Chapter 12 – GLENNA #4
“I managed for a while there.”
She grins. “He’ll keep turning up like a bad penny, this one.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“You seen Deja around?” she asks Cash.
“Over by the rides, last I saw.”
“Keep an eye out?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She offers him her cheek for a quick peck and goes back to her phone.
Brice is standing a few feet from the booth, leaning against a lamp post, chatting with Elizabeth Wall, Kellum’s first wife. Well, I guess now she’s Elizabeth Hardt again. She’s still Elizabeth Wall on Channel 13. It’s her brand so she can’t change back to her maiden name. That must suck.
I only know her from TV and the coffee shop. She comes across “brassy” as my grandma called it. Today, she’s wearing a toffee pantsuit with an autumnal scarf, her blonde news anchor haircut blown out and sprayed motionless despite the periodic gusts of wind.
Brice’s arms are folded, and he’s casually leaning, listening to her. His eyes keep wandering over the crowd.
Cash and I stop as we pass.
“This your one time a year?” Cash asks him as they shake hands.
“Uh, huh. Dad needed help with the set up.”
Elizabeth cocks her head.
“Brice’ll only come into town once a year now,” Cash explains. “That’s his limit.”
“Bored with us?” Elizabeth’s smile is bland, and she’s clearly just making small talk, but there’s such a harsh edge to her. She’s fine on the news, but in person, she puts your back up.
“I wouldn’t say that.” His face is guarded, and his eyes still flicker to the folks passing.
“I’m trying to convince Brice to let me do a feature on his sculptures for Stonecut in the Morning .” She turns her TV-friendliness on Cash. “But I’m afraid we might be too small-time for him, now.”
“You gotta call his publicist,” Cash says. “Pretty soon, if I want to hang out, I’m gonna have to call his publicist.”
Brice smiles politely, his expression unchanged. He’s always been reserved. I wouldn’t call him shy. He’s more serene. He sees a lot and speaks little. That kind of guy.
And he’s definitely distracted. Looking for someone.
Cash and Elizabeth banter back and forth a few more times. I snap some pictures of the Carrolls’ booth and the festivalgoers.
It’s a total coincidence that I get the shot.
Cash is saying he needs to get me to the bake-off, and at the same time, Brice suddenly perks up.
A trio of women in prairie skirts and long, baggy sweaters pass, each carrying a crate of what looks like jars of preserves.
The women are thin, and they keep their heads down. They’re Sunshiners.
I run into them very occasionally on the north face of the mountain, picking berries or chopping up a felled tree.
The Sunshiners are a commune. Or a cult.
It’s not really clear. They only come to town to sell produce at the farmers’ market or shop at Family Discount.
No one knows what they call themselves. People call them Sunshiners because the old white vans they use all have faded bumper stickers of cartoon suns in sunglasses.
Brice is staring at the last Sunshiner to make her way past. She’s my age. Her brown skin is freckled, and she wears her long hair curly and loose.
She doesn’t look up when she passes Brice, but my camera captures it all. The soft flutter of her eyelids. The bob of her throat as she swallows. The tightening of her slender fingers on her crate.
My camera also catches Brice as his arms fall to his side, his chest broadens, and his always guarded, always bemused expression comes alive and alert.
I recognize her. She’s the willowy woman emerging from the wood in his studio. I focus my camera on Cash. He’s completely oblivious.
Well, he’s focused on me.
“Ready?” he asks, jerking his chin toward the gazebo.
I nod.
The Sunshiners have passed, and Brice’s arms are folded, his expression shuttered again.
We say goodbye, Elizabeth Hardt gives me a breezy hug even though we haven’t said a word to each other, and Cash and I continue on to the bake-off.
I lose track of him for a while as I take pictures of each of the finalists in the pie, cake, bread, and cookie categories. Then I catch sight of him getting chatted up by some ladies, eating a slice of pumpkin pie while a woman slides a piece of chocolate cake onto his paper plate.
He wants to talk.
What do I say?
I shouldn’t get into another relationship three months after almost a decade with Toby. That would be the conventional wisdom.
It was a rebound. A one-night stand. But if I’m really, truly honest with myself, it didn’t feel like that. Not at all.
Anyone I asked would tell me to take things slow. Or call it off. But I don’t wanna. Not in the slightest. I want to do it. Go for it. Throw caution to the wind. I want to know what that feels like.
And underneath all of the mess in my head, I’m coming to an inescapable and unexpected truth that boggles me—I actually like Cash Wall. As a person. I like him more than anyone I’ve ever liked before.
I like him like I like taking pictures. When did that happen? How?
