She obviously hasn’t come around to seeing how she’s blessed.
“She’ll get through it,” I say to Wendy. “She’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”
“I never thought she’d be the kind to …” Wendy trails off. “Well, you know. She’s not exactly the motherly type.”
“She has her mom to help her,” I say.
We head toward the square, where the antler arches greet us at the four corners. I think about how long ago it feels since I first came here and stood under one of those arches, when my hair started to glow and my mom decided we needed to dye it. Just to get me by until I learned to control it, she’d said, and I’d laughed and said something like, I’ll learn to control my hair? and it had felt crazy, saying that. Now I can control it. If my hair started to glow at this moment, I’m fairly certain I’d be able to put it out pretty quick, before anybody noticed.
I’ve grown up, I think.
We walk into the park and take a seat on a bench. In one of the trees over our heads there’s a small dark bird staring at us, but I refuse to look closely enough to see if it’s a bird or a particularly annoying angel. I haven’t been seeing as much of Sam these days, only twice since February, and neither time he spoke to me, although I’m not sure why. I wonder if I offended him, last time. I take a sip of the soda I got for the movie. Sigh.
“It’s nice to be back,” I say.
“I know,” Wendy says. “You haven’t talked much about what’s going on with you. How’s Stanford?”
“Good. Stanford is good.”
“Good,” she says.
“Stanford is great, actually.”
She nods. “And you’re going out with Christian Prescott?”
I nearly spit out my soda. “Wendy!”
“What? I’m not allowed to ask you about your love life?”
“What about your love life?” I counter. “You haven’t said anything about that.”
She smiles. “I’m dating a guy named Daniel; thanks for asking. He’s studying business communications, and we were in the same English composition class last fall, and I helped him with some of his papers. He’s cute. I like him.”
“I bet that’s not all you helped him with,” I tease.
She doesn’t take the bait. “So what’s going on with you and Christian?”
I’d rather have my teeth pulled than have this conversation, her staring at me expectantly with her version of Tucker’s hazy blue eyes.
“We’re friends,” I stammer. “I mean, we’ve been on a date. But …”
She quirks an eyebrow at me. “But what? You’ve always liked him.”
“I do like him. He makes me laugh. He’s always there for me, whenever I need him. He understands me. He’s amazing.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” she says. “So what’s the problem?”
“Nothing. I like him.”
“And he likes you?”
My cheeks are getting hot. “Yes.”
“Well.” She sighs. “It’s like my daddy always says. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
I don’t know what she means, but I have the distinct feeling that she’s getting at something Tucker-related. I laugh like I get it, and look off across the street, where there’s a sudden flurry of noise and movement. Some kind of show is being put on. They’ve blocked off part of the road, and a number of costumed guys are standing in the middle of it, shouting something about how the notorious Jackson gang has robbed a bank in Eagle City.
“What is this?” I ask Wendy.
“You’ve never seen this before?” she asks incredulously. “Cowboy melodrama. One of the other great things about this town. Where else on earth can you go and witness a good old-fashioned Wild West shoot-out? Come on, let’s go have a look.”
I follow her across the street toward the action. The cowboy actors are quickly drawing a crowd from the tourists on the boardwalk. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I notice that the actors all tote rifles or pistols.
Wendy turns to me. “Fun, right?”
“Consider me entertained.” I turn, laughing, pressed in by the people around me, when suddenly I see Tucker farther up the boardwalk, coming out of what appears to be the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum, another place I’ve never been to even though I’ve considered Jackson my home for more than two years. He’s smiling with his dimples out, his teeth a flash of white against his tanned face. I can hear the faint sound of his laugh, and I can’t help it, it makes me smile to hear it. I love his laugh.
But he’s not alone. Another second and Allison Lowell, the girl from the rodeo, the girl who was one of his dates at prom the year I went with Christian, the girl who’s had a giant crush on him pretty much her whole life, follows Tucker out of the building, and she’s laughing too, her long red hair in a fish-tailed braid over her shoulder, peering up at him exactly the way I know I used to look at him. She puts her hand on his arm, says something else to make him smile. He folds his arm around her hand, like he’s escorting her somewhere, always the perfect gentleman.
Shots ring in the air. The crowd laughs as one of the villains staggers around melodramatically, then dies and lies twitching.
I know how he feels.
I should go. They’re coming this way, and any second he’s going to see me, and there isn’t even a word for how awkward that’s going to be. I should go. Now. But my feet don’t move. I stand like I’ve been frozen, watching them as they walk along together, their talk easy, familiar, Allison glancing over at him from under her lashes, wearing a western-style shirt with those vees on the shoulders, tight jeans, boots. A Wyoming girl. His type of Wyoming girl, specifically.
I can’t stop thinking about how much better she’d be for him than I am.
But I also kind of want to tear her hair out.
They’re close now. I can smell her perfume, light and fruity and feminine.
“Uh-oh,” I hear Wendy say behind me, noticing them at last. “We should—” Get out of here, she’s about to say, but then Tucker glances up.
The smile vanishes from his face. He stops walking.
For all of ten long seconds we stand there, in the middle of the crowd of tourists, staring at each other.
I can’t breathe. Oh man. Please don’t let me start crying, I think.