Food Fair Frenzy

by Abby L. Vandiver

  Freckle Face with his best use analyses did share my sentiments.

  “Where was Mrs. Wagner?”

  “When?” he asked.

  “During the argument,” I said.

  “Oh. I dunno.”

  “She wasn’t there?”

  “No,” he shook his head and scratched the back of his neck.

  “Whose side do you think she was on?”

  He looked off for a minute then hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. But I do know them two always had their heads together. Mrs. Wagner and Mr. Bernard. So maybe. But I’m thinking it’s that pretty young blonde that had his ear about the land.”

  He was starting with the gossiping again.

  “What does all of this have to do with you digging up flowers?” I steered the conversation back to the real reason he had come looking for me.

  “Those are expensive flowers out in that field.” He looked down at his hands. “Some of them anyway.”

  “And so?”

  “And I was just getting clippings-”

  “You dug them up,” I said. “You didn’t clip anything.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I meant.” He rubbed his hand over his face.

  “You should say what you mean.” I waited for him to say something. “Well?”

  “Well, I’m going to start my own greenhouse.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s expensive to start. I need those flowers. Mr. Wagner would have killed me if he knew I took any flowers from that place. A field full of exotic, expensive flowers where no one comes but once a year.” He shook his head.

  “So now that he’s dead, you figured you’d just take them?”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t see the harm,” he said. “I only took a few and Mrs. Wagner will probably let Mr. Bernard bulldoze that place now.”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t in on the bulldozing part of it.”

  “Those two always had their heads together.”

  “Yeah, you said that already.” I put the last bit of food in my mouth, and downed my orange juice. “Well, I have to go,” I said. I got up and walked away, leaving my plate, and him at that table.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Miss Vivee insisted that we go to Walmart in her car. She hated having to climb into my jeep, and I hated trying to maneuver her boat-like car over dry land. So we had a stand-off. Both of us pouting, crossing our arms, and stomping our feet.

  She let out several longsuffering sighs and said, “Do you want me to die?” She flapped her arms down to her side, and tilted her head.

  “Die?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, her face looking weary. “I will die if I have to ride in that Jeep today.”

  “We’ll take your car, Miss Vivee,” I said. I saw the crinkle in her eye, when I gave in, happy she’d won. And I knew she’d only made that remark to get her way, but it worked. With all the death going on around me, the notion of Miss Vivee being part of it all was unsettling. I even ended up feeling sorry for giving her grief about it.

  But I was sorrier that I had to drive her car.

  “It’s on ‘E,’” I said once we were in the car, and I’d turned the ignition.

  “We’ll pick up Mac so he can pump the gas,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Mac’s going with us?” I asked. I enjoyed his company, but she hadn’t said anything to me about it.

  “No,” she said and frowned. “I don’t feel like being bothered with all his sweet talking, and touchy-feely mess today. He’s just going to pump the gas.”

  If she didn’t want to see him, why even go pick him up?

  “I can pump gas, Miss Vivee.”

  “Why should you pump gas when there’s a man available?” She glanced at me. “You’ll learn, they’re not good for much – fixing a flat, pumping gas, taking out the trash – so you gotta let them do the things they’re made for whenever possible. Plus, a man likes to think he’s needed.”

  I shook my head and chuckled. “Don’t you need Mac?” I asked.

  “I need Mac like I need a hole in my head,” she said, and then patted me on my hand. “But God made men as our help meet, so we’re stuck with them.” She nodded. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em, so . . .” she raised her eyebrows and threw up her hands.

  I headed over to Mac. I didn’t want to have this conversation with Miss Vivee. I had chosen not to date for much of my life, but I didn’t think I’d ever thought that way about men. I had a father, brother, and five uncles that had done so much more. And now, I loved having Bay around, and not just for taking out the trash either.

  I glanced at Miss Vivee. I knew, though, that she really didn’t mean it. I knew she loved Mac, and Mac loved her. And I was sure that getting him to pump gas for us was just a ruse to see him. We pulled in front of Mac’s house and I got out, went up to his front door and rang the bell.

