The First Lady of Lincoln, Teresa Finch, slinks an arm around her husband’s waist and holds her light beer by its sweaty neck. She laughs at something pole-thin Aunt Patricia says. Children slither snakelike past the picnic table, shrieking laughter as they snag hot dogs and cups of homemade ice cream.
Despite his Grinchly attitude, James enjoys a burger and ice cream. He doesn’t hate the fireworks. The kids pretending their sparklers are magic wands remind him of those golden years whenhepossessed the ability to cast spells and brew potions. Somewhere between the ages of twelve and twenty-one, he lost the superpower to make mundane things magical.
After Uncle Benji finishes off his three-hundred-dollar firework, James’s mom tells him, “Your dad’s on,” dragging him across the grassy square to a circle of lawn chairs.
Midi and her friends note his presence with judgmental glances, then all return to their phone screens in unison.
He shoots his sister a bird, wipes the burger crumbs off his lips, and lifts his gaze to the smoky stars.
Nelle holds a corn dog in one hand and wipes away a tear with the other.
As if under a mass trance, everyone watches the fireworks explode like china cups against a stone wall. Nelle swallows a bite. Sweet and heavy with grease, but dry, coating her throat.
Hours before the fireworks began, Nelle planted herself on a bench in the sun to watch people in denim shorts and sundresses unfold tables and grill food, prepping for their celebration. They blew up red, blue, and white balloons that now bob in the breeze like heads swaying to music. She tries to forget about the cold, prisonlike bedroom she will return to when the night ends.
For now she is free to watch the stars. To smell smoke drifting across the square, over the heads of people talking and laughing andlivingtogether. Nelle doesn’t need to talk to anyone or swing around a sparkler to enjoy herself, but she does wonder what it would be like to have friends. To live in a community, not a pen.
She soaks it all in, this world she has been walled off from for so many years. Glimpsed only occasionally, for a few short hours at a time.
Glass bottles and red cups are passed around, laughter growing more boisterous. A deep, twangy voice starts singing, accompanied by the strum of a guitar. When Nelle claimed her bench earlier, she never expected the night to become such a spectacle of beauty. Never expected to fall in love with the fireworks, with the people and food and music. She was naturally curious about the world outside her house, but she never anticipated this twisting ache in her chest, this desire to be a part of their world.
James looks away from the fireworks and sees her.
An unfamiliar face in a town where everybody knows everybody. Watching the fireworks, her hair behind her ears, doe eyes reflecting the starburst. Her lips part. In her right hand, resting on her leg, she holds a half-eaten corn dog.
James’s palms start to sweat.
“You see that woman on the bench.” He leans toward Midi and her friends. “She’s not in high school, is she?”
Midi’s cheekbone highlighter shimmers as she squints across the crowd. “Her?” She frowns. “I’ve never seen her.”
“Maybe it’s someone’s family from out of town,” he murmurs.
“If you want to talk to her, talk to her,” says one of Midi’s friends—Mandy Tucker?
The rest of them glance up from their phones.
Before James can plot out every possible catastrophic event that might result from introducing himself, he jumps into the sea of people in the square, his stomach flipping like the kids cartwheeling across the green.
Her round eyes rise to meet his as he closes in.
“Hey.” Maybe she won’t notice him wiping his sweaty hands on his pants.
Her knees peek out from beneath the hem of an eggshell-white sundress. “Hi.”
“I, uh, I saw you sitting over here, and I just thought, well, I thought that ...”
“That I was lonely?” Before he can respond, she adds, “Iam. Lonely. Most of the time. But not right now.”
He tilts his head. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.” Her smile hits his heart like a cannonball. “And you?”
He takes her question as an invitation and eases himself onto the wooden bench.
“Alsotwenty-one.” James squints at the hazy sky. His dad’s finale ended before he walked over, and the last sparks are sizzling out.
“The fireworks were pretty,” she says.
