Talk of the Town (18 page)
“I’m in Amber Anderson’s hometown—someplace called Daily, Texas. Remember? I told you about that.” Actually, we’d had an entire conversation as I was packing to leave LA. Had he forgotten completely?
“I remember,” he said, but his tone said that this was all new information. “So, what time are you getting into LAX tonight?”
My spirits sank with the renewed realization that I wouldn’t be winging my way back to LA for a few days. “I’m here in Daily through the weekend. Thanks to Ursula. She has crowned me advance man and Amber’s handler until we have this hometown segment bagged. Didn’t you get my voice mail messages last night?”
“I haven’t listened to the voice mails yet.”
Thanks a lot
. “Just delete it all. I was emotional.”
He bit into something crunchy. “So you’ll be gone through the weekend?”
“It looks that way.”
He muttered a regretful, “Huh,” and I felt fluttery again. He missed me. “There’s a party Saturday night up the coast.”
“What?” I felt the sting of salt in my traveling wounds. While I was stuck here, David was having fun. “A party where?”
“The client I was with last night—she’s having some kind of an art charity thing. Lots of money there, if you know what I mean. Good place to network.”
I barely heard the part about
art
and
charity
. I was still stuck on
she
and
the client I was with last night. She?
Something animalistic and fiercely territorial growled inside me.
She?
“I can’t get back by tomorrow night. Amber’s coming to Austin Saturday morning, and we film her big reveal at the rodeo Saturday afternoon, then her hometown concert Saturday evening. There’s no way I can make it.”
Please, please, please say you won’t go to the party without me
.
“That’s all right. I can do it solo. You probably wouldn’t enjoy it much, anyway. I’ll be working the crowd.”
An uneasiness started in my throat and prickled all the way to my stomach.
What else will you be working besides the crowd?
The question surprised me. It sounded like something Ursula would come up with. Ursula thought the worst of everybody.
I trusted David. Didn’t I?
Outside, Carter had made it through the entry line and was waiting for the gatekeeper to tear his ticket.
“I’d better go.” Both David and I said it at the same time.
He chuckled. “Have a good time in Austin, babe.”
I’m not in Austin
. “Yeah, thanks.” We exchanged the customary round of
I love you
, and
miss you, miss you, too
, then hung up. I didn’t tell him to have a good time at the party. Tucking the cell phone in my purse, I rolled up the window and got out of the car.
By the time I’d purchased a ticket and made it to the gate, Carter was disappearing into the crowd somewhere near the Kiddie Korral. The old man taking tickets was painfully slow. I jittered impatiently as he chatted with the fairgoers in line ahead of me. Hands trembling, he carefully took each ticket and ripped it in half, then held both sides close to his Coke-bottle glasses, determining which part should be returned to the customer while inquiring as to people’s business at the fair and telling stories about his years as a ticket taker.
“Been here seventy-one years.” His voice echoed against the gatekeeper’s shack, gravelly and rough, unnaturally loud, in a way that reminded me of my grandpa Florentino when his hearing aid batteries went dead. “Started when I was eighteen years old. A’course, I was a strappin’ fella then. I helped set up them midway rides. Can’t do that no more. Y’all be sure to take a ride on that Ferris wheel, y’hear?”
He paused to point a crooked finger at the teenage couple he was holding hostage in the gateway. “Met my girl on that Ferris wheel. Whoo-wee! She was a dandy, but she had a feller on ’er arm. I made me a plan with the ol’ boy that was runnin’ the ride, and when that girl stepped on the platform, I slipped right in beside her while her beau was givin’ over the tickets, and I says, ‘Pardon me, ma’am, I gotta test this here ride for safety. Mind if I go up with ya?’ That seat scooped us in, and we stalled out at the top, and the rest is history.” He tapped the young man on the shoulder. “You want to sweep a girl off her feet, son, you gotta be bold.”
