My Bluegrass Baby

by Molly Harper

  We were days away from moving into the Louisville Stay Inn, where we would be staying during our weeklong state fair stint. My “Not What You Expect” campaign had gelled beautifully. I’d checked and double-checked the proofs for my brochures and guides, then hand-delivered my copies to the printer. Just in case Josh had called off the truce without telling me. So other than my general uncertainty, things were looking pretty good for me.

  The Kentucky State Fair was a great mix of fun and function for our office, clearing our schedule for a week in mid-August so we could provide support at the fair headquarters. More than half a million people visited the fairgrounds each year to ride their way through the Thrillway and mill through the exhibition halls displaying foods produced and prepared in Kentucky, handmade arts and crafts, and prize-winning animals and plants. And of course, gorge themselves silly on foods on a stick.

  My staff usually worked a good portion of the morning before we were relieved by staff from other departments within the tourism office. Kelsey and I would run a little wild, dieting scrupulously for weeks before the fair so we could devour every deep-fried food we could find. I had no idea they could deep-fry Coca-Cola. Sometimes Angela joined us, but she had a lower tolerance for stomach-challenging cuisine and thrill rides.

  And of course, I felt obligated to visit the Kentucky Cookout Tent, a large food venue sponsored by the state’s producers of pork, corn, poultry, and mutton. It was like a culinary tour of Kentucky on a plate. Kelsey always made fun of the fact that I overordered to prevent hurting the farmers’ feelings. Was it difficult to eat country ham, corn on the cob, barbecued chicken halves, and mutton in one sitting? Yes, but I didn’t want to play favorites.

  We usually stopped by the horticulture displays to see Mr. Leavitt. Having stomped homemakers into annual submission at our local county fair with his rose and azalea specimens, Mr. Leavitt progressed to trying to make old lady gardeners cry on a state level. He’d won blue ribbons every year since I’d known him.

  Kelsey’s My Little Pony fantasies ran amuck at the World’s Champion Horse Show in Freedom Hall. While there were some divisions for harness horses, the show was more about making the mounts and their riders as pretty as possible and showing the purity of the bloodlines. Kelsey also seemed to have some unresolved 4-H issues, because she was unnaturally interested in the agriculture displays. Personally, I thought if you’ve seen one impressively bred cow, you’ve seen them all. But she didn’t judge my need to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl over and over, so it worked for us.

  This year, we had to put our fun off until after I’d set up my campaign display tent. Ray had declared Kelsey “Switzerland,” forbidding her from helping either of us. Instead, I was using the fairgrounds crew to set up the tables and hang banner racks. Hanging up the actual banners and posters, draping the tablecloths, and unpacking the various freebies was my job and mine alone. I was also responsible for mounting my own flat-panel TVs and stuffing my own goody bags. I was giving away tote bags filled with pens bearing the tourism commission’s Web address, an awesome book titled Weird Things You Didn’t Know About Kentucky, and custom bingo cards listing some of the strange highlights of the state’s year-round calendar.

  By the time we arrived at the fairgrounds on the morning before opening day, the weather was blazing hot, with the sort of sticky humidity that had my clothes plastered to my body before I got to my car. I arrived at our tenting area between the midway and the main pavilion building to find both of the exhibition tents closed up tight. Our position relative to the rides guaranteed foot traffic would wind past us as people worked their way toward the exhibition halls.

  The shipping crates marked HUTCHINS were waiting outside my tent, mummified in their plastic-wrap cocoons. Josh’s crates were similarly stacked outside of his tent. I barely resisted the urge to slice through the plastic wrap and look inside. When I saw Josh coming down the midway, I yanked the Velcro flap enclosures apart and ducked inside my tent. I dragged my crates inside and cracked them open, repressing the urge to squeal when I saw my materials.