  Mac came to the door, Rover at his heels.

  “Hey Mac,” I said. “Miss Vivee wants you to come down to the gas station with us and pump gas.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t flinch or fuss. “Let me just grab my hat.” He turned to walk away and then turned back. “Do I need to get my wallet? Does she want me to pay for it?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “I dunno,” I said. “She just told me to come get you so you can pump the gas.”

  “I’ll grab it just in case,” he said and limped hastily back into the house, disappearing around a corner. I went back down to the car.

  “He’s coming,” I said. “He asked me if he needed to bring money.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “To pay for the gas.”

  “That male chauvinist pig,” Miss Vivee said and clicked her tongue. “What does he think? I don’t have any money?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think he thought that, Miss Vivee. I think he was just being nice.”

  “Or condescending.”

  “Here he comes.” I watched him walk down his walkway. Even with his cane, he had a pep in his step that I knew was there because he was going to see Miss Vivee. “Be nice,” I said.

  “Well, aren’t you looking lovely today, Vivienne,” Mac said as he climbed into the backseat.

  “You’ve seen me in this outfit a thousand times.”

  “And each time, I think you look even lovelier than the last time.”

  “Oh phooey,” Miss Vivee said and to my surprise she blushed, and her dismay over him offering to pay for her gas seemingly just dissipated. “We’re going to Walmart up in Augusta.” She turned in her seat. “Logan’s buying me a pair of prescription sunglasses. You wanna go?”

  Hadn’t she just told me she didn’t want to be bothered with him?

  “I’d enjoy that, if Logan doesn’t mind.”

  “Of course she doesn’t,” Miss Vivee said and turned back in her seat. “I didn’t pack any sandwiches or anything for the trip, Mac. I hope you ate.”

  Trip? We were going twenty-five miles up the road. All highway, it’d take fifteen – twenty minutes at the most.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Mac said. “I had a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.”

  “Then you’re just about full, huh?”

  “Yep,” he said. I watched him in the rearview mirror nod. “I’m good to go.”

  I shook my head. I wonder will me and Bay be like them when we get old.

  I felt funny letting Mac, with his cane, pump the gas while I sat there and waited. Miss Vivee hummed some little ditty as she swiped face powder on her face with her red cosmetic sponge. Smug as a bug in the rug.

  “All set,” Mac said and fell into the backseat. “Took nearly fifty dollars to fill it up,” he said. “Gas prices are so high nowadays.”

  “Actually, Mac,” I said. “Compared to the last few years, gas is pretty cheap.”

  “Really?”

  “What’s all this talk about money?” Miss Vivee got into the conversation. “You don’t seem to care too much about it, trying to make Bay buy you the Hop
e Diamond.”

  “I did not,” I said and frowned. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Didn’t have to, I know how you are.”

  “What?” I said.

  Both Bay and Miss Vivee seemed to have the wrong impression of me.

  “And how did that little dinner of yours go last night?” Miss Vivee asked as I hit my blinkers to take the ramp to the highway. “I’m not noticing anything coming from that finger of yours blinding my eyes.”

  I changed the subject.

  “Gavin Tanner came to the Maypop this morning.”

  “Did not,” Miss Vivee said.

  I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yes he did.”

  “Well good Lord, why didn’t you come and get me?” she asked.

  “What did he want?” Mac said from the backseat.

  “He wanted to explain to me why he was stealing flowers from Lincoln Park.”

  “How did you know he was stealing flowers?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “I saw him.”

  “When?”

  I hit the highway, got over in the fast lane, and told Miss Vivee and Mac how’d I’d seen Gavin Tanner and the conversation I’d had with him over breakfast.

  “So it’s about the land,” Miss Vivee said after I finished my spiel.

  “What, Vivee?” Mac asked.

  “The murder. Those two wanted the land at Lincoln Park. That’s why they killed Jack Wagner.”

  “What about the other woman?” I said.

