Chapter Twenty-Five
Saturday brings perfect fall weather. The sky is bright, and the sun’s providing enough warmth to make an outdoor festival comfortable. But there’s still a bite to the air that invites cardigans, pullovers, and an abundance of plaid.
When Marina and I arrive at Juniper Park on Saturday morning, I’m wearing an oversized plaid shirt unbuttoned over my bright-orange festival volunteer top.
It’s the perfect ensemble for the weather, but not so much for my nerves.
I can feel myself starting to sweat through my festival shirt as my worries shape-shift and multiply.
No one could show up. A fight could break out among the vendors when Solar Summit arrives.
Everyone could get apple poisoning from Bertram’s Honey Mustard apple.
I glance around at Marina and the Ryser Cares folks as they arrive, but no one else seems to share my worry. Today, everyone is all smiles and excitement.
“Everything good?” Randy asks me quietly, taking a seat next to me at the festival volunteer table.
His concern pierces through me. It’s harder to lie to him when he knows the truth—or part of it, anyway. “Yeah.” I manage a grin. “All good.”
Randy’s forehead creases. “How did you manage…?” He gestures toward the park around us, filled with the tables, chairs, tents, stages, and everything else Ryser didn’t pay for.
“I just…”
I’m not sure how he’d react if I told him I paid for everything.
Would he whip out his wallet, try to write me a check on the spot?
Tell the others so they can pitch in, and then they’ll ask questions until I cave and tell them about the office possibly closing?
I’m not doing anything to put a damper on this day. We’ve worked too hard for this.
“I just made it happen,” I say. “I talked to Amanda. Everything’s fine.”
Randy gives me a puzzled smile that tells me more questions are coming. Luckily, that’s when a vendor approaches to ask about power sources, and I duck away to help them.
As the next hour passes, more vendors arrive and set up their booths, and I spot some early attendees driving up.
Marina, the Ryser Cares folks, and I move around the park switching between different roles: checking on vendors, answering questions, manning the ticketing and information booth.
As the last of the vendors take their places and finish setting up, I blink around the park in disbelief.
This…looks like a festival. Booths and tents stretch throughout the park in the exact formation we planned out on the whiteboard back at the office.
The sweet smell of kettle corn wafts through the air, and as I stroll along the perimeter of the park, the other festival attractions take over my senses.
The woven lattice on the apple pies Tim is selling.
The gentle snuffles and snorts coming from the pigs at the petting zoo stall.
The tantalizing aroma of apple cider donuts from the donut booth.
The produce stall, Pretzel in Paradise, Sera’s barbecue truck, Elise’s candle stand, Walt’s history of Greenstead booth, on and on and on the attractions go.
I pass by Bertram, apple crates on full display in the tent behind him, and give him a nod.
He grins back. I hope he likes that we placed the face-painting booth across from him.
I imagine he’ll enjoy seeing all the smiling, painted faces coming away from it.
I hope he sees a tiger who reminds him of his brother.
By the time I return to the information booth, a long line has formed. More people than I expected are entering the raffle and making donations. A small, hopeful part of me wonders if we might get enough money to save the community center after all.
Every time I think we’ve cleared the line, a new wave of people approaches.
When we hit a lull at last, I take a look around.
The festival is swarming with people wandering around the booths, lining up for kettle corn, tearing chunks off pastel clouds of cotton candy, clambering to the petting zoo fence.
A toddler runs around, and her harried father chases after her.
Even the Nancy convention on the other side of the park seems to be going well.
Nancy’s sitting on the stage, chattering away to her audience of twenty or so Nancies.
This is more crowded than the dying festival of our teens, maybe even bigger than that first festival that cemented our friendship.
“What are you thinking?” Marina asks.
I’m not sure I can think in words. The only thing running through my head is emotions, colors.
Shades of coppery orange and golden yellow, pride and joy, all wrapped in a sparkle of magic.
