Detour Ahead

“Just do it.” She smiled and gave her best Miss America wave to the passing crowd.

Craig handed her the candy. “How did we end up in a parade?”

Ignoring him, she ripped open the bag and tossed a handful of candy out the window. It landed short of the sidewalk and children rushed to gather it up. “Smile,” she told him. “Everyone’s watching.”

He looked around, scowl still firmly in place. “I can’t believe this.”

“Here. Throw some on your side.” She shoved candy into his hand. “It’s fun.”

Looking doubtful, he rolled down the window on his side and threw out a handful of candy. One of the clowns strolled over and handed him a balloon. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, but the clown had already moved on to the car ahead of them.

“How sweet!” Marlee laughed at a boy and his dog who watched the parade from the back of a pickup parked at the curb. “Do you need more candy?”

“What I need is to know how we got into this mess,” he said.

“Maybe I thought it would be fun to visit the strawberry festival.” She pointed to the banner stretched across the street in front of them. Downieville Strawberry Festival! it proclaimed.

“Downieville’s not on our route. And we don’t have time for this. We’re already behind schedule.”

“Oh, stuff your schedule!” She spoke without rancor, still smiling and waving to the crowd. All the cars and trucks and floats turned in beneath the sign, which appeared to be the entrance to the local high school.

As Marlee pulled into a parking space and shut off the engine, a round, crinkly-faced man with straw-blond hair and bright blue eyes rushed up to them. “Welcome to Downieville,” he said, thrusting his hand in the open driver’s-side window. “I’m Ed Hoskins, the mayor. I saw you folks get caught up in our parade. Thanks for getting into the spirit of things.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mayor Hoskins. I’m Marlee and this is Craig. You have a wonderful little town.”

“Glad to meet you. And thank you.” He shook both their hands, though Craig continued to frown. “We think Downieville’s a special place. Now y’all come inside and join in the festivities. We’ve got all kinds of craft and food booths. Games. Fun for everyone.” He opened the door and ushered Marlee out.

Craig joined them. “Sir, I—” he began.

“Ed, we’ve got a problem!” A harried-looking older woman rushed up to them. She gave Marlee and Craig a brief smile. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need the mayor’s help here.”

“Nancy, what is it?” the mayor asked.

“Doc Nelson had to leave to deliver Sue Nicholson’s baby, and he was supposed to judge the bake-off. Now we’re a judge short.”

“I’m sure we can find someone who won’t mind tasting all those delicious pies and cakes for a good cause.” The mayor turned back to Marlee and Craig. “You’ll want to stick around for this, folks. After the judging, the goodies are sold by the slice. The money goes to our summer youth program.”

“Craig can be your judge,” Marlee said. “He’s a famous Washington, D.C., chef.”

“I don’t think I—”

Craig started to back away, but she caught hold of his arm. “You’d be perfect,” she said. “And we’d be helping these nice people out of a jam.”

“A jam! Strawberry jam! We have that, too.” The mayor put his arm around Craig’s shoulder and led them toward the high-school gym. “A famous chef. Imagine that! Wait until I tell the committee.”

Craig looked back over his shoulder and glared at Marlee. She pretended not to notice. So what if this wasn’t exactly part of their planned itinerary? Craig worried too much about things like schedules and plans. He needed to learn to relax more. To slow down and smell the roses. Or the strawberries.

CRAIG SPENT the next hour sampling strawberry pies, strawberry cakes, strawberry cookies and muffins. Women and men of all shapes and sizes presented their creations with attitudes ranging from great solemnity to open flirtation. “I know you’re going to love this,” cooed one buxom blonde. “It’s my specialty.”

“Stop wasting the man’s time, Victoria.” An older woman with a face like a bulldog shoved the blonde out of the way and fixed Craig with a stern stare. “Young man, if you’re really a famous chef, then you’ll recognize my award-winning strawberry pie as the best in the state. I developed the recipe myself and it’s never failed to win a ribbon.” The words held a definite threat.

Craig managed to keep a smile on his face as he picked up his fork. “I’m sure it’s delicious.” He gave an equally friendly smile to the blonde. “As I’m sure yours is, too.” Who knew judging a small-town baking contest would be so rife with intrigue and danger?