  “What other woman?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “The one Gavin Tanner alluded to.”

  “Probably nobody,” she said. “I told you that boy is nervous, fidgeting all around. Probably seeing things.”

  “Land must be worth a lot of money,” Mac speculated. “To make them kill him for it.”

  “Doesn’t matter how much something’s worth,” Miss Vivee said. “If they want it bad enough, a person’ll do anything to get it.”

  “That’s true,” he said.

  “Well my money’s on Gavin Tanner,” I said.

  Miss Vivee chuckled. “I thought you liked him.”

  “I did. But you were right,” I said. “He fidgets all the time, and it seems like he keeps trying to steer us in another direction. One other than his. First Robert Bernard and Camren Wagner were in cahoots. Now there’s this mysterious woman, and he’s stealing flowers. And he doesn’t know his father, maybe he found out it was Jack Wagner, he confronted him and Jack rejected him.”

  “What an imagination,” Miss Vivee said.

  Me with the vivid imagination? I don’t think so.

  “It just seems fishy to me,” I said. “And he got all excited when he told us about those fruit trees.”

  “Maybe so,” Mac said. “But he had nothing to gain. Dead or alive he couldn’t get those flowers without sneaking around. Jack Wagner wanted to protect them, and Robert Bernard, if you believe Gavin’s story, wanted to dig them all up.”

  “I still don’t like him,” I said as we arrived at the Walmart on Wrightsboro .

  Hand over hand, I wrenched the seemingly non-power-steering wheel around. I carefully maneuvered, at a snail’s pace, Miss Vivee’s 1994, light blue, Lincoln Boatmobile, I mean Town Car, into a handicap parking spot near the door at Walmart. I knew if I hit any late model vehicle, her steel framed car would crush it.

  I climbed out the car, and wiped the sweat off the back of my thighs from the leather-like seat, and tugged on my sundress. I went around to the other side and dragged open the heavy passenger door.

  Miss Vivee looked over her double glasses at me. “C’mon on,” I said. “Let’s get you fixed up with a new pair of sunglasses.”

  “Me and Mac’ll wait here,” she said.

  I frowned at her. “You have to get them fitted,” I said.

  “Oh phooey,” she said and waved me off. “I have a normal sized face. If you bought the right kind, they’ll do just fine.”

  I shook my head and looked in the backseat at Mac. He just shrugged and stayed put.

  “Fine,” I said and shut the creaky, oversized door. I wasn’t going to argue with her.

  I guess she thinks prescription frames are one size fits all.

  I walked back around the car. I couldn’t leave them in the hot weather with all the windows up. “Fine,” I mumbled again and got in, cranked up the car, and pressed each button to let all the windows down.

  “Turn the air on,” Miss Vivee said.

  Without saying anything, I reached over and turned the AC on high, and hit the switch to let the windows back up.

  “Leave them down,” Miss Vivee said.

  “You want the windows down, and the air on?” I asked.

  “Yeah. The air bothers my sinuses.”

  I took in a breath and blew it out through my nose. “Okay,” I said in a huff. I found no logic in that, but who knew how her brain worked? I pushed on the door and got out. Walking to the store, I looked back at them. They looked okay.

  It’ll be quicker without the two of them anyway, I thought. I picked up my pace. I didn’t want to leave them alone too long.

  I knew I hadn’t been gone more than five minutes. I had been the only person in Walmart’s optometry department, and Miss Vivee’s sunglasses were ready when I gave my name at the counter. I swiped my credit card through the reader, grabbed the package that included a free eyeglass case, and was headed out the door before the greeter finished checking one customer’s long receipt. I was happy to have finished up quickly.

  But coming to the second set of glass doors of the exit, I came to a screeching halt, and my happiness quickly drizzled. There, pulled up to the door, sat Miss Vivee’s Lincoln Town Car. The back door of the car opened, I guessed for me, and Mac, sitting shotgun, was waving for me to hurry and get in the car. I walked up to the car and could see Miss Vivee sitting behind the wheel, holding it tight, her hands at ten and two. She focused her eyes straight ahead.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” she said loudly. “And hurry it up.”

