The Chesapeake Diaries Series (133 page)

Logan stopped dead in his tracks and his face went white.

“My sword! I don’t have my sword!” he wailed.

“Where did you leave it?” Brooke asked.

“In the car!”

“I’ll run back and get it. You stay right here. I won’t have time to go looking for you.” Clay turned and took off.

Cody ran up to meet Logan, who continued to wail about his missing sword.

“But Clay went to get it for you,” Brooke reminded him. She waved at Dallas, who’d stopped to chat with one of the parents from the boys’ class.

“What if he doesn’t get back in time?” Logan continued.

“He’ll be back,” she assured him. “He’s pretty darned fast.”

Brooke turned to Jesse. “This is what passes for excitement in St. Dennis.”

“Hey, I love a little drama before a good parade,” he replied. “Check out those little ones dressed up like pumpkins in the wheelbarrow.”

“Looks like a perfect pumpkin patch to me.” Brooke smiled at the man who was pushing the wheelbarrow. “Are they all yours?” She pointed to the children who were all dressed exactly alike, in puffy orange costumes.

“Three are mine, the rest are neighbors’,” the man replied as he headed toward the registration table.

“Mom, we have to do that, too.” Logan tugged on her sleeve. “We have to sign up.”

“We’ll do that when Clay gets back. I think we need to wait right here. This is where he’ll be looking for us.”

“What if we’re too late and they don’t let us in the
parade?” He pointed to the three sports cars at the head of the parade, their drivers looking ready to roll.

“I keep trying to get Dallas’s attention but she’s deep in conversation,” Brooke said. “She could sign the boys up while I wait for Clay. I don’t think she realizes that the parade will be starting soon.”

“How ’bout I take the boys over to the registration table while you wait here for Clay,” Jesse suggested. “He’ll be looking for you in the crowd, not me.”

“Do you mind? They can sign themselves up. I just don’t like them wandering around alone in a crowd this large.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Jesse turned to the boys. “Let’s go, guys. I bet by the time we get back, Clay will be here with Logan’s sword and you’ll be good to go.”

“We practiced dueling last night and you know what …” Logan’s voice trailed off as Jesse shepherded the two boys to the registration table.

Brooke folded her arms over her chest and scanned the crowd for her brother. The municipal parking lot was crowded as more and more parade entrants began to gather. The sun was warm on the back of Brooke’s neck, and she slipped off the denim jacket. She frowned at the smear of chocolate she’d been in too much of a hurry to wash out completely. She twisted the sleeve slightly, hoping it would be less noticeable. She turned toward the registration area in time to see Jesse making his way through the crowd with the boys. He was, she noted wryly, much better dressed than she was. Khakis and a rust-colored cotton crewneck sweater, dark glasses … did noticing just how very good he looked make her shallow?

By the time she spotted Clay jogging through the crowd, Jesse and the two boys had just caught up to her.

“Perfect timing,” she told him.

“Don’t put it down someplace and leave it.” Clay handed over the sword to Logan, then leaned over, his hands on his knees, to catch his breath. “Hi, Jesse.”

“Hey, Clay.” Jesse stood next to Brooke and watched the boys show off their sword-fighting skills. “Nice job, guys.”

“Everyone’s starting to line up.” Logan pointed to the crowd that was starting to ease in the direction of the lead cars.

“Let’s go!” Cody started off, dragging Logan with him.

“Cody, hold up.” Brooke addressed both boys. “Wait for me.”

“You don’t have to go with them, Brooke.” Clay straightened up. “I’m going to tag along.”

“You’re going to be in the parade, too?” Cody asked.

“No. I’m going to be on the sidelines and I’ll bring you back to Scoop when it’s over.” Clay turned to Brooke. “I ran into Grant up on Charles Street. He and I will watch the boys over the course of the parade route. Why don’t you just stroll on up to the judges’ stand? That’s going to be the only really good view because the crowd is so large this year. You’ll probably see Dallas up there. Grant said Berry was reserving some seats. Besides, someone needs to show Jesse the ropes. I’ll bet he hasn’t been to one of our Halloween Parades.”

Clay glanced at Jesse as if for confirmation.

Jesse nodded. “This is my first.”

