five

Once they got closer to Rockville and had cell reception again, Francine made a phone call to William’s wife, Dolly, and learned that he was at Union Hospital in Clinton. Dolly was distraught and couldn’t seem to say anything about William’s condition, other than he was in a coma. Francine promised that she would be over soon to visit them.

On the outskirts of Rockville, the women drove past a large, gaudy billboard that read, Visit Mary Ruth’s in Rockville! As seen on Food Network! The accompanying photo was of the front of Mary Ruth’s Fabulous Sweet Shoppe at the festival.

“That’s odd,” Francine remarked. “I don’t remember seeing that yesterday when we came in.”

“You were driving.”

Two hundred yards later they drove by another sign, this one a temporary wooden placard painted in Mary Ruth Catering pink, set by the side of the road on private property. Try the corn fritter donuts, as seen on Food Network! Mary Ruth’s Fabulous Sweet Shoppe!

That just doesn’t sound like Mary Ruth, Francine thought. She turned her head, continuing to stare in disbelief at the sign as the SUV sped by. On the other hand, she knew the festival was anxious to capitalize on Mary Ruth’s notoriety. This would be just the kind of homespun advertising that would appeal to fair-goers. Perhaps Mary Ruth had nothing to do with it.

When the Covered Bridge Festival Committee approached Mary Ruth about operating a food booth at the Festival, what sealed the deal was the large home in downtown Rockville that a rich patron offered her as a place to stay and prep food. The patron hated the crowds and went on vacation during the event. Once Mary Ruth saw the mansion and its complete commercial kitchen, she’d agreed to do it. The rest of the Bridge Club had been willing to stay for ten days and pitch in to help get the food ready each day. Jonathan had stayed the night last night just to do the photo shoot in the morning.

The traffic backup got bad the instant they made it into Rockville. “It was a big mistake to come this way,” Joy said. “Francine, can you guide us around the back roads?”

Though she hadn’t grow up in the area because they’d moved to Evansville when she was a little girl, Francine had been there often over the years and knew her way around. Joy followed her directions until they hit another backlog. This one wasn’t moving.

Joy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “At least we’re closer than we were.”

“If we’re going to help Mary Ruth anytime soon,” Francine observed, “we’ll need to hoof it from here. Are you ready, ladies? Charlotte, do you feel up to it?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.” Charlotte grabbed her cane and, without hesitation, opened the back seat door.

Francine was glad Jonathan wasn’t with them. Charlotte was grumbly but Jonathan would have been worse. He hated lines of any sort, especially traffic. Plus, he’d said to her more than once that the whole concept of the Covered Bridge Festival had been corrupted in favor of the American public’s worst indulgences—purchasing junk and eating junk food.

It was hard for her to argue against that as Joy quickly parked and they got out in front of a pork rinds shack, which was next to a three-booth display of handmade clothing made exclusively for dressing wooden goose statues parked on geese fanciers’ front porches. The three booths were divided into themes like Halloween, Christmas, and sportswear. A sign hanging at the entrance to the shop read, If your goose is nude, I’m your dude.

The women had to walk two blocks to the Rockville courthouse grounds. Marcy made her apologies but said she needed to go work with another client. This surprised Francine, but when she thought about it, Marcy had never promised to help Mary Ruth. She was only there that morning because of Joy.

Francine had to keep Charlotte on task and prevent her from wandering into shops like the Beef Jerky Emporium, but they made it to the corner of Ohio and Jefferson. Mary Ruth’s Fabulous Sweet Shoppe was at the far corner from them. There was a huge line that went all the way up Jefferson Street past a tent full of vendors, but the crowd didn’t appear to be purchasing from the vendors. They were in line for something else. Francine and Charlotte went up Ohio and turned on Market Street.

