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by Jenn Alexander

  Rowan stood and looked back up at the menu board. Some of the creations sounded tasty, and some of them sounded borderline monstrous. She settled on the deep-fried Oreos, deep-fried Oreos stuffed inside of chocolate chip cookies, fried pickles, and fried Kool-Aid (because why the hell not?). There was probably enough grease in that order alone to fuel a campfire for a good twelve hours and certainly enough to clog at least one of her arteries, but in the name of science she couldn’t pare that list down. She had to try them all.

  She got up to the front and ordered two of each of the items so that Kate could join her in the experimentation, and then she stood back to wait, watching the staff frantically deep-fry food to keep up with everyone’s orders.

  “Rowan,” the man at the stand called after a few minutes.

  She stepped up and was handed a tray of cookies and a tray of fried pickles. She carried the food over to the picnic table where Kate was waiting, and then went back for the last little tray of fried Kool-Aid. Except, as it turned out, that wasn’t the last tray. The man handed her two trays of fried Kool-Aid, and then called her back to pick up another tray of fried pickles and another tray of cookies.

  She could hear Kate laughing while she herself could only stare in horror as she numbly carried all of the fried food over to the picnic table.

  The man called her again and passed her two more trays of cookies. So many cookies. A never-ending amount of deep-fried sweets rolled in powdered sugar.

  “Is this the last of it?” she asked, holding her breath while she waited for his response.

  The man nodded, and she let out her breath in relief.

  “I don’t know what I did wrong,” she said, carrying the armful of cookies to the table, which was already covered in fried food.

  Kate was doubled over laughing while she tried to do the calculations in her head to figure out where she had gone so wrong.

  “I swear I only ordered two of everything,” she said, sitting down across from Kate and looking at the mountain of food in front of them.

  “One cookie doesn’t mean one cookie,” Kate said through her laughter. “It means one serving of cookies.”

  “Oh God.” Rowan looked at the massive amount of fried food in front of her. “The sign should be much clearer.”

  Kate wiped tears out of her eyes and sucked in air, trying to control herself but apparently failing, because she only wound up laughing harder.

  Rowan looked around at the people in line and at the tables next to them. “Does anyone want any fried cookies, pickles, or Kool-Aid?” she asked. “I ordered too much. Help!”

  The man at the table next to her chuckled, but offered to take a tray of the cookies. A family in line took the second tray of fried Kool-Aid balls. But Kate and Rowan were still left with far too much food.

  “I can’t even order the food right,” Rowan said, aghast at all of the cookies still in front of them.

  Kate’s laughter had subsided, but her green eyes still shone with amusement. She reached out and took Rowan’s hands in hers. “It’s all good. Besides, you’ve made some new friends.” Kate swung her head toward the family that was happily eating the fried Kool-Aid. The youngest child’s face was covered with powdered sugar from the bottom of his chin, all the way up to his nose, and he looked completely delighted as he reached for another.

  She nodded and met Kate’s gaze, feeling some of her embarrassment subside. The way Kate looked at her . . . she flushed with a different kind of heat. “What should I try first?”

  Kate pushed over the two different types of cookies. “I’m partial to the deep-fried Oreos. You can never go wrong with Oreos.”

  Rowan picked up the Oreo stuffed inside a chocolate chip cookie, because it all sounded too indulgent to be real. Sure enough, it was a deep-fried mass of melted chocolate-chip cookie dough, stuffed with a melted chocolate Oreo and melted Oreo cream, all rolled up into a one-million-calorie ball of deliciousness.

  “Who the hell thinks of these things?” she asked.

  “Every year there are contests for who can come up with the next fried creation,” Kate said. “Texans are always trying to outdo each other on the fried food front. If it can be deep-fried, it probably has been deep-fried.”

  Rowan tried a fried Kool-Aid bite next, followed by the fried pickles. The truth was, all of the fried creations were good, but for the most part she found them all a little too rich. The fried pickles were her favorite because the acidity of the pickles offset some of the heaviness of the fried dough.

