State Fair (7 page)

It was certainly the cleverest and most eye-catching exhibit. I also noticed they didn’t actually incorporate this year’s theme. But to be fair, a lot of the other exhibits didn’t either. The Piebald exhibit technically deserved the blue ribbon attached to the front of the pickup, but I and probably a lot of ag people had mixed feelings about it winning top prize.

The Piebalds lived on a fifty-acre ranch just barely inside Paso Robles city limits complete with a half-dozen horses and a sprinkling of cattle, chickens, goats and sheep. Milt Piebald actually made his money not from ranching but from the five used-car dealerships he owned in Salinas, King City, Paso Robles, Nipomo and Oxnard. But I suspected that wouldn’t be what bothered most of the ag community.

The Piebalds had probably hired professionals to design their booth. They took a competition that was supposed to be a fun activity for kids and turned it into an adult contest. Still, it was a committee of ag people who judged this competition, which made me wonder what Milt might have on some of them.

Everyone knew that Milt Piebald liked winning. His story was well known in our community. Though he was fifteen years older than me, I remembered Daddy and the other ranchers talking about Milt when he played football for Cal Poly back in the sixties. A big-chested, beefy guy, he’d also been a champion steer wrestler on the college rodeo team. He dropped out in his junior year and after a year in pro-rodeo, he came back to San Celina and, with a small inheritance from his grandpa, bought his first used-car lot. Milt Piebald found his niche.

“Piebald’s Awesome Autos—gallop on over for the best deals in pre-owned cars” was notorious for selling flashy cars and trucks to people whose iffy credit precluded them from buying from more reputable dealers. He’d made, as Daddy liked to say with a sardonic half smile, a “shipload of money” selling used cars and trucks to suckers. The problem was that some of those suckers had been his friends and neighbors. But he was also an enthusiastic and generous booster for 4-H, Little League teams, both the high school and college rodeo teams and many other community activities. Feelings around town about Milt were mixed.

Milt’s first wife, Marlene, had been the daughter of a respected old family who’d once owned the largest grocery store in the county. When she died of renal failure, Milt mourned for two months, and then married another local girl, Juliette Baxter, gifting the snippy society ladies of San Celina County (and, admittedly, the rest of us) with no end of gossip and speculation.

Juliette was also a local celebrity of sorts. She was seventeen years younger than Milt’s fifty-three years and gorgeous, a former Miss San Celina Rodeo Queen. She’d been nominated a record eight times for princess on both San Celina High School and Cal Poly San Celina homecoming courts. She was infamous for the quote “It’s a real, true honor to just be nominated.” She, Elvia, Jack and I had all gone through high school and college together. By the time she’d repeated those same words in her senior year in college when Sarah Rodriguez won homecoming queen, they were coming out a little pinched and she’d become a popular person for local comedians to parody.

With a marketing degree and beauty queen looks, she’d gone on to become a KSCC weather girl, then after marrying Milt, landed her own local television show called
The Juliette Piebald Show
(Piebald Awesome Autos was the show’s first sponsor). It featured local artists, businesses and events, whatever caught Juliette’s interest. She’d given our museum some much-needed publicity early in our inception, so I had a bit of a soft spot for her. I’d even felt bad when her show got the ax only year after it debuted. The story was she couldn’t attract any sponsors other than Milt.

I studied the professional photos of the Piebald family. They all gave wide smiles except Justin, who appeared to be staring at something over the photographer’s shoulder.

Justin, Milt’s son by Marlene, was a quiet young man, with neatly trimmed dark hair and wary gray eyes. He surprised everyone a year ago when, a week after he graduated Cal Poly, he applied at the San Celina Police Department and was accepted at the academy. Gabe had confided to me that he’d had some reservations about employing him because of Milt Piebald’s shifty reputation, but the young man’s dedication and hard work had impressed him.

Billy Piebald was Milt and Juliette’s son. It was Billy’s first year in 4-H. I’d watched him show his first hog earlier today where he’d won second place in showmanship. He had a cotton-top, freckled, Huck Finn cuteness that invariably made people smile.

I snapped a few more pictures, thinking the whole time how the fair rules should state that the exhibits be made exclusively by the families, not a professional designer, when a silky voice behind me said, “You have to admit, it’s the best one.”

