Chapter 17 #2
“Sure.” When I lean down to take a bite, her fingers brush my lips.
We share it as we walk past the booths toward the stage. There’s only one chair left when we get there. I make Dixie take it. She offers to sit on my lap, but I shake my head. Half the crowd’s watching us like their favorite soap opera.
The other choir’s really good. They’ve got matching robes and hair that hasn’t moved in decades.
When they start their opening number—some complicated Bach thing—they move together like they’re connected by invisible strings.
Perfect symmetry, voices blending smooth as butter.
It’s like watching a very religious boy band.
Dixie’s sinking lower in her chair. “We’re gonna have to up our game.”
“Or pray for a miracle.”
When she laughs, I feel better. She’s not giving up on us yet. I shouldn’t be so relieved, but I am. She’s frowning and muttering under her breath, trying to figure out if we quit or fight harder.
We get out of there fast when they’re done.
“They’re horrifyingly good,” she rails. “Our choir can’t compete with that.”
I like the way she says our.
“So we need more showmanship!” She makes enthusiastic jazz hands. “You know how to do that?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
She elbows me. “You pick a song like ‘Jingle Bell Dash.’”
“It’s February.”
“You can do Christmas year-round—it’s like having breakfast for dinner. Everyone loves it. Plus, you can have audience participation.”
I steer her back toward the truck. We shouldn’t be planning strategy in front of our biggest competition. “Usually, the choirs pick something a little more classical. ‘Ave Maria.’ ‘Amazing Grace.’ That sort of thing.”
She pulls a face. “Boring!”
I guess that makes sense. She’d never sing someone else’s words if she could make up her own. It’s like karaoke night: She borrowed the tune, but the lyrics were all her.
“You don’t want to write a song for us yourself?” Please.
Another face. “I’ve been battling with writer’s block. But I might be over that. Maybe. Fingers crossed!” She squeezes them together ostentatiously. She has powdered sugar on her index finger, which makes me smile. I probably shouldn’t lick her. Not in public.
“Plus, I think we should lean into the fun,” she continues.
“So, we really kind of want exactly ‘Jingle Bell Dash.’ It’s so awful that it’s great.
Very aggressively cheerful. Full-body choreography.
Sleigh bells. Kazoos. There’s an entire verse that’s just shouting reindeer names to a techno country beat. ”
There’s only one possible response to that. “Wow.”
Dixie pulls up a video on her phone and hands it to me. I can’t help but notice that she has a massive number of social media notifications.
Hank Pearl’s song is something else. Once I get past the eyeball-bleeding horror of his backup singers (in their sexy country elf costumes), I can see Dixie’s point. The song relies on enthusiasm, not musical talent. It’s also loud and unhinged, but we do that well, too.
“You think we could get permission to sing that Christmas song?”
Dixie’s grin gets wider. “For a licensing fee and a promise to mention his name in the program, the songwriter would absolutely agree.”
We walk some more, brainstorming a possible performance. I’m not quite ready to commit, but she makes a good point. I should probably know what kind of performer she is.
“Do you usually sing with others? What were they like?”
She shrugs. “Not usually. The one duet I did, the guy split to do a solo act and he charted. Now he’s got a big contract and is touring across the country.
He’s not booking arenas yet, but he’s bigger than a bar even if he’s not quite stadium ready.
His last concert in Utah sold out and there were five thousand seats. ”
When she pulls the guy up on her phone, I recognize the name. The air goes right out of me. Dixie’s a professional and she hangs out with guys like her. Driven. Talented. Urbane.
Not a small-town minister.
“So that’s what you want? A record label and to fill arenas?”
Her smile dims some. “Those would be awesome opportunities.”
The way her energy flags makes me wonder, though.
Does she even want to hit the road? I don’t know how to ask her, not when the first thing that comes to mind is that if she tours, we’ll be in two very different places.
Wickham Hollow doesn’t have five-thousand-seat arenas. I tug her toward the rides instead.
Her face lights up when I buy us ride tickets. There’s a Ferris wheel with the old-style metal cages for seats, a Tilt-A-Whirl, a run-down carousel, and some chipped-looking teacups swooping around a metal track.
“Ferris wheel!” She claps her hands enthusiastically. “That one, for sure.”
The seats are shaped like a clamshell, rounded at the back and with high sides to make the riders feel safe. Or, you know, trapped. The mesh walls look like a ginormous tea ball but far more disturbing.
“Scared of heights?” she says.
“No.”
She tilts her head. “Not even a little?”
“Nope.”
She smirks, already climbing into a cage. I have no choice but to follow.
The seats are supposed to be big enough for two, but I’m tall. When the guy running the ride swings the metal bar down over our laps and locks it, we’re forced to sit really close together. This part is my favorite.
The wheel starts to move, slow and creaky, lifting us up into the night sky.
“Pretty view,” Dixie says, pointing over the fairgrounds.
I’m not looking at the view. The cage presses in around us and I think it’s shrunk in the last sixty seconds. It’s fine. We’ll be down in a few minutes.