  There was still way too much food left by the time she and Kate had finished. Eventually she was so full she couldn’t have managed another bite, and she had to concede defeat.

  Rowan continued trying to pawn off the extra untouched fried platters on unsuspecting fairgoers.

  “I haven’t eaten this much food since I was a teenager, pigging out at the fair with my friends,” Kate said.

  “I haven’t eaten this much food ever.”

  Kate laughed. “Admit it. It was pretty darn good.”

  She shook her head. “I will admit that it was interesting.”

  Kate kicked her playfully under the table.

  “Okay, fine, it was good.”

  Kate grinned, clearly happy to have won.

  Rowan felt bad having to throw out all the excess fried food, but there was nothing more she could do.

  She and Kate headed back into the crowd, taking in the vendors and game booths.

  She would describe the entire night so far as interesting, but also “pretty darn good” as Kate might say. The festival was fun, vibrant, alive. There was something that felt special about it.

  It was a night she didn’t want to forget.

  The instant she saw the game booth, she grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her forward. “You said you’re good at shooting!”

  The game’s booth was set up with rifles and little moving metal targets.

  “Win me the stuffed elephant?” Rowan asked, looking up at Kate with her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes wide and her smile hopeful.

  Kate rolled her eyes with a laugh in response, but stepped up toward the booth.

  “On one condition though,” Kate said. She held up one finger and her eyes had a playful shine.

  “Anything,” Rowan promised, though her stomach knotted at what she might be promising.

  “You have to give it a try, too,” Kate said. “I’ll walk you through it, but you’re going to play as well.”

  Rowan wished she hadn’t agreed to anything. “I’m going to make a fool of myself in front of the Texans.”

  Kate began to put her wallet away.

  “Okay, fine!” she agreed. “I’ll do it.”

  Kate smiled and handed a five-dollar bill to the guy working the stand, who handed Kate the little pellet rifle and wished her luck in a monotone voice.

  “You hold it like this,” Kate demonstrated how to hold the gun.

  Rowan nodded. It seemed easy enough. Butt of the gun on her shoulder. Finger on the trigger. Pull trigger. Hit target.

  “You’re going to want to take a deep breath to steady yourself and pull the trigger on the exhale,” Kate said. “Like this.”

  She watched Kate fire the pellet rifle and knock down the first target.

  “Wow.” Rowan was genuinely impressed at the ease with which Kate hit the target. She still hadn’t tried it herself, but she sensed it wasn’t as easy as Kate made it look.

  Kate readied herself again and knocked down the next target. The targets moved faster. Kate knocked down another. Faster still. Another hit. Kate fired all eight of her pellets and hit all eight of the targets.

  “Nicely done,” the worker said, no longer sounding so bored. “Which one of the prizes do you want? You knocked down all of the targets so you can pick from any of them.”

  “I’ll take the elephant,” Kate said, taking the smiling stuffed elephant and pulling it close.

  Rowan reached for the elephant, but Kate s
hook her head. “Not so fast. You’re up.”

  Rowan looked over at the targets, which were being returned to their upright position. “I can’t now. You made it look so easy. I’m going to make a fool of myself in comparison.”

  Kate hugged the elephant. “I think I’ll name him Walter.”

  Rowan’s mouth dropped open. “Um, no. She’s clearly a she, and her name is clearly Beatrice.”

  Kate swung her head toward the booth and then looked at Rowan expectantly.

  She begrudgingly stepped forward and handed the man five dollars. Then she picked up the pellet rifle and tried to hold it the way Kate had.

  Kate walked her through all the steps, but her first shot hit the backboard, a good foot too high to have even had a hope of hitting the targets.

  “See? I suck at this.”

  Kate gently corrected her stance, and ran her hands over Rowan’s bare arms to fix how she was holding the rifle.

  Rowan’s next shot was closer, but still nowhere near hitting a target. It went like that for the first seven of her shots. On the last, with Kate’s guidance, she managed to hit the largest of the targets.

