Gina kicked the Honda into a low gear and gritted her teeth at the slow, dusty ride down Twin Branch Gap. She’d gotten a late start leaving Atlanta. It was nearly ten o’clock. Would he be out on the river still? And after her performance just a day earlier, would he even be willing to listen to what she had to say?
She saw the turn-in for the meadow and pulled up, but knew immediately it was too late. The Vagabond was gone. She got out of the car and walked over to the spot where it had been less than twenty-four hours ago. The only sign that he’d even been here were the ruts in the grass and meadow flowers.
“Damn,” she cried. She ran over to the bluff and looked down. The river flowed below, but no fisherman stood on its banks, flicking a fly back and forth over the water.
She pulled into the parking lot at the Gas ’n’ Go and ran inside. Annette, her informant from the previous day, stood at the cash register, unloading bags of potato chips and clipping them to a metal rack.
“You find your friend yesterday?” the old lady asked.
“Unfortunately.” Gina winced. “I kind of made a mess of things. I came up here this morning to apologize, but his trailer’s gone. I know it’s not your job to keep track of Tate Moody, but I was wondering—”
“He’s at the Bargain Mart on 441,” Annette said promptly. “Which is where I’d be too, if I didn’t have this durned store to run. Every woman in this county is headed over there right now, to watch him and that dog of his demonstrate some kinda mini deep-fat fryer. They’re givin’ away hot dogs and Cokes too, but I’d settle for a front row seat if I just had somebody to mind this place.”
“Maybe your boss wouldn’t mind if you took an early lunch?” Gina suggested, looking down at her watch. “It’s nearly noon.”
Annette clipped the last of the potato chip bags to the rack. She went to the door and flipped the OPEN sign over so that it read CLOSED. “Now you’re talking, sister,” she said, holding the door for Gina. “It’s my durned store, and if I want to take lunch early, it’s nobody’s business but my own.”
Multicolored plastic flags waved gaily in the wind, and a uniformed sheriff’s deputy stood in the middle of the highway, directing a logjam of cars and trucks into the Bargain Mart parking lot.
Gina circled the lot three times before finding a parking space, at the farthest end of the lot.
As she entered the store with a knot of women—on walkers and wheelchairs, pushing strollers or tugging on the arms of husbands—a smiling senior citizen in a blue vest offered her a bag of popcorn.
She took the bag and absentmindedly ate a handful as she followed the women toward the back of the store, where a portable stage had been set up in the housewares department.
Abandoning every vestige of good manners Birdelle had ever taught her, Gina elbowed her way through the throng until she stood at the far right edge of the stage.
A makeshift kitchen counter held a mountain of boxed mini deep-fat fryers, and standing in the middle of the counter was Tate Moody, in the flesh.
He wore a bright blue golf shirt with the Bargain Mart logo embroidered on the sleeve, and khaki cargo shorts. There was a cordless mike clipped to the collar of the shirt, and Moonpie sat quietly at the edge of the stage, looking expectantly out at the audience.
“Now, folks,” Tate was saying, holding up a big green mixing bowl. “There’s about a hundred different recipes for fish breading and hush puppies. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one that’s worth making—and that’s the one my mama taught me when I was no bigger than a tadpole.”
The crowd laughed on cue. Tate held up a bag of stone-ground cornmeal and dropped two handfuls into the bowl. He poured in some buttermilk and, with a fork, quickly mixed up the batter.
“Now,” he said, looking up and flashing an intimate smile, “we’ll wait a minute for the oil to heat up in our Fry-Baby. We’re using peanut oil here today, but you could use whatever oil you happen to have on hand. While we wait, does anybody have any questions they’d like to ask?”
“What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught up here in the mountains, and what’d you catch him on?” a man in a green-and-yellow John Deere hat called out.
“Caught a brownie that weighed seven pounds on a woolly bugger last summer,” Tate said. “I’ve been over on the Soque for the past couple days, but didn’t do much good.”
“What’s your favorite thing to cook?” a hefty woman in a flowered blouse asked.
“Hmm,” Tate said. “I guess it’d have to be bluefish. Hard to beat fresh-caught bluefish with just a squeeze of lemon and fresh herbs cooked on a grill over a wood fire.”
Gina’s hand shot up. “Hey, Tate,” she called. “I thought you liked to bake pies. Especially pecan.”
“Who said that?” He stepped out from behind the counter and peered into the audience.
“Right here,” Gina called, stepping forward.
Moonpie gave a short, happy yip of recognition and wagged his tail wildly.
“You,” Tate said, frowning down at her. “Why aren’t you in New York?”
“Hey, Tate,” a woman to Gina’s right called. “I read in People magazine about that Food Fight you did this summer. How did it turn out? Who won?”
“She did.”
“He did,” Gina said loudly.
“Ignore her,” Tate said. “She’s unstable.”
“I’m not going to New York,” Gina said, looking up into his face. “Not without you, anyway.”
“Hey, Tate,” hollered a stringy old man at the back of the crowd. “Your Fry-Baby’s smokin’.”
“So’s he.” A trio of teenage girls standing beside Gina dissolved in a fit of giggles.
Tate walked right up to the edge of the stage and looked down at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Come down here, and I’ll tell you,” Gina said quietly. “I’ve got a proposition I’d like to discuss.”
“Nope. You come up here. The last time you propositioned me, you took it back. I want witnesses this time.”
Gina’s face turned bright crimson. “No. Really. Look, this can wait till your demonstration is over.”
Tate held out his hand. “Now or never.” He looked out at the audience. “Right, folks?”
“Yeah!” the crowd yelled. “Do it!”
“Booooo,” the girls called.
“I’ll take him if you don’t want him,” yelled their ringleader, a petite blonde in an orange tube top and booty shorts.
Tate’s hand stayed right where it was. “You coming or not? I need to get those hush puppies going before this bunch turns on me.”
“Do it. Do it. Do it,” the crowd chanted. Moonpie ran around the stage in circles, barking wildly.
Reluctantly, Gina took his hand and allowed him to lead her up to the stage. Her pulse was racing like a gerbil on steroids.
“Now. What was it that you wanted to ask me?” Tate said. He lowered the mesh cooking basket into the vat, took a spoonful of the cornmeal batter, and carefully dropped it into the boiling oil. He rapidly added half a dozen more blobs of batter.
“See, folks?” he said cheerfully. “The Fry-Baby has a built-in thermostat, so you don’t have to worry about making sure the oil’s hot enough.”
“I don’t want to win,” Gina said, under her breath. “Not if it means losing you.”
Tate cupped his hand to his ear. “Come again? I don’t think the folks heard that.” He tapped the microphone clipped to his shirt collar. “Speak right in here, Reggie, so everybody can hear.”
She could feel herself blushing all the way to the roots of her hair. She edged as close to him as she could get. He smelled like soap and fried foods. He pulled her closer, his hand resting lightly on the curve of her spine.
Gina took a deep breath. “I said I love you, Tate Moody. I don’t want to move to New York I don’t want to win if it means losing you I think we should do a cooking show together.” She looked up into his hazel eyes and felt herself melting, madly, deeply, crazily.
The audience erupted in a wild chorus of cheers and applause.
She took another deep breath and spoke again into the mike. “Also, you forgot to say they should definitely use stone-ground white cornmeal, not yellow, and beat the egg whites separately to make the lightest possible hush puppy.”
“Quit while you’re ahead,” he ordered, and then he kissed her quiet.