"Hi, Liv. " Lena pronounced her name like it was an inside joke between us. She didn't touch Liv's hand.
If Liv noticed the slight, she ignored it, letting her hand drop. "Final y! I've been trying to get Ethan to introduce us properly, since it seems he and I are chained together for the summer."
Clearly.
Lena wouldn't look at me, and Liv wouldn't stop looking at her.
"Liv, this real y isn't a good --" I couldn't stop it. They were two trains col iding in painful y slow motion.
"Don't be sil y," Lena interrupted, looking at Liv careful y, as if she was the Sybil in her family and she could read Liv's face. "So nice to meet you."
He's all yours. Take the whole town while you're at it.
It took Liv about two seconds to realize she'd walked into something, but she tried to fil the silence al the same. "Ethan and I talk about you al the time. He says you play the viola."
Lena stiffened.
Ethan and I. There was nothing mean about the way Liv said it, but the words themselves were enough. I knew what they meant to Lena. Ethan and the Mortal girl, the girl who was everything Lena couldn't be.
"I've gotta go." Lena turned around before I could catch her arm.
Lena --
Ridley was right. It was only a matter of time before another new girl came to town.
I wondered what else Ridley had been tel ing her.
What are you talking about? We're just friends, L.
We were just friends once, too.
Lena took off, pushing her way through the sweaty crowd, causing a chain reaction of chaos as she went. Her ripple effect seemed endless. I couldn't see it perfectly, but somewhere between us a clown fumbled as the bal oon character in his hands popped, a child cried as a snow cone dropped, and a woman screamed as a popcorn machine began to smoke and catch fire. Even in the slippery blur of heat and arms and noise, Lena affected everything in her wake, a pul as powerful as the moon to the tides, or the planets to the sun. I was caught in her orbit, even as she pul ed away from mine.
I took a step, and Liv put her hand on my arm. Her eyes narrowed as if she was analyzing the situation, or registering it for the first time. "I'm sorry, Ethan. I didn't mean to interrupt. I mean, if I was interrupting, you know. Something." I knew she wanted me to tel her what happened without having to ask. I didn't say anything, which I guess was my answer.
The thing is, I didn't take another step. I let Lena go.
Link walked toward us, fighting his way through the crowd, carrying three Cokes and his own cotton candy. "Man, the line at the drink booth is brutal." Link handed Liv a Coke. "What'd I miss? Was that Lena?"
"She left," Liv said quickly, as if things were that simple.
I wished they were.
"Whatever. Forget the Ferris Wheel. We'd better get over to the main tent. They're gonna announce the winners a the pie-bakin' contest any minute, and Amma wil tan your hide if you aren't there to watch her moment a glory."
"Apple pie?" Liv brightened.
"Yep. And you eat it wearin' Levi's, with a napkin tucked into your shirt up here. Drinkin' a Coke and drivin' a Chevy, while singing 'American Pie.' " I listened to Link ramble and Liv's easy laugh as they walked ahead of me. They didn't have nightmares. They weren't haunted. They weren't even worried.
Link was right. We couldn't miss Amma's moment of glory. I sure wasn't winning any ribbons today. The truth was, I didn't need to bring the mal et down on the old, rigged carnival scale to know what it would say. Link might be CHICKEN
LITTLE, but I felt lower than A REAL WUSS. I could pound away al I wanted, but the answer would always be the same. No matter what I did lately, I was caught somewhere between LOSER and ZERO, and it was starting to feel like Lena was holding the hammer. I final y understood why Link wrote al those songs about getting dumped.
6.15
Tunnel of Love
If it gets any hotter in here, people are goin' to start droppin' like flies. Flies are gonna start droppin' like flies." Link wiped his sweaty forehead with his sweaty hand, which sprayed liquid Link on those of us lucky to be standing next to him.
"Thanks for that." Liv wiped her face with one hand and pul ed her damp shirt away from her body with the other. She looked miserable. The Southern Crusty tent was packed, and the finalists were already standing on the makeshift wooden stage. I tried to see over the row of enormous women in front of us, but it was like standing in the Jackson cafeteria line on cookie day.
"I can barely see the stage." Liv stood on her toes. "Is something supposed to be happening? Did we miss it?"
"Hold on." Link tried to edge between the smal er of the two enormous women in front of us. "Yeah, we can't get any closer. I give up."
"There's Amma." I pointed. "She's won first place almost every year."
"Amma Treadeau," Liv said.
"That's right. How did you know?"
"Professor Ashcroft must have mentioned her."
Carlton Eaton's voice blared over the loudspeaker as he fussed with the portable mic. He always announced the winners because the only thing he loved more than opening everyone's mail was the spotlight. "If y'al wil bear with me, folks, we got some technical difficulties ... hold on now ... can someone cal Red? How am I supposed to know how to fix a darn microphone? Shoot, it's hotter than Hades in here." He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. Carlton Eaton never managed to remember when the microphone was on.
