Page 10 of Take Me to the Wedding

Guess my mouth dropped open because she turned and stared at me. “You okay?”

I quickly closed it and wiped my expression clean. “Yeah, of course. Ready to go?” I started the truck and pretended that I wasn’t listening to the same exact book, a popular fantasy novel that was hitting the charts.

About ten minutes in, I started to feel guilty for ignoring her. Not because I wanted to talk with her but because my mom had taught me good manners. I guess I’d half expected her to try to getmeto talk, which she didn’t. Which oddly disappointed me. I guess part of me was looking forward to the sparring.

She was sipping coffee and looking out the window when I said, “Whatcha looking at out there?” The entire way to Waukasaw, the highway would be rimmed with tree upon tree. Wisconsin was a beautiful state, and large swaths of it were natural and wild, but I couldn’t understand the fascination—after a while, the landscape tended to look the same to me. Maybe she was staring out the window, secretly plotting my demise.

She started at the sound of my voice, which made me bite down on the insides of my cheeks to suppress my smile. “There’s so much wildlife,” she said. A field with cows grazing flew past the window. More trees. A little lake. “I swear, Wisconsin is the prettiest state.”

“Wisconsinisthe land of 10,000 lakes. Didn’t you grow up in Milwaukee?”

“My grandma raised us in an apartment downtown near the hospital. She worked as a nurse, and we didn’t have a car, so we walked everywhere, but our neighborhood was mostly concrete. We didn’t have a patio or a balcony, and it always seemed that outside was so far away, if that makes any sense. Going outside meant walking to the park down the street. And it always meant waiting to go with someone, because Oma didn’t allow us to go by ourselves.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have started this. Because there was more info to unpack about Samantha in those few sentences than I’d learned from my sister in the past three years. “I grew up on a farm in Oak Bluff. I can’t imagine not being outdoors a lot.”

She was still staring out that window, and I was still glomming on to every word she said. “We had a membership to the Y, and I used to swim every day, so we made the most of it. I still remember the first time I saw a cow. It was on a field trip in kindergarten. My grandma had given me a little camera, and I took like, twenty photos of that cow. I’d never seen farm animals up close like that, let alone such wide-open spaces. I’m excited to see them this weekend—cows and pigs and horses. And I love hiking. I can’t wait.”

“You soundsuperexcited.” For some reason, I thought of Lilly, who always carried a sample-sized bug spray hooked to her backpack, and who would only hike if it was less than eighty degrees.

Sam frowned at me. “Iamexcited. And I’ve actually been to your farm—with Mia. It’s pretty.” Mia had said something about her having a tough childhood, that her grandmother raised her, and that she had a younger sister. That was about all I knew.

It occurred to me that theexcitedcomment might’ve sounded sarcastic. “I didn’t mean the excited thing in a snarky way. When we talk, we tend to argue, but I was just making a statement.”

She shrugged. Like she couldn’t care less whether I was trying to insult her or not. That was the thing about Sam. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. I knew this because she often spoke her mind, like when the hospital administration told us we’d have to take more call for the same salary. She rose her hand in the meeting and politely yet confidently expressed her opinion. Then she wrote letters and got everyone else to write them too. And you know what happened? We still had to take the extra call. But we got paid for it. Brava, Sam.

I should have just shut up and drove, but something made me want to smooth things over. I blame it on the donut. “So, I know all these obscure facts about our state. Do you?”

She turned and gave me a peculiar look. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I rubbed my neck and confessed. “My mom would have my hide if I tried to ignore a guest for two hours.” The truth was, I had no idea why I was making conversation with her. Something about her story got to me, I guess.

“I’m a guest?”

“Well, you’re staying over at my house tonight, so yes, that makes you a guest.” I glanced over at her. “You just said you’ve been there, right?”

“Enough to know your family is much nicer than you.” She shot me a mischievous grin.

“Can’t argue with that.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Then you know what you’re in for.”

“I love your mom,” she said sincerely.

She already knew what I’d been about to say. “Make no mistake. My mom works full time on our farm, but she loves to mother people. Oh, and to cook. You’ve been warned.”

“Once your mom made us lunch.” She opened her arms wide. “It looked sort of like Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Well, I know she misses us kids. Of course, she still has our little dachshund, Cooper.” Sam stiffened just a little, which made me remember something else Mia had told me—that Sam had a fear of dogs. “Cooper’s a love hog, but if you pass, he moves onto the next sucker—I meanperson.”

She was strangely silent.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I’m fine. I-I had a run-in with a stray dog when I was a kid. I’m not very comfortable around them.”

“No worries. We’ll keep him in check. Besides, he’s about the size of my foot, so nothing to fear.” I felt like there was a lot more to that “run-in,” but she wasn’t about to share, so I changed the subject. “So do you want to hear my Wisconsin facts or not?” I counted them off on my fingers. “The first ice-cream sundae was made here. We’re the largest producer of cranberries in the US. The largest woolly mammoth was found in Kenosha County. And supposedly, we hate margarine—it was banned until 1967.”

I checked to see if she was bowled over by my vast display of knowledge.

“Is that how you impress women?” she asked. “Because I don’t recommend trying that with Lilly.”

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