Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

"What's wrong, honey?" Amanda asked, dodging a stroller as she crossed the aisle to my booth. "You seem upset about something."

"Michael's having much too good a time doing this reenactment stuff," I said.

"Isn't it sweet?" Eileen said. "They never really grow up, do they?"

"No, they don't," Amanda grumbled.

"He's talking about keeping on with it after this weekend," I said.

"Well, that's nice," Eileen said. "It's something you can do together, isn't it?"

"It involves camping out in ruggedly authentic colonial conditions," I said. "I'm not very keen on camping out under any conditions."

"I'm a city girl; I know just how you feel," Amanda said, looking around as if the nearby trees scared her more than muggers. "And my idea of camping out is staying at a hotel without a four-star restaurant."

"You wouldn't like these outings," I said. "The one I went to, they served salt beef and hardtack."

"Is that stuff even edible?" Amanda asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Theoretically, I suppose; although if you ask me, they almost make starving to death sound like a sensible lifestyle option," I said. "I couldn't wait to get to a McDonald's afterwards. For that matter, neither could Michael."

"Maybe he's not serious about keeping on with it, then," Amanda said.

"Sounded serious to me," I said. "He's gone off to Dad's booth to enlist him, too."

"I didn't know your dad had a booth," Eileen said. "What on Earth is he selling?"

"Band-Aids and cheap thrills," I said, rolling my eyes.

"What?" Amanda asked.

"He volunteered to organize the first-aid station," I explained. "Somehow he convinced Michael's mother that it would be a good idea to have it serve as an educational tool, too."

"What a wonderful idea," Eileen said.

"So he's done up a replica of a what an army medical tent would look like in 1781, authentic down to the last gory detail."

"Oh, gross," Amanda said.

"Don't let Dad hear you say that," I said. "It's one of his hobbies, collecting antique medical equipment. He's absolutely tickled at having a chance to show it all off. Although all of the surgical instruments are reproductions that he had me make. You don't find that many genuine eighteenth-century scalpels and surgical saws floating around, and if you do, you don't take them out in humidity like this."

"He's not actually getting any patients, is he?"

"He had a few people earlier who thought they had heat exhaustion, but the authentic colonial operating table seems to have marvelous healing powers. None of them felt the need to lie down on one of the camp beds after seeing that exhibit."

"Imagine that," Amanda said, chuckling. "Oops – got a customer back at the booth; catch you later."

Eileen and I had customers of our own, and for the next hour or so, my mood improved considerably as great numbers of sightseers and a smaller but satisfactory number of buyers wandered through the booth. The day stopped feeling like a ghastly mistake and more like a pretty normal first day at the craft fair.

Well, maybe not completely normal. In addition to a reasonable number of tourists and shoppers in modern dress, the aisles thronged with soldiers – redcoats sweating under bearskin hats; the occasional French soldier, scanning the ground for mud that might sully his spotless white uniform and hordes of blue-coated Continental soldiers, most with the red cuffs and lapels that indicated a Virginia regiment, but some with the white, buff, or pale blue trim representing other parts of the country. And occasionally unusual uniforms – a kilted Highlander; men in green whose waxed mustaches seemed to suggest Hessians; or a brace of frontiersman, ambling along in buckskins with long rifles over their shoulders.

And women in long skirts, most wearing corsets. Although they corrected anyone who actually said "corset." The proper term was either "stays" or "jumps," and apparently there was a distinct difference between the two, though not one I could understand. They all looked the same to me, their upper bodies rising from their full skirts rather like ice cream cones and spilling out over the top to a greater or lesser extent, depending on personal preference or body type.

I assumed they'd look down their noses at my less-authentic natural figure, but apparently, running around uncorseted merely labeled me as "slatternly." They saved their most scornful glances for the women – – usually very young – wearing neither sleeves nor caps.

"Hmph!" one exclaimed when a bare-armed teenager ran by, looking more like a character from a Pre-Raphaelite painting than a proper eighteenth-century lady. "Ought to run that strumpet out of camp!"

I deduced, from looking at the speaker's outfit, that a respectable colonial lady could display almost any amount of bosom as long as she kept her arms covered and wore a mob cap or a wide, flat straw hat to preserve her dignity.

At any rate, the colonial era was a great time to be a blacksmith. I'd brought a much larger than usual stock of small bits of hardware – hooks, tripods, trivets, and other old-fashioned oddments that people might find useful for cooking over an open fire, camping in an old-fashioned tent, and living generally under the eyes of the Authenticity Police. I was doing a decent business already, and I had a feeling things would improve after some of the shoppers went back to the colonial encampment and figured out what tools they'd forgotten to pack and how much more useful some of my hardware would be than whatever they had brought. Not to mention the large number of colonial dames and gentlemen I saw returning for a second or third time to study larger pieces with the sort of acquisitive look that crossed centuries. If even a tenth of them gave in to temptation before the end of the weekend…

Rob hung around underfoot, pretending to help out, while lying in wait for opportunities to pull out one of the flamingos and wave it around. I'd turn around to find a flamingo head peeking out through the opening in the back curtains or peering around the side of the booth. Once, when I left to run an errand, I came back to find Rob working on a ventriloquism routine, using the flamingo as the dummy.

