Taneisha Warren folded her arms, leaning against the opening to Andrea’s cubicle in Brady College’s administrative offices. “Yeah? Well, let me rephrase. We have the opportunity to not have a corn maze for the festival.”

Andrea pushed back from her desk, ignoring the thread of panic those words caused.

“Impossible. The corn maze has been on Cliff Thompson’s farm for over twenty years. We were there when this year’s maze was planted back in May, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Tani sat on the corner of Andrea’s desk. They were the only people in the office that early August Saturday. “And do you remember that Cliff seemed a little out of it that day? He didn’t even remember that we were coming with the television crew from Rochester.”

Andrea bit her lip. She did remember that. “Cliff’s in his seventies, right? I just figured it was an age thing.”

“Sweetie, Cliff is eighty-five. And—” Tani paused, clearly not wanting to say what came next “—he doesn’t own the farm anymore.”

“I’m sorry...what?”

Okay. This wasn’t a problem. It couldn’t be, because she’d declared that this year’s Blessing of the Grapes Festival would be problem-free. It was her first year as chairperson of one of the festivals that made Rendezvous Falls famous. At the youthful age of thirty-seven, she was the youngest chairperson ever. This was a town that took its festivals very seriously, and where the elder matriarchs tended to run things until they dropped. She needed a successful festival—an impeccable festival.

Andrea was eyeing the newly vacant job of director of academic advising at Brady College. Pete Greenfeld had left for a larger university in Boston. Andrea was one of the advisers on staff, and she wanted Pete’s job. Unfortunately, so did Steve Menkes. And even though she’d been working here longer and had outworked Steve at every turn, the dean kept mumbling about leadership experience. How was she supposed to get experience if they never let her lead anything? That was why she’d scrambled this spring to take the chair position on the festival when Marion Hall had to step down to have hip surgery. There could not be a problem with this festival.

Tani put her hand over Andrea’s. “I guess Cliff’s memory issues got pretty serious, bless him. His family moved him into an assisted living place near them in Pittsburgh.”

“How did we not know this? Wouldn’t we have heard when the farm went on the market?”

“They sold it directly to a friend of Cliff’s. No broker.”