Page 68 of Clued in to Love
She glanced at the digital clock. It had been a gift from Ben on her first day. The bold words “Boss Babe” flashed across the screen, an inside joke about her sure rise to the top. She didn’t feel like a boss babe now. She felt like a complete and utter failure. Seeing the time confirmed that. She was supposed to meet Samesh half an hour ago. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m so sorry, Samesh. The morning got away from me. Are you at the fairgrounds?”
“Yeah. You’d better get down here. The mayor is on his way, and we have another problem I could use your help with.”
“I’m leaving now.” Hilary didn’t bother to ask Samesh to elaborate. She shut her laptop and grabbed her things as she finished the conversation. “We can do a quick walkthrough, and then I’ll get you out of there. I’m sorry if I’m making you late for anything.”
“No.” Samesh sounded dejected. “I don’t have anything pressing. It’s fine.”
“Okay, on my way.” Hilary hung up and ran outside. Compartmentalizing her life wasn’t working. Not only was her marriage failing, but if she kept this up, she would be out of a job, too.
She tried not to pay attention to her speedometer as she drove to the fairgrounds. She didn’t speed—exactly. Ten miles an hour over the posted speed limit was acceptable, right?
The fairgrounds were the hub for parade staging and float preparations.
Hilary had fond memories of taking the twins to the Starlight Parade. No one complained about the cold while watching the colorful floats light up the night. Reindeer dancers would toss candy canes to the crowd. She loved watching kids bundled in puffy coats and stocking hats scattering to grab handfuls of the sweet treats.
This year, the parade promised to be bigger and better than ever for the tenth-anniversary celebration. Hilary had added six new floats, two high school marching bands from Portland, and a professional dance troupe of retired grannies to the lineup. It had seemed like a good idea when they had begun the planning process in August; now she was wondering why the hell one of her staff members hadn’t reined her in.
She greeted familiar faces as she navigated through the woodshop for Samesh. She found him at the scavenger hunt challenge tied to the fairgrounds. The never-ending balls of tangled Christmas lights had been one of her team’s ideas. It was diabolically brilliant, in her opinion. Force teams to spend hours trying to untie giant wads of string lights. If they were successful, they would find their next clue in red envelopes in the center of each ball.
It hadn’t taken long for her staff to create gnarly balls of lights but unwinding them would hopefully be another story. Plus, the concept of Passport to the Holidays was to test wits and wills. The challenge wasn’t physically tasking but it would undoubtedly be tedious and probably cause some teams plenty of frustration.
Winning fifty thousand dollars wouldn’t come easy for whoever finished first. That had been one of the sticking points for Chamber members. They were willing to donate more cash for the grand prize, but only in exchange for making the hunt more challenging. Manageable, fun, and challenging. Those had been Hilary’s orders when constructing the tasks and clues for contestants this year, which made it even more maddening that the mayor thought that there was cheating going on. Hilary and her team, in partnership with Samesh and the parks and recreation department staff, had spent hours upon hours carefully crafting every task.
“I’m so sorry,” Hilary said to Samesh, loosening her scarf. “It’s been a day. Not that it’s your fault.”
Samesh shook his head. “Don’t worry. It’s been a day for me, too.”
“Is everything okay? Are you ready for the walkthrough? Where’s the mayor?”
“Thankfully, he hasn’t shown up yet. You beat him here, which is good because there’s another issue.” He nodded behind him, where a young, attractive couple stood holding one of the balls of lights.
Hilary recognized the young man. He was a Graff. His family’s face had been on every bus and billboard in Bend for as long as Hilary could remember. There were four children in the family. She wasn’t sure if he was Jeff or William, but his strong jawline and facial features were impossible to miss. She didn’t recognize the young woman with him.
“I’m Hilary, with the Chamber of Commerce.” She addressed the couple, hoping that whatever was going on with them was minor. “Samesh said there’s an issue with your team?”
The young woman spoke first, animating her point with her hands as she pointed to the massive pile of vintage Christmas lights. “There’s no clue.”
“I’m sorry?” Hilary looked to Samesh for more information.
Samesh cleared his throat and offered the couple an apologetic smile. “They completed the challenge. In record time, by the way. You remember each ball of lights was supposed to have the clue twist-tied in the center, but apparently, we missed one.”
“That’s impossible.” Hilary moved closer to get a look at the lights. They had been meticulously looped in a perfect circle.
“No, we’ve checked everywhere,” the young woman insisted.
“Marissa is right,” the man added. “We checked the floor, beneath other balls of lights, the shelves, our pockets, literally everywhere. Our bundle didn’t have a clue; I’m sure of that. In the time we’ve been looking, two more teams have arrived, finished the challenge, and left with a clue.”
Hilary had been there when her team assembled the light bundles. They had set out rows of clues and had too much fun making complete messes of the hundreds of boxes of holiday lights she had purchased for the event. The lights would eventually end up on floats for the parade, but not until every team in the competition had finished the arduous task. “Did you look, too?” she asked Samesh.
He nodded. “We’ve been at it for thirty minutes. This is Marissa and William, by the way, one of our top teams and contenders for taking home the grand prize.”
“We just lost two slots,” Marissa responded, looking to Hilary for help. She was probably in her late twenties with curly hair and doe-like eyes that threatened tears. “We had a huge headstart on the two teams who found the challenge after us, but their light balls had clues inside. It’s not fair.”
“Can you give us one second?” Hilary said to the young team. She motioned for Samesh to move away so they could speak privately. “What do we do?” she whispered over the volunteers hammering away on floats and “Jingle Bells” playing on the overhead speakers.
“That’s one of the reasons I called you,” Samesh said with an exaggerated shrug. “I have no idea. We didn’t plan for this.”
Hilary massaged her temples. “The mayor is already convinced we’re running a scam. That there’s some inside job going on. If we give them a clue, that could add fodder for him, but then again, this challenge was designed to be a grind. Is it fair to make them do it over if it’s our fault we forgot to put a clue in one of the lights?”
