Hot Dish (3 page)

“You never did stand a snowball’s chance,” a familiar voice broke through her reverie.

Two female figures, separated in age by nearly half a century, chugged purposefully toward her. Together, they composed the sum total of Jenn’s Fawn Creek social life.

The smaller, Mrs. Soderberg, sported an orange Budweiser visor holding aloft a puff of puce-colored curls above a phlegmatic pink countenance. Jenn had spent her happiest—no, “happiest” indicated that there was a “happy” to feel “ier” about. There hadn’t—she’d spent her most content moments in Good Shepherd’s basement kitchen, watching Mrs. Soderberg mix the batter for
julbrod
, or trying to divine the arcane calculations by which the old Swedish lady determined exactly how many juniper berries to float atop her corned venison, and being silently watched in turn as she attempted to duplicate those recipes.

There was something comforting in Mrs. Soderberg’s silence, her silent condemnation and silent approval being more or less
interchangeable. It was reliable and uniform in-expressiveness in a world gone mad.

Her companion, Heidi Olmsted, wore a ubiquitous uniform of overalls and a brightly colored T-shirt beneath, her brown hair hauled back from her square face into a short ponytail. Jenn and Heidi’s friendship was as unlikely as it was inevitable. Heidi, wry, self-effacing, and agonizingly private, had the dubious distinction of being Fawn Creek High’s other perennial outsider. But where Jenn’s status was the result of circumstances, Heidi’s was the consequence of nature.

“But then I wouldn’t have given you a snowball’s chance of being a finalist to begin with, so you should be satisfied with getting that far, I think,” old Mrs. Soderberg finished upon making it to Jenn’s side.

“What do you mean?” Jenn asked.

“Just observin’, is all. Best get goin’, then,” Mrs. Soderberg said. “Gotta find Neddie before he does somet’in’ stupid.”

Neddie was Mrs. Soderberg’s grandson, a souvenir of her daughter Missy’s summer visit to Florida years earlier. Missy had long since flown the coop, leaving her mother to raise Neddie alone. Maybe that was why Mrs. Soderberg had been a little more accepting of outsiders: she had practice accepting the unacceptable—at least by Fawn Creek standards. Although she wasn’t exactly a friend of Jenn’s, she had taken a detached interest in her cooking abilities.

“No. Please!” Jenn grabbed the old woman’s wrist and won a “look” from Mrs. Soderberg.

Minnesotans didn’t touch one another in public unless they were getting married and even then it was looked upon as being a little gratuitous, a handshake being considered adequate to express most heightened emotions.

Jenn let go, and with the alacrity of a cat loosed from a Have-a-Heart cage, Mrs. Soderberg scooted off.

“Why was she so sure I wouldn’t win?” Jenn asked Heidi, who was looking longingly after Mrs. Soderberg’s disappearing figure. Like most of the state’s natives, Heidi resisted “unpleasantness,” and from the way her broad face was contorting, Jenn suspected Heidi anticipated this conversation was going to more than qualify.

“Well, not that it’s any of my business,” Heidi ventured, looking pained, “but I saw Carol Ekkelstahl talking to that guy in the plaid shirt while they were announcing the runners up.”

Jenn waited. Heidi waited.

“So?” Jenna prompted.

“So? Wasn’t it her kid Karin that you beat out for Miss Fawn Creek?”

“Huh? You don’t think Mrs. Ekkelstahl …” Too many days spent with no one for company except the pack of dogs the Olmsteds kept had taken their toll on poor Heidi. “Listen, even if Mrs. Ekkelstahl did want me out of the pageant, how much influence would she have with the Federation judges?”

Heidi shrugged. “I’m just saying, is all. And there’s no ‘even’ about her wanting you out.”

“Why would Mrs. Ekkelstahl have it in for me?” Jenn asked as confused as she was startled.

“Because, Jenn,” Heidi said in the careful tones of one addressing the mentally challenged, “you came to town and took what she thought was little Karin’s. That Miss Fawn Creek title.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

Heidi let out the same deep sigh she had when Jenn asked her if the ice stayed on the lakes all summer. “You gotta remember that Fawn Creek is a small town, Jenn.”

No shit
! Jenn wanted to say.

“People in small towns are sure outsiders, ‘specially people from the city, all think that they’re better than them. And it doesn’t help that deep down, most small-town people think so, too.”

“I don’t get it.”

