AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So I threw on the bravado I used as armor so often and stepped up to sing, wishing he hadn’t walked in before this particular song.
Poppy called the one, two, three, and we played the opening, my sisters and Presley doo-woppa-dooing in harmony to kick off “Dynamite” by Brenda Lee, looking everywhere but at Stone as the dance floor bopped, and I sang about the magic of infatuation and how its spell turned every kiss into an addiction. Brenda was subtle enough about it, wishing for dynamite kisses and getting knocked out. About TNT and chain reactions and making history, what with, you know. The dynamite.
I decided I’d preferred to blow Stone up. Knock him out. And not with a kiss, but actual gunpowder and a fuse and a push handle box like Wile E. Coyote favored.
By the time the song ended, I was smiling. Partly at the impossibly happy beat, but mostly at musings of my new nemesis with dynamite up his ass.
I thought—as I had many times over the past couple of days—about the origin of my deep loathing for a man I didn’t even know. Maybe it was what he represented—wealth, excess, privilege, soulless corporations, greed. Maybe it was that Flexion hadn’t taken no for an answer, sending their golden boy to do what the last lackey couldn’t. Or maybe it was just that he was foreign to me. I couldn’t fathom the life he lived any easier than he could fathom mine.
He didn’t belong here, and everything he stood for threatened my town, my way of life, my farm, my bees. As such, the odds of me behaving any better than a rottweiler at a junkyard gate were pretty low, even if he did have a steak in his hand.
I was on for another song, this time a ballad that Daisy took to the piano for, “Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can)” by Dolly, brought down to a key I could manage. The lights were low, but I could see Stone just fine. A passive effect of his charisma, I supposed. And the town singles were flapping around in his orbit like moths. He was new, shiny, rich, and this town’s dating pool was stagnant and covered in pond scum.
There were two ways to find love in Lindenbach—either you married your high school sweetheart or you left town and brought somebody back with you. So an eligible bachelor with a sports car that cost five times the town's median income would get noticed. Recently divorced, middle-aged Dolores James, who’d quit paying attention to fashion somewhere around 2002, literally adjusted her boobs—hands in the cups and everything—before sauntering over to him, lashes flapping and smile on full blast. He didn’t even look at her when she bumped into him.
He was too busy staring at me with a smug look on his face.
Dolores looked at him looking at me, then looked at me and narrowed her eyes. Then she tapped him on the arm and told him something—about me, judging by her spiteful eye contact with me—when he finally acknowledged her. She was gossiping. He slurped up whatever she’d said like a bowl of ramen noodles.
I saw his face turn to mine in my periphery—I’d looked away like I didn’t care. Which I didn’t. But also fuck Dolores.
Instead, I watched the couples in the town take their turns around the dance floor, cheek to cheek under golden Edison bulbs. And around them in a half circle stood everyone else, looking in on their love with some longing, some envy, and a whole lot of loneliness.
I wasn’t sure where I fell in the mix. Curiosity perhaps. Detachment. Because what they had, I could never get. No point in wishing for the impossible—I’d rather be practical about it. Own it, as it were. I wasn’t mad or anything, just resigned to the facts. Because even if I wanted to fall in love, I wouldn’t get to keep whatever I found.
Really, it was just math, even though Mama said we hadn’t actually been cursed. My grandmother told a different story, blaming the town witch and some sort of grudge over a man.
Slim pickings bred all kinds of drama.
When my song was over, they paused and clapped again as we bowed and curtsied. Poppy hopped on her mic, informing everyone that we’d be taking a short break, after which Johnny Cash came on over the speakers by way of my playlist.
They’d have loved some of that Kenny Chesney we denied them, but they were getting honky tonk if they were getting anything.
We set down our instruments, converging to walk down the stairs, greeted by townsfolk on our way to the bar. And yes, we had a bar in our town hall. Truth be told, more would get done if they used it while they legislated. As it stood, nothing was getting done. We were in the midst of political gridlock, the town split down the middle, thanks to our mayor and his misguided agenda. We’d only just thwarted his attempt to bring the megastore, Goody’s, to town, and though he was busy licking his wounds, he was planning something else, determined to make a mark on the town. Even if the mark he made was with a sledgehammer.
