by Terri Thayer
The pressure to be something smart and funny for Halloween was immense this year. In her old life in San Francisco, April had rarely dressed up. She’d been able to walk through the Castro and admire the headgear and outrageous outfits without feeling the need to compete. But she’d volunteered to help Suzi at the A.maz.ing Maze at the Pumpkin Express before she’d realized it would mean dressing up.
When Mitch had found out that she and the other stampers were raiding his aunt’s Halloween outfits, he offered to go as Sonny to her Cher or Caesar to her Cleopatra. But she didn’t want to flaunt their burgeoning relationship by dressing as a pair, so she had resorted to being a traditional fairy princess.
“Okay then, everyone know what they’re supposed to be doing?” Suzi hadn’t managed to get the dirt out from under her fingernails, so her Wonder Woman costume looked more incongruous than all-powerful. Still, her dark brown eyes seemed backlit by the unexpected glittering red headband that was keeping her short hair under control.
“April, you and Rocky will be manning the admittance table.”
Rocky gave her a cheesy thumbs-up.
“The charge for the A.maz.ing Maze is ten dollars. Make sure every person has their hand stamped. No one gets through without that. April designed a very special stamp, by the way.”
Suzi stamped out the image of the pumpkin coach and held it up for all to admire.
April felt Rocky shift her feet. She’d submitted a design, too, but a contest had been held at the nursery throughout September and customers had voted April’s design as their favorite. It was going to be a long day sitting next to Rocky. Suzi had moved over to a black-and-white striped shade structure.
“Deana, you’ll be under the tent right here. Mary Lou will help you with the make ’n’ take project for the kids’ corner. I’ve had my people give you four tables and plenty of chairs. You’ll be able to have a dozen kids at a time working on your Halloween bag project.”
“Thanks,” Deana said, wheeling the hand truck, fully loaded with Stamping Sisters boxes, over to the tables.
“What the heck?” Mary Lou said. “Who is that?”
The stampers turned and looked to see who Mary Lou was pointing at.
A nun was making her way from the back parking lot.
Suzi squinted, and Mary Lou modestly covered the bodice of her Mother Goose costume as though her boobs were still on display and not covered by the handkerchief Deana had inserted the day before.
The gait of the nun was uneven on the gravel drive, and April could see she was wearing construction boots. As the nun got closer, April was reminded of the San Francisco group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, but there was no evidence of glitter anywhere.
Rocky started to laugh, and April looked back at her in surprise.
“If it isn’t Sister Full of Crap,” Rocky said.
“Hello, ladies,” the nun said. The voice was familiar, but the face was nearly covered with the old-fashioned wimple. The wings on each side of the head had to be a foot and a half long. Only a pinched forehead, cheeks and a chin were visible.
Cheeks that weren’t quite smoothly shaved and a chin with a major cleft.
“Mitch?” April said. Rocky was slapping her knee, snorting with laughter.
“I didn’t think you’d do it, brother,” she said.
“You dared me,” he said. Mitch did a turn, then twirled his rope belt.
No one was more shocked than April. Last night he’d said he would be reprising his Axl Rose imitation, coming dressed as a rock star.
“What do you think?” Mitch asked her. “I’m all about raising as much awareness as I can for the Winchester Homes for Hope. People will have a hard time saying ‘Don’t bother me’ to a nun, don’t you think?”
“All you have to do is open your mouth and the surprise will be over,” Rocky said, wiping tears out of her eyes. “But it was worth it, just seeing you walk across that parking lot. I wish Mom and Dad could see you. Where’s my camera?”
Rocky took a few pictures with her cell phone as Mitch posed.
Suzi was checking a list she had in her hand. “Now that we’re all here, let’s go over the specifics,” she said.
The stampers moved closer. Mitch took April’s hand and pulled it back through a slit in the habit. She felt herself redden and looked to see if anyone noticed, but all eyes were on Suzi.
She let herself enjoy the heat from his hand, rubbing the callous on his thumb. His hands had a lot of character, the hands of a man who worked hard.
