Read Online September Fair by Jess Lourey - Free Book Online

exhibit, or whether Pig Lickers or gyros were a better option for lunch. An uncomfortably obese man carrying a yardstick in one hand and a sweating glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade in the other plowed into me. “Sorry,” he said, but not before his drink sloshed onto my arm, leaving a cold and sticky spot.
    The frenetic mood of the fair changed when I neared the Dairy building. The crowds were still packed as tight as grapes, but they were quieter, whether out of deference to Ashley’s recent death or because they thought that’s what the camera crews circling the building expected, I couldn’t be sure. I slid between them, stopped short by the mountain of flowers and stuffed animals that had grown since yesterday. The entire front of the building was flanked with memorial offerings for Ashley. Apparently, she had become the sweet princess in death that she had never been in life.
    “We are at the scene of the death, where Battle Lake’s fallen queen took her last breath.” I stepped around the hyperbolic television reporter intoning into his microphone and pulled out my press badge for one of the police officers at the front door. He glanced at it and nodded me in.
    It was creepy being back in the Dairy building. I counted fifty-plus people inside, which seemed like a lot unless you were in a cavernous pole barn with a cement floor. Yesterday, the place had been wall-to-wall bodies, thrilled to be part of history as Milkfed Mary commenced the State Fair. Today, most of the people here looked like vultures instead of fairgoers, leaning forward to catch a whiff of the luridness surrounding Ashley’s death, something that would sell papers and coerce people to leave the TV on through commercials.
    I stroked the laminated press pass hung on a lanyard around my neck, considering the pseudo credibility it conveyed on me. I’m pretty sure I was the only person at the press conference who didn’t own a pair of dress pants and called a doublewide home. I tugged at my navy-blue sundress, trying to free a wedgie as I studied the guys on each side of me. They both wore button-down shirts and ties, tape recorders in hand.
    I turned my attention to the rear of the building, where a makeshift stage had been set in front of the glass-sided butter-carving booth. Minnesota flags had been placed on the stage on each side of a podium, and they were almost successful in their effort to obscure the gruesome booth, which was crisscrossed with police tape. Around me, reporters snapped photos of the refrigerated gazebo, angling for a clear shot, but I didn’t have the stomach for it.
    A lone woman stood next to the podium. She was short and overweight with badly permed, dishwater-blonde hair. She wore a cheap suit, the skirt of which accentuated her wide hips and was a little too short, exposing the top of her wilted dress socks. Her appearance brought to mind a mad scientist, someone too distracted to worry about how she looked. Even from here, though, I could see the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes that indicated she smiled frequently, under better circumstances. She fidgeted under the snapping of cameras before stepping behind the podium at some unseen signal. She adjusted the microphone and leaned into it. “Hello.” Her voice scratched its way out of her throat. She coughed and started again. “My name is Kate Lewis, and I’m the current president of the Minnesota State Fair Corporation. Thank you for joining us here today.”
    Around me, reporters stood at the ready, pen or tape recorder in hand, and cameras rolled. I mimicked their behavior, snapping off four or five shots of Kate before pulling out my pencil and notepad.
    “As you know, yesterday, Ashley Pederson of Battle Lake passed away while …”
    There was a hiss behind the president, and I craned my neck to see Janice Opatz emerge from behind one of the Minnesota flags to shoot knife eyes into Kate’s back. She looked as well-put-together as she had at our last