  The printer had used a bold blue to stretch “Kentucky—Not What You Expect” in elegant, scrawling text across my banners. Using Kelsey and her amazing image-manipulation skills, I tried to turn all of the traditional images on their ears. The photos ranged from women in fancy tea hats eating messy barbecue to grizzled old-timers in overalls quaffing mint juleps on a palatial porch. We used a picture of all of the state colleges’ mascots playing poker—using every marker in my big book of favors to get all of those costumes in the same room. We had a shot of three jockeys in their crisp, colorful silks fishing from a rowboat at Kentucky Dam. We had a big, happy dual family photo from the Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Marathon. We even used a picture of Josh in his Civil War uniform, texting on his smartphone. I tried a mix of the old and the new, the strange and the sublime.

  Thanks to Kelsey, the visuals were great. The storyboards for the ads popped. The brochures gave all of the right information in a cool format. It was good. This wasn’t desperation or hubris talking. It was a solid campaign, visually interesting and memorable. The problem was that I didn’t know if Josh’s was more interesting and memorable. I had a good view across the fairway and could see a steady flow of traffic of staff going into Josh’s tent with pretty heavy equipment. I groaned. Knowing my luck, Josh had found some corporate diamond sponsor and secured an air-conditioned luxury tent with a pool.

  I wanted Josh to do well, but I wanted to do better. Then again, if he got the job, I would stay at the office. I was comfortable working with Josh; it was the personal stuff that confused the hell out of me. And while I wouldn’t be happy continuing on as an assistant, I knew that I would continue to do good work. However, I was pretty sure that if I got the job, Josh would leave. His dream was to open up his own marketing firm, not to work for the state, supervised by some insane woman with way too much interest in oversize fiberglass objects.

  I couldn’t think about it. Either way, I was going to be a little happy and a little upset. I had exactly twelve hours to make things work in my own tent before the grounds closed for the night, so I planned to make the most of it.

  • • •

  By the time I got the tent somewhere near the level of organization I desired, it was well past dark. I was dripping with sweat, and I had scraped several layers of skin off my arms while opening the crates. But my tables were the perfect mix of precisely fanned brochures and creative fluff—clear plastic jars filled with blue candy, piles of buttons with my slogan pressed on a blue background. This was the stuff of marketing legend.

  I was going to have to refresh the tent at the end of each day, after the crowds (please, Lord) destroyed it. But I was pleased with how it had turned out. I might actually get some sleep that night, which would be a refreshing change. I came out to find Josh crouched outside his tent in a pair of tattered cargo shorts, nursing a bottle of water.

  Sweaty and caked in a fine layer of dust, Josh looked exhausted. I plopped down on the ground next to him, wiping at the sweat gathering on my own brow. Josh didn’t acknowledge me, just sat staring off into space and glugging down his water. So I leaned back on my palms and gazed up and down the deserted midway. Heavy canvas tents fluttered against the soft summer breeze. The occasional food wrapper rolled across the packed dirt like a plastic tumbleweed. A furry gray-and-white shape toddled out from under a pile of trash and trotted past us, its leathery pink tail dragging behind it in the dirt.

  “Was that a possum?” he asked, without looking up.

  “Yes, it was,” I said, nodding. “I’m guessing he wants to be first in the funnel cake line.”

  When the possum ambled around a corner toward the food vendors, Josh lifted a white paper bag. “Kelsey brought us some sandwiches. She didn’t want to seem like she was favoring you, so she delivered them here.”

  “Thanks.” I chuckled, accepting a
turkey club on whole wheat. I swatted away a fly that was too chummy with my kettle chips. “How is your display looking, Bambi?”

  He frowned as he rolled his shoulders, cracking his back into place. “Bambi?”

  “I’m trying to decide what I’m going to call you when you’re wearing your cheerleader outfit.”

  It was clear from the expression on his face that he’d entirely forgotten our bet. While that gave me some hope he hadn’t actually bought my UK cheerleading outfit, there was no way he was going to get out of the specially designed U of L pleated skirt I’d had made. (Kelsey’s nerd herd made their own cosplay costumes, so they were pretty skilled with a needle.) “That’s not funny.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  He fiddled with the loose wrapper on his water bottle. “So, I behaved like a total jackass after the encampment, huh?”

