State Fair Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  Titles by Earlene Fowler

  THE SADDLEMAKER’S WIFE

  LOVE MERCY

  The Benni Harper Mysteries

  FOOL’S PUZZLE

  IRISH CHAIN

  KANSAS TROUBLES

  GOOSE IN THE POND

  DOVE IN THE WINDOW

  MARINER’S COMPASS

  SEVEN SISTERS

  ARKANSAS TRAVELER

  STEPS TO THE ALTAR

  SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

  BROKEN DISHES

  DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

  TUMBLING BLOCKS

  STATE FAIR

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Earlene Fowler.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fowler, Earlene.

  State fair / Earlene Fowler. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18762-3

  1. Harper, Benni (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women museum curators—Fiction. 3. Agricultural exhibitions—Fiction. 4. Quiltmakers—Fiction. 5. African American quilts—Fiction. 6. California—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3556.O828S73 2010

  813’.54—dc22

  2009051629

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Ellen Geiger,

  a dear friend, a wise and wonderful agent

  and a fellow fair aficionado.

  Of course this one had to be for you!

  &

  To Janice Dischner and Carolyn Miller,

  the “real” Beebs and Millee,

  True Friends Forever.

  I thank the Lord for you both.

  Twins rule!

  Acknowledgments

  For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.

  2 Chronicles 16:9

  Praise always to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

  Also my grateful heart (alphabetically) thanks:

  Charlotte “Bunny” Brown—for your friendship, for always being right there to answer any questions I might have about ranching or horses and for kindly inviting me to tag along on your fun adventures.

  Katsy Chappell—talented actress, comedian, quilter and beloved friend who not only loaned me her name but also opened her heart and gave me insight into the African American world. You are one very fine and funny lady!

  Tina Davis—dearest and wisest of friends and dedicated Webmaster who is always there for me and, without intending to, gives me some of my best opening scenes.

  Jo Ellen Heil, Christine Hill, Lela Satterfield and Laura Ross Wingfield—who patiently listen to me whine and kvetch—you, my dearly loved sisters, are the best!

  Jo-Ann Mapson—whose thoughtful critique of this manuscript helped me tremendously—my friend, I dearly miss our shopping trips and our literary lunches at Chester’s.

  Pam Munns—who keeps me on the straight and narrow about law enforcement details—your friendship is a treasure.

  Jo Ann Richardson—who asked me to speak about quilts at the Mid-State Fair many years ago, thus giving me the idea for this book.

  Vivian Robertson—CEO of California Mid-State Fair—thanks for allowing me access to the best county fair on earth. I assure everyone who reads this that my fair and its often dastardly characters are entirely fictional and don’t reflect anybody at the real Mid-State Fair!

  Kate Seaver—a wonderful and thoughtful editor whose insights I always appreciate—it is a pleasure working with you!

  Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli—a brilliant artist, writer and quilter—thanks for your personal insights, your enlightening stories and your friendship.

  Kathy Vieira—Western woman extraordinaire who shared all her years of fair stories and experiences. I picked your brain like a vulture, and good friend that you are, you never once complained. Any mistakes are mine, not yours!

  My husband, Allen—who has had a starring part in my story since we were fifteen years old—the best is yet to come!

  A Note from the Author

  Just so you don’t get confused, State Fair takes place in August 1997. While only a little less than five years have taken place in my characters’ lives in San Celina, I actually have been writing the Benni Harper novels for almost seventeen years.

  I suppose they are now considered (semi)historical fiction. It is a challenge to try to remember what things were like back in the 1990s, but I’m doing my best!

  Though there is an actual Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles, California, this book is about a fictional fair in a fictional town. Back in 1992 when I wrote Fool’s Puzzle I never expected it to be published, much less that I would write (so far) thirteen more books in the series. In the first book, because I didn’t know what else to do, I fictionalized all the towns Benni actually went to in San Celina County (inspired by San Luis Obispo County). The towns she just mentioned in passing . . . well, I used their real names not guessing I’d ever actually have to write about them. So I’m stuck with a fictional county with half “real” names and half fictional ones.

  Just in case anyone was wondering . . .

  State Fair

  The English word fair comes from the Latin feriae, meaning “holy days.” Fairs in America first started in the 1620s with the Dutch settlers in New Amster
dam. The Berkshire County, Massachusetts, fair is widely considered the first county fair. It took place on September 24, 1811, and three thousand people attended. Since then, state and county fairs have become a beloved tradition for millions of Americans. For a few days or weeks once a year exhibition halls are filled with the pickles, cakes, pies, pottery, steers, lambs, hogs, giant pumpkins and quilts of hopeful competitors. After their win (or loss), there is then the midway carnival rides and games, fried foods, cotton candy and the ubiquitous commercial buildings selling everything from waterless cookware to genuine Native American turquoise rings.