I turned to face Juliette Piebald and was mesmerized, as always, by her perfection. She stood five foot ten, with glossy, shoulder-length chestnut hair, not a strand out of place. Her complexion was as smooth as a hen’s egg. Some of it had to be makeup, but she’d also been blessed with silky skin. Emerald eyes straight out of a romance novel gazed down at me. She wore thigh-hugging maroon Wranglers, a pristine white Western shirt, a galloping horse rhinestone belt buckle and an expensive straw Stetson. She was so perfect that you wanted to hate her but couldn’t because her perfection was so incredibly fascinating, like a
Vogue
magazine photo come to life.

“It’s real nice, Juliette,” I said. My voice went high and chipper, making me a little sick by my duplicity. Though I hadn’t entered the competition this year, the fact that she and Milt used professional designers kind of bugged me. I rubbed my sunburned nose, feeling like the country mouse. “I’m taking pictures for the historical society.”

“Good,” she said, touching a painted nail to lips that were the exact shade of Pepto-Bismol. On her, the color actually looked good. “Will it be in a book or something?”

“No, we don’t have that much money. These photos will probably just go into the permanent records. For future historians.”

“Darn.” Her glossy mouth turned down into a pout that was so attractive that it had to be rehearsed. “I’m so proud of Billy and Justin’s exhibit. They worked awfully hard on it.”

Was she serious? The only thing Billy and Justin likely contributed to this exhibit was posing for the professional pictures displayed in the playing card frames.

She sighed, looking vulnerable for a moment. “I’m donating the gift certificate to the battered women’s shelter. Billy and Milt are mad at me, but I told them that we need to share our good fortune.”

This was the kind of thing that always made me feel a little ashamed by how I immediately judged Juliette whenever we met at some society function. Yes, she was a bit of a plastic beauty queen, but she also seemed to have a good heart.

“That’s really nice of you, Juliette,” I said.

She flashed her sparkling rodeo-queen/talk-show-host smile. “What’s two hundred bucks anyway? Wouldn’t even pay for a set of earrings. Tell Gabe I said hi.” She loved flirting with my husband, who took her silly flattery with a good-natured laugh and much ribbing from Emory. But I’d known Juliette since high school when she moved here with her newly divorced mother. Flirting had always been her favorite sport. Shoot, I remember her flirting with Jack when we were all teenagers, which made me feel more than a little old.

It was almost 5 p.m. by the time I left the agriculture building and since all I’d eaten was that deep-fried avocado—an appetizer, really—I decided to grab something to eat on my way home. I wanted to shower and change clothes before coming back for Kathy Mattea’s concert in the Sierra Vista arena at 8 p.m.

I checked the schedule I’d typed up a week ago. Tomorrow was the cattle drive, an event that ranchers both complained about and looked forward to every year. The antics of both the cattle and the locals who watched or participated in the drive gave Daddy and his coffee-drinking cronies at the Farm Supply something to moan and groan about all year. Reliving last year’s mini stampede was a favorite past time around the never-empty coffeepot at the Farm Supply. Some newcomer’s yappy little mixed-breed terrier had discovered some long buried herding dog roots, leaped out of his owner’s arms and charged the placid cattle herd. The startled bovines, alarmed by the fuzzy, barking rat, veered off course, in the process trampling the fancy lawns of a couple of Paso’s new million-dollar homes. We still heard occasional grumbling about that, despite the fact that the county repaired the damages and gave all the homeowners and their guests free fair passes. On the other hand, people would gripe if we didn’t do the traditional cattle drive, so there really was no winning.

I faced a dizzying array of choices for my snack. Garlic fries and a hot dog on a stick or a tri-tip steak sandwich with salsa? A deep-fried burrito or a giant barbecued turkey leg? Australian battered potatoes or pan-fried chicken? I could eat tri-tip steak or fried chicken any time so I sprang for the hot dog on a stick. Besides, it was the easiest thing to eat while walking back to my truck. On the way to the parking lot, I noticed the cinnamon-scented funnel cake stand. Tomorrow would definitely be a funnel cake day.

