It Happened at the Fair by Deeanne Gist Page A

reaching a gallery of photographs, she absently pulled her glove back on.
    Wanda’s hands were as rough and calloused as his, but they were good hands. Worthy hands. He pulled up a picture of her in his mind. Brown eyes, sweet smile, lots of curves. He clung to those memories, refusing to make a comparison between the two women.
    Anyone, man or woman, would notice Miss Wentworth’s blue eyes, her heart-shaped face, and her peach-colored lips. Well, maybe not the lips. He noticed them only because he’d been forced to study them all night.
    “What is this?” Miss Wentworth pointed to a picture of a huge building with scaffolding.
    “It’s a grand castle called Biltmore. It’s near Asheville. The papers said the youngest Vanderbilt is having it constructed. For the surrounding property, he’s hired the same man who landscaped Central Park and who also turned this park from a swamp into the grounds that we currently stand on.”
    She peered more closely at a photograph of barren, overworked terrain. “He’ll have his work cut out for him if he’s to make that look anything like Central Park.”
    “It’s to be a planned forestry program. The first in America.”
    “Interesting.”
    By the time they reached the last booth, hours had passed and they’d yet to do more than practice the long o. They exited Virginia’s section through a hollow segment of a sycamore tree, stopped by the coat check, and stepped out onto the verandah again.
    Darkness had set in, leaving only moonlight and street lanterns to guide them to a set of benches facing the water.
    He opened her coat, dipping it so her arms slid easily inside the sleeves.
    “I’m afraid we’re going to have to be a bit more disciplined with our lessons, Miss Wentworth.”
    “I was just thinking the same thing. I became so caught up in all those wonders, I totally forgot our purpose. If it’s not too late for you, we could sit out here for a few minutes and do some work on your vowels.”
    “Will there be enough light?”
    “If we sit on that bench over there.” She indicated a bench with a splash of lantern light touching its wooden slats.
    Settling onto it, they faced each other, her knee brushing his. He sat up straighter, putting another inch between them.
    “I’m going to say a list of words with the long o sound.” She cleared her throat. “Watch for the pucker. Sometimes it will come at the beginning, sometimes at the end, and sometimes in the middle. The middle ones are the hardest, so you have to be on your guard.”
    He nodded.
    “Only.” Her voice was soft, but audible.
    “I heard you.”
    “Did you? Even over the waves? That’s wonderful. I thought you had difficulty when there’s background noise.”
    “I usually do.”
    The moon’s reflection cast a burnished ribbon across the lake’s rippling surface. Noise was too harsh a word for the push and pull of its current.
    “It’s your voice,” he said. “As a whole, I hear women better than men. But you, I hear very distinctly.”
    She nodded. “I’ll mouth them, then.”
    For the next ten minutes he watched her lips and tried to read them. He’d never really noticed the nuances of a woman’s lips before. Did they all have such distinct Cupid’s bows?
    “What did I say?” she asked.
    He scrambled to think of a word with an o sound. “Ogle.”
    She shook her head. “Rosy. Watch for the pucker. Every time you see it, insert a long o or u. Like slogan. See how my lips pucker in the middle? Slogan.”
    “I see.”
    “Good. Now watch for that. Let’s try again.”
    For the next several minutes, he forced himself to view her lips as independent objects, as if they weren’t attached to a flesh-and-blood woman. Until she formed a kiss.
    He pressed himself against the armrest. “I don’t know that one.”
    “Of course you do. Watch.”
    Looking him right in the eye, she formed another kiss.
    “Say it out loud.” His voice sounded hoarse, even to his own ears.
    “But you