A Fireproof Home for the Bride (30 page)

“Yeah, sorry,” she said. “Guess everything is just a little overwhelming at once, and all.”

“You’re telling
me
?” he replied, his voice full of excitement. “All I think about when I’m out at the site is you, and getting to see you at the end of the week.”

“Me, too,” she said, straining to match his emotion, even though she knew her week had flown by without much thought to Bobby at all. It was puzzling how little she could miss him when he wasn’t around, and then here he was, the same adorable Bobby. “I had a wonderful break at the paper this week.” She sat straighter and folded her hands on the broad swath of her layered peasant skirt. “Jim said I could help him with a story, one that I think I found myself, if it turns into something, that is.”

“That’s swell,” Bobby said, rubbing her back.

“It’s more than that, don’t you see?” she asked, annoyed by the way his calloused palm snagged the back of her silk blouse.

“Do you have any idea how much you fill my heart?” Bobby took one of her hands and slipped it under his shirt, where he held it tightly against his chest. “Feel that. It’s going awful fast. Now wait a second. I can slow it down just by looking into your eyes.” As she matched his gaze she felt his heart slow considerably.

“That’s me?” She sighed, cajoled by his intensity. He nodded and then placed his free hand on the back of her head and pulled her mouth toward his own. She moved her hand across his bare chest and around to his smooth shoulders. His kiss was hungry now, the kind of kiss she remembered from the first days of necking in his truck. He urged her down onto the blanket, and she welcomed the confidence with which he did it, putting up the opposite of a fight, melting into the night air, which felt increasingly cooler on her skin. He slung his leg over her and lay down with one knee braced between hers against the roof. Her hands were now tangled in his hair, grown lanky and honey blond from long days working out in the prairie sunshine. She closed her eyes and realized that she was barely breathing, silently urging him on with subtle motions to keep going, keep going, keep going—wherever it may lead. She didn’t worry about the potential consequences of these actions. She just wanted him to take charge, be done with this yearning that she felt whenever they necked like this. His hand found her breast and stayed there, hesitating, then moved down to the hem of her skirt and slipped around her thigh. He gasped, stopped kissing her, stopped moving his hand, and bit his bottom lip. She arched up to him, completely lost now, wrapping her arms tightly around him, her knees falling open, welcoming the thrusting motion he was making there. She could feel him through his dungarees and her skirt and her petticoats and right through her underpants, which were damp from the friction and heat.

“Please,” she whispered in his ear. “Please don’t st—”

He froze above her and looked out at the road. His face was suddenly lit by a sweep of headlights passing into the drive.

“Pete’s here,” he said, out of breath, pulling away, up, and tucking his shirttail into his pants.

“Oh, Bobby, you didn’t.” Emmy’s hands flitted around; adjusting, smoothing, buttoning.

“C’mon, baby. we’re going over to Fred Johnson’s barn, remember?” he said, helping her up and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He stopped moving for a moment and looked at her, the wild light deep in his expression still there but muted at the approach of his friend.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming,” she whispered.

“We’re up here.” Bobby waved to Pete as Emmy folded the blanket into sharp creases.

“I really thought it was just us, here, tonight,” she said, hearing the pout in her voice. “Besides, Pete never seems that keen on me.”

Bobby helped her over to the ladder. “Be sweet. You know he’s bored stupid with Sally laid up in bed until the baby comes.” He circled his hands around her waist. “We’ll have fun.” He looked past her, toward Pete, and at that moment the last of the fireworks—the big, booming display that marked the end of the fair—made Bobby’s face glow with what could only be described by Emmy as certain, uncharted bliss.

*   *   *

Fred Johnson’s barn hulked alongside Highway 10 just a few miles outside Arthur, North Dakota, to the northwest of Fargo. They drove the twenty minutes from Oakport in Pete’s Ford Fairlane, the top down and Emmy’s short hair wild in the night air. She couldn’t hear a word the two men were saying in the front seat and she didn’t really care. It was probably about baseball or the youth group at church, or perhaps Pete’s job at the Fargo Fire Department, none of which particularly interested Emmy. Not only did she feel that Pete didn’t really like her, she also didn’t like the way Bobby acted when Pete was around. It seemed as though the only time Bobby ever drank alcohol was with Pete, and then he’d drink until he was slurring his words. She’d never known for sure what they were drinking or when, as Pete kept a flask in the dashboard and hadn’t offered her even a passing sip after she turned him down the first few times. Tonight would be different, she thought. Tonight I am no longer a temperance-raised prig. She reached over the front seat as they raced north alongside a freight train, and grabbed the booze out of Bobby’s hand, tipping the flask high as she stood up straight in the backseat, letting out a yell as the alcohol burned her throat.

