Page 56 of Apple of My Eye
‘Fine,’ she laughs, while I take pictures of her. ‘Tit for tat!’
For the next twenty minutes we cover every photo backdrop I bought from eBay. I found an old photography studio going out of business and snapped up their plain color sheets and their large softbox lights. Lily is a natural in front of the camera, something I also associate with New York, and before I know it, I have a picture of her in front of all four of the backdrops. I furnished each one with antique furniture languishing in the attic, and I do agree with Lily—they look pretty good.
‘People will love this,’ she says. ‘Everyone’s always looking for new content, and these are perfect and unique for influencersandfor holiday-card photos. Especially when you combine it with the pictures they can take outside! I have to admit, Lou, this was a great idea for U-Pick.’
‘Thanks.’ I blush. I’m still riding the high of her approval when Lily goes inside to greet Mom, whose squeal of happiness sounds suspiciously like she just won another game on her phone.
The photo backdrops Lily liked were a ton of work. I had to get everything delivered to the garage, which was the fastest place they could dump it without Nick potentially spotting it and wanting to copy my idea, then I had to move all the props to the barn under the cover of night. It felt both silly and thrilling to keep everything so secretive. But now that Lily’s seen it, I feel a seed of hope take root that U-Pick traffic this year could be higher than ever, that I could convince my parents not to walk away from the farm.
In a relentless continuation of our IOUs, I have to go to karaoke in exchange for Lily helping me. She’s picked out her song, ‘Redneck Woman,’ which she singseverykaraoke. She’s also picked out my song, ‘Sweet Caroline,’ which, given my low mood, I will butcher with almost one hundred percent certainty. We speed to Tractor Tavern, leaving later than we wanted to because Lily made me change into her clothes—mine looked ‘a little too comfortable,’ which is how I ended up in a sheer black top that exceptionally showcases the goosebumps dotting my arms in the September cold.
We arrive to a packed, dusty, converted barn that’s owned by Bennett, a kid we used to go to high school with. He’s clearly still smitten with Lily. She can’t get two steps through the door without him coming up to say hello, gushing about how successful his business is. I have to admit there’s more people here than I thought. Maybe about sixty or so people, who look to be around my age, half of whom I recognize and the other half I’m scrutinizing, wondering where the heck they came from. I haven’t gone out at home since before graduate school. I’m usually exhausted every night. There’s also usually never new people here, one of the reasons there’s so much buzz about Nick (Mom’s reported he was the main topic at her book club again). But maybe I’ve been away from home for too long because the crowd seems to have changed. I heard buzz around town that more young people had started moving to the country after COVID, wanting some fresh air, but I didn’t know it was actually true.Maybe there’s something to capitalize on here, I think, staring at the pulsing crowd. Maybe some of these people would actually want to learn about the land they live on.
‘Want a beer?’ I ask Lily, who is flashing eyes at me as Bennett continues his third-degree.
‘Yes,’ she says, gripping my forearm and waving Bennett goodbye, cutting him off mid-sentence.
‘Be right back!’ she trills. We duck around the crowd pulsating in front of the makeshift karaoke stage, singing along to a man belting out ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)’. She gushes about the price of beer—‘so affordable!’—before launching into a litany of complaints for how she had to come home for her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday even though her younger sister, Maude, was allowed to stay in London.
‘New York is practically just as far!’ she whines. I open my mouth to remind her that it is not, in fact, just as far, but before I can her song starts playing.
‘Already!’ she whoops, pausing to give Bennett a wink. She chugs the remainder of her beer saying, ‘Damn, it feels good to be home,’ before sauntering up to the stage to hoots and hollers.
I start recording her, knowing the beginning of the song is her favorite. Sure enough, she warms up the whole crowd to a scream before she belts the end of the first chorus and is answered with a deafening call and response. Lily winks at me, launching into the next verse, and without thinking, I press post, adding her vocal talents to my Instagram story.
An hour later, we are sweaty and breathless when we collapse at a high-top table. I know by the look in Lily’s eyes that she’s seen someone attractive before she even opens her mouth.
‘Who’s with Amie?’ she asks, catching me off guard as I was preparing for something along the lines of ‘Who’s the hottie?’ Or, ‘Now that’s an ass I could grab.’
‘What?’ I turn, following her gaze. The grating sounds of a person belting a very off-key ‘Mr. Brightside’ fades away.
Realization dawns on Lily. ‘Ohmigosh, that’s—’
‘Nick,’ I finish for her. Anger rises in my chest.
‘Damn. Amie pulls.’
Lily’s right. Nick looks good. He’s in a long-sleeve flannel that’s rolled up to his elbows, exposing strong forearms tanned from weeks working in the sun. His hair is gelled back just like the first time I saw him in the grocery store. He’s even in new shoes—vintage cowboy boots from the looks of it. He looks like he .?.?. belongs. God, he’s hot.
I have a visceral flashback to his lips on mine, the heat of his hips between my legs, the groan that rumbled out of him. I swear under my breath.
‘What?’ Lily turns her focus back on me. ‘Lou!’ she exclaims. I know that look. ‘Spill.’
I press my lips together and train my eyes on my beer. I’ve managed to avoid the topic with Lily so far—at first it was because I didn’t want her to get excited about someone who wouldn’t stick around, but then .?.?. well .?.?. everything went to shit and I didn’t want to talk about it then either.
‘I should have known.’ Lily shakes her head. ‘He’s been right next to you this whole time and he looks likethat! And you’re, well .?.?.you!’
‘What’sthatsupposed to mean?’
‘Um, that you’re hot, dummy. Now spill.’ Lily leans so far out of her stool she almost topples over. We’re seated at a high-top strategically placed at the back of the room so we can monitor everything that’s happening, and make sure that Bennett doesn’t ambush Lily again. He already cornered her once more when she was leaving the bathroom trying to ask her on a date. She furrows her eyes at me. ‘Did you .?.?. ?’
‘No! We barely know each other.’ I squirm under her gaze. ‘OK, we made out once.’
‘Ah!’ Lily squeals. ‘You dog.’ She looks over at Nick and Amie again. They’ve made their way fully inside only to be bombarded by Amie’s friends, a group of women our age who have lived here their whole lives. They’re really nice, usually inviting me to hang out when I’m home for the summer, but I always felt like the odd one out around them because I wasn’t living at home. ‘He’s looking over here,’ Lily whispers under her breath. ‘He’s staring at you! How did you go from making out to this? You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.’
I can feel heat rising to my cheeks. ‘Stop staring at him!’ I whisper-yell at her.
‘Only if you tell me what happened.’
