at the bottom of the flyer was Brett Riordan’s name and contact information. And he was listed as the chairman of the Virginia Agricultural Exposition Committee.
I was willing to bet that the real head of the committee was Genette. And that if there was anyone other than her and Brett on the committee, they were her tame minions.
“What about a corkscrew?” Dorcas was saying. “One of those big old wrought-iron antique ones that nobody uses anymore except to hang on the wall and look pretty.”
“If we’re talking antique tools, how about a scythe or a sickle?” the other winemaker suggested. “Doing it with a corkscrew is a lot more work.”
“Good thing we know they’re not serious,” Michael said, in an undertone.
“Do we?”
He shrugged.
“It’s the ones who aren’t venting and getting it out of their systems that I’d be worried about,” he said. “Well, now that I’ve taken care of your mother’s chores, the boys and I should be running along. If you need us, we’ll be staffing the llama exhibit.”
“What about the children’s concert?” I asked.
“Already over,” he said.
“Over?” I looked at my watch. “Oh, no. Were the boys too disappointed that I didn’t make it?”
“Old MacDonald had a farm,” Jamie sang.
“The ants go marching one by one.” Josh countered.
“They were at first,” Michael said over the increasing din of the dueling songs. “But I told them that Mayor Randall had left you in charge of the whole fair. They were very impressed. Now, whenever they want something to be different, they say, ‘Mommy fix soon.’”
“Fix now,” Jamie corrected.
“So what changes do they want?”
“Free cotton candy,” Josh suggested
“And more frequent pig races.” Michael gave me a quick kiss and strolled off.
I stared at the flyer again.
“Meg, dear.”
Mother had returned.
“She’s still not there.” I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen Mother so impatient.
“She’ll be back,” I said. “Meanwhile there’s something else I wanted to show you. Have you seen this?” I held up the flyer.
“Virginia Agricultural Exposition,” Mother read. “How nice. I’ve never been that fond of the whole Un-fair name. Whoever thought of this name—”
“Genette,” I said.
“—was at least making an effort to come up with an elegant name,” Mother said. “Not, of course a successful effort—too pretentious, but…”
She shrugged.
“Nice recovery.” I handed her the flyer and she studied it. “Nothing that much wrong with the name, but apparently she’s going around trying to convince everyone who’s here to come to her fair instead.”
“Actually, it lists Brett Riordan as the contact person,” Mother pointed out.
“But it’s being held at her winery, and you can bet it’s being done with her money,” I said.
“Then she’s wasting her money.” Another winemaker had come up behind us and was studying the flyer over our shoulders with a slight frown on his face.
“You don’t think people will come?” I asked. “There’s going to be a competition. Aren’t ribbons and medals good advertising?”
“She doesn’t actually say who will be judging the competition,” the winemaker said. “What if we all show up and she has some flunky judge the competition and award her a lot of the medals?”
“Can she do that?” I asked. “Who judges wine competitions, anyway?” I was looking at Mother. I’d given her free rein to organize all the wine events. I suddenly found myself worried that she’d just recruited a trio of relatives who liked wine.
“Some competitions use judges certified by a group like the American Wine Society,” the winemaker said. “They go through a three-year training program, and they’d better know a lot about wine going in.”
“That’s who we’re using, dear,” Mother said. “We have three very prestigious nationally known judges.”
“An impressive set of judges.” The winemaker was nodding his approval.
I reminded myself never to doubt Mother on what she considered the important things in life, like wine, gourmet food, and interior decoration.
“That’s why I insisted that we put our judges up at the Caerphilly Inn,” Mother said.
“It was the quality of your judges that convinced a lot of us to come,” the winemaker said. “We realized you were serious about making this a good event.”