Our lives were plenty complicated enough without having one of Maddy’s ex-husbands showing up and making trouble for all of us.
“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” I asked David Quinton as I held his hand later that evening when we first arrived at the festival.
The promenade where my pizzeria was located had been spruced up for the festival, with tiny white Christmas lights spread around the trees spaced throughout the broad brick square. Even the World War II cannon had pretty twinkly little lights on it, but the biggest center of attraction of all was the obelisk. With a shape that was a duplicate of the Washington Monument, it was a scaled-down version, an eighteen-foot-high memorial to the men and women who had founded Timber Ridge. Their names still dominated our town, with Lincolns, Murphys, Pen-neys, and even Swifts and Spencers spread throughout the region, and there were most likely more folks with ties to the original founders living all around me than otherwise. What I loved most about the focus on the monument to our heritage was that the gray sentinel was bathed in an ever-changing floodlight of colors, and I wondered how they’d managed it.
“Would you like to dance, Eleanor?” David asked me as we neared one of the two stages set up on opposite ends of the square. They were far enough apart to be isolated from each other for the most part, but every now and then music from the bluegrass musicians on the other side drifted toward the stage near us, where a cover band was playing some of my favorite songs from my youth, a soundtrack of my life growing up.
“Why don’t we get some barbeque first?” I suggested. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy dancing with my boyfriend, even if there was already a crowded floor of dancers, but it had been quite a while since I’d had lunch.
“I completely get the logic of feeding you first, but the offer’s open for the rest of the night,” he said with a smile. “But the next time, you have to ask me.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal.”
We made our way to one of the three barbeque sellers set up on the perimeter of the promenade, and I nodded to a few of my customers who were working behind the counter.
An older woman with a ready smile laughed the second she saw me approach. “Eleanor Swift! Who would have thought that I’d ever have the chance to serve you instead of the other way around?” Linda Tuesday said from behind the table.
“From those heavenly aromas coming from behind you, I wouldn’t suggest trying to stop me. Is your husband cooking tonight?” Linda’s husband, Manny, worked the pit at a barbeque place in Lincoln as his regular job, and he was a legend around our part for his skills in slow cooking.
“Try to keep him away from it,” she said with a wry grin. “That man was born with barbeque sauce in his veins, and a fondness for cooking perfect pork barbeque that goes beyond obsession.”
“And it’s a good thing for the rest of us,” I said. I didn’t even have to glance at the menu printed on bright green posterboard. “Linda, we’ll take two pulled specials, and do me a favor and sneak a bite of bark on my plate.” Almost as an afterthought, I turned to David and asked, “Oops. Is that all right with you? I get kind of carried away when I’m around barbeque this good.”
“Sure, it’s fine with me, but if you’re going to order for me, you’re going to have to buy, Eleanor,” he said with a grin.
“I like this one,” Linda said as she looked at David and added another burst of laughter. “This one might just be a keeper. Or is it too soon to tell yet?”
“He’s still on probation, but it’s looking good so far,” I said with a laugh of my own. Linda had that effect on me, and I always loved it when she came into the Slice.
“It’s good to know that I haven’t flunked out yet,” David said good-naturedly as he started to reach for his wallet.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing, mister?” I said. “Put that away. This is my treat, remember?”
“Sorry. I forgot myself for just a second,” he said.
Linda dished us up two plates brimming with pulled pork barbeque, baked beans, potato salad, slaw, and a good handful of french fries. Except for the barbeque itself, the portions weren’t overwhelming, just a little more than a taste of each, but it was the only way you could get the full experience of the meal. We took our plates, along with the sweet tea that came with them, and found a bench that had just freed up under one of the nearby trees. Sitting spots were at a premium at the moment, even with the extra benches and chairs brought in just for the event, and we were lucky to grab one.