It Happened at the Fair by Deeanne Gist

Grandmamma?’ ”
    She gave him a sheepish look. “Well, it sounds more like, ‘Ow-ah-oo, gamama.’ ”
    He laughed. He couldn’t help it. But instead of being offended, she returned his smile. Two dimples blossomed on her cheeks, the one on the right quite a bit deeper than the one on the left.
    Since their destination was the Forestry Building, he took her elbow and cut between the Anthropological and Dairy Buildings. He’d expected an unpleasant odor from that last quarter, but as it advertised a restaurant inside, he assumed the building held dairy products and machines, not the actual cows.
    Finally, they reached the Forestry Building. Tucked in the southernmost corner of the fair, it fronted Lake Michigan and attracted a much thinner crowd.

    FORESTRY BUILDING
    He took a deep breath, absorbing the sound of tiny waves thrumming the embankment and the slightest scent of fish floating on the breeze.
    “The building isn’t covered with the white . . . what do they call it?” she asked.
    “Staff. It’s a kind of glorified plaster of paris. And you’re right. There aren’t even any nails or metal in this one. The entire thing is built of wood and held together with wooden pins.”
    “It’s a wonderful change,” she said, her smile once more intact.
    He assisted her onto a two-story veranda, its giant pillars formed by tree trunks grouped in threes.
    “Look, the bark’s still on the trunks.” She pointed to one grouping, then noticed a plaque attached to its centermost trunk. “And they’ve listed each type of tree with the place it came from. These are from Missouri.”
    “What are they?” he asked.
    White oosh, she mouthed.
    “White . . . ash?”
    “White oak. A person puckers their lips when they make a long o. Like this.” She made a small round opening with her mouth. “Ooooo. Ooooooak. Now you say it so you can see what it feels like.”
    “Oak.”
    “Did you feel yourself pucker?”
    This was not going to work. “What about u? What shape is it?”
    “Same one. See? Union. Cucumber. Universe.”
    “And the e?”
    “That’s a smiler. Eat. East. Teeth. But I start with the puckers—long o, long u, and double o.”
    “What’s wrong with the smilers? Can’t we start with those?”
    “No. The puckers are always first because they’re easiest to spot in the middle and at the end of a word.”
    “How long before we can move to the smilers?”
    “That depends on you. The quicker you learn to pucker, the sooner we can move ahead.”
    Suppressing a groan, he led her inside. Numerous states and several countries showed off specimens from their forests. Minnesota displayed a block of cottonwood hewn from the first tree planted in Minneapolis. Washington’s booth held a mammoth disk of cedar that twenty people could stand on at once.
    He hesitated a bit before the section reserved for his home state of North Carolina. As a boy he used to roam the countryside and come home with swollen eyes and throat. It had been filled with almost every variety of evergreen and deciduous tree displayed in the booth. Still, he followed her in. A few minutes shouldn’t hurt him any.
    “Oh look, Mr. McNamara.” Removing one glove, Miss Wentworth beckoned him, then ran her hand along a settee woven of branches and knots. “It’s been varnished, but is otherwise entirely natural.”

    RHODODENDRON SETTEE
    “It looks like rhododendron limbs. They bloom just in time to celebrate the Fourth of July and in every color you could imagine.”
    She tested the seat with her hand before trying it out. “Do you think it would hold both of us?”
    In order to find out, they’d have to sit awfully close. “If it doesn’t, I’d hate to be the one to discover it.” He cast about for something to distract her with. “Look there. I believe that’s a project I read about in the papers.”
    Offering her a hand, he assisted her from the settee and forced himself to ignore the smoothness of her skin. Upon