  Kate cheered.

  “No prize,” the man said, bored again.

  But Kate was already handing Rowan the elephant and pulling her into a big celebratory hug.

  “You did it!” Kate said.

  Rowan didn’t even try to wipe the smile from her face. She did do it.

  “I don’t know why that was so oddly satisfying,” she said.

  Kate grinned and bumped her with her shoulder.

  “I’m still never going to hang a gun placard on my wall,” Rowan said. “And I’ll always rally for gun control, no matter how satisfying that little target game was.”

  “I’ll rally right along with you,” Kate said. “I’m with you about the need for restrictions. Needing guns on the ranch and thinking they have a place for personal use and everyday carry are totally different. It’s not black or white.”

  Rowan nodded, even though she wasn’t sure what to think. She felt disoriented in this new world.

  She hugged Beatrice close, already thinking of how she was going to tell everyone back home that she’d hit the moving target.

  “My friends aren’t going to believe me,” she said.

  “I may have got a video.”

  Rowan looked at Kate, her smile growing wider. “I’m sure you were trying to get something to embarrass me with later, but I hit the target, so thank you.”

  Kate laughed. “Well darn, my plans were foiled.”

  Rowan slipped her arm into Kate’s and rested her head on her shoulder for a moment before they continued walking. Kate was foiling a number of her plans. Her world felt tilted on its axis. Nothing was what she knew it to be.

  And yet she felt oddly balanced.

  ❊ ❊ ❊

  Kate could have walked hand in hand with Rowan all night. Rowan’s hand was soft and warm around hers, and she had spent the evening laughing and smiling, more than she had in months. However, she found herself growing exhausted from the noise of the music and trying to navigate through the thick crowd. She loved the energy of the Fourth of July and the festival, but she was a country girl at heart, and the bustle eventually became too much for her.

  “Come on.” She weaved through the crowd, toward the parking lot. “I know somewhere a little quieter where we can watch the fireworks.”

  She led the way back to the truck, where the music was muted and distant, and they were away from the mass of people. The air was stiller and quieter. She could breathe again.

  Rowan hugged her stuffed elephant to her chest, clearly in love with Beatrice. Kate hadn’t shot targets in one of those game booths in years. Not since high school, she figured. There was little challenge in it for her, and she found the game to be tired and repetitive. But winning that elephant for Rowan had been one of the highlights of her night.

  Kate climbed up on the hood of her truck and motioned for Rowan to join her, sitting back against the windshield, her feet stretched out in front of her.

  Rowan looked at her like she was crazy. “What are we doing?”

  She patted the hood of the truck next to her. “We’re sitting to watch the fireworks.”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow but said nothing as she climbed up onto the hood and took a seat next to her.

  Rowan was warm, pressed against the length of Kate’s side, and her breathing was a calming lull. They intertwined their fingers and when Rowan traced her thumb over the back of Kate’s hand, it was so easy for her to imagine those hands elsewhere. It would have been so easy to lose herself in Rowan.

  She knew that Rowan was trying to like Texas for her, and she wanted to believe Rowan actually could like Texas. Despite all of the reasons to worry, she couldn’t seem to pull herself away. Rowan was hardheaded and stubborn and skeptical of the South, but she was also open and adventurous and funny. Kate had been serious when she told Rowan she enjoyed seeing Texas through Rowan’s eyes. And Rowan made her laugh— deep belly laughter that made her forget about all of the stress she was under. She should run from Rowan before Rowan ran from Texas, but despite her fears hope welled inside of her.

  “Tell me something about you,” Kate said, looking over at Rowan, taking in the strong set of Rowan’s jaw, tracing the line up to the small tattoo of a chef’s knife and spatula that rested behind her ear.

  “Like what?”

  She shrugged. “Anything. Everything. Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?”

  “Not always. When I was a kid, I’m sure I wanted to be something ridiculous like a superhero or a movie star.”