Suzi held up a small booklet made from several pages of orange paper folded in half and stapled together. A black-and-white logo of a train going through the grin of a jack-o’-lantern adorned the front.
“This is a Pumpkin Express passport. Each person will get one of these at any of the seven locations: the Apple Cider Barn, the Parkinson’s Auto Sales Haunted Train Ride, the Cramer’s Donuts Tunnel of Love, and the rest. The customer will collect a stamp from each place.”
To illustrate her point, Suzi opened to the page that said “A.maz.ing Maze” and stamped April’s pumpkin coach image on the page.
Suzi continued. “The customer goes to each of the locations today and gets their passport stamped. Each stop has a unique mark. The passenger has until the end of today to collect a stamp from each place. In any order. We don’t care where they start or end.”
She passed the booklet to Mary Lou, who studied it and handed it to Deana.
“When a customer has collected all the stamps, they turn in their completed passports to get in the drawing for the prizes. The last place they hit takes their passports. If that’s us we hang on to them until the Pumpkin Express meeting on Wednesday. The PE vendors will randomly pick the winners from the finishers.”
The stampers passed the book around and back to Suzi.
Suzi shifted. Her face was grave. “Thanks, you guys, for volunteering your time. If I had to pay for the extra help, I wouldn’t be able to turn a profit. I hope you know what it means for my business to be a part of the Pumpkin Express. Last year they had one thousand people take part, and they’re expecting more this year. So I really appreciate what you’re doing. It’s a big boon to my business.”
“Of course,” Rocky said. “Who would miss a chance to dress up as a witch and stamp people’s hands all day?”
Suzi smiled through the tears that had been building. She wiped her eyes hard. Then she laughed and said, “The grand prize is a trip for two to the Pocono Lodge.”
“I heard they brought back the round beds with the satin sheets and fur bedspread,” Rocky whispered.
“Did they dig up Dean Martin, too?” Mitch countered.
Rocky sneered. “Yeah. Dead, he still looks better than Jerry Lewis alive.”
Suzi continued. “Also, in the prize package, thanks to the generosity of the Stamping Sisters line of products, we’ve got a complete starter set of Halloween stamps with papers and postcards.”
“Nice donation, Dee,” April said.
Deana shook her head. “It’s not from me. My boss, Trish Taylor, donated it. She’s actually giving us a boatload of stuff. This season’s, too, not last year’s line.”
“Impressive.” April’s stomach did a little flip at the mention of Trish. Monday was right around the corner, and she had work to do before her presentation was ready.
“Mitch, you’re doing purely informational, right?” Suzi said. “I’ve given you a table, and you can set up wherever you want.”
He nodded. “I’ve got a box of flyers and other info in my car. I’ll go get it and then put myself somewhere between the admittance table and the kids’ table. I want to be able to talk to people when they come in. If their kids are occupied, that’s even better for me.”
Mitch continued. “I may have to duck out for a time in the afternoon. Lupo Brothers is digging our well. Yesterday they’d gone down two hundred feet without hitting water. Keep your fingers crossed they get there today. Each additional
ten feet costs me a hundred bucks.”
“You can’t afford for them to go much deeper, can you?” April asked, her voice tinged with concern.
His sister leaned forward, the hairs on her arm electric as she murmured, “It’s all about getting deeper, is it?”
April blushed. Rocky loved to wind her up, as her mother’s boyfriend, Clive, would say. She tried not to fall into Rocky’s trap. After all, there was nothing untoward or salacious about her relationship with Mitch, and she wouldn’t let Rocky pretend there was.
“Your brother’s worried about the finances,” April said.
“As usual,” Rocky replied.
“Doors open in a half hour. Get yourselves set up,” Suzi said.
Deana set out the kits she’d made up for the kids. With Mary Lou and Rocky helping, she didn’t need April, so after April laid out the stamp and pad and cash box on the admittance table, she wandered over to Mitch’s table. He had tacked up pictures of smiling people on the poles, along with his mission statement. His goal was to enable families to use home ownership as a springboard out of poverty.