It’s a passionate protectiveness that pulls at me, telling me that even though I spent my entire childhood wanting to leave Greenstead, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a beautiful place that deserves to be cherished.
This makes me feel like I can do good things. It’s not the large-scale good I’ve hoped for. But, for now, this good is good enough.
I turn to Marina with a dazed smile. “I think this is a perfect festival.”
She nods, her eyes shining. “Me too.” She stands and surveys the park. “I’m getting a donut. Do you want anything?”
I shake my head and stay where I am. There are no new incoming attendees approaching our booth, so I pull out my phone to keep me occupied while I hold down the fort.
I’m surprised when I see that it’s just past noon.
The flurry of last-minute preparations and checking in the long line of attendees has made time pass in a blur.
A notification tells me Selma texted me hours ago. I tap on it.
I forgot to tell you! I got drinks with Colby yesterday and he said he heard Dan’s leaving! Nothing’s announced yet, but apparently Dan got a new job at Atlas.
My first reaction is spiteful relief. I don’t love that Dan’s being rewarded with another job after he cost me mine, but there’s still a satisfaction in knowing he won’t be around at Ryser anymore to call the shots.
That’s when it dawns on me: Dan leaving means I might actually get my job back. Amanda said my chances were low as long as Dan was in charge. But with Dan out of the picture…I could be back at Ryser by next month.
I lift my head, staring aimlessly ahead at the crowds enjoying the festival.
This feels like the last missing piece slotting into place.
I’ve done some good here, and now I have something to go back to after I leave Greenstead.
I can take my rightful place on that corporate ladder and keep on climbing until I reach the rung that lets me make a bigger difference.
My brain latches onto the security of having a job ready and waiting for me. It flits to my FIRE spreadsheet and replaces the blank cells and question marks with numbers, making my calculations make sense again. Confetti rains over the spreadsheet in my mind.
Except, through the confetti, I see the faces of Marina, Tessa, Jen, Randy, Arun.
Taking my old job and returning to DC means leaving them behind.
It means washing my hands of whatever Amanda decides to do with the Ryser Cares office, whatever happens to Greenstead, and floating back to my old life without a second thought.
Strangely, the more I sit with this news, the more detached I feel from it.
I don’t quite know how to picture going from here, this open field full of activity, and returning to that towering, stuffy DC office.
But I know this is just the bizarre sensation of getting what you’ve always wanted.
You spend so much time hoping and wishing, and when you finally do get it, you don’t know what to do with yourself.
The same thing happened when I got promoted to senior communications specialist a couple of years ago.
I spent a year obsessively working toward it, taking on leadership roles for projects beyond my level, trying my very best to prove myself.
When I got the promotion, I felt an initial burst of excitement at changing the title in my email signature and updating my spreadsheet with my new salary.
After that faded, though, I felt a similar sort of dumbfounded for a few hours.
A sense of… Now what? But it passed, my happiness returned, and Selma and I celebrated with cupcakes that Friday.
When Randy comes to the information booth to relieve me, I walk around the park, stopping at booths to chat up vendors, going up to the stage to help Tessa finish setting up the judges’ table for the pie-baking contest. But all throughout, my mind is teeming with the realities of next steps.
I’ll need to call Amanda to ask about my old job.
Will she grant it back to me as soon as Dan leaves?
If that’s the case, I’d be leaving the Ryser Cares office while its fate is still up in the air.
Maybe once I’m back to working on Amanda’s team, I could convince her why Ryser Cares’s work is so important.
Maybe we could even partner with them for a new project.
I’m still thinking about this as I peruse the display in Walt’s History of Greenstead tent.
I tune out the sound of Walt monologuing to an attendee and focus on the images.
Black-and-white photos of farmland appear above descriptions of Greenstead’s origins as a rural farming town.
A photo of the Ryser mustard factory accompanies a paragraph about how the factory’s opening brought jobs and economic prosperity to Greenstead.
The next few sections focus on Greenstead’s growth: the opening of the community center, the uptick in population, the start of traditions like the apple festival.