7. Mandy
“That’s why you think he didn’t like you?” Amanda’s back to pacing from my kitchen to my family room and back again. “That was such an infuriating story.”
“Why?” I stand. “You didn’t have to go through it, and if you’d been there, you’d have understood that he was being utterly serious.”
“I have so many questions.” Maren hops to her feet, too. “Starting with, you can sing?”
I shake my head. “I could sing. Now I can only croak.”
“You’re obsessed with singing,” Emery says. “It’s boring.”
“You’d be obsessed too,” Maren says, “if Mom and Eddy had turned down not one, but three record deals for you, just because Eddy was an addict.”
Amanda looks like she might punch her. “That is not why?—”
“That was just one question,” Emery says. “But if that’s all you’ve got, then it’s my turn.” She reaches for my hand from the corner of the sofa. “Sit down, and tell me why Tommy moved to. . .where did you say it was? Montana?”
“Yes, Montana,” I say.
“I’m not done yet,” Amanda says. “You two are so rude, butting in on conversations that aren’t even yours to have.”
“I only got to ask about the singing, and she didn’t even answer.” Maren’s scowling at her mother.
“Yes,” I say. “I could sing quite well, at least, for Manila I could. It’s not as if we have a lot to compare my singing with. I certainly had no real training.”
“And what about Montana?” Emery dings me again.
“After his father died of a heart attack, his mom dragged them out to live with her brother.” I shrug. “He went, because otherwise she’d have been all alone, and he would have too.”
Amanda sits down and tugs me down next to her on the sofa, crowding Emery a little. “You’re telling me that after you did that play together, after all that chemistry you felt, you just. . .” She shrugs. “You just went back to normal?”
“I was the only one feeling it,” I say. “Clearly he wasn’t, so. . .yes. We went back to normal.”
Amanda closes her eyes and groans.
“Mostly back to normal,” I hedge.
“Wait, what does that mean?” Emery asks. “Something else happened, right?”
“That was only the fall of our junior year,” I say. “We had a year and a half before his mom dragged him to Montana, so yeah. More happened.”
Maren perches on the edge of the chair I vacated and rubs her hands together. “I knew it. You kissed, right?”
I can’t help rolling my eyes. “You young people are all about the lips pressing together.”
“I hate to tell you this, but even us older people are all about that,” Amanda says. “So did you?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “When I found out he didn’t like me like that, I decided to put my time back into trying to repair things with Jed. But something had made it worse, not better. He was back to totally ignoring me.”
“Yeah, he knew what you didn’t,” Maren says. “That Tommy was lying, so seeing you two together every day probably just ticked him off more.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t it,” I say. “But after a blizzard ruined our homecoming dance, everyone decided to take the budget from that and make our prom dance for my junior year huge.”
“Wow,” Emery says. “What does huge mean?”
“Well, with a graduating class of thirty-eight,” I say, “huge is relative. But we were having Miss Lou’s famous meatballs, pigs in a blanket, and cheesecake as refreshments, and we found a local band to come play for us. In Manila, those were all the ingredients for a really rocking party.”
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Maren says.
I shrug. “Most everyone was planning to go—freshmen all the way up to seniors. That made it the biggest event of the year. Only, I had no one to be my date.”
Maren and Emery look at each other. “So, wait. Who did you go with?”
“It was a week before prom, and no one had asked me yet.” I nod slowly. “I was actually thinking that I wouldn’t go. Or if I did go, I’d hide behind the refreshment table with the excuse that I had to serve people.”
“Isn’t this kind of the same situation that got you into the whole mess with Jed the year before?”
I nod slowly. “Two years, but yes. Something like this.”
“Oh, no,” Emery says. “And I’m guessing this one didn’t go much better?”
“Well.” Before I can say anything, someone knocks on the front door.
Without thinking, Emery hops up to answer it.
“Wait,” I say, but it’s too late.
She’s already opened the door. “Oh.” Emery turns back around slowly as if she’s just realizing how strange my whole house looks right now. “I thought it was a package.” She turns toward me slowly, as Abigail peers around her.
“You two are both here. That’s a stroke of luck. Helen’s coming back today, so once I have all your signatures—” She freezes. “What’s wrong with your family room?”
I groan. Once Abigail has even gotten a whiff of something, you may as well just surrender.