  There is not much history about the State Fair quilt pattern. There are actually five patterns recorded in books that claim the State Fair name. One is a Nancy Cabot pattern. The others were created by unknown quilt makers. Perhaps these anonymous quilt designers were inspired by a local county fair where they showed their first lamb or entered their special chocolate-chip cookies or received their first kiss atop a Ferris wheel. Like so many quilt patterns, its origin will be a mystery. But we can be assured of one thing. Fairs will spin their enchanting dreams for generations to come, because, after all, who doesn’t love the fair?

  CHAPTER 1

  MY DAY DIDN’T START WITH A DEEP-FRIED TWINKIE, ALTHOUGH the thought crossed my mind.

  “Benni Harper Ortiz, step away from that counter,” said my best friend, Elvia Aragon Littleton. “It is only eight o’clock in the morning. It’s too early for anything fried in that much fat.”

  “Fat grams don’t count with fair food.” I gazed at the photo menu of Mustang Sallie’s Fried Food Emporium and plotted my snacks for a day I knew would stretch long into the night. Deep-fried artichoke? Or maybe the fried avocado, which I’d tried yesterday. It was tastier than it sounded, kind of like hot guacamole dip. And definitely the fried Oreos again. I’d become addicted to those. They’d tasted like a gooey chocolate cake surrounded by a fresh doughnut. “Besides, I’m only contemplating future meals. They don’t open until eleven a.m.”

  Mustang Sallie’s, a mind-throbbing magenta-colored building accentuated with rainbow polka dots and a pink and orange fiberglass pony perched on its roof, squatted in the center of the San Celina County Mid-State Fairgrounds in the North County town of Paso Robles. It was one of the fairground’s oldest structures, and for as long as I could remember the garish snack building had been used as a central meeting place for folks during the fair’s twelve-day run.

  The building, along with the fair, held a bittersweet nostalgia for me. Too many times to count I’d met Jack, my late first husband, in front of this very building after showing our 4-H cattle and later, when we were adults, after helping kids in my Gramma Dove’s 4-H club wash and primp their hogs, steers and lambs for a run at that coveted blue ribbon. Back in the 1960s and ’70s Mustang Sallie’s sold grilled hot dogs, skin-on French fries, oak-grilled tri-tip steak sandwiches and onion rings, but in the last few years, they had expanded their food selection to more exotic fried fare. They were locked in a never-ending quest to top themselves. Last year’s fried Coca-Cola was proving hard to beat, at least in terms of originality and sugary “ick” factor.

  Elvia leaned down and checked on her seven-week-old daughter, Sophia Louisa Aragon Littleton. My goddaughter was carefully swaddled and tucked away in her fancy silver and blue top-of-the-line Graco stroller. “All I know is I cannot even peek at anything fried for the next six months. I’m still fat as one of your 4-H hogs.”

  I laughed right in her face. “What are you a size six now?” I mimed holding a phone to my ear. “Calling Richard Simmons for an emergency intervention.”

  Elvia laid her freshly manicured hand across her stomach. It was still a little pudgy from childbirth, but she was by no stretch of anyone’s imagination fat.

  “I’m still a size eight!” she cried. “Honestly, what do movie stars do to get their figures back so quickly?”

  I’d already turned my attention back to the painted menu. “Hey, look, fried pickles! That’s new.” I turned to gauge her reaction. Her lips, painted a shiny pomegranate red to match her nails, were scrunched up; her black lashes glistened with tears.

  “Movie stars?” I said, swatting a fly that hovered over Sophie Lou’s stroller. “Oh, they live on lettuce and laxatives. The photos you see of them? Totally fake and touched up by experts trained by the FBI. I read that in the National Enquirer so it must be true.”

  “Emory practically force-feeds me! Says his daughter needs hearty milk to drink. I informed him that he gets to breast feed the next one.”

  “Good luck with that, mamacita.”

  THE TRUTH WAS MY COUSIN EMORY, WHO ALSO HAPPENED TO BE her husband, wouldn’t or couldn’t ever force Elvia to do anything. He was, however, not above tempting her by having all her favorite foods readily available. Foods cooked by her own mother who made the best green chile enchiladas, sweet corn tamales and killer flan on the Central Coast.

  “You’ve read every prepregnancy, midpregnancy and postpregnancy book written in the last twenty years,” I said. “Don’t they all agree that it takes a little time to lose your baby weight?” I stooped down and ran my finger across my goddaughter’s creamy golden cheek. She didn’t even stir. “Ah, sweet Sophie Lou, what’re we going to do with your mami grande?”

