Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I have to wait my turn for the next panel, where a cluster of people are gathered to read about the devastation of the mustard flood.
That’s always been the most interesting thing people associate with Greenstead.
I can’t blame outsiders for thinking that way, but there’s more to Greenstead than the catastrophe that happened here nearly thirty years ago.
Even though there were a lot of times when I couldn’t see past it myself.
Now, I mentally paint those panels with the important details that wouldn’t make the history books.
The friendship two girls formed around this festival, memories wrapped in laughter and ribbons of caramel.
The community-center-organized hikes up Echo Hill Overlook where Dad met Wendy, where Randy met Marge, where Meg apparently does her networking.
The tight-knit sense of kinship that threads people together and makes them feel like this place is worth sticking around for.
“You’re Lauryn Harper?”
I turn to find a stocky Asian man around my age watching me expectantly.
“Yes,” I say slowly.
He extends a hand. “Peter Guo.”
The name rings a bell. I stare from his outstretched hand to the polite expression on his face. “You wrote that article in the Washington Chronicle .”
He breaks into a proud smile. “I did.”
A rush of annoyance overcomes me. “You compared me vomiting to the mustard factory exploding.”
“My editor added that,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought it was a little heavy-handed.”
“So did I.”
He seems to register the steel in my voice, but he doesn’t back down. “I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re writing another article?”
“Of course. People want to know how the festival turned out.”
I give a skeptical hum. As tempted as I am to turn him away, he’s going to write the article regardless.
Without my participation, he’ll write another one-sided attack piece on Ryser.
If I talk to him, I can at least nudge his perspective in the right direction, make sure his article focuses on Greenstead and the success of this festival.
Greenstead deserves to be the main focus, not a launching pad for more Ryser discourse.
“Okay,” I say begrudgingly.
Peter and I walk around the park, sticking to the outskirts where it’s quieter.
When he presses Record on his phone, I’m mindful of my every word.
I imagine my words going straight from my lips to the article, picture Amanda reading everything I say in undeniable black ink.
I stick to talking up the festival, its history, Greenstead’s spirit of community and resilience.
The edge of Peter’s mouth pulls downward slightly as he ends the recording, but I feel a glow of satisfaction at avoiding whatever trap he was hoping I might fall into.
The rest of the afternoon passes without a hitch.
I return to the information booth and tally up the familiar faces of people who stop by.
My dad and Wendy tell me they’re proud of me, which makes my chest inflate.
Jess greets Marina warmly when they come by to make a donation, and Marina stands to hug them in an embrace that goes on a beat too long for exes.
I know better than to look for my mom. I invited her weeks ago, and she said she’d try to come.
But she texted this morning that she wouldn’t be able to make it after all.
I don’t know if it’s truly because of a last-minute flight schedule change as she claimed, or if she just couldn’t bring herself to come back to the town that made her feel trapped.
But instead of commiserating with that instinct as I always do, I decide it’s her loss if she’s choosing to miss out on what makes this town special.
I may still share her desire to never get stuck here, but the thought of coming back to Greenstead to visit my dad and Wendy for Christmas, or even just because, doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Marina’s mom comes by and exclaims that she hasn’t seen me in years, and I bask in the hug she pulls me into, this woman who I sometimes liked to think of as a stand-in mother after my mom left.
I see a few people I remember from high school, who stop by and say hello.
Even Nancy deigns to cross the velvet rope separating her convention from our festival.
“I had an extra minute to fill on Friday, and I mentioned that you probably wouldn’t get sick on anyone at the festival,” she tells me. “So, you’re welcome. And congratulations. I brought these for you.” She hands us each a small jar.
I stare down at the handwritten label: Wrinkle cream .
“One of my Nancies makes beauty products,” Nancy explains. “I don’t need them, but I thought you might.”
Marina and I share a look, disbelief mixed with amusement.
“Thank…you,” I finally say.
Nancy beams. “You’re welcome.” Then she flits off, leaving Marina and me to marvel in her wake.
“Was that her trying to be nice to us?” Marina asks. “Or was this a fuck you?”
“I…” I shrug, lost for words. “I think it was just Nancy being Nancy. There’s no other way to decipher it.”
My heart soars when a woman with wiry white hair and a familiar gap-toothed smile approaches us. Lettie thanks us for bringing back the festival and says it’s just like she remembered it. “Almost,” she adds, tossing a glance over her shoulder at the Nancy convention.
“Th-thank you for coming,” I say, surprised to find myself feeling so starstruck in her presence. For all those years Marina and I came to this festival, she was always just there . It never occurred to me how much we’d come to rely on her presence until she was gone.
“This is for y’all.” Lettie slides a square white box toward us.
I see the stick first—the thin white stick poking out from the top could only belong to a caramel apple.
I think back to the dinner party, telling Walt how much I’d loved Lettie’s caramel apples.
He must have passed the message along to her.
But then my eyes fall on the cellophane window at the front of the box.
It’s not her standard plain caramel apple.
It’s the same exact one Marina and I always ordered, down to the crushed peanut coating and milk chocolate drizzle.
I share an incredulous look with Marina. “How did you know…?”
Lettie lets out a satisfied cackle. “You think I don’t know my regulars?”
It takes a moment for that to sink in. That just as Lettie was a constant for us, maybe we were for her.
That maybe we were figures in her story just as she was in ours.
That maybe that’s the beauty of this festival, of Greenstead, the ways our threads weave and connect like strands of yarn in a sweater, coming together into something bigger than its parts.
A sense of excitement floats through the attendees as Art McKenzie’s set draws closer.
When he takes the stage at last, the crowd gravitates toward him immediately.
Instead of his usual T-shirt and jeans, he’s dressed in all black, which I’m assuming is his Arthur Frost uniform.
His show begins like a normal set, starting off with a song from one of his solo albums. Some confused murmurs go through the crowd when the song finishes and he sets his guitar down to pull out a deck of cards.
But the audience gets into it after a few minutes, applauding when he pulls an attendee’s card from his shirt pocket.
Then he picks up his guitar for another song, and so the set continues, alternating between songs and magic tricks.
By the end, he has people straining to raise their hands, clamoring to be volunteers for his next trick.
Arthur Frost just might have a long career ahead of him after all.
Art saves “Green Thread” for last. The second he strums the familiar melody, Greensteaders burst into cheers and applause.
With a silent look of understanding, Marina and I decide this is the perfect moment to break out the caramel apple.
We take turns passing it back and forth, savoring every morsel of this sweet, nutty dessert we thought was lost to us forever.
Just like at the brewery, I fall under the song’s spell, lulled by Art’s baritone voice.
I lean back in my chair, chin propped in hand, and let the words wash over me.
When he sings about holding onto the thread and waiting for love to be resurrected, I look around at the crowd gathered around the stage, at the booths stretching out throughout the park, the half-eaten caramel apple sitting between Marina and me, and think We did it .
We did hold on to the thread of Greenstead.
We did resurrect this dying town. Not permanently, I know.
We might not save the community center, and this might be the last apple festival Greenstead ever sees.
But for this weekend, today, this moment , Greenstead is more alive than it’s been in decades, and that’s something to be proud of.