Amma stood proudly to his right, in her best dress, with the tiny violets al over it, holding her prizewinning sweet potato pie. Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Asher were next to her, holding their own creations. They were already dressed for the Mother-Daughter Peach Pageant that started right after Pies. They were equal y frightening in their respective aqua and pink pageant mother gowns, which made them look like aging prom dates from the eighties. Thankful y, Mrs. Lincoln was not in the pageant, so she stood next to Mrs. Asher in one of her standard church dresses, holding her famous chess pie. It was stil hard to look at Link's mom without remembering the insanity of Lena's last birthday. You don't see your girlfriend's mother stepping out of your best friend's mom's body too many nights of the year. When I saw Mrs. Lincoln now, that's what I thought of -- the moment Sarafine emerged like a snake shedding its skin. I shuddered.
Link elbowed me. "Dude, look at Savannah. She's got the crown on and everything. She sure knows how to milk it."
Savannah, Emily, and Eden were sitting in the front row with the rest of the Peach Pageant contestants, sweating away in their tackiest pageant evening wear. Savannah was in yards of glittery Gatlin peach, with her rhinestone Peach Princess crown balanced perfectly on her head, even though the train of her dress kept snagging on the bottom of her cheap metal folding chair. Little Miss, the local dress shop, probably had to special-order it for her al the way from Orlando.
Liv edged her way closer to me, eyeing the cultural phenomenon that was Savannah Snow. "Is she the queen of Southern Crusty, then?" Liv's eyes twinkled, and I tried to imagine how strange this al must look to an outsider.
I almost smiled. "Just about."
"I didn't realize baking was so important to Americans. Anthropological y speaking."
"I don't know about other places, but in the South, women take their baking seriously. And this is the biggest pie-baking contest in Gatlin County."
"Ethan, over here!" Aunt Mercy was waving her handkerchief in one hand and carrying her infamous coconut pie in the other. Thelma was walking behind her, shoving people aside with Aunt Mercy's wheelchair. Every year Aunt Mercy entered the contest, and every year she got an honorable mention for her coconut pie, even though she'd forgotten how to make it about twenty years ago, and none of the judges were brave enough to taste it.
Aunt Grace and Aunt Prue were arm in arm, dragging Aunt Prue's Yorkshire terrier, Harlon James, behind them.
"Wel , fancy seein' you here, Ethan. Did you come ta see Mercy win her ribbon?"
"Of course he did, Grace. What else would he be doin' in a tent ful a old ladies?"
I wanted to introduce Liv, but the Sisters didn't give me a chance. They kept talking over one another. I should've known Aunt Prue would take care of that for me. "Who's this, Ethan? Your new girlfriend?"
Aunt Mercy adjusted her spectacles. "What happened ta the other one? The Duchannes girl, with the dark hair?"
Aunt Prue looked at her suspiciously. "Wel , Mercy, that's jus' none a our concern. You shouldn't be askin' anything about it. She mighta up and left him."
"Why would she do that? Ethan, you didn't ask that girl ta get nekkid, did ya?"
Aunt Prue gasped. "Mercy Lynne! If the Good Lord doesn't strike us al down on account a that talk ..."
Liv looked dizzy. She obviously wasn't used to fol owing the banter of three hundred-year-old women with thick Upcountry accents and fractured grammar.
"Nobody tried -- nobody left anyone. Everything is fine between Lena and me," I lied. Even though they'd find out the truth the next time they went to church, if their hearing aids were turned up high enough to hear the gossip. "This is Liv, Marian's summer research assistant. We work together at the library. Liv, this is Aunt Grace, Aunt Mercy, and Aunt Prudence, my great-great-aunts."
"Don't you be addin' any extra great s in there." Aunt Prue pul ed herself up a little straighter.
"That's her name. Lena! It was on the tip a my tongue." Aunt Mercy smiled at Liv.
Liv smiled back. "Of course. It's a pleasure to meet you al ."
Carlton Eaton tapped on the mic just in time. "Al right, y'al , I think we can get started."
"Girls, we need ta get up ta the front. They'l be cal in' my name in no time." Aunt Mercy was already working her way through the aisles, rol ing forward like an army tank. "We'l see you in two shakes of a rabbit's tail, Sweet Meat."
People filed into the tent from al three entrances, and Lacy Beecham and Elsie Wilks, the winners of Casseroles and Barbeque, took their places next to the stage, holding their blue ribbons. Barbeque was a big category, even bigger than Chili, so Mrs. Wilks was about as puffed up as I'd ever seen her.
I watched Amma's face, so proud, not glancing at one of those women even once. Then I watched it darken, and she looked off toward one side of the tent.
Link ribbed me again. "Hey, lookit. I mean, you know, the Look." We fol owed Amma's stinkeye to the far corner of the tent. When I saw who she was looking at, I tensed.
Lena was slouching against one of the tent poles, eyes on the stage. I knew she couldn't have cared less about a pie-baking contest, unless she was here to root for Amma. And from the looks of it, Amma didn't think that's why Lena was here.
Amma shook her head at Lena, ever so slightly.
Lena looked away.
Maybe she was looking for me, though I was probably the last person she wanted to see right now. So what was she doing here?
Link grabbed my arm. "It's -- she's --"
Lena glanced across to the pole opposite her. Ridley leaned against the pole in a pink miniskirt, unwrapping a lol ipop. Her eyes were fixed on the stage, like she actual y cared about who was going to win. I knew she didn't, because the only thing she cared about was causing trouble. Since there were about two hundred people too many in the tent, this seemed about as good a place for trouble as any.