But when we hit the peak and the wheel pauses because the ride dude is a psycho, swaying in the breeze, something shifts inside me.
The cage is definitely way too small. The mesh blurs, turning into the interior of a cramped van.
The fair lights below become parking lot lights beaming through dirty windows.
We’re parked behind a gas station somewhere outside Asheville. It’s cold. My little sister is crying, and my mom’s voice cracks, trying to sing her to sleep. There’s only so many times you can hear “Hush Little Baby” before you scream.
I keep my eyes on the safety bar—but I’m not sure where I am.
There’s no room to stretch out. No space to breathe. I can’t get out because we’re all stuck together in one big knot.
“Jack?” Dixie’s voice comes from far away. Real, real far away. “You okay?”
Shoot. The cage sways again and sweat beads on my forehead despite the cool air. I’m back in my head—even though I can tell Dixie is still right here beside me.
Eleven years old and waking up in the dark, can’t breathe, can’t open the door, can’t get out.
“Hey.” Dixie’s hand covers mine on the safety bar. Her fingers are warm, real. It’s exactly what I need. “Look at me.”
I force my eyes to focus on her face instead of on the mesh walls closing in around us.
“We’re on a Ferris wheel,” she says quietly, matter-of-fact. “At a county fair in Tennessee. You can see the whole fairgrounds from up here—look, there’s the stage where our rivals sang. There’s the fried dough stand where you bought me enough sugar to kill a horse.”
Her thumb rubs across my knuckles. I’m not sure if sugar and equines are mortal enemies or not, but I appreciate her thought.
“The wheel’s moving,” she continues. “We’ll be down soon. You breathe with me, okay? We’re safe. It’s all good.”
I nod like an idiot, trying to match my breathing to hers. In and out. Slow and steady.
The wheel lurches back into motion a thousand years later, and the tension leaks out of my shoulders like air from a balloon. By the time we’re at the bottom, my heart rate has stopped imitating a jackhammer.
When the ride operator lets us out of our cage, I stumble out onto solid ground. Dixie follows more gracefully, wrapping her arm through mine.
“You want to sit for a minute?”
I shake my head. You’re an adult, Jack. “I’m fine.”
She stops walking and turns to face me fully. “It’s okay. Whatever just happened up there—it’s okay.”
I’m not sure it is. “Sorry. I don’t usually—that doesn’t happen very often.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” She studies my face in the carnival lights. “Small spaces?”
I nod. “Sometimes. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” Her voice is firm. “Just human.”
She doesn’t ask for details. Thank God.
“Thank you.” I have to say something. “For—up there. You didn’t have to—”
“Yes, I did.” She squeezes my arm. Pats it. Her cheeks are a little pink. “That’s what you do for your friends. For the people you care about.”
There’s something in the way she says friends that makes me want to push. Just a little. Just to see if I’m imagining the way she was there for me up there.
“Friends,” I repeat, and I know she hears the question in my voice. “Is that what this is?”
She rolls her eyes. “What else would it be?”
“I don’t know.” I step in closer, enough so that she has to tilt her head up to look at me. “You tell me if I’m wrong, but that didn’t feel like friendship.”
“Jack!” She growls my name and tries to wriggle backward, but I catch her hand. You’re mine.
“You feel something for me.” It’s not a question this time.
For a second I think she might actually answer honestly. Then her walls slam back up. “You’re imagining things, Preacher Man.”
“Am I?” I search her face. I want all her secrets. “Because if you were feeling something and you’re scared about it, or worried about timing, or thinking I’ll get spooked—I’ll fall first if that’s what you need.”
Her breath catches, and I see something flicker in her eyes—I’d like to think it’s want, maybe, or hope—before she shakes her head. Yeah. I’m still taking that as a MAYBE.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says, but her voice is softer now, affectionate in a way that tells me I’m not wrong. “And you must have hit your head up there.”
She tugs me toward the game booths, ending the conversation before I can question her understanding of head injuries—or do that falling.
“Come on,” she says, back to her usual breezy tone. “Let’s see if you can win me something ridiculous at the shooting gallery. Can you ask God for a divine assist?”
I’m going to let her deflect because I’ve pushed enough for now—but I’m not letting go of her hand.
She cares about me. Not Jack the minister, not Jack the man who supposedly has his life together—just me, panic attacks and all. And maybe, if I’m patient enough, she’ll stop being scared of it.
“You want the giant yellow banana stuffie or the tiger wearing sunglasses?”
“Both. And that inflatable guitar. Go big or go home, Preacher Man.”
An eternity later—or maybe just twenty minutes—I manage the banana but that inflatable guitar’s rigged six ways to Sunday. The bear, though? That one I can handle. Plus, I see her sneaking peeks at it. She takes them both, eyeing the bear suspiciously. “Your hirsute friend here wasn’t on my list.”
“You kept looking at it.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
She huffs but doesn’t let go of the bear. Shoot. Whatever happened on that Ferris wheel—the panic, the vulnerability, the way she stayed present and was there for me when I wasn’t at my best—has shifted something between us.
I’m not just falling for her anymore.
I’m already gone.