Like Bees to Honey | gxg

28. The Festival of Peaches

Just inside the archway that marked the entrance to the fairgrounds, a greeter offered Sabina a program. She flipped through it, and- there. "The Best Vendor winner will be announced on the secondary stage at four-thirty."

"We've got some time to kill, then." Mel looked around, adjusting her sunglasses.

When Sabina was younger, the Festival of Peaches had always been the highlight of her summer. She had fond memories of riding the ferris wheel and begging her parents to let her play one more game so she could finally win the giant stuffed unicorn. In recent years, though, she'd only come to help out at the High Valley Honey booth.

It felt strange to stand here as a visitor again, and she wondered if Mel saw the festival the same way it suddenly looked to her: the small, slightly shabby midway almost overwhelming in its clatter of small children shouting, the greasy smells of fried food, the entreaties of carnies with voices smooth enough to make you forget that all the games were scams, and all of it taking place in a parking lot hot enough to melt through Sabina's white sandals. None of it seemed quite as charming as it had when she was younger.

"This is pretty much exactly what I expected a small-town festival to be," Mel said, but not with malice. She'd left her moment of weakness in the orchard, but her mouth was still soft. "Where should we start?"

Sabina fanned herself with her broad-brimmed hat. What she wanted to do most was find Riley. Since she didn't even know whether they were here at the festival, though, all she could do was keep her eyes open. "We should get off this pavement before I turn into a puddle. Let's head over to Festival Park, where the agriculture shows and the stages are."

Mel nodded towards the ferris wheel sweeping high overhead. "I heard that you can't bring a date to the festival and not ride the ferris wheel."

"Later. It's better to go up when the sun is setting so it's not so hot in line. Plus, it's more romantic at sunset."

"Oh, so you're a pro, huh?" Mel teased. "Done a lot of kissing at the top of the ferris wheel?"

Sabina just laughed. She had never brought up the subject of past relationships, but it must have been obvious to Mel that she was Sabina's first. She wasn't exactly embarrassed about her lack of experience, but she also didn't want to have to think about whether she was ever being compared to all the girls that Mel must have charmed in the past. "Come on," she said, settling her hat back over her disappearing curls. "This way."

They strolled past games and vendors and the occasional ride. Despite assurances that the midway was better experienced after the day had cooled off, Mel was enticed by a game that involved throwing darts at balloons pinned to the wall, and Sabina couldn't say no.

Sabina threw her three darts rapid-fire, one after the other, and missed with all three. Mel took her sweet time aiming, so Sabina took the opportunity to look around for Riley. They were nowhere to be seen, but she did spot Joan Verger and her husband waiting in line for deep-fried cola several booths down. A third person stood with them, too, a tall, brown-haired man who looked vaguely familiar even though she was pretty sure she had never seen him before.

The loud POP of a balloon bursting and a whoop from Mel distracted her. Her last dart had been a direct hit, and now she presented a tiny stuffed mouse the size of her palm to Sabina with a flourish.

"A token of my affections, Your Majesty. The rewards of my feats of strength."

Giggling, Sabina accepted the gift and the quick kiss that came with it after Mel checked that no one was paying attention.

"There's nothing I love more than heteronormative displays of chivalry." She tucked the mouse into the band of her hat.

They stopped again to watch a plaid-shirt-wearing, beard-sporting cliche of a lumberjack carving an enormous tree trunk into a morose-faced statue with the delicate edge of a chainsaw, and then, because she had embarrassed herself at the first game, Sabina challenged Mel to the strength-testing game where they used a giant hammer to ring a bell. This time they were both successful, and they walked away with a pair of plushie dinosaurs.