The girl hip-butted her boyfriend, giving him a pointed look, and he sheepishly tucked the ticket stubs into his pocket as they moved on.
The next customers stepped up, and the old man began telling the kids a story about the first time he ever tasted cotton candy.
A tic started in my left eye, and I looked up and down the fence, searching for another entrance. This was like a traffic jam on an LA freeway, only without benefit of radio, BlackBerry, cell phone, or other means of self-distraction and multitasking. If I had to stand here a minute longer I was going to . . . to . . .
I had what Oprah commonly refers to as a
light bulb moment
. If I had to stand here a moment longer, nothing was going to happen. I wouldn’t explode, and Ursula wouldn’t storm into my office telling me how inept I was and threatening to fire me, and David wouldn’t holler that I was too slow releasing the jib and now the boat wouldn’t come smoothly around, and my mother wouldn’t go into a tirade about how I was always late for family gatherings.
I was here in Daily, Texas, on my own. A solo entity. Master of my own destiny, at least until tomorrow, when the crew arrived with Amber.
Today, I had no one to answer to but Manda Florentino, and actually, Manda was enjoying the bit of local color at the gate. She was thinking that, back when she was in news production, the ticket taker would have made an interesting human interest piece. No telling how much history, how many life experiences resided in that stooped-over body.
Never forget that everyone has a story,
Grandpa Florentino said to me when I went into the news business. For as long as I could remember, Grandpa Florentino had told stories of his trip to visit family in the little Italian village where he met my grandmother when she was only twelve years old. He was eighteen and had just joined the army. He traveled the world and then came back to marry the girl with the beautiful golden-brown eyes. In all his years away, he’d never forgotten her. She remained the center of his universe ever after.
I had always wanted that kind of love, but over the years I’d come to wonder if it was possible in the jaded world of talkshow relationship therapy, high divorce rates, and temporary commitments.
The ticket taker smiled as I passed through the gate and handed him my coupon. “Goin’ to the festival?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Nice day for it.”
“Yes, quite.”
He stopped halfway through tearing my ticket. “You’re not from around here, are ya?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You one of them TV people?”
The muscles in my spine stiffened instantly. “Pardon me?”
He finished tearing the ticket, then held both pieces close to his face to examine them. “Them TV people. You ain’t heard? Amber Anderson’s got on Final Five of
American Megastar
, and they’s gonna be lots of TV people. Supposed to be the biggest thing to happen since Elvis come to Daily.”
“Elvis has been here?” Now, that might be an interesting bit for the Amber story. Maybe this was one of those middle-of-nowhere towns in which Elvis performed before he made it big. Perhaps that had something to do with the decorations in my room.
“Why, shore ’nuf.” Tucking half of the ticket into the collection box, the attendant slapped a hand over the lid, then leaned on it. “Let’s see . . . that’s been ten, maybe twelve years ago.”
I took a step toward the gate, reaching for my ticket stub. Considering that Elvis had been dead for much longer than that, this probably wasn’t a lead worth pursuing. “Okay . . . well . . . I guess I should move on out of the way.” Pinching the ticket between my fingers, I tugged and it slipped free. “Okay, well, thanks.”
He lifted a hand and waved. “Have a great day. Don’t miss the pony pull and the Ferris wheel.”
“I won’t.” I turned around and hurried toward the giant metal cowboy, in search of Carter.
I found him outside the Kiddie Korral. He’d squatted down by the fence and was helping a little boy work up the courage to feed the goats.
“Like this,” Carter said, and slipped his hand through the fence, holding his palm flat, with a few oats inside. “Put the food in the middle, and she won’t nibble your fingers.” A large white goat promptly demonstrated by politely eating out of Carter’s hand.
The little boy giggled and bounced up and down. Beside him, his mother smiled adoringly—either at her son or Carter or both. She poured some animal food onto the boy’s hand, and Carter’s pupil quickly gained a new furry friend. The boy’s mother tucked her hands into her back pockets, leaned close to Carter and said something, then graced him with a flirty smile. Grinning, he shook his head at whatever invitation she’d offered, then moved along.
