Page 18 of Horn of Plenty
“How many do you have there?” he asked.
Sally patted the stack. “Five thousand.”
Cal reared back. “Five thousand! Why’d you order that many, Mabel?”
She chewed her lip. She could hardly believe they would need that many, but when she’d checked the interest post, she’d almost passed out. “I didn’t want to say anything to jinx it.”
“Mabel,” Cal said, staring at her and going all Mr. Broody.
“You know that doesn’t work on me, Cal,” she shot back.
He threw up his hands. “Then what’s going on? Are five thousand people supposed to come today?”
She adjusted her hat and glanced out the window. “Five thousand people RSVP’d yes, and another two thousand are maybes.”
“Seven thousand people could show up?” Cal exclaimed.
Maybe she should have mentioned it to him earlier.
She pasted on a grin. “It could be less, or it could be more. However, when someone RSVPs, they usually don’t come alone.”
“Holy—” Cal began, but she slapped her hand over his mouth.
Mabel glanced between Cal and the sisters. “You never know for sure what could happen when people RSVP online. When I,” she paused. “When my former client back in New York once RSVP’d to a sample sale for designer handbags, a couple hundred people RSVP’d online, but several thousand showed up.”
“Thousands of people could show up in Elverna?” Cal cried, abandoning his stoic farmer persona and opting for something more in line with a discombobulated hyena.
“It’s possible,” she replied gently. “I listed the farmers’ market as an event people could RSVP for, and it got a lot of traffic.”
Margaret assessed the towering stack of assports, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re going to need a lot of hands to get that many papers corrected in less than an hour.”
The old Young sister was right. Time was not their friend. Mabel paced the length of the diner, then stopped in front of a community bulletin board. She stared at a flyer then gasped.
“What is it?” Cal asked, coming to her side.
“I have an idea,” she said as an invigorating jolt of adrenaline hit her system. “Give me your keys?”
“To the truck?” he questioned.
“No, to the city,” she deadpanned. Ugh! Couldn’t this man see that she’d had an epiphany? Well, epiphany might be pushing it. It was more like a hairbrained idea that just might work.
Cal cocked his head to the side.
“Yes, hand over the keys to the truck!”
“Why?” he asked, handing over said keys.
She glanced at the clock. They did not have time to lose. “Because you have to carry all the assports.”
“We’re leaving?”
This man!
“Yes,” she huffed, heading toward the door, then stopped and stared at the old coffee can next to the register crammed with pens that probably dated back to 1965. “Can I take these?” she asked the sisters.
“Knock yourself out,” Betty answered with that hint of a sly grin.
Mabel grabbed the can.
