THE FAIRGROUNDS ARE deserted except for a line of cars belonging to the Princesses parked in a dirt lot behind the central pavilion where they hold the sheepherding trials every year. I hesitate for a second, watching Nell run to the gate, turn, and wave for me to come on.
Things just got real.
Mrs. Hartwell sent out an email telling everybody that the stage was good to go, so Sunday’s rehearsal would be held here, where this whole crazy coronation is going to go down. My legs actually wobble as I follow Nell, crossing the track that runs around the huge sheltered stage, up the steps, into the thick of the other girls. The air smells like the ghosts of last year’s onion rings and cow flops. I feel Nell’s arm link through mine. She doesn’t say a word, just squeezes and gives me a small smile that dents the dimple in her left cheek. For once, I’m not too stubborn to squeeze back.
Mrs. Hartwell wears electric blue and her cheeks are rosy. “A lot more impressive than the town hall, am I right?” Murmurs from us. Maybe everybody’s as nervous as I am. Except Bella, of course; she’s whispering with Alexis like Mrs. Hartwell doesn’t rate the attention she’d give a mosquito.
Mrs. Hartwell points to a folding table set up on the ground below. “That’s where the judges sit. Expect them to take lots of notes and talk among themselves as you go through your choreography—don’t let it shake you! They’re getting their first impressions down. During the interviews, they’ll take turns asking each of you a handpicked question based on your bios, meant to learn a little more about you and your worldview.”
That almost takes my knees out. I curse under my breath.
“Darcy? Is there a problem?”
I can’t believe she heard that. I clear my throat, my voice drifting up into the rafters. “Uh . . . in front of everybody? I mean, they’re going to ask us right in front of—?”
“Don’t worry. We’re going over all that today. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.” She smiles. “I won’t leave you hanging. Now, Princesses, split into the same groups as last time, and I want to see two single-file lines waiting in the wings for my cue.”
Once we figure out where the wings are, we’re ready. Her cue turns out to be scratchy theme music blasting from two giant speakers. Each line hops out onto the stage like they’ve been poked with cattle prods.
For the most part, we all remember what we’re supposed to do. Sounds silly, but it’s hard work, thumping up and down those big risers, remembering when to pivot, all the while being loomed over by the huge grandstand across the track. I’ve seen the crowd at the coronation before. Most of Hancock County comes, and then some. Those bleachers will be packed.
We take a fifteen-minute break at the one-hour mark, and Mrs. Hartwell steps away to make a call. She brought juice and doughnut holes, which I scarf down, glad to have something to take my mind off how freaked out I am. I didn’t sleep so great last night, either, my conversation with Kenyon running around in my head. Rhiannon. She really knew how to win people over. I think of all the time I wasted watching anime with her, trying to see what was so great about Kiki’s Delivery Service or Wolf Children. I never figured out how she did that, got you to bend your rules for her and then feel good about doing it because it made her so bouncy-happy. Wonder who picked her up that night. Where they took her, how they hurt her. If we’ll ever know.
“Now that’s a healthy option,” I hear Bella say quietly, but when I fix her with a death glare, she’s facing away from me, checking out the food with Alexis. “Because they definitely hand out a crown for most cellulite.”
Alexis giggles. “I know, right? Like I’m going to touch sugar.”
“I’ve got a fitting for my dress today. Three weeks of cardio better have me down to size four or I swear to God I’ll kill somebody.”
“You went with the peach?”
“Obviously. It’s my signature. People, like, expect it. Remember my Homecoming gown? Fitted bodice, lots of tulle?” Alexis mm-hmms like it haunts her dreams. “This is way hotter. That was so, like, classic? This one’s backless, slit up the side, spaghetti straps. Looks kind of amazing.”
Alexis oohs, and then they both stare narrow-eyed at Nell as she pours herself a cup of juice and picks out a chocolate-glazed doughnut hole, not paying them any mind. “Then there are the people who wouldn’t know style if it bit them in the ass.”
Bella smiles, tilting her head. “You mean the people who will be wearing a piece from the Salvation Army’s latest line to the coronation?”
They laugh. Nell looks up, aware of them for the first time, and I move in.
Bella’s wearing a sundress, and I close my fist around the neckline, twisting it. She takes a stumbling step backward in her platform sandals. “What’d you say?” She puts her chin up, but her eyes give her away. She’s scared of me. “Say it again.”
“Don’t touch me.” Bella’s gaze jumps around to the other girls who are watching.
“Now, that’s not very nice.” I’m so mad that I want to keep twisting, but considering where we are, I hold for a second more and let go, smoothing out the wrinkles before Mrs. Hartwell sees. I grab another doughnut hole and pop it into my mouth whole, then take Nell’s arm and lead her away from them.
Nell shakes free before the steps. “Why did you do that?”
“Huh?” I’m surprised to see tears in her eyes. “Forget it. They’re bitches. You should’ve heard—”
“It doesn’t matter, Darcy. I don’t want you doing stuff like that for me. I don’t need you to.”
Some part of me tightens like the last crank on a dial. My voice comes out low. “Bullshit you don’t.”