"You need to switch roles," I snapped at him. "And you get to pay the fine if the Anachronism Police show up and catch you doing that."

And they did show up, with alarming frequency. The fair had only been open an hour or so, and I'd already had to settle a dozen arguments between the Town Watch and the crafters about so-called anachronisms. After I'd officially pronounced a host of items historically acceptable – including glass bottles, learner shoelaces, iron skillets, corkscrews, potpourri, and an antique-looking abacus – the Town Watch had grown considerably more tolerant. Or at least more wary of bothering me. Although I wished I could shake the suspicion that they were down at the history section of the local library, looking for grounds to overturn some of my rulings.

And sooner or later, I was going to have to tackle Mrs. Waterston on the subject of the fines the Town Watch levied on anyone caught with an anachronism that even I couldn't explain away. I'd managed a temporary truce by decreeing that no one had to pay any fines until the end of the fair, which gave me until 2:00 P.M. Sunday to talk Mrs. Waterston into rescinding the fines.

But I'd worry about that later. For now, it was a beautiful day. I actually stopped feeling self-conscious about saying "Good morrow, mistress." I no longer gaped when I saw whole families in period costume, down to the toddlers and infants. I rejoiced when someone pulled out a book, pointed to some bit of antique hardware, and asked, eagerly, if I could possibly make something like it.

I was writing up the details of one such commission when I felt someone hovering at my elbow.

"I'll be with you in a moment, sir," I said over my shoulder.

"Promises, promises," came Michael's voice. "I was looking for Rob, actually."

"Rob?" I said, turning around. "I caught him trying to do a puppet show with a couple of my flamingos and chased him out to run errands."

"Flamingos?" Michael said, and his puzzled look reminded me that I'd so far avoided telling him about the ghastly birds. "What flamingos?"

"I'll fill you in later," I said, wincing. "What did you need Rob for, anyway?"

"This is Roger Benson," Michael said, introducing a middle-aged man, about my height, wearing modern clothes and a bemused look. "The softwarecompany guy. He's been wandering around seeing the sights. I ran into him over in the encampment, asking directions to your booth."

"Quite a shindig you have here," Benson said, glancing around. "Very profitable, I suppose."

"Well, I hope the crafters are going to do well," I said. "I don't think the organizing committee is looking for a profit – they're not charging admission, of course, and any proceeds from the concessions are going to the local historical society."

"Still, it promotes tourism, doesn't it," he said. "Big industry around here."

Yes, it was, but he'd struck a sour note somehow. Of course I was hoping to make a tidy profit for the weekend. But still, how could someone walk from an encampment straight out of a history book, and through the picturesque streets of the craft fair, passing so many incredibly believable costumed reenactors, and only think about how profitable it must be?

Cool it, I told myself, forcing a smile. You don't have to like him. If he buys Rob's game and makes it a hit, who cares how mercenary he is? In fact, maybe mercenary is a good thing under the circumstances.

Still, as I introduced him to Rob, who was just returning with two authentic pewter mugs – discreetly filled, thank goodness, with the dual anachronisms of ice and Diet Coke – I cast a glance over at Michael. A British grenadier and a buckskin-clad frontiersman were in the lane just outside, giving an impromptu lesson on the differences between a musket and a rifle to half a dozen boys. Michael was watching, too. Then he noticed a freckled little girl clinging to her mother's hand, but trailing behind, taking in the sights with wide eyes. He bowed deeply to her, the white ribbon cockade on his hat nearly touching the ground, and she broke into a wide smile. Then she and her mother disappeared into the crowd and Michael returned to watching the gunnery demonstration.

Okay, I thought, as I turned back to Rob and Roger Benson. If he likes all this, we'll go to more reenactments. It's not that bad.

"Quite an outfit," Benson was saying, looking at Rob's costume.

"Well, I wanted to fit in," Rob said, looking sheepish.

"Oh, I understand," Benson said. "When in Rome. Wish you'd warned me it was going to be like this; I could have gotten a costume myself."

"Oh, you can rent one, very inexpensively," Eileen put in. "Mrs. Waterston, the festival organizer, had her dress shop run up dozens, so people who get here and want to join in the fun can do just that."

"Really," Benson said. Why did I suspect he wasn't all that thrilled at the idea of renting a costume?

"Yes, what a good idea," I said. "Rob, why don't you take him along to the costume rental shop?"

"Uh… yes, thanks," Benson said, looking resigned. "I'll do that. Before we do, Rob, I just wanted to ask – "

"How is it going, anyway?" Michael said, drawing me aside.

"Not bad," I said. "Getting a lot of commissions, assuming they don't all fall through."

"I doubt that," he said. "My unit alone wants enough ironwork to keep you busy for a couple of months. Bayonets, swords, buckles, things I don't even know the names of."

"I could get to like your unit," I said. "If someone in it would learn to cook edible period food, I could love it."

"I had no idea you knew how to make all that reproduction hardware – I mean you do, don't you?"

"Most of it, yes; or I can figure it out," I said. "I've already done a lot of period medical instruments for dad, you know. And if I need help, I can always ask Faulk. If he doesn't know how, he'll know who does."

"Faulk again," Michael said, his good mood evaporating. "I'm sorry, but I'm really getting tired of hearing about Faulk all the time."