The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (24 page)

“I still can't believe that you are dating me. I'm the luckiest man alive. I hate it when you leave me in the middle of the night. I know you can't be seen leaving my house at daybreak but what if we got a hotel room tonight? I'll be on night duty for the rest of the week and you're going to be tied up with the chili cook-off. Let's sleep together tonight. I want to wake up with you in my arms tomorrow morning,” Rick said.

“Sleep?” Alma Grace asked.

He smiled. “After we do other things.” He fastened his seat belt. “I'll get you home in time for work tomorrow, I promise. I just want to hold you all night in my arms.”

“I didn't bring an overnight bag,” she said.

“We don't need anything but each other.”

“Then let's do it,” she said.

***

A few hours later she awoke with a start. It took a few seconds to get her bearings and realize she was in a hotel, not her bedroom at Patrice's house. Rick was sleeping right next to her. He looked so peaceful with those thick lashes resting on his cheeks. She couldn't imagine being without him for a whole week.

A noise startled her. Someone was rattling the door handle and cussing outside her door. She eased out of bed and tiptoed to look through the fisheye but all she could see was a couple of distorted people making out across the hall. She could still hear swearing so she opened the door a crack, leaving the safety chain in place. A drunk was trying every door on the second floor. When his key wouldn't work, he tried the next one and then the next one.

A giggle took her attention back to the couple across the hall. The man had the woman pressed up against the door whispering something in her ear.

Alma Grace gasped when she recognized Lenny and Macy, kissing and trying to open the door at the same time. Neither of them whipped around to see where the noise came from and she was very glad since she only had a sheet around her naked body. But there was no doubt about it; that was Lenny and Macy over there.

Damn that sumbitch! She'd taken up for him, prayed for him, and asked God to make him see the error of his ways so that Carlene would reconcile with him and there he was with Macy. God had been telling her no all along and she'd been too stubborn to listen, too eager to prove Patrice wrong. And now she had to backtrack.

She'd gone against her blood kin for him and he'd been a bastard all along. Patrice was right and Carlene was right and she'd been wrong. Well, by damn, he wasn't getting away with another thing.

She had dropped her purse right inside the door when Rick had backed her into the room, stringing kisses all over her face, so she fished inside, brought her cell phone out, and stuck it out the door. Two snaps later she had pictures, grainy but there was no doubt who was hugged up together beside that cute little beach chair.

“Don't go,” Rick mumbled when she got back into bed.

“I'm right here, darlin'.”

“I love you, Alma Grace,” he whispered in a half-sleep state.

She hugged herself and snuggled down to go back to sleep. She dreamed of a time when she, Patrice, and Carlene were all just little girls. They were dressed in their Easter dresses and were having tea at the little table on the patio. She awoke with a smile on her face. Those were happy times and they'd have them again, by golly, with no contention between them ever again. From now on, if God said no, she intended to be listening real good.

The Jalapeño Jubilee, probably the biggest event in Cadillac, Texas, was held every fall right after the Texas State Fair and ended a long, hot summer. Easter brought on spring and the whole town looked forward to the program at the church and the egg hunt. And then they started talking about the chili cook-off.

Folks were excited when the tents started going up that Friday morning at nine o'clock sharp. It was always held the Saturday before Mother's Day and folks for miles and miles around marked it on their calendars. If they weren't coming home to Grayson County or adjoining Fannin County to see their mamas, then they loaded their mothers up in vans, trucks, and cars and brought them to the cook-off as a treat.

Rule number one said that the city park was roped off on Friday morning at nine o'clock; the tents and tables or however the contestants wanted to display their chili could begin at that time. The displays surrounded the park, facing inward, creating a small, colorful open-air festival with picnic tables and a kiddy carnival in the middle. Contestants had their chili ready for the judges to taste at ten o'clock sharp on Saturday morning. At eleven o'clock the gate was opened to the public. At four o'clock the judges rendered their rulings and the street dance began at eight sharp.

Rule number two stated that the seven-member teams had to work alone in setting up their work space and that no outside help could be solicited. That came about back in 1993 when a team brought in a professional service to build a structure for them.

Number three said that every team was responsible for its site. The cook-off committee would not police the area after the tents, tables, etc., were in place. That rule was put into the contract when one team spray-painted graffiti on another's display in 1979.

Bless My Bloomers had a sign on the door that said “Closed for the Chili Cook-Off Friday and Saturday.” Patrice didn't figure they'd have enough business those two days to pay them to turn on the lights anyway.

Patrice drove her father's flatbed truck to the site, parked as close to their assigned space as she could, and all three cousins bailed out. Tansy parked her Caddy behind the truck and the mamas and Josie crawled out of it.

They wore jeans with matching hot-pink T-shirts that had their logo splashed across the back in black: Red-Hot Bloomers. Above the words was a printed clothesline with bikinis and thongs pinned to it. A red bowl of chili was below with red, yellow, blue, and pink flames licking upward toward the words. Those were their Friday shirts.