Heidi’s dour face filled with exasperation. “Look, Jenn. Most of the kids around here don’t have rich parents and they don’t have much to look forward to unless you play hockey and can get a scholarship to the university. Especially girls.

“One of the things girls”—she caught Jenn’s questioning glance—”most girls, look forward to is thinking that someday they might maybe be Miss Fawn Creek. And their moms probably dream about it even more. Then you show up, an outsider from the city, and not even a Minnesota city, with your
Seventeen
magazine wardrobe and the sort of polish no one else around here has and before you can say, ‘Jack Pine Savage,’ you get yourself named Miss Fawn Creek.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jenn said. “If everyone thought a girl from Fawn Creek should have won, why’d the judges choose me? I wasn’t holding a gun to anyone’s head.”

“The judges were guys,” Heidi said flatly. “Guys see things different. Ken Holmberg? I’m betting he took one look at you and figured you stood a whole lot better chance of being crowned Queen Buttercup than Karin Ekkelstahl, and if you got the title, the Federation might hold its regional conference in Fawn Creek.”

Right.
She
was Fawn Creek’s ticket to the Dairy Big Time. “If you thought all this, why didn’t you
say
something?”

Heidi shrugged. “Wasn’t my business.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“You asked. And you’re just not too bright when it comes to people, Jenn, and I didn’t think you’d figure it out by yourself. At least, you’re not too smart about small-town people—or maybe it’s small-town society. You don’t get it …” She trailed off thoughtfully. When she wasn’t playing with dogs, Heidi considered herself something of a budding sociologist.

“So I told you.” Her face lit with one of those abrupt and transforming smiles common to native Minnesotans. It wasn’t pleasantness that engendered that smile, Jenn had learned. It was a reflex. It was one of the reasons, Jenn was sure, the whole “Minnesota nice” illusion had evolved—”Smile and keep ‘em guessing.”

“So then, I guess I’ll be off to watch the K-9 unit,” Heidi said. “You want to come, too?”

“No. I can’t,” Jenn said.

“Okay, then. We’ll be seeing you later, I’m sure,” Heidi said cheerfully and took off, leaving Jenna alone in the nearly empty building.

Jenn walked slowly, her uncomfortable thoughts swinging between undeserved guilt and righteous anger. Even if what Heidi had said was true, it wasn’t like Jenn had known she was committing some social crime. Besides, even the kindest critic would have to admit that none of the other contenders for Miss Fawn Creek would have made it as far as Jenn had.

Outside, the sudden sun dazzled her eyes and the air smothered her like a sweat-soaked sauna towel. Noise bombarded her. She stopped in front of a human river of twenty thousand jostling, munching, slurping, sweating, stinking visitors to
Minnesota’s Great Get-Together
. People hollered and vendors shouted while kids yelped with delight and wailed in frustration, the racket fed by rock music blasting from the radio station booths scattered along avenues as over it all roared the amplified sound of screams siphoned from the midway rides.

“Jenn! Sweetheart!” Like Glinda in
The Wizard of Oz
, Jenn’s mother seemed to float not so much out from the crowd, as above it. Even here, Nina Hallesby managed to look wealthy and feminine, from the tortoiseshell sunglasses perched atop her auburn hair to the discreet gold knots winking in her ears. “I was so proud of you.”

“You were?” Jenn regarded Nina doubtfully. Other than expressing first disbelief (“You want to enter a Butter Pageant?”) and then fake enthusiasm (“I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful Butterball Queen!” To
which she’d had to respond, “That’s Buttercup, Mom. Butter
CUP
!”), her mother had never said much about Jenn’s Run for the Buttercups. “But I lost.”

“I know.” Nina patted Jenn’s shoulder. “I saw.”

Jenn was surprised. She hadn’t realized her mom had even been there. It didn’t really seem like Nina’s thing. In Raleigh, Nina had been more likely to be holding Monte Carlo Casino Charity Nights (gambling being her favorite and most successful fund-raising endeavor) to finance the new lacrosse field than sitting in the auditorium watching the seventh-grade play. Jenn’s parents had once been high rollers, taking over the penthouse at the Bellagio, front row seats at Caesar’s Palace. Now they lived in a broken-down old hunting lodge and tried to convince themselves they were all about living the Simple, Healthy Life.

“I’m sure the decision to crown that Mill person was strictly political, but while I’m sorry you lost, it’s not the end of the world.”