“Well, all right!” Pete shouted as she sat down, dropping the empty flask onto the seat between the men. He slowed the car as they entered the tiny town of Arthur, cruising to a stop in front of a small storefront with the odd sign
DICK’S BRA
swinging on a pole over a wooden door. “I’ll be right back. It seems the lady requires refreshment.” After Pete disappeared into the bar, Bobby grabbed Emmy by the collar and kissed her hard on the lips.

“I love you,” he said as Pete emerged much more quickly than expected from the bar, tossing a brown sack to Bobby. He let go of Emmy and her skin tingled all over. He loved her. It was finally, truly, said out loud. She exhaled and tilted her head against the seat, searching her heart for the echo of his words, unprepared for the flat surface they slid across instead. She shook her head and took a drink from the offered bottle, assuming the prairie of doubt inside of her was nothing more than a field planted by her own limited experiences. If tilled and seeded properly, love would grow there.

By the time they got to the barn they’d all had a few swigs from the new bottle and Emmy was ready to dance. The makeshift parking lot was packed with cars, so Pete parked the Fairlane in the ditch across the road. Even before the car had rolled to a stop, they could hear the rock and roll music pumping out into the warm night air. It would be sweaty inside the barn, but Emmy was well past feeling temperate about life and wanted to burn it up. She stumbled arm in arm with the two men up to the building, which was long and wide with a curved roof and gray shingles. Emmy figured it had to be almost as tall as the
Fargo Forum
building and nearly as wide. Through the downstairs barn doors they could see a man pitching hay into countless pig stalls; he stopped long enough to nod at the young people on their way.

Once they were inside the cavernous wood-lined space, Pete swept Emmy onto the highly polished and buffed planks of the dance floor. She saw many familiar faces from school, including the Kratz sisters and the Halsey boy, who were all laughing at some shared joke at a side table with a group of likewise well-heeled friends. Seeing them made her miss Bev’s lively company, and even Howie’s surly drawl, but with the baby arrived, they’d been swept off as a little family to live in France with Bev’s uncle. The magic that money sprinkled on Bev’s situation impressed Emmy, but not in a way that she envied. As smooth as her friend’s road looked from the outside, it wasn’t the path Emmy would ever choose for herself. In fact, it was too similar to the one she had blown up everything to avoid.

The bandleader’s voice filled the air, introducing a song called “Boom Diddy Wawa Baby,” and the orchestra drove into a fast boogie beat. Pete started swinging Emmy in every direction, gripping her hands and twirling her away, and then back again in repeated frenzy. As they neared the front of the room, she caught sight of the band and was surprised to see that they all had dark skin. “Who are they?” she asked, stopping in midswirl.

“Preston Love’s Orchestra,” Pete replied, tugging on her hand and folding her into a rapid embrace.

“I’ve never seen a Negro,” Emmy said, trying to get a better look at the one woman in the band over Pete’s shoulder. She was tall and deeply brown, swaddled in a sheath of bright copper silk. Her hair was swept into a high crown of large curls, with a short straight bang sharply cut one inch above perfectly arched eyebrows. Her lips were painted a hot shade of red that matched the color on her nails, and a pair of ruby gems hung from her ears. The song slowed, and the woman began to sing low and soft, putting Emmy into an instant trance. “She’s so otherworldly.”

Pete laughed, saying, “She’s not the first colored person to step foot in North Dakota, you know. Though compared to the Cities, Fargo’s a little backward.”

“So what does that make Moorhead?” Emmy asked, snapping with defensive pride that masked her deeper embarrassment of being exactly what Pete meant. “Or Glyndon, for that matter.” She stopped dancing. “And who are you to say?”

Pete lightly grasped her arm as couples swirled around her and the lead singer moved her voice through a throaty ballad. “Look, girl,” he said, pointing toward the stage. “Not one member of that band is allowed to stay in the Cooper Hotel downtown because of the color of their skin. They travel in an old school bus with seats that fold into beds when they encounter hicks out here that don’t want their pretty white sheets sullied. For as far north as we may be, there are those around here who would fit in just fine down in Dixie.”