The official shirt that they would wear on Saturday was similar but it sported lace around the legs of the bikinis and sequins on the thongs, enough sparkle on the flames to make them look hot, and the wording was done in red sparkly letters. And they'd be wearing them with designer jeans and hot-pink high heels. Josie refused to wear high heels but she had invested in hot-pink running shoes that lit up around the soles with every step.

“Woo-hoo!” Agnes yelled from a lawn chair from across the street. “Lookin' good!”

Carlene waved at her. “Tomorrow is better. What are you doing here so early?”

“Overseeing my investment,” Agnes said.

The tent was in a long box that took all seven of them to tote to their site. Alma Grace whipped a box cutter out of her hip pocket and made short order of the cardboard without leaving a single gash on the hot-pink and black material. She closed the tool, put it back in her pocket, and picked up the directions.

“I'm mechanically challenged,” Sugar said.

“That's what they're all depending on so don't say that out loud. We need for them to think we are meaner than junkyard dogs,” Gigi whispered.

Alma Grace handed the directions to Carlene. “This woman can do anything. I have lots of faith in her.”

“Really?” Carlene asked.

“Oh, yes, I do.” Alma Grace smiled.

“Well, thank you. It's very simple. First we set it up with the back leg on the east end.”

They all gathered round and helped her hoist the eight-foot-tall metal sticks to that corner. “Patrice, you hold this leg and I'm going to take this one to the other side.” She walked twelve feet across the back of their site. “Mama, hold this leg, while I go forward with one.”

In a few minutes the basic tent was up with all the metal pieces locked in place to hold it together. “See, I told y'all it was worth putting out a few more dollars to get it partially assembled and not just a bunch of bolts and nuts and pieces of steel,” Josie said.

“Now we bring in the tables,” Tansy said.

“And then comes the big jobs,” Sugar moaned.

They set up two picnic tables end to end at the back. Those would serve as a workstation and a place to sit and sip iced tea between customers. The eight-foot table in the front would hold the chili, bowls, corn chips, sweet tea, and condiments for sale.

“We'll get the freezer,” Alma Grace said when Tansy started toward the truck.

“What do you need a freezer for?” Lenny asked.

“What are you doing here?” Alma Grace asked right back.

“I'm on my way back to my truck for a screwdriver. Y'all cheated. You should have to put up a real tent rather than a pop-up.”

Carlene smiled sweetly. “Then put that in the rule book next year. Tip read the directions and said our tent was fine.”

“You still didn't answer my question. What do you need a freezer for?”

“It's a big, big surprise,” Carlene said.

“It better not be against the rules or I'll see to it you are thrown out and laugh the whole time you are packing up to leave,” Lenny said.

“How's your mother?” Tansy asked.

Lenny gave her a go-to-hell look and strutted off toward his truck.

“Good job,” Josie said and held up her hand for a high-five with Tansy.

“I'm disappointed in the lace around the top,” Alma Grace said. “It should be sparkly.”

The freezer wasn't much bigger than a dorm-size refrigerator but it would hold two hundred Dixie ice cream cups and when they ran out, they'd send Kim back to the shop to get more. The rule book did say that the team had to stay on-site the whole time and that they could have one person to replenish supplies when needed.

Alex told Patrice that the amendment came about back in 1987 when tent sites looked like a wrestling tag team with guys running out to get more beer or even hamburgers for lunch.

The multi-outlet plug would be full by the next morning but the freezer was the first thing in the line. When it cooled down, they'd bring in their ice cream cups wrapped in unmarked brown paper bags and put them inside. Lenny could just wonder all night long what they had up their sleeves.

Patrice and Carlene brought in two more boxes and set them on the picnic tables. One held the drapes to enclose the tent and tiebacks if they wanted breezes to flow through, the banner for the top, and the tablecloth and banner for the serving table. The latter wouldn't go up until morning but all the others had to be in place that day.

“One cooker of chili on the tables getting warmed up and ready, the other at the front being served, switch when the front one is empty.” Gigi checked off her list as she talked.

“I like it,” Agnes hollered.

“Doin' good, Lenny,” Violet yelled from ten yards down the road from her.

“Lord, what have we done?” Sugar whispered.

“We're winning a cook-off and making a statement for all the women who want to enter in the future. Agnes and Violet are at it like always. Hell's bells, Aunt Sugar, if it wasn't this, it would be something else. They love to fight so we're making them happy,” Patrice said softly.

***

Carlene stirred the last batch of chili in the big pot at her mother's house. They'd even had Tip go over the rule book, line by line, word by word, and not one thing was there about opening gallon-size cans of chili and then adding their own special touches. It was a revelation to find out that all the years they'd had hot dog cookouts and chili suppers Gigi's special recipe had not started with beef or venison.

“What did you do with the empty cans?” Tansy asked.

“I peeled the labels off and put them in a garbage bag and gave them to a dumpster last night after midnight,” Gigi said.

