Page 194

It was enough.

At one, Boone caught my arm as I passed the holding pen.

“Eat.”

That was the whole speech.

“I’m working.”

His hand stayed on my arm.

I looked at the hand. Looked up the long distance to his face.

“You been talking to Priya?”

“Eat.”

“Now you’re just stealing my material.”

Boone let go. He looked toward the food tables.

Josie sat on the end of a hay bale with a plate balanced on her knees. Beside her, Priya sat all the way down. Her elbows rested on her thighs. Her plate was empty except for a smear of barbecue sauce and one last bean she was chasing with a plastic fork. Josie said something. Priya’s head tipped back and she laughed.

The laugh reached me through the crowd.

Loud. Unedited. Nothing professional in it.

The sound hit the place in my chest where I’d been carrying her empty chair for eleven days.

“I’m going,” I told Boone.

He nodded once.

I crossed behind the bleachers, where the shade smelled like hot lumber and spilled beer. People stopped me every three steps.

A rancher from east of town clapped me on the shoulder and said the stock looked good.

The woman with the goat-milk soap caught my sleeve and told me stall thirty was the best vendor spot she’d ever had.

A kid with both front teeth missing asked if he could ride the spotted steer.

“No.”

His mother laughed and pulled him toward the lemonade.

By the time I reached the hay bales, Priya’s plate had disappeared.

“That was mine,” I said.

“The plate?”

“The seat.”

She looked at the bale under her. “This specific twelve inches?”

“I’ve been reserving it all summer.”

“Your signage was inadequate.”