Miss Maddie’s neat kitchen was Angie’s favorite room in all of Ogilvie. It had white-painted cabinets that reached up to the ceiling and closed with small silver thumb latches, an ancient speckled linoleum floor, a sink deep enough for a three-year-old child to take a bath in, a cookie jar made to look like a gingerbread house, and a green Bakelite radio. The stove was squat and black and came to life with a hiss and a hint of gas.

Just now the kitchen was in chaos. Marilee and Anthea Bragg were busy chopping a great pile of onions, peppers, and cabbage while Harriet stood at the sink squeezing water out of cooked tomatoes. All three of them were wearing aprons with their names embroidered across the chest in swirling blue letters.

Food was everywhere: covered bowls and plates on the counter, pots on every burner, the oven glowing. Wicker picnic baskets with leather straps were stacked in a corner. An official-looking numbered ticket was tied to each with a piece of string.

Marilee pointed with an elbow. “Auntie’s put out aprons for y’all, right there on the door hook? She’ll be right in, she just went out to the garden to get some parsley.”

“What are we feeding, the Second Fleet?” Angie slipped her arms into a huge red apron scattered with fat rosebuds. “How many days ahead of time do you start cooking for the Jubilee?”

Anthea laughed. “Two is cutting it close. You haven’t seen the whole Bragg family together at once. And then there’s the basket auction.”

“Okay,” said Rivera. “I need more information.”

Harriet said, “We do it every year, to raise money for next year’s Jubilee? You eat supper with your high bidder. It’s an honor, you know. Auntie had to pull some strings for you to be Basket Girls. Most years they give out twenty tickets by lottery, and five more go to the baskets that brought in the most money the previous year. This time that’s Miss Maddie, Caroline Rose, me and my sister, and Nan Ogilvie.”

“And how did we score tickets again?” Rivera asked.

“The committee voted you honorary Basket Girls. The last time they did that was for Anita Bryant, the summer she was here visiting with Ben-Linda Stillwater and them.”

Angie said, “I had no idea.”

“You’ll pardon me for saying so,” Rivera said with a barely straight face, “but this is way Mayberry.” She lifted the napkin over one of the bowls to sniff at it. “What is this stuff?”

“Granny Louisa’s piccalilli,” said Anthea. “And there weren’t any black people with names in Mayberry, did you ever notice that?”

“They did send somebody from Atlanta one year to write us up for the paper,” said Harriet. “We amuse them.”