“What dumpster? And what did you do with the labels?” Tansy asked.

“The one behind the Chinese takeout store in Sherman and the labels went through the shredder in the office,” she said.

“Good job,” Josie said.

“Okay, time to add our own stuff one last time.” Carlene pulled the tab on a can of beer and slowly poured it into the chili, stirring the whole time.

Gigi put in a half a cup of Worcestershire sauce and four tablespoons of liquid smoke.

Tansy added two cans of chili beans and Patrice donated eight ounces of chopped jalapeño peppers. Alma Grace spooned six teaspoons each of chili powder and Cajun seasoning. Josie opened up a gallon bag of cooked hamburger meat and dumped it in the pot.

“I know the rules didn't say we had to start with meat but it makes me feel better knowing that it's in there,” she said.

“It's boiling again,” Carlene said.

Sugar removed the wrapper from a Hershey bar, broke it into sections, and tossed it into the pot. “Mama wouldn't have left that candy paper in the Bible if she hadn't meant for us to put it in the chili. It's our biggest secret ingredient.”

“Anyone want to taste it?” Carlene asked.

“Hell, no!” Patrice threw up her hands. “That first night was enough for me.”

Josie smiled and said, “You are all a bunch of pansies. A little jalapeños never hurt anyone. It might be the very reason me and Agnes have lived as long as we have.”

“We are not pansies,” Patrice said.

Carlene handed the spoon to her mother. “Speak for yourself. After I ate a bowl of the recipe on Tuesday night, all I could think was
come
on
ice
cream
.”

Josie nodded seriously. “Even if we don't win, the judges won't forget our hot chili or the ice cream that they'll get after they taste it.”

“Oh, we're going to win,” Tansy said. “I know we are.”

“Did you have a dream, Mama?” Patrice asked.

“I did every night for a whole week. Lenny might as well tear down his stupid tent with a crown on the top and go home. His reign is over! That trophy is ours this year. And I don't even care if we never enter again, but this year belongs to us,” Tansy said.

Carlene sucked air. “Aunt Tansy, you did not buy off the judges, did you? I want to win this fair and square.”

“I don't even know who they are,” she answered.

“I do,” Josie said. “Floy's husband is one. Cathy's new husband, John, is one. The Mayor, of course, is one. Y'all's preacher Isaac is one and he says that next year he and Kim might have the first mixed team for the church so this is the only year he's judging. Brenda Culpepper and Tip Gordon are the others.”

“Shit!” Gigi slapped her thigh. “I should have thought about buying off the judges.”

“I did my part in getting Isaac's vote with the Easter egg hunt and I have been praying,” Sugar said.

“Right now, we'll take all the help we can get,” Carlene said. “As long as it's legal and we win without cheating. I really, really want that trophy.”

“Who gets to keep it?” Josie asked. “We going to farm it out to a house a month and then start all over.”

Gigi turned off the cooker and put the lid on it. “I was thinkin' it should go on the credenza in the foyer of Bless My Bloomers.”

***

Carlene had agreed to take the first watch and stay at the tent until eleven when Alma Grace would relieve her. She'd brought a romance book and a book light to read by, but it didn't interest her. She had five hours with nothing to do and she wasn't good at being still. She checked everything, making sure that the sandbags were in place if a strong wind kicked up, everything was secure on the tent, and the freezer was plugged in. Heaven help them if they gave the judges melted ice cream.

The banner with their logo shimmered in the moonlight but the lace was blah, just like Sugar had said. If she'd had time, she would have dressed it up with sequins and shimmering hot-pink beads.

“Glitter spray!” She jumped up and pulled a box out from under the table. Patrice had thrown it in the box just in case they wanted to make the table banner sparkle. Digging around in it, she found three cans of iridescent spray. The folding step stool they'd brought with them earlier put her high enough that she only had to tiptoe a little to put the spray exactly where she wanted it.

She worked on six feet of lace then moved the stool. When she put her foot on the bottom step the leg fell into a gopher hole and Carlene landed square on her back. She was looking at the stars one second and Lenny's face the second.

Holy shit! She'd died in that two-second fall and gone straight to hell.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Am I alive?” she asked.

“Your eyes are open,” he said.

She sat up. Nothing hurt except her pride. “I thought I was in hell when I saw your face.”

Lenny chuckled. “Welcome to the club.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Just leaving. My watch is over. I'm going to win this, Carlene. I know you want to win to make me suffer but all this fluffy shit won't win a chili cook-off. You should stick to the jubilee and making jalapeño banana muffins rather than chili. That's a man's job, not a woman's.”

Carlene scooted away from him. “That's sexist.”

He yawned and stretched. “Maybe it is but you're just making a big ass out of your whole family.”

“Are you implying that I have a big ass?”

He smiled but it wasn't a bit nice. “Well, there is that, but no, I was not. I was speaking the truth. How are you going to feel when they call my name to come get the trophy and you've lost…again?”