The courthouse square was packed with people. A female duo near the stairs of the courthouse played guitar and sang country-
western songs with a Carrie Underwood feel. Groups with political ties sought to influence voters for the upcoming November election. Tour bus promoters hawked trolley tours of varying lengths covering the most popular of the bridges of Parke County, several “leaving from the square in just ten minutes!”

Despite Jonathan’s raw assessment of the festival, Francine loved the sights and smells of the Covered Bridge Festival vendor areas. It was eleven o’clock and she could smell the sweet smoke of the pulled pork vendor tending to his meats, see the steam rising from the huge pots of ham and beans cooked over outdoor wood fires by the local Presbyterian church, and hear the chugging of the popcorn vendor’s vat as it turned freshly popped popcorn into kettle corn. But the pièce de résistance was the heavenly scent of Mary Ruth’s latest creation: fried corn fritter donuts with honey-cinnamon glaze. Francine discovered her booth was the source of the line that wrapped itself down High Street and along Jefferson.

The pink food truck gleamed in the sunshine. Mary Ruth had “tricked out” her catering truck and made it more functional by replacing the warming equipment with a stove, fryer, and refrigerator. She’d had to lose some of the shelf space, but it needed to become a small, fully functional kitchen. The “booth” part was something the Festival had built for her in front of the door of the truck. It was a small shack that had a large window for handling money and selling the baked goods. The window also had room for a bakery-style display case of Mary Ruth’s offerings: the corn fritter donuts, gooey iced cinnamon rolls, five kinds of cookies, three types of scones, and her signature flourless chocolate cake.

Alice was heating up cinnamon rolls and icing them, Mary Ruth was frying the corn fritters to order and glazing them before handing them up to Toby, who was their front man, collecting the cash and distributing the product.

“It’s funny to see people’s reactions when Toby hands them their food,” Charlotte said. “There’s this hesitation, like, ‘Do I want to eat something from this big, rough-looking tattooed guy?’ but then they can’t resist and gobble it right up.”

“It helped that Mary Ruth made him clean up that neck beard. He’s starting to look handsome, especially when he’s not wearing all the piercings.”

Toby spotted the women and hailed them with a desperate look in his eyes. “I think you’d better help Grandma. We’re so backed up, the crowd is starting to get unruly and it’s not even lunchtime yet.”

“I thought we’d decided we weren’t going to offer lunchtime food,” Francine said.

“We’re not, but that doesn’t seem to have had an effect. We may want to start sedating them with samples.”

Charlotte looked doubtful. “That might only create more customers.”

Francine yanked her away. “I don’t think he needs to hear that right now,” she said sotto voce.

Joy snatched a corn fritter donut out of the display case. “We’ll get right on it,” she assured him. “I love these things,” she told Francine and Charlotte as she took a bite into it.

They had to go around the long line to enter the truck, but before they got there they heard Marcy. She was standing in front of a tent parked behind Mary Ruth’s place. She had changed into the red and navy-blue uniform of an old-fashioned carnival barker and was calling out in a shrill, high pitched voice, “Get your fortune told by the Great Merlina! Want to know your future? The Great Merlina sees all!”

Joy acted like she was not surprised by this and went in to help Mary Ruth, but Charlotte tugged on Francine’s arm and pulled her over. “This is your other client?” Charlotte asked Marcy.

Marcy rolled her eyes. “I agreed to help my niece publicize her fortune-telling business.” Then, as if she realized how rolling her eyes had come off, she added, “Not that she’s not good. She’s really good! She has THE GIFT.”

That sounded ominous, Francine thought. “How nice,” she said. “It looks like she’s got a line so she certainly doesn’t need us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Charlotte said. “I want to get my fortune told.” She winked at Marcy. “Can you get me a discounted price?”

“Uh, sure.”

Francine cleared her throat. “Charlotte, I think Mary Ruth might need you more. We need to get going.”

Charlotte jerked her hand back. “Not until after I get my fortune told. What price was that again, Marcy?”

