The suspense was killing her like slow, drawn-out torture. Biting her nails and tapping her feet, she tried to remain positive as the judges were a few contestants away from where she stood. Heather had entered her lemon wedges into the town bake-off at the seasonal fair, which she wasn't looking forward to placing anything other than first. Lemon wedges as her entry had gotten a lot of comments: for the few previous years, it had pies that had come in first. Heather, looking to do something different, decided on lemon wedges having found her now-deceased grandmother's recipe and felt she could win with it.
It indeed was a risk, but Heather was game enough to give it a shot. Many ladies entered in the bake-off were all of a more mature age than Heather having either raised a family or were rooted in the middle of building one, making experience key.
The judges moved closer, tasting a berry pie; their expressions were always hard to read unless it was just awful, making the judges politely spitting out the bite out. It seemed the berry pie was in the clear as each judge made many notes on the entry.
Next would be Heather. The judges sampled her entry and observed the wedges' unique geometric shapes before doing a taste test. Heather froze like a pillar of ice starring at each judge as they chewed, trying to decipher their thoughts on her lemony dessert. They seemed pleased, and no one spit out their bite, so she seemed she was in the clear.
At the close, all the contestants stood by their dishes, each beaming with sunrays of accomplishments. The judges compared notes, and their cards for each contestant scored. The naming of the places for the bake-off was soon to come. In the minutes before, Heather found her boyfriend Andrew amongst the observers, and she found soils in his arms as her nerves were on edge.
She felt her risk in baking lemon wedges in a sea of pies, and knowing how everyone loved her grandmother's cooking, she was at ease. Andrew swooped in for a kiss seeing the judges were making their way back to make the big announcement, and Heather would need to return to the stage.
Feeling Andrew's hand smack her butt in encouragement as she left his side, she thought she had an excellent chance of winning. The roar of those enjoying other fair attractions filled the air as the head judge walked up to the podium to make the announcement. The judge first explained how close that year's bake-off had gone down and then proceeded to rattle the list of winners names, none of which came with Heather's name.
Heather had so direly hoped to win that her spirits sank, as she did not hear her name called. The big winner of the day was a grandmother who had succeeded in previous years baking a lip-smacking apple pie, but this year she went with a delectable strawberry rhubarb pie. All was not at a loss as Heather received honorably mentioned for her lemon wedges, which people commended her for taking such a risk with her non-pie dessert.
Taking it all in stride, Heather knew if she wanted to, she could participate next year, but who knew a year seemed so far away. She then scooped up her dish and took a bite out of one of the remaining lemon wedges and looked to find Andrew in the crowd.
Feeling content with entry and trying not to let the loss take her down in the dumps too far, thinking the wedges could use a little updating from her grandmother's recipe, which may create a winning entry. Upon coming to that thought, Andrew walked upon her and drew her close, telling her how proud he was before kissing her lemony powder sugared lips, and the two went off to experience other elements of the fair.
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