Sisters.That word touched something painfully tender in Grace,even while she was happy for Oliver. Harriet would step into the place that Grace was vacating.
“Besides, you know Lillie. She would give it all away too soon. She shows everything on her face, and then my mother would be even more suspicious.”
One of the French pavilion guides was surreptitiously reading theFair’s Fare. He thought he was hidden behind the massive wrought iron gate that separated the French pavilion from the rest of the fairgrounds, but Grace could make out the bold type on the paper between his fingers.
BALLOON EXPLODES IN
FIREBALL AT THE FAIR;
PILOT INJURED BUT ALIVE
Grace shuddered, thinking again of Sam Whitcomb’s theory that the episode hadn’t been accidental.
Harriet looked over at them and waved.
Grace grasped Lillie’s hand, clutching onto her cousin for dear life as their roller-coaster cart crested the summit.
She squeezed her eyes shut just before the cart began hurtling down the track.
“I hate this!” Grace screamed with delight. She heard Oliver howling with laughter behind her, and next to him, Harriet scream-singing.
Afterward, they watched a naval battle reenactment with miniature ships in the Grand Basin, eating airy, spun fairy floss from a stick as shots rang out and smoke plumed into the sky.
“To the Observation Wheel!” Oliver cried.
“Nope,” Frannie said flatly, looking up at the wooden monstrosity.
“I’ll stay with you,” Lillie offered.
“We’ll go with Oliver, won’t we, Grace?” Harriet asked, smiling sweetly at her.
The wheel was larger than Grace had anticipated, now that she was standing this close to it. She looked up at the compartments, which were roughly the size of a train car and could hold sixty passengers each. The wheel creaked as it spun and someone screamed. Her heart fluttered a little in her chest, and part of her wanted to stay on the ground. But it would give her a rare opportunity to observe Harriet and Oliver alone.
And now that she knew how serious Oliver was about a permanent future with her, the stakes had just gone way up.
“Sure,” she said.
Oliver bought their fare. Fifty cents a ticket, the same as a whole day’s admission to the fair, and they crowded on board.
“It’s… festive, isn’t it?” Oliver said. The car was filled with flowers and—
“Is that a piano in the corner?” Harriet asked.
“You could sing for us,” Oliver said proudly. “I always love to hear you sing.” And she beamed at him.
At the last minute, just as the doors were closing, Theodore ducked inside.
“What are you doing?” Grace asked.
He grimaced. “Something I’m surely about to regret.”
He shifted, standing next to her longer than she expected him to, his hand splaying out on the banister.
The doors closed. The Ferris wheel box was enormous. The cars swung, some of the women letting out a screech somewherebetween terror and delight. The lights were beginning to come on in the Palace of Electricity, reflecting in the Grand Basin like a hundred fallen stars.
Oliver turned around, surveying the car.
“Why are there so many flowers in here?” he mused.