  Kate smiled, but she didn’t laugh along with Rowan. “I’m serious. When did you get into food?”

  Rowan looked at her for a long moment before answering. “I started cooking in high school. I didn’t exactly win the metabolism lottery. Growing up, most of my friends could eat whatever they wanted and not gain an ounce while I struggled with my weight. In middle school I was picked on pretty badly because of it. I got to the point where I did some unhealthy things to try to lose the weight. Then in high school I had to take a home economics class, and I really enjoyed the cooking component. I was good at it, and it was fun. I started studying cooking and nutrition in my spare time and got into trying to cook healthy food that tasted good. I lost some of the weight, which was initially what got me hooked on cooking, but I didn’t really stick with it for that reason. I’m passionate about ethical food, but beyond that I’m not particular. I love creating tasty, healthy meals, and I love pure indulgence and deep-fried creations.”

  She grinned over at Kate as though the last sentence could lighten the conversation, but Kate didn’t want to keep things surface level with Rowan. She wanted to know her.

  “That must have been hard,” Kate said, “the bullying.”

  Rowan shrugged. “Yeah. But it made me really appreciative of the people who were in my corner. I think that’s part of why I’ve had such a hard time being away from my friends. They’re my people. It took me a long time to find them, and it’s weird not having them as part of my day-to-day life.”

  Kate brushed a hand through Rowan’s hair, twirling a lock of it around her index finger. “I like how loyal you are.” She liked to think that maybe one day, she’d be Rowan’s person, and that Rowan would be that loyal to her.

  Rowan met her gaze, giving her a gentle smile that caused Kate’s stomach to tighten.

  “Tell me about you,” Rowan said. “I can’t imagine it was easy for you, coming out as gay in the Bible Belt.”

  Kate thought for a moment about how to answer. “You know, it really wasn’t that bad.”

  Rowan looked at her, clearly skeptical.

  “Everyone thinks Texas is this conservative nightmare for queer people, but that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve met people, and I’ve dated people, who have certainly found Texas to be a very homophobic place. I think it depends on where in Texas peop
le live. The DFW area hasn’t been bad. I have a friend, Jeff, who grew up in East Texas, and he could tell you some horror stories. My dad took a little while to adjust, but he never stopped loving and supporting me. I never worried about getting kicked out of my home, and I have never really feared for my safety.”

  “I definitely expected Texas to be a conservative nightmare,” Rowan admitted. “I’m happy to have been wrong.”

  “Wait,” Kate said, sitting up and looking at Rowan with a grin. “Say that again.”

  “What?” Rowan asked, a smirk tugging at her lips,

  Kate looked at her, eagerly awaiting the words once more.

  Rowan met her gaze, and Kate watched the teasing defiance softened into compliance. “That I was wrong?”

  She nodded and pressed her lips together to hide her smile.

  Rowan elbowed her. “Don’t get used to me saying that.”

  “Oh, it’s too late,” she said.

  Rowan rolled her eyes and Kate leaned in, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

  “What did you think of your first Texan Fourth of July?” Kate asked.

  “It was everything I hoped it would be, and nothing I could have even imagined, all at once.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, it’s crazy big, isn’t it?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Daddy used to bring me here every year,” Kate said. “I’d get all hopped up on the sugary foods, and Daddy would carry me around on his shoulders. Half the time I’d fall asleep before the fireworks.”

  She could feel Rowan looking at her, but she looked up at the stars, not turning to meet that gaze.

  “You know,” Kate continued, “I always thought he’d carry his grandkids around like that.”

  It seemed like such a silly thing to be sad about in the grand scheme of things. There were so many other bigger plans and visions that had been derailed by her dad’s accident. But she felt the sadness anyway.

  “How’s he doing?” Rowan asked.

  “Still stubborn as ever.”

  Rowan laughed. “Yeah. He seemed like a very— how do I say it?— set in his ways sort of guy?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re one to talk.” Kate elbowed Rowan with a smile.