The Sweetest Match

by Abby Tyler

  Andrew started the engine. “I can put the top up if you’re worried about your hair,” he said.

  She touched it. She’d actually spent some time adding a bit of curl to the ends. It might be a tangled mess in the wind.

  “However,” Andrew added, “I did purchase a small gift for you in honor of the car. It might help.”

  He had done what? Sandy accepted the small flexible package wrapped in pale blue tissue paper. She opened it carefully, revealing a sheer scarf in watery pastels from blue to gray. As luck would have it, it closely matched the colors of her sweater.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to wear it. I can put up the top. But if you would like the open top experience, this will keep your hair under control.”

  He rubbed his own head, ruffling his dark hair out of its smooth layers. “As for me, I will just have to suffer. I don’t think I look good in scarves.”

  Sandy laughed. She unfolded the scarf and tied it around her head, tucking in the ends of her hair. “This is perfect. It’s like I’ve become someone else for a day.”

  “It’s a fun feeling, isn’t it?” Andrew backed out of the gravel drive and onto the road. “But for the record, I like you just the way you are.”

  Sandy’s heart stumbled in its rhythm. Everything was moving so fast. Caden’s departure for college. Her new job and reintegration with her hometown. Committees. Newspaper articles. Now, Andrew.

  She gripped the door handle as even the car seemed to whiz way beyond her ability to process the speed they were going. She knew Andrew was not the sort to drive above the speed limit, but it still felt as though she were hurtling toward a future she couldn’t quite yet imagine.

  The roar of the wind as they drove along the highway made it difficult to talk. Even the radio was lost. But Sandy found the silence companionable and easy.

  They drove almost three hours straight through to Jefferson City before stopping to take a break for lunch.

  “I forget how pretty this drive is,” Andrew said. “I think I might be over the whole open-top convertible experience, though.”

  “I agree,” Sandy said, touching her lips, dried out after the long ride in the wind. “Although we should still pause a few blocks away to put it down again as we ride up. Just to be cool.”

  “Now that’s an idea.”

  They entered a small café just off the interstate, part of a combination gas station and tourist shop.

  “All you need to finish out your outfit and look like a movie star is a pair of sunglasses,” Andrew said as they wandered the shop while waiting for the waitress to clear a table.

  Sandy picked up a pair from a rack. “How about this?”

  “Go bigger,” Andrew said. He lifted another pair from its slot. “Try these.”

  Sandy slid them on and handed the first pair to Andrew to put back on the rack. They did these motions fluidly, as if they knew each other well, and made excursions like this all the time.

  She turned to a mirror.

  Goodness, she did look like a movie star. With the scarf and the earrings and the sweater and the shades, she could put on an entire new personality.

  “I look like someone who deserves to go to a private museum with one of the state’s most renowned artists,” she said. She twirled her hand in the air as though she were gesturing to her fandom.

  “I take back what I said earlier. I love this version of you,” Andrew said. “Let’s get these.”

  They walked over to the register, but Sandy didn’t allow him to pay for the sunglasses. She already felt a little overwhelmed with his spontaneous gift. Thankfully, they weren’t expensive.

  When they were done, the waitress spotted them and waved them back over to the restaurant side of the building.

  As they slid into their seats, Sandy said, “It might be nice to have a conversation without an entire town listening in.”

  “They probably slipped a bug into our clothing at some point,” Andrew said. “I was talking to Carter the other day, and he said that the town threw him and his girlfriend together, too.”

  “You mean the football coach?” Sandy asked.

  “Yeah, Carter McBride.”

  “They are sort of meddling, aren’t they?” She cast her eyes to the menu.

  “I’m not complaining,” he said.

  Warmth coursed through her again. The words on the menu blurred, and Sandy had to focus hard to make them penetrate.

  “Pretty standard stuff on the menu,” Andrew said. “I know a ton of cool little places in Columbia, of course, but I didn’t think we could make it that far without eating.”

  “You called it correctly,” Sandy said. “I was starving.”

  They gave the orders, and Sandy carefully untied the scarf and set it aside for the meal.

  “I really do love this,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”

  “I wanted to.” He opened his mouth as if he might say more, then took a sip of water instead.

  Was he nervous, too?

  “I’m very excited to meet River Montgomery,” she said. “I hope I look all right.”

  “You’re perfect,” Andrew said. “I bet you went online and searched for every little thing you could read about him over the weekend.”

  Sandy smiled. “Busted. I couldn’t go over to his house and look at his art without knowing all the important things.”

  “It’s smart,” Andrew said. “I do the same thing. When I was in graduate school, I got the opportunity to attend a private reception following a lecture by one of my most revered historians. I was so anxious about it that I actually studied nothing but his opinions for a full week, neglecting my actual graduate work.” He tapped the table. “Totally worth it. He was very impressed by how up-to-date I was on all the important matters of government and history. From his view, of course.”

  As Andrew spoke about some of his exploits in his years at the University of Missouri, Sandy felt her excitement start to shift into mild dismay. How could she even hold a conversation with these people who had doctorates?