She looks at me, lips pressed together, like she’s thinking a hundred things she can’t say because I’ve made her swear on her life not to. She turns and runs up the steps, joining her group and shutting me out.
Great. Now she’s mad. Only because she doesn’t understand. She’s got no idea how much little things like that matter. Letting people dump on your family, letting people dump on you. How can anybody take the high road with crap like that raining down?
Watching Bella walk her prissy self up the risers brings back everything Shea said about me the other night. How I could dress up as pretty as I wanted, but I’d still be trash. Maybe what I did to Bella proves him right.
Shea made it sound like he was coming to the coronation, like he’d be sitting right out there in the audience, watching me. I have a feeling he took the festival booklet home with him after Gaudreau’s, too. Brought it home so he could keep twisting me in his hands.
Nell’s still mad at me when we get home. She goes back to the trailer with Libby. I pour some iced tea and wander out onto the porch, where Mags sits on the floor, dealing solitaire onto the wicker table.
“How was Princess training?” She looks up. “Can you turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight? ’Cause I’d like to see that.”
“Jealous much?”
“Nope,” she says simply, and it irks me because she means it. Mags has never been jealous of anything I have. Must be nice to be so steady and levelheaded that nobody can get a rise out of you, no matter how hard they try.
“Anyway,” I say, “the coach turns into a pumpkin in ‘Cinderella,’ not her. That’d be dumb.” Mags shrugs, and I blow out a long breath, propping my feet on the railing. I must look exactly like Mom.
Scraping sounds come from overhead, and I hear paint flakes sprinkling down onto the porch roof. “How’s it going, Hunt?” I call.
The scraping stops. “Can’t complain.” Scrape, scrape. “Wouldn’t do me any good if I did.”
I nurse my tea, pulling on my lower lip, wishing something, anything, would happen to make me forget about being an awful person who wanted to beat up Bella Peront again because I could and it would be easy. Nobody’s better at making me feel like this than Nell.
Maybe I’ve got a fairy godmother after all, because awhile later I hear a dual exhaust bellowing in the distance, getting closer all the time. Jesse’s pickup blows past our house doing a good sixty miles per. He brakes hard down by the logging road and reverses onto the shoulder in front of our house.
There’s somebody sitting in the passenger seat beside him, but I can’t see who. Doesn’t stop me from running up to the open window.
Jesse grins, leaning forward to see around Mason. It’s like the weirdness after the quarry never happened. “Bored?”
“How’d you know?”
“Figured once you got out of Sunday school, you’d have some time on your hands.” I laugh. “We’re running over to Agway to pick up some stuff for my uncle. Wanna come?”
“Sure.” I know I should tell Mom, but instead I step back so Mason can climb out and let me slide onto the bench seat. I look back at the house, see Mags watching, wave bye. Hunt’s watching, too, turned partway around on his ladder as we drive off.
“Was that your dad?” Jesse says.
“No. My dad’s dead.”
“Oh. Sorry. I think I heard that somewhere.”
This is one story I don’t like to tell. I keep it short: “He worked on the crew that built the bridge. He fell.”
“Jesus, that was him?”
“Yeah.” I leave out that it was on account of a bet, that some of his buddies put him up to it, that his whole life turned out to be riding on fifty dollars and a round of beers at Ramona’s.
It’s hard to know how to act with Mason sitting silently to my right. Did Jesse tell him about us? I’m not sure what there is to tell. It feels like an awfully long time since he’s kissed me.
Mason’s hair is bleached almost white from the sun; he’s so big that our thighs can’t help but press together as Jesse tears up the asphalt between home and town. Mason’s got his heavy forearm on the open window frame, where he drums his fingers, one, two, two, one.
Agway smells like cedar shavings and alfalfa. As Jesse holds the door for me, his hand finds its way to the small of my back, surprising me, so I don’t keep my distance, either. Inside, Mason seems fascinated by the floor, and I wonder what he keeps in those pockets of his. Sounds like he’s jingling change against keys. Guy’s twitchy, something I’ve never noticed before, and when I catch a look he shoots Jesse over the top of my head, I can tell that he does know about Jesse and me. And seems to be warning him with his eyes.
Ignoring him, Jesse drops bags of mulch onto a flatbed cart. “I heard you’re a Festival Princess. How come you didn’t say anything?”
“Shea tell you about that?” I give a short laugh when he hesitates. “I bet he did. I bet he really talked me up.” I swat at a peg full of trowels, making them clink together. “How can you guys stand hanging out with him?”
Another look goes between them, and Jesse shrugs. “He’s all right. Sometimes.”
“You just get used to him, huh?” I drop my gaze from his uncomfortable expression and look out the plate glass window. “I hope I never get used to him.”
Jesse cashes out, and then we drive around back to help load the big order of five-grain chicken scratch that his uncle called in. By the time we’re done, I’m sweaty and feeling a lot better. Screw Shea and Bella. Nell will get over being mad at me by suppertime and everything will be fine.