  “What the hey?” I slammed the back door and marched around the car to the driver’s side. “Why is the car parked here, Miss Vivee?” I put my hand on my hip. “And why are you in the driver’s seat?”

  “We saw that man come out of the store,” Miss Vivee said looking out the window at me. “We’re going to follow him.”

  “Follow him?” I said. “Follow who?” I had to stop myself from shouting

  “Robert Bernard,” the two of them said in unison.

  “Who is going to follow him?” I leaned forward so I could look at Miss Vivee.

  “We are,” they spoke at the same time again.

  “And I’m driving,” Miss Vivee added.

  I should have never left those keys in the car.

  “You can’t drive.” I stood defiantly outside of the car. “And why do we need to follow him? You don’t even know where he’s going.”

  “He’s a murder suspect,” Miss Vivee said. “You’re the one who told me what Gavin Tanner said.”

  “He may lead us to something important,” Mac said leaning over so he could see me through the driver’s side window.

  “Get in!” Miss Vivee yelled at me. Her voice high and squeaky. She was holding on to the wheel and stomping her feet. “We’re gonna lose him.”

  “We can follow him,” I said slowly, trying to reason with her. “But I need to drive.” I lowered my voice to make it seem more calm, but still with a little bass to show some authority. I wanted to let her know I meant business. “You need to move back over to the passenger seat.” I reached for the door handle and she pressed the lock. I heard the click. “Miss Vivee,” was all I got out before she dug into me.

  “Get. In.” She warned again, still at four decibels over her usual speaking level, looking out the side of her eyes at me. “And, don’t try to tell me what to do, Missy. Get in or Mac and I will leave without you.” She revved the motor.

  I scrambled to get the back door open, and vaulted
into the back seat. I knew she’d do it, and I just couldn’t image what would happen if I let the two of them take off without me. I scooted over and leaned forward between the two seats. “Miss Vivee,” I started. “You need to let me -”

  “I think I may have lost him,” Miss Vivee interrupted me, concern obvious in her voice.

  “No, Vivee,” Mac said and pointed out the windshield. “He’s right over there. I saw him pull out and turn left. “Hurry and we’ll be able to catch him.”

  “Hurry?” I said. That word put fear in my heart. I clambered into a corner of the back seat, and felt around for a seat belt. There wasn’t one. I dug down in the crevices. Nothing.

  Did they even make seatbelts for the backseat in 1994?

  I held onto the armrest.

  “Okay.” Miss Vivee said and nodded confirming Mac’s update. Then she jerked with unnecessary force the gear shift located on the side of the steering wheel, putting it in drive. She yanked it so hard I thought she might’ve pulled it out. Then she rammed down on the gas. Everyone lurched forward.

  “Oh my goodness!” I yelled out and gripped the armrest tighter. “Miss Vivee, I don’t think you can do this.”

  “Do what?” she said putting on the blinkers and turning down a row of cars.

  “Drive! Do a car chase! Get us anywhere safely.”

  “What do you think I’m doing now?” she said as she stepped on the brakes with too much pressure, making us reel forward. Then she didn’t lift her foot again until we had slowed down so much that we were practically inching through the lot.

  “I can drive, Miss Vivee.” I was almost pleading with her now.

  “Both of us can’t drive, and I’m driving now.” Her nose high to see over the wheel, she seemed to concentrate hard on moving through the lot. There weren’t many cars, and I started hyperventilating anticipating how she’d act when there were actually other cars on the road. Then once we finally got out the store’s parking lot, my heart came to a momentary halt as she let the car crawl into traffic on Wrightsboro Road.

  Oh crap!

  I closed my eyes and prayed.

  Horns honking, brakes screeching, Miss Vive spoke over all the commotion. “Do you see him, Mac?” she asked. The same question she had solicited from him at least a half dozen times in the last minute and a half.