Mitch stripped off his habit. The headgear had left him with a red ring around his face and he scrubbed his hands over it. “It’s too damn hot for the Mother Teresa getup. We’re supposed to set a record.”
“Attendance?” April said.
“No,” Mitch said. “Temperature.”
“It’s October twenty-fourth, for crying out loud,” April said. “Where’s the snap in the air? The pumpkins are going to rot on the vine in the hot sun.” She fanned herself with a brochure that contained an application to be a Winchester house owner. Mitch took it away from her, smoothing the edges and placing it on the pile with the others. She felt bad. He’d spent a lot of money on his marketing materials.
“Enjoy the warm weather while you can,” Mitch reminded her. “You’ll be singing a different tune about the middle of February when the snow is up to your waist and you haven’t seen the sun for sixteen consecutive weeks.”
April had forgotten what the winters were like here in northeast Pennsylvania, but she’d been really looking forward to fall. At home in California, she’d often dreamed about the smell of wood smoke, the variety of red colors and the crunch of dry leaves under her feet. She missed the sense of purpose and activity that came with the onset of fall. The feeling that you had to hurry, get your house in order because winter was coming. The urgency.
This year, however, September and October had been hot and humid. The leaves had been green one week, slightly reddish the next, and then knocked down by a three-day rainstorm fed by Hurricane Jesse that lingered over the Atlantic.
So much for the four-season lifestyle so envied by her California friends.
“Hey, bro,” Rocky called. Mitch turned to hear what came next. “No flirting with the hired help,” she said, indicating April.
Nice, April thought. Now I’m the hired help.
“We were exchanging information about the weather,” Mitch said.
“Boring-est pick-up line ever,” Rocky said.
Mitch replied, “That because it wasn’t a line. It was conversation—a pleasant verbal exchange that involves two people, not just one sparring partner.”
Rocky made a face at her brother.
“Are you sure you’re not the Wicked Witch or Elvira?” Mitch asked. “It’s hard to tell the difference.”
Suzi walked over to where they were standing. “Come with me. We have a few moments before opening. I have coffee and breakfast for you.”
They walked back to the stone silo next to the gift shop. Inside coffee, fruit and bagels had been laid out.
The silo hadn’t been used for storage for years, but April was sure she could still smell the yeasty grain. The inside was cool and dark until Suzi switched on the lights.
The round room had been fitted with tables that echoed the curve of the building. When April saw Mitch run his hand along the maple top, she suspected. When she bent down to look at the joins underneath, she knew.
“One of your pieces?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“Very cool,” she said. “How did you get the wood to bend to the shape of the walls?”
“It took days of clamping and wetting. Very arduous. Luckily, Suzi wasn’t in a hurry.”
“That’s an amazing feat,” April said. She was in awe of Mitch’s skills. And for now, he was not only working as a furniture maker but building his homes, too. It was a lot.
“Did you like Xenia?” Mitch asked, spearing a grapefruit section.
“I did,” April said, helping herself to the cream cheese. “Turns out she works for Queen Trish, like Deana.”
“And you, maybe.” He smiled at her. Mitch had encouraged her to sell her line of stamps.
“Maybe, but Xenia doesn’t sell the stamping line. Trish is the distributor of Bella cosmetics.”
“Oh right,” Mitch said. “I remember that from Xenia’s financials.”
Mitch followed the HUD guidelines for low-income housing and vetted each applicant thoroughly.
“She’s so excited about the kids’ rooms. Greg is into airplanes, Jonathan loves cars and Tomas is into trains, so I did a stamp for each and showed her how we could do a transportation theme border. She was full of ideas about color. She wants me to teach her how to make stamps. She’s going to stamp the walls in the boys’ room herself.”
“Good,” Mitch said. “I can count that toward their sweat equity. Each family has to contribute so many hours to their home, you know.”
April hadn’t known, but that made sense. People were always more invested in a project that they worked on themselves.
