Ella wasn’t sure why she cared, but she did. And it had nothing to do with her frosting episodes, either. In getting to know Gray and in spending so much time with Angela, Ella had realized that no matter how much Jules annoyed them, they respected and loved her, too. I wish I knew her better.
“I think that’s it as far as logistics,” Tiff announced, pulling Ella from her musings. “Ella, do you want to take it from here?”
“Sure.” Ella pulled the folder from her purse and handed packets to the committee. “This is the agreed-upon scoring method along with some sample score sheets. Tiff, I emailed yours.”
“Got it.”
Grace and Zoe pored over the document together while Jules read quietly.
Aunt Jo pulled out her glasses, perched them on her nose, and then held the paper at arm’s length. “There are numbers on here. You’re going to have to explain those to me.”
Ella smiled. “It’s simple. Judges will score the cakes using the rubric on the next page—” She caught Aunt Jo’s confused look and added, “It’s the chart on page two.”
Aunt Jo flipped to the chart and read through it. “This looks simple enough.”
Ella nodded. “Once you’ve scored the cakes, you’ll hand in your sheets. Zoe will tally the results.”
Zoe waved from where she sat next to Grace. “I’ve already got a spreadsheet set up to do it for us.”
Grace added, “That way, we’ll have a record of the results.”
Aunt Jo dropped her judging packet back on the table. “So long as I don’t have to do it, I’m happy.”
Ella could understand that. “Once we have the results, we’ll announce the top twelve cakes in no particular order. We’ll start the final round with clean score sheets. From there, we’ll start the process again, only this time we’ll be judging just the final twelve cakes.”
The preacher nodded. “It’ll be a heck of a lot easier choosing a winner from just twelve cakes.”
“No kidding.” Aunt Jo took off her glasses and put them back into her purse. “I like this. Things are much more organized this year.”
“How many entrants are there?” Sarah asked.
“Forty,” Aunt Jo said. “I do believe that’s the first time we’ve filled every spot, and there’s still a week to go.”
Grace tapped her finger on the sample score sheet Ella had handed out. “I like the categories—presentation, texture, difficulty of bake, and flavor. Makes sense.”
“It’s a lot fairer than our old standard,” Aunt Jo admitted. “Which was ‘Better than I can make’ or ‘Good Lord, who made this mess?’ ”
“It’s good we’ll have written score sheets this year, too,” Zoe added, “In case there are any complaints.”
Preacher Thompson looked up from his packet. “We’ve never had a challenge. With the exception of the bribery scandal, no one has ever complained about a bake-off outcome.”
“Wellllll…” Aunt Jo said.
Everyone looked at her.
“I’m not saying I participated in this, because I wouldn’t. But there’s always a lot of smack talk from the losers after the bake-off.”
Preacher Thompson’s mouth dropped open. “Smack talk? I never heard any.”
“That’s because people don’t say those types of things in front of a preacher. They say it to one another, usually in the women’s restroom on the second floor of the church.” She waved her hand. “Or so I’ve heard.”
He looked crestfallen. “I had no idea.”
“Welcome to the real world,” Zoe said.
“Oh yes,” Aunt Jo said. “It can get ugly. People will claim their entry was overlooked, or that their cake got hot in their car and was unfairly judged due to the icing looking a little melty, or that someone had a predilection for this or that flavor, or that so-and-so was related to the judge, or… Honestly, I can’t remember them all.” She shrugged. “You know how people are.”
Grace narrowed her gaze. “Aunt Jo, last year, when your pecan coconut cake didn’t place, didn’t you say that—”
“The past is in the past,” Aunt Jo said firmly. “As Zoe pointed out, it’s a good thing we have this brand-new scoring matrix to keep us on the straight and narrow from here on out.”
“Amen!” Preacher Thompson agreed.
“Thank you, Preacher. Ella, I hate to move on from the scoring topic, but I have a question about this tent.” Aunt Jo kicked off her shoe and used her foot to scratch Moon Pie’s back. “It’s getting cold out. Will there be any heat? These bones don’t handle the cold the way they used to, and it’s been uncommonly chilly lately.”
“That’s a good question,” Grace admitted. “I’ll ask the rental company about that. They should have some heating options.”
“Great.” Ella checked her agenda. “If that’s it for scoring, we’re down to new business. Does anyone have anything to add?”
“I had an idea!” Tiff said in her bubbly voice through the laptop. “I don’t know if you want to do this, but if you have broadcast capability, you could add an overflow area.”
“Overflow area?” Zoe asked.
Tiff nodded. “People can watch the event on TV via livestream. That way, when we exceed the tent capacity, people attending the festival can still watch. We’ll also provide a live link so anyone with an internet connection can watch from wherever they are.”
Grace sighed. “That’s a great idea, but we’d have to rent a space and there’s no money in the budget for it.”
“Well, darn,” Sarah said. “I like the idea of an overflow room. If we had a larger meeting space in the library, we could do it here.”
Aunt Jo turned to the preacher. “What about the church? Could we have it in the meeting hall?”
“We could, but the ladies’ circle is using it to hold the crafts they intend on selling during the Apple Festival. It’ll be full.”
Well, darn. Where else could they have it? Ella mentally walked through town, thinking of each building and its space. Ava’s new tearoom was too small and much too narrow for a viewing. The same could be said for the Peek-A-Boo Boutique and the—
Jules cleared her throat. “What about the Moonlight?”
Ella blinked. “You wouldn’t mind?”
Jules lifted one shoulder. “Not at all. I’ll just ask the new line cook to work, as we’ll be a little short-handed between that and doing the barbecue booth.”
“You have both Wi-Fi and TVs, right?” Tiff asked.
“We have Wi-Fi, but no TVs. Mark wants to put some in, but I’ve resisted, as I like that our customers can talk to one another without a TV blaring in the background.”
“I can help with that,” Grace said. “The town has two smart TVs that we use for our business outreach events. We can set those up in the Moonlight and hook them to your Wi-Fi. I’ll get them preprogrammed so that when the time comes to watch the livestream, all you’ll need to do is turn them on.”