  Elvia shot me an irritated look. “Sophia! I told you to call her Sophia. You and Emory are going to drive me loco.”

  After much back and forth about their daughter’s name, Elvia and Emory had finally agreed on Sophia Louisa, which seemed to fulfill both her Mexican and his Southern requirements . . . and let Sophia share a middle name with her adoring godmother—me. Elvia even reluctantly agreed that to honor our Arkansas roots, Emory and I could call her Sophie. That was until we actually started doing so.

  “You promised Emory.” I stood up, shifting my leather backpack from one side to the other, my shoulders already aching. It felt like I was carrying ten bricks.

  “Don’t you have to judge something?” Avoidance was always Elvia’s method of dealing with something she didn’t like.

  “Not judge, help control. I’m going to be a pig wrangler for Novice and Intermediate 4-H Hog Showmanship. I don’t have to be there until nine a.m. Plenty of time.” I stretched out my arms and yawned. “I’m starving. I rushed out of the house with only one cup of coffee in my system. I cannot spend the next three hours chasing gilts and barrows . . . not to mention tiny humans, without sustenance.”

  “Gilts and what?” She tilted her head, confused.

  I smiled, having forgotten for a moment that my best friend since second grade and I had always had huge parts of our lives that were totally foreign to each other. She spoke Spanish. I spoke Ag. “Gilts are female pigs and barrows are castrated male pigs.”

  “So what are uncastrated male pigs then?”

  I grinned at her. “Boars.”

  She returned my smile. “I dated a few bores in my time.”

  I nodded, making one last note of Mustang Sallie’s menu. Deep-fried tomatoes. Wasn’t that actually kind of healthy? “I remember every one of them. Aren’t you glad you took my wise advice and married my adorable cousin?”

  “Humph,” she said, still refusing to admit I’d picked the best man in the world for her and nagged her until she finally married him.

  “Without him, there’d be no Sophie Lou,” I reminded her.

  She gazed down at her sleeping daughter. “Sophia, Sophia.” Her voice was more gentle and tender than I’d ever heard it. “I’ll owe you forever, mi amiga buena.”

  “Care to put that in writing?”

  She rolled her black eyes. “Don’t you have some gilteds to push around?”

  “Gilts,” I corrected. “Yes, but I have just enough time to sneak over to the Kiwanis booth and buy myself an eggs Kiwanis.” My stomach growled in anticipation of the traditional fair breakfast favored by the locals—crisp bacon, a fried egg, cheddar cheese and mayonnaise between two squished hamburger buns. I added
Tabasco sauce for extra kick. Eggs Kiwanis had been my preferred fair breakfast since I sprouted teeth.

  “A bowl of oatmeal would be much better for you,” she said, pushing the dark blue stroller down the carnival midway. All the colorful game stands and rides were closed, but a few carnies were starting to wander in, looking bleary-eyed, wild-haired and like they’d just gotten out of prison two minutes ago.

  “You sound like Gabe,” I said, falling in beside her. My health-conscious-when-it-suited-him second husband was always nagging me about my vegetable-starved diet. “I will eat oatmeal at the fair the very minute someone deep-fries it and puts it on a stick.”

  “Hey, Robbie!” I waved at one of the fair security people, dressed in a bright red polo shirt with Security in white letters across his chest. He drove by in one of the fair’s official yellow and red golf carts hauling a utility trailer filled with empty trash cans.

  “Hey, girl!” Robbie called. “You stay outta trouble!” He was one of the woodworkers from the Artists’ Co-op affiliated with the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum where I was curator and manager of the co-op. Many of our artists worked the fair either selling their products in a booth or taking one of the numerous temporary jobs like security detail or ground maintenance.

  “So, what’s on your agenda today?” I asked Elvia.

  “I promised Emory I’d check on the new hospitality suite. He wants to make sure that everything’s perfect, but between opening the new chicken restaurant in Santa Maria, all his civic volunteering and being president of the fair’s Booster Buddies, he’s scheduled to be in five places at one time.”

  Emory and his father, my uncle Boone, owned Boone’s Good Eatin’ Chicken, a smoked chicken company based in Sugartree, Arkansas, Emory’s hometown and where Uncle Boone still lived. When Emory came west to pursue Elvia, he talked his father into opening up a restaurant selling their chicken in San Celina, gambling that Californians might enjoy the taste of real Southern-style smoked chicken. To support his adopted state, Emory bought chickens grown in California but used the smoking method perfected in Arkansas. The business became more successful than he’d anticipated, which was great in terms of money, but bad in terms of time, especially now that he was a husband and a new father.