“For you, ten dollars. The Great Merlina usually charges thirty for a fifteen-minute reading. Better get in line now or it’ll be noon before she can see you.” She gave Charlotte a nudge toward the line, now about five persons deep. “I’ll be there in a minute to see you get the discount rate. I need to talk to Francine.”

Charlotte made her way to the end of the line. The shadow of the Great Merlina’s tent absorbed her.

“Now that I’ve got you alone,” Marcy said, “are you looking for any more television appearances? You did a great job back there at the Roseville Bridge, and I think I could get you on a couple of—”

Francine was mad. Last night they’d worked together in the big mansion’s kitchen getting food ready for today and she thought she’d been pretty clear about this. “No. I don’t want to be on television.”

“Okay, radio, then. I could get you some radio spots.”

“No!”

Marcy exaggerated a sigh, though Francine could tell she had anticipated her response. “Look what happened when I finally succeeded in getting Mary Ruth on Chopped. If she hadn’t gotten to the dessert round, she would never have created the corn fritter donut.”

“She still didn’t win.”

“Winning is relative. Would you look at her line? Mark my words, when the folks at Food Network hear about this, they’ll come around to putting her back on the air.”

“I wasn’t aware you were still her publicist. I thought you only stayed the night last night because Joy needed you this morning.”

“Okay, I’m not her publicist, at least not in the way you’re thinking. But she’ll come around too.”

Francine wasn’t sure how to answer that. Was Marcy working for Mary Ruth on her own? That was a scary thought.

“You sure you don’t want a reading? I promise you she’s pretty good. And I’m not just saying that as a publicist or a relative.”

“I don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Let me take a look at your palm,” Marcy said, snatching up Francine’s hand and flipping it over. “She’s taught me a couple of things.”

Francine gave her a skeptical look but let her continue. “Let me guess, I have a short life line.”

Marcy’s eyebrows went up, far enough above the dark sunglasses that Francine could see them. “Quite the contrary. It’s a very long life line. Look at this.” Marcy traced it across Francine’s palm.

“Is that long?”

“Compared to most people’s, yes. In fact, it’s the longest I’ve seen. Not that I’ve seen that many. Only since I’ve been helping out Merlina. I think you should let her read your palm. Or your fortune with Tarot cards.”

“Or maybe we should invite her over for a slumber party and have a séance,” Francine said, and then regretted it immediately.

Marcy brightened. “Great idea! Does someone have that on their bucket list? Because the Great Merlina does séances too.”

“Nope. Bad idea. I was just kidding.” Francine averted her eyes. Alice, in fact, had this on her Sixty List. It was on the low end, somewhere in the forties, but it was there.

“Hmmm. Maybe I’ll just have to check that out with Charlotte.”

Francine spotted Toby hustling toward her. “Gotta go, Marcy. Good luck with the Great Merlina.” She scurried off. As she left, Marcy had a big smile on her face. Nothing good will come of this, Francine thought. She’d thought that before, too, and had been right. “What is it, Toby?”

“Grandma needs you right away.”

“What’s going on?”

“She’s nearly out of corn meal, she has zero time to go get some, and everyone’s starting to notice we’re running out of food.”

“Does she need me to run to the store?”

“Yes, but it may already be too late.”

A great murmuring swept the crowd at that moment, a wave of growing dissatisfaction like the stir of the ocean before it gathered strength and overwhelmed the shore. People began to push and crowd the booth. Fists struck the display case trying to seize whatever Fabulous Sweets were left. Joy gasped and took a step back from the register. Mary Ruth’s hands went up in the air in alarm. Alice gripped the cross medallion at her breast.

Francine swallowed hard.

And then a reedy voice from two booths over cried, “Free pork rind samples! Get your free pork rind samples here.” Another nearby vendor yelled, “I’ve got beef jerky, elk jerky, any kind of jerky you need!”

The crowd’s ear perked up.

And then they dispersed to other booths.

Francine exhaled.

And knew she would never look down on pork rind or beef jerky vendors again.