It takes us almost an hour to catch her up on Thomas Collins, his impending visit, and how I’m a big, fat liar.
“But I still don’t understand why you told him that you and Jed got married,” Abigail says. “Or why you said you were touring the world, before that, either.”
“You’ve never met an ex while your hair was in a messy knot on your head and you were wearing sweatpants with a big zit on your nose, have you?” Amanda asks.
Abigail frowns.
“Of course she hasn’t,” I say. “It’s perfect Abigail.”
“Come on,” Abigail says. “Of course I’ve run into people when—well. One of my exes I left half a country away when I changed schools and started law school. And then I married the next guy I dated, so. . .”
“When you meet your ex,” Amanda says, “you do not want to look bad. You want to look your best. You want to win.”
“Win?” Abigail asks. “It’s a competition?”
Amanda, Maren, and I all speak at the same time. “Yes.”
Emery says, “Don’t you feel like everything in life is a little bit of a competition?”
“Not really.” Abigail blinks.
“That’s just because you’re always the one who’s winning,” Amanda says. “Trust me. The losers know it’s all a contest.”
“As if you lose things,” Abigail says. “You’re the most put-together person I know.”
“Right,” Amanda says. “I’m put-together, and that means that when I’m not prepared for something, I’m a total mess.”
“It’s true,” Maren says. “Poor Eddy.”
Amanda shoves Maren, but she deserves it, so I don’t fuss at her.
“Okay, let’s say that I agree with all that, which is a stretch, but even so, Tommy wasn’t your ex,” Abigail says. “So why would you need to lie to him?”
“She wanted to date him, but he didn’t like her,” Amanda says. “That’s actually worse.”
Abigail’s shaking her head as she sits down. “But something happened at prom, right?”
“I don’t think I should tell all of you anything else,” I say.
“Why not?” Abigail asks.
“Because Tommy’s coming soon, and the less you know, the less you can blunder through and destroy.”
“Or the better we can cover your lies,” Abigail says.
She is a lawyer. It’s kind of her whole job. I drop into the chair on the end by the kitchen with a huff. “Only if you tell me that something like attorney client privilege applies.” I look around the room. “With all of you. If I keep telling you about Tommy, you can’t let any of this slip, not to him, and not to anyone else.”
“Who would I tell?” Amanda asks.
“Who wouldn’t she tell?” Maren glares.
“Eddy, for one,” I say. “You can’t tell your husbands. They know everyone in town, and their parents really know everyone I’m talking about.”
Amanda’s brow furrows. “But?—”
“No buts.” I shake my head. “Those are my terms.”
Maren groans. “Just say fine, Mom. It’s not like Eddy would even care.”
“Why is Tommy coming into town now?” Abigail asks. “Because if it’s legal stuff. . .”
“I’m buying his family’s ranch,” I say. “He’s finally ready to sell their land.”
“Oh,” Abigail says. “Well, I guess you better tell me everything. As your lawyer, I’ll need context.” She’s smiling.
“You better not send me a huge bill for all this,” I say.
“You ruin all my fun.” But she’s still smiling.
“So a week before prom, no one had asked me to go.”
Everyone’s so quiet, so focused on what I’m saying that it’s almost like I’m talking to myself.
“Manila isn’t exactly New York City now,” I say.
Maren snorts.
“But in the early 1960s, it was even worse. There was really nothing to do, so when I told Tommy that I wasn’t going to the dance. . .”
* * *
Tommy’s jaw drops.
“Oh, don’t act like it’s really that big of a deal. Mom can’t really afford to buy me a fancy dress, and she doesn’t have time to try and make one for me now, thank goodness.”
“You have to go,” he says. “I can’t believe that idiot hasn’t asked you yet.”
“By that idiot, you mean Jed.” I’m not sure why I say it. We both knew who he meant.
“I keep waiting for him to finally get over himself, but he just can’t do it.”
“It all started with a dance,” I say. “Maybe he’s just too scarred to even think about?—”
“No.” Tommy shakes his head. “No, he doesn’t get to play the wounded bird. It’s been more than a year—almost two! How long is he really going to mope around, not talking to you?” He swings the saddle onto his horse, Ranger. “And you—if he’s too stupid to ask you, you should go with someone else.”
“Who are you taking?” I tighten the cinch on my horse Elvis, but I keep one eye on Tommy.