  “Emotionally stunted, uncommunicative jackass just about covers it, yes,” I said, nodding.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—”

  “I don’t really want to hear why,” I told him, pressing a hand to his chest to get him to both stop and give me some physical space. “For right now, we both need to stay focused on the contest and keeping our tents running. But I do want to say that if you get the job, I will stay. I will work as your assistant, with no reservations. I think we can make it work. As for everything else, the personal stuff, I don’t know. But for right now, everything’s okay. I’m not going to say I’m thrilled with how things are working out, but we’re going to get through the next week and we’re going to let the chips fall where they may. No pressure. No anger.”

  I’d expected him to be happy, or at least crack the barest hint of a grin. But instead, for a split second, he looked upset. “Really?”

  “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” I told him.

  “It’s just that up until now, you were pretty unsure.”

  I unwrapped my sandwich, avoiding his searching stare. “And now, I’m sure. I’ve changed my mind. It happens sometimes.”

  In a dance that was well practiced by now, we exchanged the unwanted sandwich ingredients—tomatoes from mine and onions from his—and tucked into our food. We ate in silence, each afraid of what the next day would bring, of the decisions we’d made and avoided. Josh reached over and wrapped his hand around mine, squeezing it gently. I looked up at him and smiled.

  We were going to be okay, the two of us. I had to believe it. If we could get through the next week or so without one of us flipping out, we might be able to achieve some form of happily ever after.

  That must have been the dehydration talking.

  In Which Our State Fair Is a Great State Fair

  10

  An artist would have painted the state fairgrounds in bright acrylics—shiny primary colors and sharp light. In the distance I could hear the rumbling of the engines running the coasters. The sky was an impossible blue and the air smelled of sizzling oil and burning sugar. It seemed odd that someone would want a funnel cake first thing in the morning, but then again, it could be considered an extra-extra-large donut. I’m not one to judge.

  The chatter of hundreds of people moving through the entrance gates was deafening but pleasant, punctuated by the occasional shriek of laughter. Most people dashed toward their favorite ride or food vendor. The farmers attending the livestock and agriculture exhibits were all business, walking with slightly pinched expressions, as if being separated from their animals for the night was like leaving a small child behind. Families took it slow, pushing their sport utility strollers at a measured, even pace, knowing they were in for a long day and conserving their energy.

  I hadn’t seen Josh or any of my coworkers yet. Josh and I were each sequestered behind the canvas walls of our pavilions, the early morning sun giving the interior soft golden glow. Our coworkers, being normal people, hadn’t felt the urge to get out of bed before dawn and wait in the parking lot until the fair staff opened the gates. I was so nervous that my stomach felt twisted inside out. I didn’t dare eat anything, though the smell of deep-fried everything wafting into my tent was tempting.

  If I knew Kelsey, she’d already had two deep-fried Oreos for breakfast. I didn’t have time to envy her position. There was a healthy flow of foot traffic through my tent. People seemed to enjoy the display and took plenty of freebies. Though I realized that wasn’t much of an indicator of success. People would take used Kleenex if you put it in a bowl next to a sign that said FREE!

  For the most part, people seemed happy with my presentation. They laughed at the TV spot looping on the flat-screen TVs. And they kept coming back to the presentation boards to get another look at Kelsey’s photos. My sweet-talking the Weird Things You Didn’t Know About Kentucky publisher into all those free copies was clearly genius, because I couldn’t hand out those tote bags fast enough. People really seemed to get the message. I’d finally put out a campaign on my own and people liked it. It was all I could do to keep from doing a happy dance in the middle of my tent. Instead, I focused on making sure people received their voting cards before leaving, and very helpfully pointed out where the polling box was situated between the tents. Between keeping the tables fresh and answering questions, I was kept inside for much of the day.

  Kelsey, carb-delivering saint that she was, stopped by around lunchtime to bring me a Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger, a delicious all-beef patty between two grilled Krispy Kreme glazed donuts.

