“Have fun!”
“Thank you,” they all cutely call back in unison.
At least most of the people around here have good manners.
“I’m heading down to the farm,” I say to Dad. “See you there later.”
“Look at you!” he exclaims, emerging from behind the counter and opening his arms.
I’m wearing the red-and-black ditsy-print dress Bailey convinced me to buy when we went shopping in Bloomington, the one that hugs me in all the right places, flaring softly at my knees. She had to persuade me to wear it tonight too. She knows that the two dresses I bought still haven’t made an appearance, but the nights are drawing in and I’m running out of opportunities to wear them before next summer.
“Do I look all right?” I ask uncertainly.
“You look beautiful,” Dad replies.
It’s not that I desperately want to be told that I’m pretty, or beautiful, or that I even particularly care that much what I look like. I’m fine as I am, I really am. Butoh, it’s the way that he said it, mydad, as though he’s told me all my life. The casualness of it makes my eyes water.
Because it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, every child should be told that they’re beautiful by their parents.
“We won’t be late,” Dad promises as he gives me a hug. “We can’t wait!”
We let each other go and I begin to turn away, before pausing and turning back to pluck a tiny twig from his hair.
He laughs when I show it to him, and I’m still smiling as I walk out of the barn.
I’m trying toprepare myself for not seeing Anders’s car on the driveway, but I’m so on edge as I come past the cornfield that I almost don’t register the sound of his laughter. And then I spy him up ahead, walking side by side with a striking redhead toward the barn.
I can’t see her face, but her wavy hair cascades down her back and her legs go on for miles, and when Jonas appears, the delight on his face is visible from here. Whoisshe?
Whoever she is, I bet she’s beside herself to be flanked by these two brothers. How could she not be?
My jealousy is irrational and I know it, of course, but it does cause me to wonder how many advances Anders has had to fight off. He must be so over it.
One foot in front of the other, Wren.It’s my new mantra.
Jonas catches sight of me and lifts his hand. The redhead turns around to see who he’s waving at, but my attention is focused on Anders.
He’s seen me.
And his smile has faded.
I feel as though my rib cage has closed around my heart, squeezing it in a vise. I hate that it hurts him to look at me.
“Wren!” Bailey yells, distracting me. She jogs toward me, her eyes all big and boo-like as she slows her footsteps a fewfeet away. “You arekillingit in that dress!” She comes forward to give me a hug. “You okay?” she asks in my ear.
I nod against her shoulder. She knows all about what happened with Anders, and chewed Casey’s ear off for him not being more clued up about Laurie, as if the poor guy could help what he did and didn’t know.
She releases me and smiles sympathetically. “Come and meet Tyler,” she urges, hooking her arm through mine.
“Is she the redhead?”
“Yep. Have you seen Jonas’s face? He can’t stop drooling.”
I laugh. “Is she single?”
“Yep. I bet she’ll be interested too.”
“How could she not be?”
