Free Wedding Bell Blues by Ruth Moose

and as many activities to do with green beans as she and her committees could come up with.
    Last week Mayor Moss announced she was throwing a wingding of a fund-raiser, something she called a trashion show. What this had to do with celebrating the green bean, I didn’t know, but it was a gala event. Our Miz Mayor said she expected a lot of “in” people would come. I guess they would have to be the “in” people. I sure didn’t know anyone here in Littleboro who would go. After the committee meeting when I told Ida Plum, she thought this was the craziest idea she’d heard yet. She had to hit her sides she laughed so much.
    â€œTrashion,” I told Ida Plum, “is your kind of thing, right up your alley. Making something out of nothing. Making do, recycling. Taking something that would be thrown away and turning it into, in this case, a wearable outfit. And having a fashion show with models to show off the creation. Malinda plans to wear a strapless ball gown made from several purple plastic table cloths decorated with white polka dot prescription bottle caps.”
    â€œThis I’ll have to see to believe,” Ida Plum peeked over my shoulder at Miz Mayor’s registration form. “People wearing trash. I heard about people talking trash and people called trailer trash and just plan trash, trash, but taking garbage and wearing it? You gotta show me because I don’t think it can be done. That mayor’s going to be the laughingstock of Littleboro before all this is over.”
    â€œTrashion,” she turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen. “Umph, some people around here don’t have enough to do.”

 
    Chapter Thirteen
    Scott and I don’t talk business unless it is Dixie Dew business and lately that had been at the bottom of his list. I worried my gazebo was not even on his to-do list. I had also resolved not to nag. A gentle prod was as far in that direction as I planned to go, even if I could see some panic in my future when the Dixie Dew hosted Ossie and Juanita’s wedding “on the green” with no gazebo in sight. I could do that—all cash for the coffers—but not happily. Ossie wasn’t anywhere near my list of favorite people, but I did want this wedding to be sweet and beautiful, if not perfect, for Juanita’s sake. I knew there was no accounting for taste when it came to choosing a mate, and besides, it was none of my business. Juanita would have to live with her choice, not me.
    I had no idea what the trashion show had to do with green beans or what exactly the funds raised were to be used for. The cooking competition I could see, though I wondered what in the world one could cook with green beans besides the ubiquitous casserole with fried onions and mushroom soup. My vision for cooking creatively with green beans was mostly limited to the Thanksgiving casserole, but Mama Alice cooked them with fat back and potatoes. I ate the potatoes.
    Other planned events were the crowning of Miss Green Bean, maybe a street dance or two, some music groups, some craft booths around town. Anybody who had something to sell that people had been living perfectly well heretofore without would be hawking their wares. Oh, this Green Bean Festival was going to be a hoot. Last week Malinda and I had been laughing about it, daring each other to run for Miss Green Bean.
    â€œCan’t you see ‘Miss Green Bean’ on your résumé some fifty years from now?” Malinda had hooted, both arms raised. “Or in your obituary?”
    We then composed an imaginary obituary for The Mess .
    I began, “Miss Vita Sue Hanly, age ninety-eight, died quietly in her sleep at the home where she was born and lived all her life…”
    â€œâ€¦ excepting her four undergraduate years at Woman’s College, where she majored in Interior Design, minored in French,” Malinda added.
    â€œMiss Hanly was an accomplished