Fuck. Okay, not my best effort.
“It’s not that I don’t think he’ll be back, Mama,” I insisted. “I think he and I are just going to be friends. He’s, um…” Straight?
She pushed her lips together. “And here I was, ready to give him my sweet tea recipe and welcome him to the family.”
“But—”
“I can’t talk about this right now,” she sniffed, holding up a hand. “I have to think about how I’m going to break the news to your father. Just please go backstage and see if Mr. Ivey and the others have finished setting up the electric for the band and the spotlights.” She gestured toward the far side of the barn, with its wide, wooden stage.
“But, Mama—”
“Go, Brooks!” she insisted.
So I went, cursing whichever fool had come up with the idea of bringing a fake boyfriend to the Thicket, and knowing full well it was me.
The community barn had never, in my lifetime, held actual livestock. Even for the 4H awards, the cows and pigs were held in pens further down the grounds. Instead, this barn had been converted into a catchall function room a long time ago. Since the high school didn’t have a theater, this was where school plays and Christmas concerts had been held for as long as I could remember. The stage was an enormous raised box in the center of the room, enclosed on three sides and open to the front. A red velvet curtain divided the front of the stage, where I’d stand while giving my remarks, from the rear of the stage, where the band’s instruments would be set up, ready for the dance later.
While the stage area was permanent, the chairs and round tables for the audience could be rearranged according to need or broken down entirely. Tonight the tables were arranged in a large U shape to create a dance floor in the center. The whole room was decked out in flowers and fairy lights, and it was clear the Beautification Corps had worked their asses off.
The crowd of Thicketeers was already starting to stream through the doors. I saw my brother and sister and exchanged back-slapping hugs with a bunch of people who’d seen me just that morning. I kept my eyes peeled, but by the time I caught up to Mr. Ivey backstage a few minutes later, I still hadn’t seen Mal or Paul or General Partridge anywhere.
“Ethan, you’re sure you understand what you’re meant to do?” Mr. Ivey was asking Ethan Howe when I stepped up beside them. “You sit up in the loft. When it’s time for the band to come on, I’ll wave my hand and you’ll hit this green control to open the curtain. When you wanna move the spotlight onto whoever’s talking, you use these arrows. Just make sure you center the light on whoever’s speaking, okay? Brooks when he does the intro, or the band when they’re playing, or the winners when they’re announced, or whoever. Yeah?”
“Yes. Got it,” Ethan said, accepting the remote control with two hands extended like it was an ancient relic of unimaginable power… or a bomb about to detonate.
“You’re sure now?” Mr. Ivey looked doubtful.
“Positive, sir. Spotlight on whoever’s talking. Curtains open when you wave. Easy peasy.” He nodded once. “I’ll be up in the hayloft if you need me.”
Mr. Ivey and I exchanged a look as Ethan walked off. “That boy,” he sighed.
“So I take it everything’s worked out with the electronics, then? I can tell my mom and the rest of the Beautification Corps that things are going fine?”
He nodded and took out his handkerchief to mop his brow. “Every year there’s a crisis at the last minute. Nothing ever goes quite according to plan.”
I smiled. “But it comes right in the end, doesn’t it? Everyone’s happy?”
“I s’pose that’s true, son.” He patted me on the shoulder.
“Have you seen Ava or Paul… I mean—” I smiled nervously. “—not together, but separately?”
So subtle, Johnson.
“’Fraid not. Neither of ’em. But you can ask Ava’s boyfriend.” He nodded toward the darkest corner of the backstage area, where a bunch of fake plants and an oversized cutout of a cow stood by the wall. There was movement near the cow’s hindquarters, and I could just make out the profile of the man I was looking for.
“Thanks, Mr. Ivey.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, waving me off.
As I approached Mal, I noticed two things. One, he was hunched in on himself, looking more miserable than I’d ever seen him. And two, he had his phone open to our text conversation. This didn’t seem like a good sign.
“You should reply,” I said, coming up behind him. “That Brooks seems like a nice guy.”
Mal startled so badly he nearly dropped his phone and shot me a glare over his shoulder. He slid his phone away. “I was thinking about what to say,” he said defensively.