“I’ll be happy to get Xenia started and let her do it.”
“Great, ’cause I could use you to help me stain the kitchen cabinets.”
Suzi cut in. “Mitch, I hear you talking about your houses. Give us an update. The first one is almost done?”
“It is,” he said.
“But what did I see in the paper yesterday?” Deana said. “They’re calling for you to stop?” she asked.
Mitch looked up from the coffee he was carefully preparing for himself. He’d waited for the women to serve themselves before he’d stepped up. One half packet of raw sugar and enough milk to make it look like warmed over mud puddle.
He said, “As you all know, it’s been an uphill battle getting this house built. Because of the low-income component, people assume that the houses are going to Mexican immigrants. Illegals. There was another letter to the editor yesterday calling us un-American.”
April hadn’t heard about this. He was clearly upset by the newest bump in the road.
“But the Villarreals have lived in the valley for years,” she said, outraged. “All their kids were born right here.”
“I know. In fact, Pedro and Xenia are second-generation Americans. The only place they immigrated from was the Bronx. And there’s nothing illegal about that.”
“How can people be against a nice family getting a new house?” Deana said.
Mitch shrugged. “The sad fact is that there are people in our community that don’t believe everyone is created equal.”
The stampers were quiet. Mitch let that sink in. “I don’t care about the politics. I’m just trying to help a few families get a house, and a better life.”
Deana gave him a hug. The others lined up. Mitch looked abashed. He knew the stampers were all behind him. He was preaching to the choir.
Suzi said, “Listen up. I’ve arranged for a surprise, one that I hope will get the community behind your project.”
Everyone looked in her direction, hearing the excitement in her voice.
She continued. “You’ve all heard of Scott Ferguson and his Highland Fling show? Well, he’s the unofficial host of the Pumpkin Express. He makes an appearance at all the venues. The good news is he’s agreed to be here to cut the ribbon to the A.maz.ing Maze. And . . .” She drew out the word. “I just heard thi
s morning that the local news will be here to cover the opening.”
CHAPTER 4
This was good news. Local news coverage for Suzi’s nursery could only help.
“That’s great, Suzi,” Rocky said. “Looks like they’re here.”
They walked back outside just as the local news van pulled in. A reporter and a camera guy got out and began to unload equipment. The reporter, a twenty-something woman with a smile planted on her face, started toward them.
“Suddenly, I’m nervous,” Suzi said.
“You’ll be fine,” Deana said.
Suzi met the reporter halfway as the rest of the stampers watched from their spots under the tent. She smiled back at them.
“You should go on TV, bruddha,” Rocky said.
“Huh?” he asked, squinting into the sun. “No way.”
“I’m telling you. That reporter?” Rocky said. “Jocelyn Jones. She’s an up-and-comer. She knows a good story when she sees one. That’s what you are.”
“That news station hasn’t given me the time of day,” Mitch said. “I’ve been trying to get them to do a story on the Hope Homes since day one. Nothing. Nada.”
“You’ve got to go on air, Mitch,” Rocky said. “Simple arithmetic. The more people that see you, the better off you’re going to be. I’m going to suggest it.”
She walked off, leaving Mitch staring after her. He put on a baseball cap, then took it off and ran his fingers through his hair. He succeeded in making it more disheveled, but that just kicked up his sexiness a notch. April caught his gaze and smiled at him.
Suzi pointed at Mitch and waved him over. He took a sip of his coffee and acknowledged her with a tilt of his chin.
“Take one for the team,” Rocky said, landing a slap on his butt as she passed him. April stifled a groan.
A red Toyota Highlander hybrid pulled into the drive. Suzi walked over to greet the newcomer, leaving Mitch standing next to the reporter. April felt bad for him. Jocelyn Jones was giving instructions to her people and not paying any attention to Mitch.
Mary Lou pointed her chin at the SUV. “Mr. Scott Ferguson.”
The car door opened, and they all got a flash of bare knees. Even from here, April could see they were hairy. Man’s legs. A dress shoe topped by knee highs came out next.