Emmy held his stare as long as she could, knowing exactly the kind of people Pete meant. Her family’s association with the Branns burned a guilty hole in her racing memory. She shrugged his hand off to stop the flow of unwanted images. “I’m not them,” she said plainly. “It’s why I left.”

Pete tipped his chin over her shoulder and she turned just as Bobby handed them a couple of Cokes.

“Your friend here thinks we’re backward,” she said in an attempt at levity, and poured the sweet liquid into her mouth. It was shockingly cold and deliciously spiked.

Bobby shook his head. “We are,” he said, punching Pete in the arm. “We like it that way.”

“We do, don’t we?” she echoed, focusing on Pete’s face, which fired with its own high color. “I get it, you’re jealous!” She pointed her finger, gunlike, at him. Pete put his hands up in surrender.

“You got me,” he said, moving his right hand to his heart, pretending to be shot. “I envy your freedom. Wait until you’re married with a kid on the way. It’s all downhill from here!”

The ballad ended and the band went right into a hard-edged version of something called “Country Boogie,” and the crowd erupted with shouts of approval as farm kids and town kids alike packed the floor. It felt to Emmy that everyone there was dancing with everyone else; that there was complete abandon erupting all around her. Bobby set the Cokes on a table and grabbed her right hand as Pete pulled her on the left.

“So this is why it’s bad to dance,” she said, letting out a delirious laugh. Her mind floated away as she let her body do whatever it wanted, sweating and laughing some more and feeling Pete’s arm around her waist, then it wasn’t there, then Bobby was spinning her and the three of them were flowing together, the friction she’d earlier felt all but forgotten.

*   *   *

There were many trips to the car that night, and around midnight Emmy leaned against the Fairlane next to Pete, smoking and passing the bottle between them. She wasn’t sure where Bobby was, but they had run into boys from Shanley High, so it was likely he was off reliving their glory days.

“That’s quite a moon, huh?” she said, finally feeling some sort of ease in Pete’s company.

“Sure is,” Pete said, handing her the bottle. “Look, Emmy, I need to talk to you about something.”

She took a drink. “If it’s about that backwards comment, I forgive you,” she said, looking at him. It required effort due to the tilt of the road and the spin of the stars. She smiled.

“Never mind that.” Pete drew a circle in the dirt with the heel of his shoe. “Well, it’s about Bobby, see.”

She nodded. Stilled her head, considering the sudden movement a bad idea.

“He’s about the best guy in the world, and I don’t think you should hold him back, is all.” Pete put a fresh cigarette into his mouth and flipped open his lighter, roughly engaging the potent-smelling flame. “He’s too young to be tied down.”

Emmy stopped smiling.

“You don’t know him like I do,” Pete continued. “He’s just not ready for anything serious. He needs to get out there and see things,
become
someone, before getting married and having kids.”

She stood up and ground her cigarette under her heel. “What are you trying to say?” she asked, fear blaring in her head. “I’m not good enough. Is that it?”

Pete shook his head. “I’m trying to tell you that he’ll never love you the way you think he will, so it’d be best for you to let him go now.”

“Pete,” she said, laying a hand on his forearm and forcing a laugh. “Don’t tease me. You can’t be at all serious.”

“That’s just it, Emmy. I’m as serious as a heart attack.”

Emmy forced a composure that wove itself against the grain of her doubt. The effort resulted in an acridly benevolent smile brewed in hard liquor and insecurity. “It’s very kind of you to intervene on my behalf,” she slurred. “But we’ll be just fine.”

“He’s got big dreams, bigger than marriage.” Pete took a swig and offered her the bottle of gin. She refused. He finished it and threw it into the ditch. “Look, you’re a nice kid. I don’t mean any offense. I just think you should have your eyes open if you won’t look at what I’m trying to show you. He doesn’t really love you, Emmy. He never will.”

“For someone who never means offense, you sure are offensive,” she said, her laugh now bitter and too high for her own taste. She knew that he’d won whatever game he was playing at, and it took all of her restraint not to slap him. Instead, she pushed away from the car, hoping the weakness in her legs was due to fatigue and not defeat. “I’m quite certain I didn’t ask for your advice.”