“See? He’s going to need someone to interpret some of our St. Dennis traditions. So you don’t need to play eagle eye with the boys. Go on, the kids and I will meet you after the parade.”

“Okay, thanks, if you’re sure …” she began, but Clay was already off with the kids.

“Think we’ll be able to make it through this crowd to Charles Street in time to see the parade?” Jesse asked.

“We’ll miss a good part of it.” Brooke touched his arm. “I know a great shortcut. Follow me …”

They made their way around the back of the crowd to a worn dirt path that led up a slight hill.

“I used to walk home from school this way,” she told him as they started up the incline.

“After a stop at Scoop?”

“Scoop wasn’t even a twinkle in Stef’s eye back then. Her building used to be a crabber’s shack that was owned by someone in her family. Uncle, grandfather, I forget which. Stef always knew she wanted her own ice-cream shop one day, and when there was talk about tearing the shack down, she asked if she could have it.” She stopped for a moment to search her bag for her sunglasses, slid them on, then resumed the climb. “She totally renovated it, mostly by herself.”

“That sounds like one determined woman.”

“I’ll say. That was all she ever wanted, and she made it happen. I admire her for that.”

“How’s her story so different from yours?”

“What do you mean?” Brooke was grateful they were nearing the top of the path. She was getting out
of breath and starting to sweat in the strong October sun.

“Steffie had a vision for owning her own business. So do you. I see you both working for what you want.”

“I haven’t succeeded yet,” she reminded him.

“I don’t know.” He took her arm at the end of the path as if to help her up the bit of last slope. “I seem to see those cupcakes of yours everywhere I go in St. Dennis. And I have to say that the ones I sampled were pretty darned good.”

“You bought them?”

“Of course I bought them. I had two at Vanessa’s party last week and got hooked on them. I’ve had to add time to my workouts just so that I don’t have to cut back on my consumption of cupcakes.”

Jesse followed Brooke through a parking area behind the stores that faced Charles Street.

“Which reminds me. My grandfather is going to be eighty-five in two weeks, and I’m thinking it might be nice to have a little party for him. I think he’d rather have cupcakes than a cake. Would you be interested in doing the baking?”

“That’s a really nice idea and I’d be happy to take on the job. How many people are you thinking about inviting?”

“Ahhh … I don’t know.”

“So what’s his favorite flavor? Chocolate? Yellow cake? White?”

“Ahhh … I’m not sure.”

“Well, we can always make several kinds. I can e-mail you with a list of the different flavors I make
and you can pick a few you think he might like if you don’t want to ask him outright.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Thanks.”

“But you’ll have to let me know how many people you’ll be serving.” They reached Charles Street and turned to the left where the judging stand and bleachers had been erected on the side of the road. “You do have a guest list, right?”

“Not exactly.” Jesse looked mildly uncomfortable. “I thought I’d ask my uncle Mike for some suggestions, but he’s taken my aunt down to Baltimore for some tests and I didn’t want to bother him.”

“Maybe I can give you a hand with that,” she told him as she took his hand and led him toward the bleachers. “Berry has been a client of your grandfather’s forever and is a contemporary of his, so she might know. And there’s always Violet.”

“You had to bring her up.” Jesse grimaced. “And the day was going so well, too …”

Brooke laughed. “It was just a suggestion. She probably knows better than anyone who your granddad’s friends are.”

“Probably.” He was still grimacing.

“Besides, maybe she’ll be nicer to you if she knows you’re doing something nice for Curtis. They’ve known each other forever, remember. And she was a close friend of your grandmother’s.”

“She did mention that.”

“Did she mention that my grandmother Hallie Simpson was one of her good buddies as well?”

“No, she left out that part.” For a moment Jesse looked as if he wanted to say something else. Brooke waited, but when he didn’t continue, she said, “They
all grew up together and went all through school together. They started at that one-room schoolhouse out on White Oak Road.”

“I didn’t know there was a one-room schoolhouse here.”

Brooke scanned the bleachers, looking for Dallas. Finding her in the crowd, she waved.

“Come up here and join us,” Dallas called to her. “We can make room.”

“Want to?” Brooke asked Jesse.

“Sure.”

