Page 2 of Princess and Country

Seven years old

Mama fixed my pigtails, and I put on my red dress, smoothing the silky fabric with my fingers. Today had to be perfect. Carter and I were doing our first real concert in the backyard. We practiced three songs—Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and Dolly Parton. The beating of my heart was weird, not calm and steady as usual.

“Mama, can my heart run away from my chest?”

“No, baby. Don’t worry, you’ll do great out there. Stress can be good. It happens to all your favorite country music idols too.” Mama kneeled in front of me and pulled me in for a hug.

“Even Johnny?”

“Even Johnny, baby. It’s okay to be scared. To be excited. Or both.”

What was Mama even talking about? Since when was being afraid okay? Darkness, spiders, snakes. There was nothing fun about being scared of something.

Mama was wrong.

My heart raced in my chest, and a strong pinch hit my stomach every few minutes. With my eyes closed, I took a big whiff of Mama’s perfume. Vanilla. I loved that smell. It always made everything better. Like the way I wrapped myself in one of Mama’s sweaters when I was sick, sad, or tired.

Mama dropped a kiss on my forehead and got up.

At the doorway of my bedroom, she spun around and looked at me with her big blue-green eyes, bluer than mine, her red hair knotted at the back of her head. “You’ll do great, baby. I believe in you.”

My heart hiccupped in my chest.

“Carter’s heart is in the right place. You two will be amazing together,” Mama said. Why did she always tell me that? Wasn’t everyone’s heart in their chest? Or had I been wrong all along? I closed my eyes, hoping mine was in the right place too.

With both hands, I cupped it to make sure and breathed out. My heart was where it should be. My hands stayed glued to my chest, containing my heart inside, not willing to risk it moving around.

“Are you ready, Dah?” Carter asked as he walked into my bedroom. I spun a half-turn to greet him. His eyes widened at my sight. “Wow, you look pretty. Now I know why you insisted on wearing your red dress. It’s like your hair is on fire.” I twirled to show off my new dress, my copper pigtails flying at my sides. My best friend stuffed his hands in the pockets of his dark-blue denims, the ones he called his lucky pants. Carter Hills only wore jeans. Winter, summer, weekdays, weekends, that was all he ever wore. It suited him. In a way. Carter had been my best friend forever. Like we were the best of friends in the whole world.

I knew a secret about Carter, something I never revealed to him. Sometimes, he slept with his guitar in his bed. As if he considered it his friend too. I snickered just thinking about it. Carter didn’t know I caught him the other morning with his arm wrapped around his guitar neck. I would never tell anybody. His secret was safe with me.

“Is your heart banging loud in your chest?” I asked him as I looked through my bedroom window. From here, I could see all eight people seated in garden chairs, facing the wooden stage Daddy built for us—the one I insisted he painted in purple, my favorite color. They were all there. My parents, Carter’s parents, his older brother, Jeff, Addison—my other best friend—her twin brother Phoenix, and my nana.

“It did earlier. Not anymore. Because we’re doing this together.” Carter offered me his hand, and when our fingers laced together, a giant smile broke free on his face. “It’s okay, Dah. I’m here. We can do this. Just follow my lead, I’ll take care of everything.”

My shoulders didn’t feel so heavy now. I knew Carter was telling the truth. He would never let anything bad happen to me. Other than my parents and nana, Carter Hills was my most favoritest person in the entire world. I trusted him with everything.

When I was six, I was scared to swim in the big kids’ pool at the sports center. Carter taught me how to hold my breath and swim with my head underwater.

And once, he carried me, piggyback, because I fell from the swing at the park and skinned my knee. Carter even dried my tears with the hem of his T-shirt that day and let me borrow Toby, his favorite stuffed monkey, for a week afterward.

Carter’s eyes sparkled as he turned to face me. I bobbed my head—just like the discolored frog that Daddy had on his car dash—and returned his smile.

“Let’s go then.” I grabbed my guitar from the little stand in the corner of my room. Last year, Daddy and I painted my bedroom walls purple, and they looked charming. Everything else was white. The comforter, the curtains, the small square rug, the dresser, and the fluffy chair by the window. Mama called it my Princess Kingdom.

One day, after school, when we were busy doing our homework, Carter said with a shrug, sitting cross-legged on my bed, “Dah, you should design beautiful things when you’re grown up. You always make boring and ugly things pretty.”

I liked the idea. Anything could be made beautiful with a little help. Even that chair my nana loved so much. We painted it pink and added a white satin cushion, and it turned out charming. Charming was my nana’s way of saying amazing.

Carter grabbed the guitar from me, and with his left hand still glued to mine, we made it to the backyard. The warmth of his touch helped to keep my heart from doing gymnastics in my chest.

Daddy, with a huge grin splitting his face, set two folding chairs on the stage and placed a single microphone on a stand in front of us. Mama had hung garden lights above the stage, and Jeff helped with the setup. Carter’s brother was ten, so he was a lot stronger than Carter and me. He always volunteered to help us out. Jeff was Carter’s other best friend.

Nobody talked when we sat. Was I supposed to hear my own breathing? I closed my eyes and ran my hands over my red dress. Birds chirped in the trees, and the sound of a lawnmower across the street broke the silence. I opened my eyes when I felt gazes on me. Everyone was staring at us. My mouth went dry. My eyes burned. My throat closed. Carter placed his hand on my thigh, and as if he spread magic through me, I relaxed.

“Don’t look at them, Dah. Look at me. I’m right here.”

A wide smile brightened his face. Carter loved to perform. The sound of his voice gave me goosebumps. My eyes rested on his. The gray irises—the same color as the sky before a storm—tousled dark hair—he never took the time to comb—his beautiful face—that always calmed me down. Carter was my safe place in choppy times. Even when he always looked as if he just woke up with the wind in his hair, which I thought was funny. Now my fingers itched to brush the strands away from his forehead.

I pinched my lips together, drew a deep breath, and without a word, I nodded. I could do this. We’d rehearsed those three songs at least twenty times. Jeff heard us play one night and told us we were pretty great. He was older and knew more about life than us. If he said so, then maybe we were.

My eyes drifted to the small crowd.

Jeff locked his eyes on mine and gave me a small smile and a thumbs-up.

I inhaled through my nose, like my nana taught me to do when my heart beat too fast, and rolled my shoulders back.

Carter struck the first chord, and my throat relaxed. Yes, I can do this. A mantra I told myself as the first words left my mouth.

My eyes stayed on Carter the entire time my fingers strummed my guitar. He had a permanent smile on his lips as he sang with me all through the three songs.

Jeff was right. We were pretty great.