We hop in and Jesse clears his throat, tossing his wallet onto my lap as he pulls out into the street. Giving him a funny look, I open it, not seeing anything special until I part the billfold and laugh. “Aww.” I pull out the little photo of me that Jesse clipped from a Festival booklet, flushing. “Think I look like a dork?”
He laughs. “No. You look beautiful.” He flips my ponytail. “You’re gonna win. I know it.”
I can’t stop smiling. “Yeah, right. You see the other girls in the running? It’s really Nell who—”
The bloop-bloop of a siren cuts me off. We all look in the rearview mirror to see a cop cruiser following us, lights flashing.
Jesse swears and pulls onto the shoulder, watching the cop park behind us and sit.
“You weren’t even going ten over.” Mason’s deep voice startles me. It’s like having the steering wheel jump into the conversation.
Jesse takes his wallet back and gets his license ready. We wait as the cop’s footsteps crunch across the gravel, then look up to see a broad chest in a dark uniform shirt, a belt heavy with gear. Edgecombe leans down until he’s eye to eye with Jesse. He’s wearing aviator shades like a screw in a prison movie, and his salt-and-pepper crew cut glistens with sweat. I stare at him, but he ignores me, saying to Jesse, “Going a little fast today.”
“Didn’t know I was.”
Edgecombe grinds his gum in his molars for a couple seconds. “License, registration, proof of insurance. Please.”
It takes Jesse a minute to dig the slips out of the glove box. By then, sitting in the cab with no fan or breeze coming through the windows has caught up with us. Sweat slides down my temples and my shirt sticks to me. Mason props his elbow on the window frame again and squeezes his forehead like he’s got a headache.
Edgecombe goes back to the cruiser to run the VIN. We wait a long time. A horsefly gets into the cab, bouncing around, buzzing crazily against the windshield.
Edgecombe comes back and hands Jesse his ID and papers. “The speed limit on this road is forty-five. That’s the law, not a suggestion.” He steps back and hooks his thumbs into his belt. “Step out of the vehicle so we can have a chat.”
Jesse’s eyes widen. “Uh—”
“Darcy. Let’s go.” Edgecombe crooks his finger at me and puts his hands on his hips as a sedan passes us, throwing dust.
My pulse pounds at my throat as Jesse lets me out on his side; I can tell he doesn’t like this, but there’s not much he can do. I follow Edgecombe around the tailgate, squinting in the sunlight as I stand in front of him.
“These boys your friends?”
“Yeah.”
He sucks air through his teeth, making a small sssfft sound. “Your friends let you ride around without a seat belt?”
I stand there, speechless. I was so busy talking when we left Agway that I didn’t even think of it.
“It’s state law that everyone wear a safety belt while riding in a motor vehicle. Did you know that?” I nod. “And you’re under eighteen, which makes the operator of the vehicle responsible. Your friend is up for a fifty-dollar fine.”
Did I say I was feeling better? I feel like roadkill on a stick.
We stand there in silence, our clothes rippling as another car passes. Edgecombe pulls his glasses off and hooks them over his chest pocket. His eyes are a deep shade of stump-water brown. “Darcy, I want you to think about something for me. Rhiannon Foss’s parents, Charlie Ann and Jim, I’m sure you know their names. There’s probably nothing they wouldn’t give to see their daughter again. She’s that precious to them. Most parents feel that way about their kids, wouldn’t you say?” I nod again. “Imagine your mother in their position. How she’d feel if something happened to you.” He waits, maybe for me to bawl and beg for mercy, I don’t know. “You seem to keep putting yourself into dangerous situations, and I’m curious why.”
“I forgot about the belt, okay? I usually wear one.”
“That’s just one example. Not telling the truth. That can be dangerous. Especially when somebody’s life is riding on it.”
I clench my jaw, biting down until I think I can answer without screaming. “I don’t. Know where. She is.” I breathe in through my nose. “Have you been following me?” It’s hard to believe somebody with the rank of corporal would be sitting at a speed trap. When he doesn’t answer, I burst out, “I’m telling you the truth, okay?”
He studies me. His mouth pulls into a grim smile. “But you’re not exactly being honest with me, either. Are you?”
When he sees I’m not going to budge, he finally steps back and waves me to the pickup. Once I’m between the boys again, Edgecombe takes in the three of us for a long moment, then says to Jesse, “If I have to stop you again, I’ll do more than ticket you. Understand?”
“Yessir.” I’m glad Jesse doesn’t try to be tough.
Edgecombe goes back to his cruiser, where I figure he must be making out the ticket, but then he starts the engine, pulls into the road, and drives away. I sag against the seat and say, “Sorry.” Pathetic.
“No worries.” Jesse’s distracted. He’s watching the cruiser disappear around the bend. “What’d he want?”
“He thinks I know where Rhiannon is.”
“I heard they hauled Kenyon in.”
“He borrowed her car and was too scared of the cops to bring it back, that’s all.” I stare out the window at the bright day, remembering Edgecombe’s hound-dog eyes, tired and solemn, like he can see through me, like he knows me. Like he knows that, at the end of the day, I’ll step up and do the right thing.
Don’t know where he got a crazy idea like that.