  She had never finished high school. Not even close. She’d quit as a sophomore. She didn’t complete even a second year of history. She knew nothing about politics. She hadn’t read any important books. Her literature classes cut off at Romeo and Juliet. A five-year-old could repeat that plot.

  Was she about to make a fool of herself?

  She had read up on River Montgomery, but if he wanted to speak broadly about art, she would know nothing. As her stomach trembled, Sandy wasn’t sure she would be able to eat a bite. And as for talking? It might be best if she just kept her mouth shut.

  “I’ve gone on too long,” Andrew said. “There’s nothing worse than a history professor who doesn’t know when to stop.”

  Sandy didn’t have a clever reply to that, not even to counter his concern.

  Luckily, the food arrived. Andrew lifted a buttered biscuit. “For a long time, I really thought that all of Missouri was the same,” Andrew said. “But after traveling the state a good bit, I realized the regional influences are very strong.”

  Sandy could only nod. She hadn’t been all over Missouri. She had scarcely been anywhere. She should never have left her shack. Or maybe, once she left it, she should have gone someplace new entirely.

  Andrew expression shifted to concern. “Is everything okay?”

  Sandy managed to avoid answering by shoveling a mouthful of pasta straight into her mouth. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say I’m okay.

  Andrew let her off the hook, but certainly the easy camaraderie they had felt earlier had dissolved with Sandy’s distress. She didn’t know how to turn it around. She had so little experience in any of these things.

  They finished their meal, and Andrew promptly paid. “We should get back on the road. We’re expected at two o’clock.”

  With the top up, conversation should have happened, but the air between them was stilted. Sandy wished
she were some other person, someone who had more in common with Andrew. If only she could say something smart.

  But she was who she was. A small-town girl who’d paid the price for falling for a local boy who had no intention of sticking by her.

  The silence lengthened, and her discomfort grew. This had been a terrible idea. She wanted to jump from the car.

  But Andrew noticed. “Hey, you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  He tapped the steering wheel, and she wondered if he’d just turn on the radio to spare them any more awkward silence.

  But he didn’t give up.

  “Any news from Caden?” he asked.

  “Sure, he’s good.”

  “They had their first game on Saturday, right? Did you go?”

  The idea that Andrew had looked up her son’s community college football team quelled a few of her doubts. He was trying so hard. Her chest relaxed. At least he’d found something they could talk about.

  “Caden told me to wait for the first home game because it will be more fun. Plus the first two are so far away. He sent me a shirt to wear!”

  “That will be exciting. Do you talk to him much?”

  “He called me after the game. He played for three minutes, which isn’t bad for a freshman,” she said. “Apparently there was the funniest play. The quarterback fumbled after the snap and Caden jumped right in the fray to recover it.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “He did! He emerged from this pile of football players all triumphant! I think every photographer in the stadium took a shot of it. A video clip of him has gone viral.”

  “That’s excellent. Does he still consult with Coach McBride?”

  “He called him after the game at something like midnight,” Sandy said. “I told him that wasn’t wise, but apparently they had a great conversation.”

  “Coach is one of the good ones,” Andrew said. “He really cares about his kids.”

  “Do you like teaching?”

  “Love it,” he said. “Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “It just would be nice to have someone to talk to about more than the dates and battles of the Civil War. As much as I try to get these kids beyond the text, they’re really focused on testing and grades. It isn’t quite the same as two people engaging in a conversation just to flesh out their feelings about some historical event.”

  Sandy understood that. “When I first started decorating for Betty, I think I drove her crazy talking nonstop about frosting brushes and piping tips and the texture of buttercream. It’s so technical, and honestly the average person doesn’t even need to think about these things.”

  “Exactly,” Andrew said.

  Sandy wasn’t sure that she knew enough to talk about anything that interested Andrew, but she could try. “So, what was one of your most debated topics among your history friends?”

  “Oh, there were so many. Like, how is it possible to document even the most objective of historical events when we all see everything through the filter of our own experiences and prejudices?”

  Sandy turned to the landscape whizzing outside her window, her throat tight. “Most of my life has been a source of speculation and guesswork, pretending to be facts. But nobody ever asked me.”

  Andrew got quiet, and Sandy wondered if she’d killed their day right there.

  Chapter 11

  As Sandy brought up the difficult subject of her past, Andrew gripped the steering wheel. He’d known this topic would come up eventually, just not necessarily on their first real outing together.

  His mind scrambled for a response. He couldn’t just sit there silently driving like an idiot.

  Finally, he said, “I think most people in Applebottom today would agree that things weren’t handled well eighteen years ago.”

  Sandy made a noise that sounded remarkably like a snort. “You know, it’s taken me eighteen years plus the two months of working back in Applebottom to feel brave enough to even think about countering all the things that were said about me when I was too young and too scared to defend myself.”

  “That’s fair,” Andrew said. “I wish I had done more than I did at the time.”

