Rhubarb, Ribbons, and Reckless Nights

I hate losing. Not dislike it. I hate it the way some people hate getting a flu shot, that is to say I'll tell you it's for the best and then stand there with my jaw clenched for an hour afterward. My name is Briana Paterson, I'm thirty-three, and I've come in second place at the Oakdale County Fair pie contest three years running. Last year I told my sister I was done. Then I spent the whole winter testing rhubarb recipes and took two vacation days in June to drive to three different farms for the right stalks.

So there I was, Saturday morning, standing in the registration line at the fairgrounds with my pie box balanced on one hand and a folding chair under my arm. The line smelled like hay and frying dough. The sun was already hot and the dust was already stuck to my ankles.

The problem with this line is that it's the same line every year, and every year Nick Fitzpatrick is somewhere in it.

"Paterson." He was two spots behind me, holding a pie box the size of a small coffin. "You brought the rhubarb again?"

"It's not rhubarb. It's strawberry rhubarb with a brown butter crust, and you'd know that if you ever shut up."

"Brown butter." He nodded like a man tasting it. "Bold. Dangerous. Probably underbaked in the middle."

I turned around. He's thirty-eight, sells farm equipment, and has the kind of face that got him out of trouble in high school and has been coasting ever since. He looked tan and rested and like he'd slept nine hours.

"How'd you even sleep, knowing I practiced twice a week all year?" I said.

"Like a baby. I practiced too. Apple cranberry. It's going to bury you."

We had history, me and Nick. Three years ago, a trade conference in Des Moines, me thirty and him thirty-five, too much hotel wine, and one night that ended with me leaving at two in the morning and us not speaking for a year. I don't regret it exactly. I regret that he brings it up with his eyebrows every time we're in the same room.

The line moved. I registered my pie, got my little numbered card, and set up in the judging tent at the edge of the food court, fifty feet from the Ferris wheel, which means every time the thing came around you got screaming overhead. The judges were the usual three: the extension agent, the woman who runs the bakery in town, and a retired football coach who nobody knows why he's there.

They judge the fruit pies first. I stood at the rope with the other contestants and watched them work down the table. My pie went in front of them and I heard the bakery woman say "nice acid balance" and I let myself think, for about ninety seconds, this is the year.

Then they got to Nick's apple cranberry.

I watched the extension agent take a bite and close his eyes. I watched the coach take a second bite, which is a thing they are not supposed to do. When the ribbons went up, Nick's pie had the blue ribbon pinned to it and mine had the red.

Second place. Fourth year running.

The thing about pride and resentment is they feel exactly the same in your chest, so I stood there feeling both at once, clapping like a normal person while Nick walked up to collect his ribbon. He lifted it over his head like a championship belt. A little cluster of people laughed. A woman next to me said "that Fitzpatrick, he's got the touch." I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted metal.

He came over after, ribbon still around his neck.

"Briana. That's tough luck." He was not sorry. "Crust was great this year. Filling ran a little loose."

"It did not run loose."

"Four seconds in a row is a pattern, Paterson. Patterns mean something's wrong with the approach, not the recipe." He adjusted the ribbon like he was straightening a tie. "You want my notes? I took notes."

"I want you to walk away before I put this folding chair through your pie."

"There it is. That's the fire. That's why you're my favorite." He said that last part quiet, and he walked off toward the food court, and I stood there hating how my face felt warm.

I sat on my folding chair by the tent for a while and texted my sister a picture of the red ribbon. She sent back a thumbs up and a prayer hands emoji, which did not help. The Ferris wheel screamed past. Somewhere behind the midway a generator rattled. I decided I would eat a funnel cake, drink a beer, and go home by eight, in that order.

That's when the carnival girl sat down next to me on the ground. Not a chair. The dirt.

"You got robbed." She had a ring-toss booth uniform on, red striped sleeves rolled up, a name tag that said LORNA, and a can of pop she was drinking warm apparently, because she smacked the can and made a face. "I watched the whole judging from the fence. The coach took two bites of your pie. Two. He took one bite of the blue ribbon one."

"He took two of that one too," I said.

"Okay, but yours were bigger." She stuck out her hand. "Lorna Massey. Ring toss, back by the pony rides. You're the pie lady. Second place four years running, right? I know everybody at this fair. It's a curse."

"Briana." I shook her hand. She had a grip like somebody who'd worked a cash register by hand her whole life. "Thank you. It's nice to hear somebody say I got robbed instead of I ran loose."

"Who said you ran loose?"

"Nick Fitzpatrick."

Her whole face changed. "Oh, Fitzpatrick. Yeah." She took another sip. "Small world."

I should have asked what that meant. I didn't, because she was already leaning in.

