By the time we get to the fairgrounds, there’s already a line of battered trucks edging the fence. My mother’s half-brother Gary stands at the open gate, waving vendors on through. He’s county administrator and since it’s an elected position, he makes sure that he’s seen. The day has begun to brighten, but the sky is white from a faint haze that hangs above the grounds like wet laundry. As I pull up to the gates, I lean out the window and holler, “Looks like rain.”
“It’ll hold,” Gary tells me. With a glance at Jolene in the bed of my truck, he adds, “Pig sty’s in the back, you know the way.”
I inch the truck along the main thoroughfare, one foot on the brake pedal as we crawl along behind other trucks between lines of vendors setting up their booths. There’s a tractor somewhere up ahead,
