Muriel kept her eyes lowered and nodded. She couldn’t look her mother in the face after lying to her. She couldn’t let her father off the hook, either. He should have understood but he refused to.
When she got there, Center Street was alive and throbbing with holiday revelers consuming corn dogs and cotton candy. The Pink Poodle Skirts, a fifties and sixties cover group, were setting up over at the gazebo in the park and testing their equipment, and the sounds of electric guitar drifted on the air. She ran into Olivia right away, which made her feel better about the lie she’d told her parents.
And now, here came Stephen wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Olivia sighed loudly. “He is so gorgeous.”
“Yes, he is,” Muriel agreed.
“You two are the perfect couple.”
“Tell that to my father,” Muriel said grumpily.
“He’ll come around.”
She’d said that about Pat, too. She’d been wrong. Pat wouldn’t come back, not unless Muriel gave up Stephen. And she wasn’t giving him up, not for her father and certainly not for Pat. This bad attitude of Pat’s just showed how selfish she was. A true friend would have been happy to see her best friend since grade school find the man of her dreams.
“Hey there, you two,” he greeted them. “You both look great tonight.”
Olivia’s cheeks turned pink. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
“How about a corn dog?” he offered.
“Sure,” Olivia said, falling into step with them.
At the corn dog stand they found Nils and Lenny, and Hildy and Sue Lind, and in a matter of moments Stephen had managed to separate Muriel and himself from the others, leaving Olivia in their care.
That was fine with Muriel. She wanted him all to herself. They wandered the street, hand in hand, and then later, as the light began to fade, made their way to the bandstand. The band had just started, their girl singer belting out “He’s a Rebel.” Stephen draped an arm around Muriel’s shoulders as they stood there in the growing crowd, listening.
She smiled at him. “Are you a good dancer?”
“The best.”
He proved it when the band played “Proud Mary” and everyone started dancing. Stephen had the moves. The band shifted down to a slower tempo, playing “Never My Love,” and he took her in his arms and they swayed.
“Who knew I’d find treasure here in the mountains,” he murmured in her ear and drew her closer.
Slow dancing with him was like dancing in a dream. She looked up at him and thought, My life is perfect. And later, as they walked by the river, she said as much.
“I think it’s time I got to know your parents,” he said after a very long and luscious kiss.
She bit her lip and stared out at the river, which was now a dark ribbon. She could hear the current rushing past.
“You do want me to meet your parents, don’t you?”
“You’ve already met Daddy,” she hedged.
“That wasn’t much of a meeting.”
How was she going to make this happen? She felt Stephen’s assessing gaze on her and pulled her sweater tighter.
Next to her, he let out a frustrated sigh. “Your dad doesn’t approve of me, does he?”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly.” Another lie.
“Muriel, I’m not dumb. Don’t you think I’ve figured out why you always insist on meeting me places?”
“I just thought—”
“That I wouldn’t notice how he looked at me that day in the candy shop?”
Muriel felt her cheeks heating. “My father will come around.”
“Will he?”
“I know he will,” she said firmly.
“And what if he doesn’t?”
“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Even in the dark, it wasn’t hard to see him stiffen. Then he pulled away. She’d failed some kind of test.
“Stephen, what?”
“Nothing. It’s getting late. I’ll walk you home.”
She could envision her father waiting on the front porch, a welcoming scowl on his face. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Yeah, you probably will. I’ll walk you to your street anyway,” he said.
They left the park in an uncomfortable silence, and Muriel found herself at a loss, unsure of how to fill it.
Once they got to her street corner he stopped. “Goodbye, Muriel.”
“I’ll see you at the river tomorrow night for the fireworks,” she said.
He nodded. Then he turned and walked away without so much as a goodbye kiss.
Muriel went the rest of the way down the street with a heavy heart. Everything had been going so well until the subject of her father came up. Daddy was ruining her life.
Just as she’d suspected, she got to the house to find him waiting for her on the front porch. He frowned as she walked up the porch steps. “You were with that boy, after I told you not to see him.”
“Daddy, I’m not a little girl anymore. You can’t tell me who to see,” she snapped, and marched inside the house.
“Muriel!”
Ignoring the frustration in his voice, she kept moving. Once again, her bedroom door slammed, but this time nobody came to talk to her. Which was fine. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She fell on her bed and indulged in a good cry. This was all wrong. She’d never fought like this with her father before—but then her father had never been so mean-spirited before.
The next morning she entered the kitchen and found him at the red Formica table, nursing a cup of coffee. “You still mad at me?” he asked.
“Yes.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs. “Do you want an egg?”
“Sure,” he said, trying to sound amiable.
She fried him one and made toast, then put bread in the toaster for Mother, who was strictly a toast-and-coffee girl.
By the time Mother entered the kitchen, Muriel and her father were both seated at the table, eating in silence.
