Chapter 6

The school week has flown by. Today is Saturday, almost one in the afternoon, and I’ve already spent two hours getting ready for my first real date with Palmer.

Matthew and I saw each other yesterday evening after school and agreed to spend our day off together. Drive to the next town over for the fall fair and go to a movie.

Today I want to look my absolute best, so I carefully straighten my heavy hair with a flat iron and leave it loose down my back to my waist, apply my makeup carefully, and dab perfume on my neck. I change three times and still can’t decide what would be best to wear.

This has never happened to me before!

In the end, I choose a short silk dress with a tiny print, a warm beige oversized sweater, leggings, and tall lace-up boots. With the outfit, I take a small purse on a long strap and my camera.

I look more like a tomboy, but considering how carefully I defined every lash and tamed my unruly hair, clothes like this will help me feel at least a little relaxed.

Matthew pulls up to Patricia’s house in his old Dodge. He stops the car by the curb, gets out, and waits for me, leaning his hips against the hood. When he sees me, he steps toward me and whistles, pulling his hands out of his pockets.

“Wow. Damn…”

“Well… how do I look?”

“You’re gorgeous, Ashley!”

He’s wearing blue jeans, a light shirt, and a short black leather jacket. His dark hair is tied high at the back of his head in a short ponytail, which draws my eyes even more to his tanned face with its beautiful cheekbones and mouth.

I come closer, touch my lips to his, and say:

“Let’s go?”

And he smiles back like he understands. He opens the passenger door for me and doesn’t take his eyes off me while I get into the car.

The next town is half an hour away, and the whole time I sit turned toward Matthew, unable to do anything about my smile. I tell him something about the photography contest, where I have one final round left. About where I want to go to school, and how next summer I plan to get to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. After staring too long at his beautiful profile, I ask, surprising myself, whether a trip like that is part of his plans too.

At some point Matthew brakes on the shoulder, turns, and pulls me to him so he can kiss me slowly and with feeling. Then he keeps driving while I catch my breath and chase the blush from my cheeks.

The fair this year is crowded and noisy, and it has landed on a string of warm November days. All of North Carolina is painted in the green, yellow, and red colors of fall and shines sunlit gold. I haven’t seen a state more beautiful yet, and my mood simply beams with joy while my eyes drink everything in as Matthew and I walk hand in hand through the wide grounds filled with exhibition pavilions, covered awnings, souvenir booths, and a huge amusement park with rides.

Everything around us is decorated with corn sheaves, baskets of apples, bright orange pumpkins, lanterns, and yellow chrysanthemums. The mobile bars and cafés smell of hot pastries, coffee, roasted meat, and popcorn. Musicians play, children run around, and barkers invite people to take part in different contests.

Of course I take pictures. Of Matthew and me too. Time slips by unnoticed; everything here catches the eye, and after we’ve laughed ourselves silly at the farm contest “Tickle the Piglet,” where three contestants have three minutes to compete for the right to catch one piglet in a pen without fighting each other, we end up at the cooking contest. I notice interest lighting up in Matthew’s eyes and suggest:

“The main rule is that you have to make an apple pie in forty-five minutes. You made an amazing dinner in half that time! Matthew, will you try? Please! Look, they still need one more contestant!”

“You really want me to, Ash?” His warm, shining eyes find me, and I smile widely at them.

“Very much!”

The prize is a fall crown made of beautiful scarlet beads, artificial pears, little pumpkins, maple leaves, and dogwood clusters. It lies ceremoniously on a pillow of hay, on a raised stand made of corn cobs, and Matthew promises as he takes off his jacket and hands it to me:

“Then you can be sure I’ll win it for you!”

Dark-haired and beautiful, he rolls his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, baring strong wrists, puts on a contestant’s apron, and winks at me as he confidently takes his place at the table. And of course he draws attention right away.

This is the first time I’ve seen him cook, and I can’t stop watching him. His long fingers don’t make a single wasted movement, and by the end of the contest, I’m no longer the only one rooting for him. Most of the onlookers gathered around are shouting his name too. But the crown and the best slice of unbelievably delicious charlotte with cinnamon, mint leaves, orange zest, and caramel apple slices go to me alone. So does Matthew’s kiss.

“Everybody, look at the red-haired queen we have here!”

“Man, even if you tried, you couldn’t find a better girl than that!”

“I know.”

“Ah-ha-ha!”

“Come back and see us!”

“We definitely will!”

When we’re alone, I confess to him:

“Have I told you you’re one of a kind and amazing?”

“Ashley, that isn’t true.”

“It is. Believe me! This is the best fair of my life!”

We spend a wonderful day together, and by late evening we have absolutely no memory of what happened in the movie. But our hearts are pounding so hard that parting feels impossible. So does pulling away from each other.

When Matthew’s Dodge climbs the hill on Three Maples Street, bringing me home, I notice Dad standing at the start of the driveway to our house. He called me not long ago, and I told him I’d be home soon, but I paid no attention at all to the dryness in his voice. Now, though, from Officer Wilson’s frozen tall figure and tight shoulders, I guess that he’s angry.

And I understand that Matthew notices it too.

Dad is still about a hundred feet away, and I ask Matthew:

“Matthew, stop here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

He won’t stop. His hands are tense now too, and he drives me up to the house. After cutting the engine, he gets out of the car with me.

“Dad, hi. Why are you here and not at the Rubens family’s party with Pat?”

The guy stands beside me, and Dad immediately scans him with a hard stare. He answers coldly and unwelcomingly, like a stranger:

“We came back early. Go inside, Ashley. Right now!”

“What?”

“I said go inside!”

I’m not used to that tone from my father, and especially not to orders like that in front of someone else, so, thrown off, I ask:

“Dad, what’s wrong with you? This is Matthew. I told you about him. Meet—”

“Told me? Hm! I didn’t expect you to start lying to me, Ashley!”

What?!

I see Matthew’s face go still and feel my own face pale. But the accusation he just threw at me is too serious and too unfair for me to simply swallow it and leave.

I ask my father, still evenly, though anxiously:

“I don’t recognize you, Dad. What did I lie to you about? What happened while I was gone?”

The muscles in Dad’s jaw tighten with anger and his lips press together, but I’m his daughter, and he has to get hold of himself. Still, the way he looks at us is unpleasant in a new, unfamiliar way.