13
Asta’s mother stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on the railing, her face in a scowl. ‘Asta, everyone is here. Come down, please.’
Asta wanted to scream. ‘You’re literally watching me walk down the stairs right now. I don’t know what else you want.’
Maeve Ekenberg eyed her daughter critically. ‘Can’t you put something nice on?’
Asta looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a riding camp T-shirt that she had stolen from Felix and a pair of cut-off jeans.
‘This is what I look like. If they don’t like it, then they don’t like me.’
Maeve sighed. ‘For heaven’s sakes. The least you can do is hurry up. Everyone’s waiting for you.’
Asta came down a few stairs and bent her head to see into the living room. Her cousins – Gem, Leif, and Hadi – were all clustered on the plaid-covered couch.
Gem was interning at a talent agency this summer and had come in for the weekend just for Asta’s party.
He was wearing his city clothes, as if that would impress anyone.
The sleeves of his linen suit jacket were pushed up his forearms, and his curly hair was swept high off his forehead.
When Asta and her parents had gone out to visit him last month, he had been unbearable, trying to slip in the names of the supposedly famous singers he was meeting.
Asta hadn’t heard of any of them, which had spoiled his mood a bit.
Aunt Alice, Uncle Rashad, and Hadi, who was the baby of the family at twelve, had picked up Gem in Port Veracruz before driving the two hours to the farm.
Leif had told their parents that they wanted to be a farmer someday, and they had been staying in the spare room next to Asta’s all summer, helping out with the new calves born this spring.
Gem and Hadi were currently ganging up on Leif, poking them in the face and neck as Leif swatted at their brothers’ hands.
Aunt Alice was standing with Asta’s father, Linden, their drinks resting on the top of the unlit cast-iron woodstove.
She was laughing at something he said. Grandma Ekenberg was sitting in Papa’s easy chair fanning herself with a magazine.
Uncle Rashad had pulled up a chair next to her and was nodding along to whatever she was saying – probably a drawn-out account of her efforts to keep the deer out of her flowerbeds at the cottage where she and Grandpop had lived since retiring from the farm.
Through the wide doorway that led to the dining room, Asta could see the legs of Grandpop, Uncle Carl, and Aunt Leona.
‘Come greet your guests, Asta,’ Mama said, making way for Asta to come down the stairs.
A few weeks before Asta’s eighteenth birthday, Mama had suggested the idea of a big family party. Asta had waffled about it, but Mama insisted.
‘Everyone wants to see you before you head off to college,’ she’d said.
‘Or the Pillar School,’ Asta had added, her stomach tight with worry.
Felix had helped her study for the exam, and they had driven in together for the riding test. When Felix received his acceptance, she had been elated, expecting hers to follow any day.
But when the letter came, it was only to say that her application had been waitlisted.
She felt sure that Felix would go off to Pillar and forget all about her within the first month.
All she wanted in the world was to go with him.
‘Be realistic, Asta,’ Papa had said. It was the same thing he always said. ‘You should be planning for your future. Rawlings Community has an excellent agricultural program.’
‘Stop!’ Asta had whined. ‘I don’t want to be a farmer. I want to race. I told you that a thousand times.’
‘Damned dragons.’
‘Linden,’ Mama had scolded. ‘Mind your language.’ But Maeve had not forgotten about the party. ‘Asta, we are having a dinner with the family, whether you like it or not. You will smile and say, “Thank you for coming,” and you will be decent to the people who love you.’
So here Asta was with a house full of relatives while all she could think about was the letter that might or might not be coming any day from Pillar.
‘There she is!’ Uncle Rashad called once he caught sight of her. ‘The birthday girl!’ His broad smile made Asta smile too, in spite of her bad mood. He got up to hug her and started a round of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’, waving at his children to join in.
Gem caught his father’s enthusiasm and sang along, conducting the song with Leif’s reluctant arm.
Hadi instantly mimicked his big brother with Leif’s other arm.
Leif was doing their best to remain unamused.
Uncle Carl, Aunt Leona, and Grandpop came in from the dining room and joined in the singing, smiling genially at Asta.
When the song ended, Grandma tacked on a creaky-voiced, ‘And many more,’ which made everyone laugh.
‘That’s for the birthday song, Ma,’ Aunt Alice said. ‘What are you wishing her many more of, exactly?’
‘Oh, well,’ Grandma laughed. ‘Many more jolly fellows, I guess.’
‘Grandma!’ Asta gasped. ‘Is that what you got me for my birthday?’
‘No, ma’am. If I find any jolly fellows, I’m keeping them for myself!’
