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Crane set down his cocoa. “How long does the argument last?”

“Until spring.”

I stood beside the pastry case and watched him do in fifteen minutes what had taken me three weeks to do badly.

Robert returned with the county records and the car shortly before four thirty. Crane took one bite of a croissant before he left. “This is better than anything I’ve bought at San Francisco’s Ferry Building,” he told Pearl.

“The Ferry Building food hall?”

“The very one.”

Pearl boxed the remaining croissants and walked him to the door. She stood in her apron and watched the black car head north out of town. “Well,” she said. “He’s lovely.”

“He’s here to buy your building.”

“I know that sugar.” She looked toward the garland with the dead section in the middle. “That’s what has me worried.”

CHAPTER 12

NORA

The festival office was dark when I arrived at six fifty-five.

Griffin was already in it, pacing the four feet the room allowed. He looked as though he’d been up all night. It was in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, and in the paper cup from the community center’s terrible machine. Nobody drank that coffee unless every better option had failed. “You came.”

“You texted at five forty. I assumed it wasn’t about garland.”

“The Calloways canceled. Their family runs our largest food booth.” He got the rest out fast. “Owen took the call at ten past five. Wes Calloway’s mother had a stroke in Bakersfield Sunday night, and the family is driving to Bakersfield this morning. They don’t know when they’ll be back. The committee had to return their booth fee, but Owen processed the refund before Wes finished apologizing for canceling.”

I sat down before my legs gave out. “How much food service did we lose?”

“About forty percent. They were covering all three days of hot food and both breakfast services.”

I opened the laptop and looked at the vendor spreadsheet. The Calloways had covered more meals than any other family for twelve years, and every one of those shifts was now blank. “We call other food vendors,” I said. “There have to be people available.”

“I’ve been calling since half past five.”

We worked side by side for two hours and found mostly bad options. Three food vendors were booked solid through the twenty-third. A Salem barbecue truck was available and willing to pay the standard booth fee, but only if it got the spot nearest the stage. The Whitmores had parked their cider cart there every Christmas since 1998. No map reserved the space, but everyone in town knew it was theirs. I put VISIT THE WHITMORES on a sticky note. That conversation had to happen in person, with cider in my hand and a better argument than “Please move twenty-seven years of tradition.”

I worked my list, which was eight years of phone numbers written in the backs of binders, and Griffin worked his database. Mine produced a food cart out of Sublimity that could do Saturday only and a woman in Stayton who sold elephant ears—the fried-dough kind—and would come if we waived her booth fee. His produced two Portland food trucks willing to come only if we waived both fees and promised each of them the only booth beside the stage. “Both of them want the same booth,” I said.

“They know.” He crossed them off. “I’m not opening the festival with a territorial dispute between two deep fryers.”

At nine Griffin capped his pen. “We’re still thirty-one percent short on food coverage,” he said.

“I heard.”

“I can replace the booth fees we waive. Personally. Today.”

“No.” The word cut sharper than I meant. “The committee can waive fees or offer the best spots if that’s what it takes. You can’t cover the loss with your own check and call it ours.”

He kept looking at me a second too long. Neither of us mentioned it.

At nine twenty, Owen came in carrying a thermos and looking as though his morning had already been worse than ours. Holly Creek’s council chair took in the cold cups, the printouts, and the two of us sitting on the same side of the table.

“Thirty-one percent short on food coverage,” Griffin said.

“Then you’ve got twenty-seven days to find thirty-one percent.” Owen set the thermos down. “Which is why I’m sending you both to Main Street at three. The lights go up today. Frank’s got a crew, the high school’s sending eight kids, and every merchant on the block will be standing on that sidewalk watching.”