locked her car, parked on the gravel shoulder of a side street. “Ready?”
“Of course,” her daughter said with preternatural composure. A small, slight figure, she adjusted her day pack on her shoulder. “We’d better hurry.”
It was true, Helen saw with a glance at her watch. A minor accident on Aurora had slowed traffic to a crawl.
She and Ginny walked as fast as they could the few blocks to the elementary school field where the arts and craft fair had sprouted like a peculiar mushroom after a rainfall. Even first thing on Friday morning, tantalizing aromas drifted from the food booths that had sprung up around the periphery. Colorful flags fluttered above the red-and-white-striped tents. The juried art show was in the gymnasium, and another displaying children’s art filled the halls of the school. Banners were slung along chain-link fences.
Helen had just time to tie back the front flaps of her tent, say hi to her neighboring exhibitors and put money in the cash register before the first shoppers, a pair of women, wandered in.
“Ooh!” one exclaimed, lifting a bar of soap. “Smell this one.”
Ginny gave her mother a satisfied smile.
Kathleen was working at her day job today, but, with her daughter Emma, could handle the booth tomorrow. Jo, who had roomed with the two women until she married Kathleen’s brother, Ryan, had promised to spend a few hours here this afternoon to give Helen a break.
By ten-thirty in the morning, the grassy aisles between the rows of tents were clogged with mothers pushing strollers, fathers bouncing toddlers on their shoulders and grandmothers outfitted with walkers and flowery hats. Overshirts were vanishing into tote bags. Spaghetti straps and straw hats abounded. The day promised to be the hottest yet in July, which meant the mercury would top eighty. Given the humidity, Helen was glad to be in the shade most of the time.
Ginny’s shyness vanished at craft fairs. She gravely answered questions, helped people find particular soaps and assured them that the shampoo was “the best.”
“My hair is really clean.” She tilted her head so these particular women could see. “Some of the stuff from stores makes me itch. Mom says my skin is sensitive.”
One of the women hid her smile. “Really. Mine is, too. Heck, I’ll give it a try.”
“So’s Buster’s skin.” Her companion reached for a bottle of the pet shampoo. “That darn dog is allergic to everything!”
Ginny smiled her approval. “Auntie Kathleen doesn’t put anything artificial in her shampoos or soaps.”
Both women laughed. Ginny looked puzzled. Her solemnity and adult speech came naturally to her. Somehow, after her father’s death, she’d quit being a child. Once she came out of her shell, she was a miniature adult. She could never understand why real grown-ups found her amusing.
“What a doll!” The woman with the pet shampoo took bills from her wallet. “Is she yours?”
“Yes.” Helen smiled as she made change. “She’s eight going on forty.”
“And what a saleswoman.”
Helen laughed, too, although she worried about Ginny. An eight-year-old should be playing with Barbies or jumping rope with friends, not going to work with her mom. But this was almost always Ginny’s preference. She did have a few friends, which was an improvement over two years ago, but she would politely turn down offers to go to one of their houses if her mother was working a craft fair that day. Helen could never decide whether Ginny loved selling soap so much, or whether this was another manifestation of the way she’d clung after Ben died.
But if Helen argued, Ginny would gaze up at her with wounded eyes and say, “But aren’t I a help? You always say I am.”
What could Helen do but throw up her hands. “Of course you are! I just don’t want you to feel you have to come.”
“I want to.”
So here Ginny was, a skinny little girl with mouse-brown hair in two braids, a thin face and great big eyes, patrolling their booth with the relaxed efficiency of an experienced saleswoman.
Jo showed up at noon on the nose. Despite the heat of the day, she managed to look cool in khaki shorts, sandals and a white tank top, her short dark hair shining and bouncy. In contrast, Helen kept pushing escaping strands off her sweaty forehead.
Jo made a face. “I had to park about a mile away. This place is jammed!”
“Business is really good.” Helen turned from her and smiled at a customer who was holding one of Logan’s beautifully made wooden boxes packed with Kathleen’s products. “Oh, you’ll enjoy this,” she said, ringing up the purchase. “The mint is wonderful.”
“Actually, I’m going to tuck it away for Christmas. This—” she set down a citrus bar on the card table “—is for me.”
“Ah. Well, I’ll put a card in your bag in case you decide you want more after you use this one up. A number of stores in Seattle stock our soaps.” She glanced at the total. “That’ll be $68.73.”
“You do take checks?”
“You bet.”
Another satisfied customer. In the lull that followed her departure, Jo asked, “Do you want to grab a lunch break?”
Helen looked around. “I’d better make it a quick one. I don’t know if you can keep up by yourself.”
“I’m Wonder Woman.” Jo flexed what biceps she had. “Of course I can.”
Helen laughed. “Well, Ginny is itching to see the children’s art. I wish her teacher had known how to enter her students’ work.”
“Wouldn’t she love that?” Jo flapped her hands. “Go, go! I’ll be fine. Get something to eat while you’re at it.”
“Bless you.” Helen was starting toward Ginny when the sight of a man entering the tent made her heart give a funny bump.
Alec Fraser, of course.
He looked directly at her, as if half a dozen other people didn’t crowd the tent. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She returned his smile.
He sidestepped so a young woman pushing a stroller could maneuver between him and a pyramid of soap bars. “Looks like business is good.”
“It’s amazing. If it stays this busy all weekend, we’ll sell everything.”
“That’s the way we want it.” He paused. “Can I get you anything? I can bring you lunch, if you tell me what you like.”
She almost asked if he was offering this service, too, to all exhibitors, but refrained. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Oh, thank you, but I have help. In fact, I was just about to take my daughter to look at the children’s art.”
“Really?” His gaze followed hers to Ginny, who was getting a bar of soap from a bin and handing it to an elderly woman with