“Me?” He scoffs. “I’m not taking anyone, but I’m still going. See what I mean?”
“Whether I’m at the dance or sitting at home, why do you care?” I yank the halter off Elvis and slide the headstall up, pausing so he can take the bit. “It’s not like it matters.”
Tommy bridles his horse in half a second and tightens the girth before swinging up on his back. “There’s nothing to do around here. You can’t miss out on things like junior prom. It’s all there is.”
“You talk like it’s the end of the world if I don’t go.” I pull the girth two holes tighter and call it good. “I’ve got a pile of books to read that Dad brought back from that library that closed over in Salt Lake, remember?”
Tommy stops arguing with me for the moment, and just starts moving. I’m hard pressed to swing up on Elvis, because he’s kind of a brat—he starts walking as soon as Ranger moves off. “Hey.” I yank on his face, but he’s not stopping. One of these days, I’m really going to have to make him listen, but part of me kind of likes having a cantankerous horse.
He breaks into a trot the second I’m fully on, eager to catch up to his best friend, but once we do, he drops into a slow and steady walk. I’m a little less eager to be near my buddy right now. He’s being brattier than my horse. “And anyway,” I say, deciding to needle him, “if you keep spending all your time with me, you’ll never make a move on Patrice Delaney.”
Tommy’s head snaps back. “What did you just say?”
“I’ve seen you watching her lately. I can tell you were happy when she broke up with Lex.”
“I’m not interested in her.” His face flushes bright red.
“Okay, sure,” I say. “But if I’m not at the dance, you’ll have to talk to someone. May as well be her, right?” Once we reach the plowed arena at the edge of Tommy’s horse pasture, I urge Elvis forward and he springs into an eager trot.
Tommy has barrels set up in the middle for me to work on my barrel pattern before our next rodeo in three weeks, but we’ve got to get warmed up before I can work on those.
“At some point, you’ll have to actually bring in some calves,” I say. “They don’t give prizes for roping bales of hay.”
Tommy rolls his eyes and keeps right on swinging his rope around and around until it snags the hay bale. I’ve seen him in action, and I know that he can rope most anything from Ranger’s back. It’s actually a little distracting for me, always having to practice out here with him. I should be worrying about my pattern and my times, but I keep finding myself watching him.
I know he’s not interested in me. He made that really, really clear, but sometimes I forget, like right now, when he keeps glancing back at me, too.
And smiling.
I have caught him looking at Patrice a time or two, but sometimes I wonder whether he ever looks at me the same way.
It’s stupid. I heard what he said. But people change sometimes. Their feelings change too, right? His feelings could have changed. Or he could like Patrice and just not want to talk to me about it.
Either way, right now, I have to focus on our run. Elvis has a tendency to clip barrels when I don’t hold him away from them well enough. It’s bad to knock one over, of course, but it also hurts like the devil sometimes, when my leg’s caught between him and the barrel.
I’ve just put down a really, really good one when I notice someone coming down the lane on a bike. Even squinting, I can barely make out who it is.
Denise Crane, our class president, drops her bike by the house and starts waving, so she clearly sees me and Tommy out here. His mom probably told her we were out back. Tommy and I walk our horses toward his back yard to keep her from having to hoof it all the way to us.
“Denise?” I ask. “You okay?”
She’s breathing heavily. “Girl, I have been riding all over town looking for you.”
“You have?” I frown. “Why?”
“Well, I went to your house first, anyway, and your mom said you’d be here.” She drops her hands on her knees. “Okay, so we tallied up the votes for prom prince and princess, and?—”
I groan.
“What?” Tommy asks. “What’s with the drama?”
“You rode all the way out to my place and then all the way here just to tell us something you could have told us tomorrow?” I really, really hope I didn’t win. There are only seventeen girls in our grade in school, so it’s not like a big prize. But if I won, then I have to go, and I’ve pretty much made up my mind to stay home.
“I guess you figured out that you won,” Denise says.
My sigh’s probably a little too pronounced. “You didn’t need to ride all the way out here?—”
“But I did,” Denise says. “See, for the guys, it was a tie, and you’re the only one who hasn’t voted.”
“You’re kidding,” I say.
She shakes her head, and then she says what I knew she was going to say from the start. “You have to pick which of them wins for prince: Jed or Tommy.”