She led him up the bleacher seats until they reached Dallas, who was sitting with her great-aunt, Berry Eberle, and Berry’s gentleman friend, Archer Callahan. Brooke and Jesse took the seats next to Archer, a retired judge, who after being introduced to Jesse, noted that Curtis Enright had tried many a case in his courtroom.

“A fine attorney,” Archer said. “As is Mike Enright.” The judge frowned for a moment. “I think there was another boy as well …”

“My father.” Jesse’s back had stiffened slightly at the admission and Brooke thought his jaw set just a little tighter.

“Ah, yes.” Archer nodded as if he had recalled something about Jesse’s father but wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was.

“Oh, here comes the parade.” Brooke elbowed Jesse. “Now the entertainment begins.”

“So what’s the protocol here?” Jesse asked.

“This is where the action is.” Brooke gestured to the opposite side of the road, where spectators had set up folding lawn chairs. “Just about everyone in
town comes to see the costumes. The marchers are lined up according to their age group. When your group is called, everyone gets a chance to pass the judges’ stand, and if there’s some sort of performance that goes along with your costume, that’s when you do it. Like, see, that first group, the little ballerinas?”

The entire crowd ooh’d and aah’d as six little girls in pink tutus danced around in front of the judges.

“That has to rate pretty high on the cuteness scale,” Jesse noted.

“They are adorable,” she agreed.

Next came a threesome of clowns on two-wheelers, the training wheels of which were still attached.

“More cuteness,” she noted.

“So are there winners?” Jesse asked.

Brooke nodded. “Winners, prizes, trophies, pictures in the local paper, and of course, these days, online at St. Dennis’s Web site well.”

“Who are the judges?”

“The mayor, the chief of police, the librarian, and a couple of the shop owners.”

“But don’t they know everyone?”

“They know everyone in the parade and there’s more than one relative of each of them, I’d imagine.”

“How can you be objective if you’re judging your niece or a cousin?” Jesse frowned.

“Who said anything about objectivity?” Brooke shrugged. “But I think they somehow manage to choose the best costumes and the best performances in spite of themselves.”

“So, okay, we have the parade and then they announce the winners. Then what?”

“They don’t announce the winners now. That doesn’t happen until later, at the ball.”

“They have a ball? A Halloween ball? Seriously?”

“Seriously. They’ve been doing it for almost one hundred years.”

“So do you have to be in costume?”

“Only if you think you’re going to win.”

“Anything else I should know?” he asked.

“There’s a queen, and—”

“A queen?” His eyes danced with amusement. “A Halloween queen?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Were you ever the Halloween queen?”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s one I missed.”

Jesse stared blankly at her.

“When I was younger, I was in a few pageants,” she explained, feeling the embarrassment she always felt when she looked back on the girl she’d once been. “It was all a long time ago.”

Thinking about those days brought up a lot of old feelings that Brooke would just as soon forget. Back then, she hadn’t been the person she was now, but there were a lot of people in St. Dennis with long memories who didn’t know that. She’d been snubbed on more than one occasion since moving back home by women who, back in their younger days, had been the target of the mean girl that Brooke used to be. She could crawl into a hole and just die every time she looked back on her old self.

“So what if they announce who the queen is and she isn’t there?”

“Oh, that’s part of the fun. They send people to get you, to find you in the crowd. The queen doesn’t
know she’s the queen until the committee comes for her, and it’s strictly come-as-you-are. In other words, you don’t get to go home to change. Which is why”—she lowered her voice—“there are so many women dressed just a little too well for a parade. They think this might be their year, so they dress up just enough to look good in the pictures, but not so much that they’d look foolish when the crown is handed to someone else.”

“And if you aren’t in the crowd?”

“They’ll go to your house,” she told him. “We take our traditions very seriously here in St. Dennis.”

“Look.” He gestured to the right. “The boys are starting their duel.”

“How serious they are.” She leaned forward and watched as the two boys parried and thrust their swords as they made their way across the street and past the judges’ stand. Just as they reached the opposite side, they pretended to run each other through, then both dropped dramatically to the ground to resounding applause.

“It would appear that the duel ended in a draw.” Berry beamed and clapped wildly.