No, Jenn thought, that had ended when they’d yanked her out of school, stealing her away from one last year with her best friend, and hijacking her into the middle of this … this Jack London wet dream.

“Don’t look so glum,” her mother said. “How many times have I told you that our current situation is only temporary? Your father is just taking some time off before jumping back into things—”

“
He’s taken over a year off
,” Jenn exclaimed, as startled by her uncharacteristic outburst as Nina looked. But now that the flow of words had started, she couldn’t stop them. “And while he’s taking time off, my life is falling apart! I won’t be able to stand it up there another year with the loons. I can’t! I have to get out of there before I go nuts.”

Nina regarded Jenn with a wounded expression. “I thought you liked the Lodge.”

“I did!” she said. “I liked the Little Pathfinders Wilderness Camp you sent me to when I was nine, too. But I don’t want to live there, either.”

“Now, Jenn, I know it seems right now that living in Fawn Creek is the worst thing that could ever happen to you,” her mother said, “but someday you will look back and realize that ‘you cannot reach the dawn save by the path of the night.”’

Jenn stared. “Where do you
get
this stuff?”

“It was on a Kahlil Gibran poster I had in college,” her mom answered serenely.

This was pointless. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s at something called Machinery Hill, looking at tractors.”

Was she kidding?

“I told him we’d meet him at the Poultry Emporium as soon as you were done with this pageant thing.” Her mother’s expression brightened. “They have these adorable chickens there that look like little Russian army officers. You know, with those tall furry hats?”

Again, Jenn could only stare.

“It says in the program they’ll announce the winner at noon. I wonder if they’ll have a little crown for it.” She giggled and then, catching Jenn’s expression,
tched
. “Oh, Jenn, I was kidding. What happened to your sense of humor? Come on. It’ll be fun. Let’s go, shall we?”

“I’m not done with ‘the pageant thing,”’ Jenn said. “I have to have my head carved out of butter and then go appear on some local television show.”

“A butter head?” Nina giggled again until she realized Jenn wasn’t joking. She abruptly sobered. “Oh. Well. Then we’ll see you afterward at the car, shall we? Bye!”

She gave a quick wave and stepped off the curb, her face lighting up. It dawned on Jenn that her mom
liked
the state fair. And her dad was at
Machinery Hill
? Looking at
tractors
? Holy crap. Her parents really had gone off the deep end.

Well, that was sad and everything if it was true, but the bottom line was that her parents had had their shot. Jenn wanted her shot, too. And she’d been that close to getting it….

Across the street, she spotted Ken Holmberg, one of Fawn Creek’s councilmen, pumping the hand of some old Swede (she knew he was a Swede because as a Swede, and thus not being the sort to leave anything to conjecture, he was wearing a T-shirt that said:
don’t kiss me. i’m swedish
).

Though he couldn’t have been much more than thirty-five, Ken looked older, like a gnome out of a kid’s Scandinavian fairy tale book: short, stocky, the middle of his flat face adorned by an improbably upturned nose, his pink scalp peeking through a neat little oiled comb-over of brown hair. Not only had Ken been one of the judges for the Miss Fawn Creek pageant, but as one of the biggest employers of the town—he owned a hockey stick manufacturing plant—he’d been instrumental in convincing the Fawn Creek council to sponsor her bid for Buttercupdom. Not because he liked her—he didn’t—but because … Well, maybe Heidi wasn’t so off base where Ken was concerned. But she was way off base with her Carol Ekkelstahl conspiracy theory.

Sure, Minnesotans were a tight-knit group, but they also prided themselves on their virtue. Especially simple, uncomplicated virtues like honesty and integrity, things you could paint black and white. Now, if you
were talking about exceeding the daily fish possession limits or illegally tiling a field, that was a different matter. But some things just weren’t done. Small-town pageant fixing being primary among them.

Jenn picked up her pink satin skirt and waded through the crowds across the street to tap Ken on the shoulder. He turned around, a politician’s beam stamped on his face. Upon seeing her, his smile vanished. “Jenn, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”

“Me, too, Mr. Holmberg,” Jenn agreed earnestly. “That’s why I was wondering … Do you think … That is …”
Spit it out
! “I think it might be a good idea to ask for a recount of the judges’ score cards just to make sure, you know … to see who won. I … I mean—”

“There was no mistake, Jenn. You lost,” Ken said tersely. “And if I was you, I’d be thankful you weren’t publicly disqualified.”