  “What are you trying to do to me?” I laughed as she deposited the grease-stained brown paper bag in my hands like a sacrificial offering. “I’m going to have to live on an elliptical machine next week.”

  “Hey, there’s lettuce, tomato, and a pickle,” Kelsey insisted. “It’s practically a salad.”

  I groaned as I dropped into a folding chair, discreetly situated behind a display board so no one would see me chowing down on this calorie-laden monstrosity. “Thanks, Kels.”

  “Hey, you’ve got to keep your strength up,” she said, munching on her own helping of deep-fried dill pickles. “Have you had a look at Josh’s tent lately?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t had the nerve. Is it busy?”

  Kelsey nodded and cringed at the same time, which took some facial contortion skill. “Yes. His theme is ‘Come Home to Kentucky.’ It’s cozy, a little bland, but still pretty upscale. Lots of pictures of bourbon tasting, trotting thoroughbreds, sailboats on Kentucky Lake, and families enjoying nice dinners at big farmhouse tables. He’s putting gift certificates for free Dippin’ Dots in every ergonomic, eco-friendly ‘Come Home to Kentucky’ water bottle he gives away, so they’re moving pretty quickly.”

  I blanched. Dippin’ Dots were the “ice cream of the future,” tiny beads of ice cream flash-frozen in a plant in Paducah. They were completely unique and original to Kentucky, not to mention cold and free, which would appeal to the fair crowd. “That brilliant bastard!” I exclaimed, making a couple mothers on the other side of the display board gasp in horror. Well, there went two votes. “I can’t believe he came up with that. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!”

  “It’s pretty popular,” she said. “But nobody is chuckling as they’re walking out of his tent, which is happening in droves here. And I see people all over the fairgrounds leafing through those books you gave them. So at this point, I’d say you have a pretty even split.”

  “Ugh.” I bit into the burger, a surprisingly delightful mix of sweet, creamy pastry and beefy, salty goodness. “I can’t believe we have to do this for a whole week. I don’t know if my nerves can take this.”

  “Well, speaking of nerves.” Kelsey’s lip curled distastefully. “I thought you should know, I saw C.J. Rowley skulking around Josh’s tent.”

  “Again, I say ‘Ugh,’ ” I growled. “He’s probably just sucking up to Josh so he can make excuses for being such a jackass
at the Derby party.”

  “Actually, he didn’t seem to be talking to Josh, just loitering in his usual skeezy fashion.”

  My lips twitched. “Was he also cackling while twirling a long handlebar moustache?”

  “Everything but,” she said primly. “I’m just saying, be on your guard. And remember, large men are a lot less scary with your foot lodged in their crotch.”

  “That’s your suggested solution to everything,” I said, sighing and sipping my lemon shake-up.

  “Because it always works.”

  • • •

  Crotch-related warnings aside, Rowley didn’t come near my tent. On the rare occasion I managed to work up the nerve to look toward Josh’s tent, I saw neither hide nor oily hair of Rowley. I did catch a glimpse of Josh, who looked as uncomfortable and unsure as I felt. He gave me one long, lingering look before I gave him a weak little wave. He inclined his head, more of a bow than a nod, and we retreated to neutral corners. Or tents.

  By the end of the day, I was no more sure of my position in the race than Josh seemed to be. But there wasn’t anything more I could do except go home and try to get a good night’s sleep—because I had to do this all over again the next day. I hoped maybe I could catch Josh on his way home and we could grab dinner.

  But when I walked out of my tent and bade good night to the security team, I saw the grounds crew dismantling Josh’s tent. His tables were folded and stacked in the back of a truck. His displays were packed up in crates. The brochures he’d worked so hard on were trampled into the ground by passersby. Where the hell was Josh?

  “What the . . . ?” I dashed into the collapsing tent space, much to the annoyance of the grounds crew. Josh had disappeared. The fair staff couldn’t give me any answers when I demanded to know what they were doing. My call to Josh’s cell phone went straight to voice mail.