Her smile tightens, too. “Not at all. I was just walking over to watch the anxious people ferry eggs on spoons across an obstacle course.”
“What a coincidence! Me, too.”
We exchange pleasantries, me asking about her campaign, her telling me about the parking meter controversy, until we reach the egg race and take a seat in the stands. “Listen, Mayor, I have an idea to run by you.”
“If this is about endorsing Bluebell Vineyards for the showcase, Zoe, I’m afraid my hands are tied.” She gestures at the massive fundraiser going on around us. “Into the Woods is one of my biggest supporters and one of the best vineyards in the southeast. I can’t ignore that.”
I take a deep breath. I prepared for this.
“Okay, but you pride yourself on embracing the unexpected and bringing innovation to Blue Ridge, right?”
Mayor Esposito nods resolutely. “Right.”
“Well, you can’t get more expected than Into the Woods.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic vineyard, and I love Mollyand Ezra Woods like second parents. But it’s as traditional as they come. If you plunked Into the Woods in the middle of Napa Valley, it wouldn’t make a blip on the local scene. Is that really the foot you want to put forward when wine lovers across America come to Blue Ridge? That the best we can do is the standard fare they’re used to in bigger wine scenes?”
A look of potent dismay crosses the mayor’s face. I’m getting to her. As if sensing danger, Rachel spots us in the stands. I wave, and fury darkens her face.
“Orwould you rather show off a vineyard that encapsulates what makes Blue Ridge so special? Scrappy, with can’t-beat views, making fun wines that represent our lush mountains.”
Someone has to push Rachel forward to get her spoon, she’s staring at us so hard.
The mayor follows my gaze, then shifts to where my Eager BV-ers crouch in a circle of rainbow tie-dye and face paint, cheering Laine as she accepts our team’s spoon proudly. “A vineyard run by queer women with a largely queer staff, no less.”
The mayor’s gaze cuts to me sharply. “Your point?”
I shrug. “All I’m saying is you can show outsiders the Blue Ridge they’d expect from a southern mountain town, or therealBlue Ridge that would surprise and delight them, and more than anything, make them feel welcome. All of them.”
The referee calls up the contestants, and Laine takes her place at the starting line, giving me a wink and a rapid pulse.A vineyard run by queer women…Women, not woman. I didn’t even hesitate before making it plural. A flush crawls up my neck.
The mayor’s broad, unlined face is heavy in thought. “You make some intriguing points, Zoe.”
“I do that from time to time, Mayor.” I smile wryly at Rachel. She drops her egg, but catches it in her other hand, glowering up at me.
The whistle goes off, and the contestants jump into action, a mishmash of slow, steady, and too fast all at once. Three eggs immediately fall and splat to the ground. Rachel and Laine are still in it, though, speed-walking with eggs balanced precariously on their tiny spoons. For a second, it pains me to see them side by side with so much animosity between them. They’resisters—something I always wanted, and for a while, thought I’d had in Rachel.
“Youcouldendorse both our vineyards toEveryday Bon Vivantand let them make the final call,” I say on a whim of … kindness? Pity? Some sense of fair play that Rachel sure as shit doesn’t have? “Just don’t count us out, Mayor. Iknowwe’d do you proud.”
Sensing anything more would be overkill, I let the words lie, sitting quietly together as the egg race grows rapidly more vicious.
Laine throws Rachel a look from the next lane over. “Watch that rock!”
Rachel snarls back, “Quit looking at me!” But her foot snags on the rock anyway, and she almost drops the egg. “See what you nearly made me do? Lord, you’resucha loser!”
“Oh yeah?” Laine’s smile grows bigger as she closes in on the last stretch. “Then why you wanna be me so bad?”
Laine’s remark must hit a little too close to home because Rachel splutters, trips, and sends her egg flying. The crowd gasps, watching the egg land on Rachel’s own head in the most satisfyingsplatI’ve ever heard just as Laine crosses the finish line.
“Oh, myword,” the mayor says, covering her mouth.
Poor Laine has one, maybe two seconds to laugh before Rachel steals someone else’s egg straight off their spoon and cracks it against Laine’s head, where it explodes in a yolky sunburst.
“Excuse me, Mayor. It’s been lovely catching up!” I hustle down the makeshift stands and push through the gawking crowds, trying to get to Laine, but that’s when it descends intochaos. Eggs flying everywhere,Laine smashing egg into Rachel’s hair, Rachel roaring and crushing eggs in each fist, Chance and me both trying to pull them apart. All the while the referee’s whistle is wailing like alarms, stopping exactlynothinguntil an older woman shoves to the front of the melee.
“Enough!” she booms across the entire field day.
Ohhhhhhhh,shit.
“Now, this rivalry has officially gone ontoo farand fortoo long,” Molly Woods says, her eyes cutting between Rachel, Laine, and Chance. “I didn’t spend my life raising three children just so they can go for each other’s throats like wild animals!”
