I am glad she finally won.
It is a loss for my family, but I think of Fifty’s stick drawing and Einstein. How he said, “I was just dicking around.” Me winning was always a joke. But Woods must still be disappointed. I am not disappointed. This is exactly what I expected. My dad is kissing my mom’s cheek, accepting a different future for our family.
I stand there, clapping for Tawny, realizing I’m relieved I didn’t win. Because it would not have been fair. I’d rather be sad than ashamed.
Tawny Jacobs walks to the microphone, accepts the Corn Dolly from the mayor, and says, “I always wanted one of these.” The crowd chuckles. “Or at least, I always thought I did. You know what they say, you know you don’t really love something unless you learn to give it away. Elizabeth McCaffrey, will you come up here and join me?”
“What did she say?” I ask Caroline.
Caroline says, “I believe she’s giving you a Corn Dolly.”
I join Tawny at the microphone and she passes me the Corn Dolly. “I happen to have it on good authority that the margin of vote separating me from this beautiful young lady is four. And if I recall the night of the voting correctly, you and your friends were at the hospital and were unable to vote.”
I cover my mouth with my hand, shocked.
“You deserve this,” she tells me. And where no one can hear, she whispers in my ear, “Now, ask your girl to dance.”
I recognize the precise tone. It is the voice I heard across the sanctuary. The one that urged me to forgive myself.
The crowd is stunned by her Corn Dolly gift. I am stunned by her words.
Across the field, Fifty and Mash catcall and whistle. The Hexagon calls out above all the rest. Janie Lee jumps in celebration with Woods.
I thank Tawny. I try to give the doll back. But she will have nothing of this.
I find myself in front of the microphone, and everyone asks for a speech. I say, “I wouldn’t be on the stage without my friends and family.”
“Name your dance partner,” calls the mayor.
It is time to kick off the last Sadie Hawkins celebration. I look at Tawny and she gives me an encouraging nod.
The town is satisfied with this turn of events. “The preacher’s daughter,” they say. “I did love my Book Dolly,” they comment. “She’s a good Corn Dolly to end on,” someone says in the front row.
I wonder if they mean that. Because I’m about to do the most unorthodox thing ever done at an Otters Holt Harvest Festival.
This thing between Janie Lee and me isn’t a picture on Einstein or a bullet point from Woods. We’re sloppy and disorganized, organic. Davey is pointing at her, mouthing, “Do it!” and I know he understands that I’m not choosing between them, but creating an opening in this town. The freedom Thom gave him. That Tawny Jacobs gave me. And if Tawny Jacobs can bring herself to understand, then there is hope for change.
For less fear in kids like me.
“Janie Lee Miller,” I say bravely, “will you come up here and dance with me?”
36
The crowd parts, their expressions unreadable. A few scoff, but most just get wide-eyed and watchful. There is no way to know how they will respond when the band plays.
My parents have been absorbed by the crowd. I suspect I know what Dad’s thinking: Dammit, Billie. Because I was so close to doing something the easy way.
I am marching to the platform, consequences be damned. Janie Lee is marching toward me. We are both smiling at each other.
It feels as though flint is striking steel inside my cheeks. She beats me to the dance floor, arms outstretched. The band strikes a chord. And the decision is made.
The crowd claps. They stomp feet and call moves—“do-si-do”— as they have always done. We are sponges for the music, taking it, keeping it, reveling in it, as we step in time to the beat. Square dances were asexual before the term existed, but we are still very close. And no one seems to mind.
In a moment when our hands touch above our heads in a bridge, she asks, “Aren’t you worried what people will think?”
“Yes,” I say. She is a whirling dervish who is gone and then back again before I can add, “But I’m trying not to care.”
She has been trying not to care her whole life, because she is a Miller, and that’s the way it is to be born a Miller. Her smile squeaks. I don’t hear it—I can’t hear anything except the music—but that’s the smile that squeaks.
I must be staring and flat-footed because she says, “Dance, Billie.”
We arm turn. Reverse. Another arm turn. Do-si-do. My arm hooks around her elbow for a swing.
“I’m glad you forgave me,” she says.
“How could I not?” I say.
We settle into the dance, the steps coming easily—years piled on years of Harvest Festival experience. We are weightless as we dance through decades of memories. Nearby, Woods hooks an arm around Mash and they gallop toward us like wild horses. Two boys dancing. Two girls dancing. No one cares. It is the very nature of a square dance to dance with everyone. We promenade and wave at Fifty to join us. This isn’t a Fifty-approved event until Gerry drags him forward. Davey and Thom are here, having fought their way to us from mid-crowd.
The town cracks open like one of Tawny Jacobs’s pecans. Everyone dances, nearly everyone smiling and laughing, just as they have always done on this night.
This is how we grew up. Thirty minutes of square dancing followed by something a little more honky-tonk. Fifty will end up drinking beer from a Solo cup, Mash will throw up pumpkin pie, and it’ll take me two washes to get the straw from my hair. But for now we listen as the mayor calls steps and the band unleashes more fiddle than seems possible. The Hexagon becomes heart-shaped.
We have almost danced our way to Mom when Wilma Frist and Ada May Adcock try to hush the band and storm the microphone. The music still plays and people keep moving, but their eyes are on the stage. Wilma Frist is the size of a toothpick beside Ada May; they look like a comedy routine from the sixties. Ada May pecks at the microphone, and yells, “Keep dancing. We just wanted to say, we’ve had a donation of five thousand dollars come in, which means, we don’t care what the mayor says, we’re doing the Harvest Festival next year.”