  “You were a teenager,” Sandy said. “And I’m sure you had nothing to do with those crowing boys who had so much to say when there was so little they actually knew.”

  “Jerry was at the center of all of it,” Andrew said. He supposed that if they were going to talk about this, they might as well get this big issue out of the way.

  “Of course he was,” Sandy said, her voice bitter. But even as they discussed these difficult things, Andrew found he could not ask her straight out if Jerry was the father of the baby.

  “I wasn’t friends with Jerry or his crowd,” Andrew said.

  “And I’m grateful for that,” Sandy said.

  “I don’t think it matters how large or small a community is,” Andrew said. “There always seems to be jerks and liars.”

  “It’s almost as though every town has a quota to fill,” Sandy said. “I guess I was the token pathetic girl who didn’t know any better.”

  “I never thought that,” Andrew said.

  “You were the only one, then.”

  “I like to think that we all learned something from what happened.”

  Sandy twisted the scarf around her wrist in agitation. “I don’t think so. I feel quite certain that if some poor girl at the high school—Fierce, maybe—turned up pregnant, and the guy she thought she was dating insisted that no, this girl was sleeping with everybody under the sun, that the town would handle it no better now than they did eighteen years ago.”

  She was probably right. It was quite possible that Betty and Gertrude and Maude and all the old guard of Applebottom were only being nice to Sandy now because she had weathered the storm. She’d become a mother and raised her child in Applebottom He’d turned out great, and she’d come back to town. If the whole mess were to start all over again, it seemed pretty likely that the new girl in trouble would not be treated any better.

  “For what it’s worth, Caden is a great kid, and I’m glad he’s around.”

  “That’s not even on the table,” Sandy said. “Of course I’m glad I had him. I just don’t bear any delusions that the town learned anything from what happened to me.”

  They approached the outskirts of Columbia. The conversation had been difficult, so Andrew didn’t feel the same sense of nostalgia that he usually did as he approached the city where he’d lived for seven years.

  But as they returned to their quiet contemplation and more and more familiar places rolled by, Andrew managed to find a measure of peace in seeing the old sights. After suppressing several comments about places he used to go, and things he used to do, he decided that maybe it would be better if he did say them. Give them something new to talk about.

  “I used to live in the neighborhood over there,” he said, pointing out the window. “In grad school, I rented a house just a few streets off the interstate. I had two roommates, guys I thought I knew pretty well, but they turned out to be literally the worst housemates I could’ve ever chosen.”

  Sandy took the bait. “What made them so horrible?”

  “Well, let’s just say they liked the ladies.”

  “Was there an endless parade?” Sandy asked.

  “To put it mildly.”

  “What about you? Did you date a lot during those years?”

  Now that was a loaded question if Andrew had ever heard one. “There were a few here and there. But we all ended up going our separate ways.”

  And. Stop.

  There was no reason to belabor any of these points.

  “Do you plan to always live in Applebottom?”

  He shrugged. “If I could convince my sister to come around a little bit more, I wouldn’t feel so compelled to stay. But right now I do.” He glanced over at her. “What about you? You don’t have anything keeping you there.”

  “I don’t know
where else I would go. Applebottom is all I know. I could sell the house, but I don’t think I would get much for it, not in its current condition. Maybe if I get enough popularity as a cake decorator, I could go to a city and get a job doing it there. But I feel like my earnings go a lot further here than it might in some place like Branson or St. Louis.”

  “You’re smart to think that way,” Andrew said.

  “Do you miss living in a city like this?” She peered out the window at the houses as they passed. They were in the historic district, most of the century-old houses restored to their former glory.

  “All the time. But when I was here, I missed things from there. I figure being content is not about pining for someplace else, but being happy where you are.”

  Sandy stared out the window. He’d forgotten that she hadn’t traveled much. He should be showing her more. “Would you like to see campus? It’s a nice one.”

  “Oh, can we? And I would really love to see some tall buildings. I’ve never seen anything with more than three stories.”

  He chuckled. “I think we can manage that.”

  He turned up Providence Road, passing shops and buildings and finally heading into the trees that surrounded campus. He always loved how natural the area felt, as if the University were nestled in its own green space.

  He’d spent a lot of afternoons walking in the Grindstone Nature Area, contemplating his studies in history and philosophy. Those had been good years.

  The thought of taking Sandy to some of these places made him smile. It felt right.

  “It’s so green here,” Sandy said. Her nose was practically pressed to the glass.

  “It was one of my favorite things about Mizzou,” Andrew said. “Look up, we’re about to go beneath the pedestrian bridge.”

  Looming ahead was the big brick and metal bridge bearing the huge symbol of the Mizzou Tiger.

  Sandy held onto the dash and stared at it until they passed beneath.

  “There’s the stadium,” he said. “Faurot Field.”

  “I love how it’s called The Zou,” she said with a laugh.

  “I’m pretty sure the main building is the tallest one on campus,” he said. “Let me see how close we can get.”