When the women moved on, shooed away by one of the bake-off organizers, Craig looked around the crowded gym for Marlee. He spotted her over by a face-painting booth. Dressed in an oversize red apron, she was painting a butterfly on a little girl’s cheek. Marlee had a strawberry painted on her own face. Her hair was tousled and she looked like a kid herself, and every bit as happy.

He didn’t buy her story about wanting to stop off at the Strawberry Festival. She must have gotten lost because there was no Downieville listed on his route plan for their trip. Amazing. How could a person get lost on a straight highway?

“Mr. Brinkman? It’s time to announce our winners.” Nancy, the gray-haired women in charge of the bake-off, led him to the small stage at one end of the gym. While she alerted the crowd that it was time to discover the winners of the contest, he shuffled through the notes he’d made on index cards. One advantage of being a stranger here was that he had no idea who had baked the winning entry, so he could be sure he’d judged fairly. He only hoped the losers wouldn’t come after him with a lynch rope.

He looked out at the crowd gathering around him and felt transported back to the junior-high talent show he’d entered when he was thirteen. He’d spent weeks rehearsing his act, but when he’d taken the stage in a gymnasium very much like this one, he’d been paralyzed with fear and had made a mess of things. When he’d heard everyone laughing, he’d run off the stage and vowed never to put himself in that position again.

“And now, our special celebrity judge, Chef Craig Brinkman, from Washington, D.C., will announce our winners.”

The sound of his name brought him out of his trance. He stepped forward, clutching his stack of index cards, and cleared his throat. “The first runner-up is the strawberry pound cake, um, number seventeen.”

Squeals erupted to the left of the platform and a teenage girl rushed forward, pausing every few feet to embrace an enthusiastic friend. She accepted her purple ribbon from Craig, then turned to beam at the crowd while a woman who must have been her mother snapped half a dozen photos. For all her excitement, you’d have thought the girl had won the Pillsbury bake-off. Here in Downieville, the Strawberry Festival was apparently just as big.

He waited for the commotion to die down, then consulted his next card. “Third place goes to the chocolate strawberry cake. Number twenty-seven.”

Laughter greeted this announcement. After a pause, a burly young man wearing a letter jacket from the local high school shuffled to the platform. The group of high-school girls giggled and whispered behind their hands as he approached. Apparently things hadn’t changed all that much since Craig’s school days. A boy who cooked was still something of a novelty.

“What’s your name, son?” he asked as he shook the young man’s hand.

“Uh, it’s Mike. Mike Brewster.”

“Congratulations, Mike. You might make a great chef someday.”

Mike looked uncertain, then grinned. “Thanks. I guess that’s pretty cool, huh?”

“I always thought so.”

As Mike returned to his place at the back of the crowd, he walked with an extra swagger, his shoulders straight. “Did you hear what he said?” He showed the ribbon to his friends. “He said I could be a great chef—like him.”

“Second place goes to the strawberry tart. Number forty-eight.”

The sour-faced woman who’d confronted him earlier made her way to the platform with much dignity. She accepted the second-place ribbon without a smile. “I’ll have you know this is the first time my strawberry tart has failed to take first place,” she said. “That’s what happens when you bring in outside judges. All that fancy nouveau cuisine has obviously ruined your tastebuds for good, American cooking.”

He tried not to cringe, and reminded himself that he would in all likelihood never have to see this woman again. Thank God for that.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.” Now that he’d been up here a while, he wasn’t so nervous. “I have to say, this was a really tough choice. Most of the entries were excellent and you are all to be commended.”

“Just tell us who won!” a man shouted from the back.

“Right.” He double-checked his notes. “The winner is the strawberry cream tart, number forty-seven.”

A woman squealed and the next thing he knew the buxom blonde was on stage beside him, her arms wrapped around him. “I told you you’d love it,” she exclaimed, and kissed him soundly, to the laughter and hooting of the crowd.

Somehow he managed to extricate himself from her grip while Nancy distracted her with the trophy. He took out his handkerchief to wipe lipstick off his face. As kisses went, this had been nothing spectacular.