My brain whirls, and my belly jitters, and I wander around the bandstand snapping pics of apple crumbles and strawberry rhubarb pies. My stomach grumbles. A bite of doughnut isn’t gonna hold me ’til this evening.
I’m thinking about food and Cash, back and forth, when a tentative touch on my forearm draws my attention. I lower my camera.
Lil Willis is standing by my shoulder, smiling. Mrs. Wall is a step behind her. She’s definitely not smiling.
“Looks good, doesn’t it.” Lil turns her smile on the table of fudge.
“Yes, ma’am.” Actually, after an afternoon in the sun, they all look like melted lumps of wax, but they still smell delicious.
Lil reaches out, her thin hand shaking, and she picks up the third-place winner and pops it in her mouth. Mrs. Wall smothers a gasp.
“Tastes good, too. Looks like shit, though.”
My gasp gets lodged in my throat. Lil Willis just said shit .
“Yes, ma’am.” I cannot think of anything else to say.
“I was just telling Kelly here that I want our picture taken with the cakes. You’ll help us out, won’t you, Glenna?”
Mrs. Wall draws her lips back from her teeth. I’m sure it’s meant as a smile, but it’s definitely reminiscent of a raccoon guarding a trashcan.
She hates me.
I glance around, but Cash is MIA. No help from that quarter.
I kind of dumbly lead the way to the cake table. Lil Willis leaves her hand on my arm. There’s hardly any weight to the touch. It’s like she’s slipping away in plain view. My heart hurts.
Mrs. Wall follows grudgingly. I use the space to bend over and whisper in Miss Lil’s ear. “I’m sorry.”
Her grip tightens, a gentle squeeze and release. “No need for you to be. We all make our choices.”
She lets go and sinks to the bench in front of the picnic table covered with cakes. It’s draped in a red and white tablecloth, and the cakes are displayed on shoeboxes wrapped in fall-covered foil. More than a few are wilting or listing to port.
Miss Lil pats the seat next to her. “Come on, Kelly.”
Mrs. Wall perches on the edge of the bench, crossing her legs at the ankle and angling her knees toward her friend. Her spine is stiff, and her chin is high.
Miss Lil won’t have it. She winds her arm through Mrs. Wall’s and pulls her close.
I raise the camera and frame a shot. Just before I click, Miss Lil says in her normal, everyday voice, “Quit being so stuck up, Kelly. Your future daughter-in-law is gonna take that son of yours to Thanksgiving at her dad’s place if you don’t take that stick out of your ass.”
I snap a picture just as Mrs. Wall’s eyes bug like a cartoon character. “Lil,” she snaps.
“I’m not mad, Kelly. Why are you? And you holding a grudge for no good reason isn’t gonna solve a damn thing. You want all your grandbabies at the farm for Christmas, don’t you?”
Miss Lil pastes a wide smile on her face and tilts her head just so.
“Then make nice with Glenna here. Cash has been pining after her since they were kids, which you would’ve noticed if you hadn’t been so worried about the girl who—by the way—can more than fend for herself.” She’s means Dina, and she’s right.
I keep snapping shots. Mrs. Wall looks like she got slapped in the face with a fish.
“You can’t just say things like this, Lil,” Mrs. Wall finally manages to say.
Miss Lil sighs. “I’m dying, Kelly. I can say whatever the hell I want.”
And then there’s a series of shots that I know in an instant will be keepers.
Mrs. Wall’s forehead drops, and she rests it on Miss Lil’s temple. Mrs. Wall’s eyes close. Creases appear at the corners. It’s a look of pain and sorrow and love.
Miss Lil stares straight at the camera, her chapped lips curved in a gentle smile, her sunken eyes dark, her gaze steady and certain. She’s not afraid. Her curled hand rests on Mrs. Wall’s thigh, just above her knee. There’s reassurance in the comfortable touch and love as well.
“Don’t say that,” Mrs. Wall mumbles.
So Miss Lil sits silently as I snap a few more shots.
At some point, Cash comes to stand beside me, and his mother puts her fake niceness back on. It doesn’t get to me as much as it did, though. I make an effort to be fake nice back.
Eventually, Mr. Wall shows up and escorts his wife and Lil back to the fair. Cash walks with me as I take pictures of the cookie table, and just as I finish, the trumpet sounds. Everyone stops what they’re doing to head down the Riverwalk toward the field across from the elementary school.
It’s pumpkin chuckin’ time.
We join the parade of folks abandoning their booths and the lines for rides.
As the crowd gets thicker, Cash grabs my hand.
We pass the fishing pier by the historical society, and the procession swells with drunks pouring out of the beer garden.
They’re raucous like always, howling and braying, swinging from the lamp posts along the promenade.