“Thanks for that.” Liv wiped her face with one hand and pulled her damp shirt away from her body with the other. She looked miserable. The Southern Crusty tent was packed, and the finalists were already standing on the makeshift wooden stage. I tried to see over the row of enormous women in front of us, but it was like standing in the Jackson cafeteria line on cookie day.
“I can barely see the stage.” Liv stood on her toes. “Is something supposed to be happening? Did we miss it?”
“Hold on.” Link tried to edge between the smaller of the two enormous women in front of us. “Yeah, we can't get any closer. I give up.”
“There's Amma.” I pointed. “She's won first place almost every year.”
“Amma Treadeau,” Liv said.
“That's right. How did you know?”
“Professor Ashcroft must have mentioned her.”
Carlton Eaton's voice blared over the loudspeaker as he fussed with the portable mic. He always announced the winners because the only thing he loved more than opening everyone's mail was the spotlight. “If y'all will bear with me, folks, we got some technical difficulties … hold on now … can someone call Red? How am I supposed to know how to fix a darn microphone? Shoot, it's hotter than Hades in here.” He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. Carlton Eaton never managed to remember when the microphone was on.
Amma stood proudly to his right, in her best dress, with the tiny violets all over it, holding her prizewinning sweet potato pie. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher were next to her, holding their own creations. They were already dressed for the Mother-Daughter Peach Pageant that started right after Pies. They were equally frightening in their respective aqua and pink pageant mother gowns, which made them look like aging prom dates from the eighties. Thankfully, Mrs. Lincoln was not in the pageant, so she stood next to Mrs. Asher in one of her standard church dresses, holding her famous chess pie. It was still hard to look at Link's mom without remembering the insanity of Lena's last birthday. You don't see your girlfriend's mother stepping out of your best friend's mom's body too many nights of the year. When I saw Mrs. Lincoln now, that's what I thought of — the moment Sarafine emerged like a snake shedding its skin. I shuddered.
Link elbowed me. “Dude, look at Savannah. She's got the crown on and everything. She sure knows how to milk it.”
Savannah, Emily, and Eden were sitting in the front row with the rest of the Peach Pageant contestants, sweating away in their tackiest pageant evening wear. Savannah was in yards of glittery Gatlin peach, with her rhinestone Peach Princess crown balanced perfectly on her head, even though the train of her dress kept snagging on the bottom of her cheap metal folding chair. Little Miss, the local dress shop, probably had to special-order it for her all the way from Orlando.
Liv edged her way closer to me, eyeing the cultural phenomenon that was Savannah Snow. “Is she the queen of Southern Crusty, then?” Liv's eyes twinkled, and I tried to imagine how strange this all must look to an outsider.
I almost smiled. “Just about.”
“I didn't realize baking was so important to Americans. Anthropologically speaking.”
“I don't know about other places, but in the South, women take their baking seriously. And this is the biggest pie-baking contest in Gatlin County.”
“Ethan, over here!” Aunt Mercy was waving her handkerchief in one hand and carrying her infamous coconut pie in the other. Thelma was walking behind her, shoving people aside with Aunt Mercy's wheelchair. Every year Aunt Mercy entered the contest, and every year she got an honorable mention for her coconut pie, even though she'd forgotten how to make it about twenty years ago, and none of the judges were brave enough to taste it.
Aunt Grace and Aunt Prue were arm in arm, dragging Aunt Prue's Yorkshire terrier, Harlon James, behind them.
“Well, fancy seein’ you here, Ethan. Did you come ta see Mercy win her ribbon?”
“Of course he did, Grace. What else would he be doin’ in a tent fulla old ladies?”
I wanted to introduce Liv, but the Sisters didn't give me a chance. They kept talking over one another. I should've known Aunt Prue would take care of that for me. “Who's this, Ethan? Your new girlfriend?”
Aunt Mercy adjusted her spectacles. “What happened ta the other one? The Duchannes girl, with the dark hair?”
Aunt Prue looked at her suspiciously. “Well, Mercy, that's jus’ none a our concern. You shouldn't be askin’ anything about it. She mighta up and left him.”
“Why would she do that? Ethan, you didn't ask that girl ta get nekkid, did ya?”
Aunt Prue gasped. “Mercy Lynne! If the Good Lord doesn't strike us all down on account a that talk …”
Liv looked dizzy. She obviously wasn't used to following the banter of three hundred-year-old women with thick Upcountry accents and fractured grammar.