Chapter 3
Nina
“We’re in Tennessee!” Harmony hollers, rolling down the fifteen-passenger-van window so she can stick out her head and howl like she’s a she-wolf. “Land of whiskey and country singers and ... trees!”
My eyes dart up to Uncle Aaron as I wait for his response. From where I’m sitting in the back of the car, I can only see the back of his golden-blond head and part of his profile; I can’t see the exact expression in his pale blue eyes. The sunlight streaming through the driver’s window glints off the platinum of his Cartier watch; he’s in slacks and a button-up shirt, even though we’ve just been driving all day.You never know who might be watching, he reminded us before we left the roadside hotel that morning.
For a moment, it feels like everyone in the car is holding their breath, waiting to see how Uncle Aaron will react to Harmony’s joyous howling. After a moment, he just huffs a little and shakes his head, likeOh, well. That’s just Harmony.
And thatisjust Harmony. She’s always been this way, from the time she was a young girl. Fiercely and unapologetically herself. You would think with seven siblings, she might disappear in a sea of children, especially being stuck in the middle. Instead, Harmony seems to have taken her inauspicious birth order placement as a challenge to stand out in every way possible. Her height helps make that possible, since she’s the tallest girl in her family by a few inches, andher food journal is kept just as strictly as mine, so she’s slim with an athletic frame. Her signature color is pink, and she’s always wearing it on at least one piece of her outfit; today she’s in a ruffly pink T-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers with laces that match her top.
She’s a bright, beaming ray in Uncle Aaron’s dour house, and even though he’s always quick to squash his other children under his thumb when they try to assert any independence, Harmony’s always seemed to have immunity somehow.
I honestly can’t think of any of her siblings even being bold enough to attempt what Harmony’s managed to pull off with this trip. Not only has she convinced Uncle Aaron and Aunt Hope to pick up and move to a different state for almost two months, she’s also somehow gotten their blessing to appear on a TV show. Areality dating competitionTV show. With lumberjacks. I think? I’m not entirely sure what the show’s about, since this will be its first season—not that we would have been allowed to watch it if it were already airing, anyway.
Aunt Hope turns in her seat. “Harmony Anne, shut that window before you destroy all of our eardrums. Or ruin your blowout.”
Knowing my cousin, I’ve no doubt it’s the second part of that statement, and not the first, that persuades her to hurriedly roll up the window. (That’s right—we’re old-school in this fifteen-passenger van. No fancy automatic windows for us!) With a sigh, Harmony falls back against her seat. “Green Valley, I think I’m in love!”
She’s not the only one. In all the moving we’ve done around the United States, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a place quite this beautiful. We had to drive through Great Smoky Mountains National Park—hundreds of miles of lush forest, majestic mountains, and leaf-covered paths that disappeared into endless stretches of trees—to get to this amazingly quaint little valley, nestled in between mountains—a cozy, homey, magical town with shops and cafes and bearded men galore.
It almost feels like ... well, it almost feels like a fairy tale.
The nice kind. Not the kind with toes getting chopped off or whatnot. Although sometimes, they are all one and the same ...
“We’re staying at a place called the Donner Lodge,” Harmony gushes, like she can’t believe it’s all happening to her. That’s part of Harmony’s charm, too—she becomes so genuinely excited every time she gets her way. “It’s where that lady Ilove from Instagram—the banana cake queen, Jennifer Winston—makes her famous, award-winning banana cake. I can’t wait to try it.”
“Instagram?” Uncle Aaron repeats.
His tone makes my spine stiffen and my armpits break out in vicarious nervous sweat, but Harmony just laughs it off. “I only go on there to post Bible verses and find recipes, Daddy. That’s how I know about the banana cake ...”
Liar, liar, pants on fire, I could say if I wanted to get Harmony in trouble. And/or if I were twelve. Just the other day she was showing me all the profiles of the men she thought might be part of the show, even though the producers are keeping all of that hush-hush. That hasn’t stopped Harmony from putting her detective skills to good use.
“He’s single, good-looking, lives in the Green Valley area, and he works at a gym, which everyone knows means he can take eight weeks off work to film.” She explained her deductive reasoning to me before clicking on one of the photos. “And just look at his abs!Yum ...”
Just like I keep my box of secret fashion magazines, Harmony has collected pictures of handsome men over the years—movie stars and musicians and whatnot—so she can ... gaze upon their strong chins and hard bodies, I guess? I don’t blame Harmony for having her own secret vice, but I’ve personally never been able to get that excited about someone just by looking at a picture of them. Attraction for me is less about the way a person looks and more about who that person is—their likes and their mannerisms and the way they talk and move. You can’t tell any of that from a picture.
But Harmony sure likes looking—and it isn’t banana cake recipes she spends most of her time scrolling through on Instagram. I raise my eyebrows at her, and she just giggles, completely unrepentant. “Mmm, I can’t wait to try some banana cake on this trip,” she says, waggling her eyebrows at me, and I can’t help but laugh with her, shaking my head.
Harmony gushes her way through the hotel check-in, rhapsodizing about how glamorous the Lodge is and how sweet it was of the producers to put all of us up in a suite and how she can’tbelieveshe gets her own room, etcetera, etcetera. I love Harmony, but sometimes she’s a bit much. I’ve tuned her out by the time I finish putting away everyone’s luggage into their respectiverooms.
Note—Iwon’tbe getting my own room. I’ll be sharing with my two younger female cousins, who are fifteen and sixteen. It was decided that my thirteen-year-old cousin, Isaiah, needs the other single room to himself, because ... testosterone, I guess? I do get my own bed, though, since Felicity and Merit will be sharing the bunk beds.
I think. Surely they wouldn’t put me in a bunk bed, right ... ?
Harmony’s been swanning through the suite, exclaiming about everything she comes across, so at first I don’t register her “Hey, what’s this?” But she must’ve not got the response she hoped to receive, since a moment later, she asks again, louder, “Hey, what’s this?”
I exchange a quick glance with my cousin Merit—the there-she-goes-againlook that my introverted young cousin and I have bonded over throughout the years—before we begrudgingly go to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve learned from experience that until Harmony gets the attention she’s seeking, she willkeepseeking.
“What is it, Harm?” I ask obligingly as I find her in an empty room in the suite.
To be fair, itisa strange room. It looks too small to be a bedroom, but too big to be a closet—plus it has a window. Aunt Hope pops her head in the doorway and frowns. “Storage?” she guesses. “We can put all of our luggage in here to keep it out from underfoot.”
“Or,” Harmony interjects quickly, “Nina could stay in here!”
I look at her in surprise, then panic, wondering what she’s up to. It’s already been decided: I’m sharing a room with the twins. I shake my head at Aunt Hope to show her this wasn’t my idea. “It’s fine. I don’t mind sharing?—”
“But Nina gets up so early to make breakfast, and sometimes she’s up late doing the laundry or tidying up,” Harmony reminds her mother. “And Felicity is such a light sleeper ...”