I followed at a distance as Carter meandered down the midway, stopping long enough to buy himself a corndog, chat with a balloon vendor, enjoy a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade, and watch a trio of kids take a camel ride. After the midway, he moved on to the rodeo arena, looking for all the world like a man enjoying a carefree day at the fair. If he’d come here with any agenda, he certainly hid it well.
As he stood at the fence, casually observing a horse-showing contest, I began, once again, to question my earlier suppositions. He hardly seemed to be scoping out locations, poking around for information about Amber, or waiting for her to arrive. He wasn’t even answering his cell phone, which rang several times. He only checked the numbers with a seeming lack of concern, then tucked the phone back into his pocket. He appeared to have no agenda at all, which meant there was no reason for me to be following him. I did, after all, have work to do.
Even though I knew that was true, I lingered in the shadow of the bleachers, watching him brace a foot casually on the fence as one horse-showing contest finished and another one, involving old men in overalls and harnessed teams of ponies, began.
I found myself moving out of the shadows, wishing Carter would turn around and see me there.
It’s a good thing Donetta’s nephew, Kempner Rollins, is the new coach at Daily High. Without Coach Kemp and his baseball team, the work on the hotel rooms wouldn’t have come along like it did. Those boys came in there and got busy cleaning things out, lickety-split. Up and down the stairs they went, carrying Christmas decorations and boxes of leftover yard sale treasures. Donetta was in such a hurry to have the rooms cleared, she told them to throw that stuff away, wonder of wonders, because Donetta’s a packrat to beat all. She’s the only person I know who’d hoard the leftover junk from a three-day church rummage sale.
She wouldn’t let the boys throw out the prom dresses and tiaras that were stacked in room 4-B, even though I wanted her to. Those things were the flotsam from the last hare-brained Donetta Bradford plan, which was hatched when Donetta heard that the ladies in Betty Prine’s Literary Society planned to ride a float in the Founder’s Day parade, dressed in red hats and purple feather boas, like one of them classy Red Hat Societies. Next thing I knew, Donetta’d decided the gals from our Friday night bunko and book exchange group ought to have a float in the parade, too. She borrowed a flatbed trailer, found us a driver, bummed some hay from the feedstore, and named us the Daily Tiara Bunko and Book Society. She cleaned out every Goodwill store within eighty miles, buying up old prom dresses and used tiaras so that we could ride in style, which we did. We paraded down Main Street like royalty, singing, “Zippity doo dah,” all the way. We won the trophy for most entertaining float and put Betty Prine’s snooty Literary Society to shame.
I thought maybe Donetta would give those dresses to the cheerleading girls when they showed up to help with the hotel rooms, but she put the cheerleaders to work cleaning trim, mopping floors, and getting the furniture dusted. Things progressed along fast, except for a short distraction with hauling out the prom dresses. When Coach Kemp saw his players coming down the stairs in gowns and tiaras, he put a stop to it real quick. He crossed his arms over that big chest of his and told those boys if they liked the fancy dresses so much, they could wear ’em to the baseball game against McGregor next week. The boys shucked their dresses and tiaras and got back to work.
It wasn’t long before Verl had the crew rolling paint on walls. Verl took charge of those kids like he’d done it all his life, and they actually listened to what he had to say. That was surprising, considering that I’d seen more than one of them make fun of Verl when he was staggering drunk around town. Verl’s own grandsons, Andy, Amos, and Avery, didn’t even want him to come to sports events over at the school because his behavior embarrassed them so, and they had enough problems fitting in already. It can’t be easy being the kid wearing hand-me-down clothes that smell like a house with a hundred cats locked inside. Having your grandpa pie-eyed and falling down the bleachers at the ball games doesn’t help, either.