One of the best things about being a Mid-State Fair Booster Bud-die was our access to the preferred parking lot right across the street from the entrance. That meant I didn’t have to search for a space in the crowded public lot a block away and made my truck easy to find. Not that my truck was ever really difficult to spot. The Barneymobile is what everyone at the folk art museum called my little Ford pickup, which was painted Ford’s idea of sapphire blue. Sapphire blue might be its official moniker, but in the bright Central Coast sunlight, purple it was.

Just as I opened my truck, my cell phone rang. At the same time, I heard the sound of a male voice raised in anger. I turned and looked across the preferred parking lot to the back row. It was Dodge Burnside and Jazz Clark. He loomed over her, jabbing a finger in her face. Amazingly, people walked through the parking lot, close enough to intervene, but no one even turned a head. I threw my backpack in the truck, locked it and jogged quickly toward the couple, shoving my cell phone in the back pocket of my Wranglers.

“I mean it,” Dodge said, when I was within ten feet. He grabbed Jazz’s upper arm. “If you see him again, I’ll—”

“Hey!” I cried out in my deepest, most authoritative voice. “Is there a problem here?”

“Get lost,” he said, without even turning to look at me. “This is between me and my girlfriend.”

“I am so
not
your girlfriend,” Jazz snapped, jerking out of his grasp.

I walked up next to her, crossed my arms over my chest and gazed up at the young man. Even scowling, his looks were striking, magazine perfect with sculpted features and blue eyes that glowed on his sun-tanned face like pieces of turquoise on a desert floor.

“What’s going on here?” I asked in my best annoyed schoolteacherlibrarian voice.

“Nothing.” His jaw clenched so hard it seemed he’d break a tooth.

I looked over at Jazz. Her cheekbones were flushed and shiny. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We’re so done,” she said, her upper lip slightly lifted. “Dodge’s just acting like a crybaby.”

He lifted his fist.

Gabe’s voice echoed inside my head.
If you’re being threatened, speak with authority. Use their name. People respond to tone of voice.

I stepped between them. “Dodge, cool it. Now!”

White flashed around Dodge’s eyes. My heart thumped in my chest. Had I miscalculated? His anger felt like a physical presence, like a hot Santa Ana wind. I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll call the police.”

“Dodge, you idiot!” Jazz said. “She’s a police chief’s wife. If you hit her, you will
so
go to jail.”

His arm slowly dropped to his side. “This isn’t over.” He pushed past us, dust kicking up from the heels of his boots.

We watched him walk toward a white Chevy truck and climb inside.

Jazz let out a shuddering breath. “Wow, thanks. You came along just in time.”

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Dodge Burnside is a jerk,” she said, studying her nails. “We hung out, but it wasn’t serious.” She shrugged, seemingly unconcerned about someone who I felt was one second away from assaulting her.

“Looks like you were right to break up with him,” I said, shading my eyes against the bright afternoon sun. “If he doesn’t leave you alone, let me know and I’ll talk to Gabe.”

“No worries,” she said, her voice breezy. “I’ve totally got it under control.”

Apparently not, I wanted to say. She seemed already past it and ready to move on. Her expression brightened and she lifted her hand at someone behind me. “Sam! Justin! Over here!” She raised her arm and waved.

I turned around, relieved to see my stepson, Sam Ortiz, and Justin Piebald stride toward us.

Sam’s face was tanned deep mahogany from his daily surfing schedule. He smiled and called out, “Hey,
madrastra
. What’s up?”

“Not much,” I replied. “What’s up with you?”

Madrastra
was his name for me from almost the first time we met, not long after Gabe and I eloped to Las Vegas. It meant stepmother in Spanish, but was considered an endearment, almost like “second mother.” Just seeing him made my spine relax. Sam was a perpetually happy young man who didn’t seem to have one single enemy. He had not inherited either his father’s sober intensity or his attorney mother’s focused ambition. Instead, he slid through life on his good looks, laid-back personality and ability to get along with anyone.

“Me and Justin are on our way to the beach. I have a new long board.”

“It’ll definitely be cooler there than here. How’re you doing, Justin?”

“Fine, Mrs. Ortiz.” He ducked his head, flushing slightly. I’d given up trying to convince him to call me Benni.