"Listen. You look like a woman needing to celebrate a second place finish in style. I get off my booth at nine. There's a party. Sort of a party. It's in the equipment shed behind the midway, and there's beer, and there's a card game where nobody keeps score, and the company is better than the company in the funnel cake line." She counted it off on her fingers. "You in?"

"A party in an equipment shed."

"You'd be surprised. Last year I met a demolition derby guy in that shed and it was the best night of my summer." She stood up and brushed off her jeans. "Fitzpatrick will be there, if that changes your math either direction."

I will be honest with you, I did the math fast. Pie contest lost, night free, and the idea of drinking a beer somewhere where I could watch Nick Fitzpatrick lose at cards had a certain pull to it.

"If it's boring I'm leaving," I said.

"It's never boring. Nine o'clock, follow the string lights past the trailers, you'll hear it before you see it." She pointed her pop can at me. "Wear the red. You look like a schoolteacher right now and you're not one."

"I'm a data analyst."

"Even worse."

She walked off toward the midway, warm pop in hand, and I sat there on my folding chair with my red ribbon in a box on my lap, thinking about how the worst part of the day had happened four hours ago and I was already looking forward to nine o'clock. I told myself it was about the card game. I told myself a lot of things in that chair.

I went home first, because I'm not crazy. I showered, changed into the red sundress Lorna told me to wear, and told myself the whole drive back to the fairgrounds that this was about cards. Beer, cards, and watching a farm equipment salesman lose money in a shed.

I got back to the fairgrounds at nine and followed the string lights past the trailers like she said. It got quieter back there. The midway noise faded and all I could hear was the generator and my own feet on the gravel. The shed was behind the last trailer, a big metal thing with the roll-up door half open. There was a string light hung over the doorframe and it swayed a little.

Nick Fitzpatrick was inside, sitting on a crate, with a bottle of whiskey and two red plastic cups on a workbench next to him.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said.

"Evening, Paterson." He poured a cup and held it out. "Lorna said nine. I'm nothing if not punctual."

I turned around and Lorna was standing in the doorway, blocking it with her arms crossed. She had changed into a clean black shirt and her hair was down. "Surprise," she said. "Sort of."

"You said a card game."

"There's cards in my pocket. We never got around to them last time I tried this." She shrugged. "I figured I'd skip the pretense this year."

"You said the company was better than the funnel cake line."

"It is. Look at him. He's the favorite, he's got the ribbon, and he's been talking about you for two years." She came in and shut nothing, just stepped aside so the doorway was open. "You can leave. Door's right there. But you won't."

That stung because she was right. I looked at Nick. He was wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the blue ribbon was not there, which I appreciated. "What did she mean, two years?"

"Lorna won the ring toss off me in August. We talked." He took a drink. "Relax. I mostly talked about pie."

"Mostly."

"You want to hit me or kiss me, Paterson, and I've been watching you decide all day."

"Excuse me?"

"The chair comment. The cheek bite. You think I can't read you?" He set his cup down. "Three years ago in Des Moines you didn't decide. That was the problem."

Lorna whistled low. "Des Moines. I knew there was history."

"A year of silence," I said. "You never called."

"You never answered. I sent one text."

"I was working."

"You're always working." He stood up off the crate. "You drove to three farms in one day for stalks. I heard that too."

I should have walked out. That's the honest thing to say here. Lorna was watching me like a cat watches a bird feeder, and Nick was three feet away, and my whole body had already voted before my brain convened.

Lorna solved it for me. She stepped in front of me and took my face in both hands. "Can I?" she said, already close, and I heard myself say yes, and she kissed me.

She tasted like warm pop and smoke from the midway. She was wiry and her hands were rough and it was not a shy kiss. I made a noise into her mouth and she smiled against me. Then she pulled back and turned me around by the shoulders, gentle, like turning a pie crust, and gave me a little push toward Nick.

"Your turn," she said.

"Wait," I said, and he waited, actually waited, three full seconds with his hands at his sides, until I grabbed his shirt and pulled him in myself, and the wait was over.

He kissed hard, the way he talked, no apologies. His hand came up into my hair and the other one landed on my hip and pulled me in. I grabbed his shirt with both hands because otherwise I was going to do something embarrassing like slide. He tasted like whiskey. Three years fell over in one push and I did not miss it.

"Okay," I said when I came up for air. "Okay. Fine. Des Moines was good."

"Des Moines was good," he agreed.

There was a cough from the doorway. We all turned. A big guy in a denim vest was standing there holding a case of beer, and he had the easy look of somebody who had just watched the end of a movie and walked in on the sequel.

"Door was open," he said. "I brought beer."

"Dominic," Lorna said, and she did not sound surprised, which meant I was the only person in that shed who hadn't gotten the memo. "You're late."

"Derby guy?" I asked her.

"Demolition derby guy," she said. "Dominic Renard. Nick's best friend. Told you I met him here last year."

"You said best night of your summer."

"It was." She looked at him. "We're redoing it with better casting."