‘I heard that,’ Grandpop called from the doorway.
Grandma waved her makeshift fan at him as if he were a pesky fly. She reached out for Asta’s hand, and Asta came over to her. ‘What do you really want for your birthday, dear?’
‘Kind of late to be asking, Grandma,’ Gem joked.
But Asta had been giving the same answer for the past six years. ‘My own dragon.’
The air grew still. Grandma let go of Asta’s hand. A look passed between the adults in the room, eyebrows raised and mouths taut. Hadi stifled a giggle, for which Leif punched him. Gem shot Asta a sympathetic smile.
‘The girl still got dragon fever?’ Grandpop grumbled. Papa looked at a spot on the rug, embarrassed by the question.
‘Oh, it’s nothing serious.’ Mama’s tone was dismissive and light. ‘She rides with one of the neighbor boys. That’s all. They have fun together.’
‘So to speak,’ Leif added under their breath. Gem’s eyes grew wide, feigning shock.
‘It’s not like that, dummy.’ Asta snatched up a decorative wicker basket shaped like a rooster and hurled it at Leif, nailing Gem instead, who howled in exaggerated pain. ‘Felix is my best friend.’
‘Felix is my best friend,’ Leif echoed back in a mocking tone. ‘Sure. Doesn’t everyone write their best friend love notes every day?’
‘What’s this?’ Aunt Alice asked, intrigued.
‘Felix is a very nice boy,’ Mama told her sister-in-law. ‘Very polite.’
‘They’re not love notes,’ Asta protested. ‘They’re just notes-notes.’ Her stomach felt queasy. Did Felix think they were love notes? He wasn’t supposed to know.
The brutal truth was, Asta was in love with her best friend.
But she had sworn to herself that she would never tell him.
If he knew, then he would tell her that he didn’t like her like that and that she was being weird, and then she would have to force herself to stop feeling this way. And she couldn’t.
Whenever he touched her, it felt like her skin was on fire.
Whenever he looked at her, she could feel it down to her toes.
She obsessed about the way his dark hair curled behind his ear, the shape of his fingernails, the dorky little snort he made when he was laughing uncontrollably.
It was horrible and wonderful, and she couldn’t stop it.
So her cousins and her aunt and everyone else needed to mind their own business and let her wallow in peace.
But Leif was on a roll. ‘Doesn’t everyone stare longingly out the window whenever their best friend goes home?’ Leif gave a lovelorn sigh.
‘Shut up!’ Asta snapped. ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking about.’
Leif grabbed the rooster basket from the rug and threw it back at Asta. She ducked, and it hit the wall behind her.
‘Leif!’ Aunt Alice scolded. ‘Cut it out.’
Talking about Felix made Asta feel like she was going to throw up.
Being in love was awful. She could barely stand to be around him and barely stand to be apart from him.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted those feelings for Felix.
She wished there was a cure. There were things she wanted to do before she fell in love, but it didn’t seem to matter what she wanted.
She could not convince her brain to think about anything else.
‘We’re just friends,’ Asta said miserably, but Leif leaned over and whispered something to Gem that made him nod sagely and give Asta a pitying look.
‘Idiot.’ Asta looked around for something else to throw.
‘Dragons are trouble,’ Grandpop said, moving to stand behind Grandma’s chair. ‘Ekenbergs don’t truck with dragons.’
‘It’s nothing serious, Dad,’ Mama said again. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’
Asta’s chest clenched. ‘Stop saying that! I told you I’m going to be a dragon rider.’
‘Cool!’ Hadi grinned.
‘Hard to make a living that way,’ Aunt Leona said, scuffing her toe on the floor.
Asta rolled her eyes. ‘As opposed to what? Farming?’
Looks of exasperation passed between Papa and Uncle Carl.
‘It’s a legitimate career. I don’t understand why this family can’t just support me,’ Asta said.
But they all just seemed to pity her. ‘You know what? I don’t care what you think.
I don’t care. I hate farming. I hate it.
The only thing I have ever wanted to do is ride.
’ Her eyes were filling with tears. ‘And you have Leif. Why do you need me?’
‘Hey, leave me out of it,’ Leif muttered.
Asta wiped her eyes. ‘No, I’m serious. I don’t care. Leif can have the whole farm. Congratulations.’
‘Sweet.’ Leif’s quiet word sounded loud in the silence.
Asta was sobbing now. ‘Great, now everyone’s happy. The rest of you can get off my back!’ She ran for the front door, slamming it behind her.
She sprinted down the lane, past Papa’s tractor parked at the edge of the new-mown hayfield.