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fidgeted in my seat and waited for her answer.
    “I really hadn’t planned on going,” she finally said.
    “But if someone asked you to go, you might?”
    It took a moment for her to answer.
    “I’m not sure,” she said, thinking carefully. “I suppose I might go, if I got the chance. I’ve never been to a homecoming dance before.”
    “They’re fun,” I said quickly. “Not
too
much fun, but fun.” Especially when compared to my other options, I didn’t add.
    She smiled at my turn of phrase. “I’d have to talk to my father, of course, but if he said it was okay, then I guess I could.”
    In the tree beside the porch, a bird started to chirp noisily, as if he knew I wasn’t supposed to be here. I concentrated on the sound, trying to calm my nerves. Just two days ago I couldn’t have imagined myself even thinking about it, but suddenly there I was, listening to myself as I spoke the magic words.
    “Well, would you like to go to the dance with me?”
    I could tell she was surprised. I think she believed that the little lead-up to the question probably had to do with someone else asking her. Sometimes teenagers sent their friends out to “scout the terrain,” so to speak, so as not to face possible rejection. Even though Jamie wasn’t much like other teenagers, I’m sure she was familiar with the concept, at least in theory.
    Instead of answering right away, though, Jamie glanced away for a long moment. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach because I assumed she was going to say no. Visions of my mother, puke, and Carey flooded through my mind, and all of a sudden I regretted the way I’d behaved toward her all these years. I kept remembering all the times I’d teased her or called her father a fornicator or simply made fun of her behind her back. Just when I was feeling awful about the whole thing and imagining how I would ever be able to avoid Carey for five hours, she turned and faced me again. She had a slight smile on her face.
    “I’d love to,” she finally said, “on one condition.”
    I steadied myself, hoping it wasn’t something
too
awful.
    “Yes?”
    “You have to promise that you won’t fall in love with me.”
    I knew she was kidding by the way she laughed, and I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes, I had to admit, Jamie had a pretty good sense of humor.
    I smiled and gave her my word.

Chapter 3
    A s a general rule, Southern Baptists don’t dance. In Beaufort, however, it wasn’t a rule that was ever strictly enforced. The minister before Hegbert—don’t ask me what his name was—took sort of a lax view about school dances as long as they were chaperoned, and because of that, they’d become a tradition of sorts. By the time Hegbert came along, it was too late to change things. Jamie was pretty much the only one who’d never been to a school dance and frankly, I didn’t know whether she even knew how to dance at all. I admit that I also had some concerns about what she would wear, though it wasn’t something I would tell her. When Jamie went to the church socials—which were encouraged by Hegbert—she usually wore an old sweater and one of the plaid skirts we saw in school every day, but the homecoming dance was supposed to be special. Most of the girls bought new dresses and the boys wore suits, and this year we were bringing in a photographer to take our pictures. I knew Jamie wasn’t going to buy a new dress because she wasn’t exactly well-off. Ministering wasn’t a profession where people made a lot of money, but of course ministers weren’t in it for monetary gain, they were in it for the long haul, if you know what I mean. But I didn’t want her to wear the same thing she wore to school every day, either. Not so much for me—I’m not that cold-hearted—but because of what others might say. I didn’t want people to make fun of her or anything.
    The good news, if there was any, was that Eric didn’t rib me too bad about the whole Jamie