I fumble my ink and nearly spill it on my flannel nightgown. What isLizzie Crumpdoing up there?
Sixteen
“Ah. Well, we have a deliveryman who helps us now,” Nathan tells Lizzie. “Er, how is your father?”
“He is well,” says Lizzie. “He’s running a horse-race special to encourage people to spruce up their houses before the race. Buy five gallons of Crump Paint and he’ll throw in a brush, free.”
“Oh. How civic-minded of him.”
“Well, I’ll get to the point...”
The point must be a few train stops away, judging by the lengthy pause that follows. Bear begins whacking her tail against the wall. Come on, Bear. Put those herding skills to use and drive her out of the paddock.
“I read Miss Sweetie’s article about the horse race... ,” Lizzie says. “And, well, I knew it was a sign.”
“A sign?”
“ThatIshould ask you to the horse race.”
My head nearly knocks against the wall. Sure, Nathan is well-known around town and very eligible, but he’s no charm biscuit. And did it have to be Lizzie? I imagine her sleepy blueeyes, the curtsy of her smile, the strawberry-blond ringlets teasing out the blush in her skin. She is as guileless and hard to resist as the cake hats in Mrs. English’s windows, while I am a lowly shoe who spends half her life squished up against a wall.
When Nathan doesn’t reply, Lizzie pouts and says, “Someone has already asked you.”
“No,” Nathan replies hastily, maybe now just realizing how unenthusiastic he sounds. “No.”
“So it was a sign, because here I am, and there you are.”
“Yet... if it wasn’t a sign, you would still be there, and I would still be here.”
I imagine the confusion fanning over Lizzie’s face. “So... is that a yes, then?”
“It would be my pleasure to accompany you.”
My face is stuck in a grimace. I grab my barley water but, in my agitation, misjudge the volume, and the hot liquid sloshes over my fingers. “Agh!” I cry out, dropping the mug. It falls to the concrete floor with a wet crack, along with my heart.
I don’t move a muscle, hoping that my extreme silence will somehow rub out the noise.
“Oh! I am looking forward to it,” says Lizzie, who seems to have not caught my outburst in her excitement. “I will let you know my colors by next weekend.”
Nathan doesn’t answer. I run through at least a dozen potential reactions he might be having. Perhaps he has put his finger to his lips, and now the two of them are kneeling by the newly discovered ventilation grill, their faces close as they listen. Or maybe he has taken a screwdriver to the vent, and she is admiring his manly physique and his adroitness with tools.Being discovered by Nathan would be humiliating enough, but with Lizzie beside him, it would be more than I could bear.
“Your... colors?” he says at last, sounding no closer than the last time he spoke.
“So you can choose the right flowers.”
“Er, of course.”
Dare I hope he didn’t hear me?
“Oh, Nathan. You’re supposed to bring flowers to the parents of the lady you are courting, reserving one for her to wear on her dress.”
“Uh, right.”
Courting. That Lizzie is pretty slick for all her guilelessness, slipping in the word in a way that a gentleman could not deny without being rude. The conversation thins. The visit must be ending.
I pick up the broken shards of my mug and sop the spilled tea with a rag. Why should it matter if Nathan goes with Lizzie? It is none of my business. Naturally, I would’ve preferred not to have played a role in the matchmaking, but how was I to know?
I take a sheet of paper and manage to knock my candle clear off its base. I hastily blow it out before it singes my small rug. I sink to the floor. Miss Sweetie frowns on jealousy, an emotion that, like lye, tends to eat away at its container. He has to date someone, eventually, someone who cannot be me under the great laws of Georgia.
