Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos by Donna Andrews

'You know you don't mean that,' Eileen said, with a frown. 'Lucky we don't have a full-length mirror in the tent, or we wouldn't see him for hours.' 'He's going to look so wonderful in colonial dress,' Eileen said. 'I thought he was going to help you with that.' 'Where's Michael, anyway?' Eileen asked, echoing my thoughts. I'd spent the past six months trying not to make Michael an orphan. When I'd volunteered for the job, I'd thought it a wonderful way to make a good impression on the hypercritical mother of the man I loved.

Waterston's eyes, keeping all the participants anachronism-free was my responsibility. Of course, my fellow craftspeople would probably lynch me, too, while they were at it, since I was her deputy in charge of organizing the craft fair. And when she finally pushed enough of us over the edge, we'd have to make sure our lynch mob used an authentic colonial-style hemp rope instead of an anachronistic nylon one. She'd probably have tried to make us spin the thread and weave the fabric ourselves, not to mention raising and shearing the sheep. If she'd had her way, we'd have made every single stitch we wore by hand, by candlelight. Yes, everyone in Yorktown had long ago figured that out. 'People are already showing up,' Eileen said, with a shrug. 'This would be so much easier in jeans,' I grumbled, tripping over the hem of my skirt as I walked over to the table to set the candlesticks down. But withher blond hair and fair skin, it gave the effect of glowing health. Eileen, like me, was flushed from the heat and exertion, not to mention frizzy from the humidity. I couldn't think of a reasonable answer, so I turned back to the case I was unpacking and lifted out a pair of wrought-iron candlesticks. 'Who knew we'd be having weather like this in October?' 'It's absolutely crazy in ninety-degree weather.' 'I said I'm going to kill Michael's mother for making us do this craft fair in eighteenth-century costume,' I said. I rolled my ruffled sleeves higher up on my arms, even though I knew they'd flop down again in two minutes then I hiked my skirts up a foot or so, hoping a stray breeze would cool off my legs. I scratched two or three places where my authentic colonial-style linsey-woolsey dress was giving me contact dermatitis. I still had several tons of wrought iron to wrestle into place. She had already unpacked about an acre of blue-and-white porcelain and arranged it on her side of our booth. I glanced over at my best friend and fellow craftswoman. 'What was that?' Eileen said, looking up and blinking at me. 'Quickly, discreetly, and with a minimum of pain and suffering. 'I'm going to kill Michael's mother,' I announced.

Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos by Donna Andrews