Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Winnie put the finishing touches on the carrot cake cupcakes that she’d made for this week’s book club and found that Shane’s advice kept running through her mind.
Sometimes, she had to be brave enough to make herself vulnerable. Sometimes she had to take the leap.
She stole a spoonful of cream cheese frosting as fortification. Being brave was hard.
But the more she’d mulled over Shane’s advice, the more it had made sense…
especially once she’d taken off her fear-colored glasses.
Why would her friends want to be close to her when she was keeping them at arm’s distance?
How could she expect them to want to be involved in her life when she made it basically impossible for them to get involved?
By the time she’d worked through the slightly fussy task of making the cupcakes, letting them cool, and then frosting them, however, she felt that she had a plan in place, at least in her own mind.
She was going to be the bravest Winnie she knew how to be. She was going to embrace discomfort, rather than trying to hide from it. She was going to let the other book club members see the real her and trust that her friends would continue to like her anyway.
Trust, as it turned out, was really hard. Pretty much just as hard as being brave. But she told herself that it would get easier. Things did, when you practiced them, after all.
One of these days, she was going to try something easy. Like jigsaw puzzles. But ones with not a lot of pieces.
Winnie pushed into the bookstore, smiling at her own inner silliness. Eleanor saw her right away and gave her a broad smile in return.
“You’re looking cheerful today, Win,” she said, and the nickname made Winnie feel like she might blush, as foolish as that was. “I’m so glad to see it.”
Winnie felt even lighter at the pleasant welcome. “Thanks, Eleanor,” she said brightly. “I’ve got cupcakes tonight.”
“Ugh, you’re a joy,” Eleanor said. “You know where they go. Make sure you save yourself one if you want, since these vultures will be on those quickly.” She pitched her voice loud enough so that her friends could all hear her teasing words.
“Rude!” Cadence exclaimed, but she was grinning too. “Hey, Winnie, good to see you.”
Winnie gave a little wave to the group as she set down her cupcakes. To her delight, Dianna’s eyes went wide with excitement and she scooped one up right away.
“June isn’t going to make it,” Eleanor said, reading off her phone screen, sounding disappointed. “I guess poor Benjamin still isn’t feeling well, and she doesn’t want to leave him with a babysitter.”
Sounds of dismay went around the room in a chorus as Winnie took a seat.
“I was going to run over there to check on them tomorrow, but now I’ll make double certain that I do,” Cadence said, a worried frown on her face. “Poor kid has been under the weather for a while, and I know that will be as hard on June as it is on him.”
“We should make them some food and bring it over,” Diana chimed in. “A pot of soup, since that always helps when you’re sick, and some pie, because that helps whether you’re sick or not.”
Winnie had a great recipe for apple and pear pie that would be ideal for the fruits that were in season right now, but she hesitated a moment too long and the conversation swept ahead with a plan.
Diana and Cadence had already bent their heads together to talk about making pumpkin pie, which they knew was June’s favorite.
Winnie felt a pang go through her at this reminder that they all had this longstanding bond, but she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Just because she was newer didn’t mean she was worse. They just didn’t know everything about one another yet.
“Darling, don’t you know that rule one of book club is that you need a drink in hand?”
Winnie turned to see Miriam smiling at her, which felt good for a flash.
It was very nice to feel included. That flash faded, however, when she saw that Miriam’s hand, which held out a wine glass to Winnie, trembled the tiniest bit.
Miriam looked a little tired too, not that Winnie would ever be rude enough to say so.
“Thank you,” she said instead, taking the drink from the older woman. “How are you feeling? Able to get a little more rest lately?”
Miriam twisted her face into a playful little grimace that Winnie suspected hid a genuine emotion.
“That’s nice of you to ask, honey. I’m doing a little bit better, I suppose.
But I don’t bounce back from things as quickly as I once did.
” She sighed. “And far be it from me to say that getting older is bad. I quite like my age, thank you very much. Goodness knows I look fetching in white,” she added, plumping her hair playfully, “and it’s nice to know that once you reach a certain number of birthdays, you’re not obliged to care what others think about you as much. ”
“I struggle to believe that you were ever unduly burdened by what others thought about you,” Winnie offered, thinking of the indomitable spirit that was evident in Miriam’s core.
Miriam offered her a smile. “Oh, you’re right there. I turned some heads in my day, doing all the things that people didn’t think women should be doing back then. But…”
She trailed off for long enough that Winnie thought she might not speak again, and when she did, there was none of the playfulness from before. It was all raw honesty.
“I don’t like asking people for things,” she admitted.
“Or, no. It’s more that I don’t like needing to ask people for things.
No man is an island and all that… but I liked knowing that I could be my own island if I needed to be.
And I’m being forced to face that that isn’t as true as I might have hoped. ”
Winnie blinked for a moment.
“That… that’s exactly how I feel,” she admitted breathlessly, not even thinking very much about how this confession revealed things about her.
“I mean, from an outsider’s perspective, I know that it was nice that Garrett was able to help you.
But if it was me?” She gave Miriam a sheepish look.
“I would have been furious that I needed anyone to help me. I want to believe that I can do anything myself, even when that’s, you know, pretty clearly nuts.
Don’t ask me about the time I tried to get my mattress and bed frame up my stairs. Seriously, do not ask.”
Miriam patted her hand affectionately.
“I knew we were kindred spirits, Winnie Burnett,” she said kindly.
Winnie thought she might be blushing at the idea that she, Ice Queen Winnie Burnett, was made of the same stuff as spitfire Miriam Landers, town firecracker.
It was a really nice thought, indeed.
And, in true firecracker spirit, Miriam’s poor mood vanished quickly, replaced by a glimmer of mischief.
“Onto cheerier things, however. Tell me, was taking those battered old cornhole boards of mine a good idea?”
Winnie felt herself brighten too. “Yes!” She paused.
“Okay, if the question is ‘did you fix the cornhole boards?’ Then… no. But it was still a good idea,” she added hastily.
“It helped me get out of my mental rut when it comes to planning these darn fundraisers. The whole thing is still very much in progress, but I’m making moves for the first time, and that feels good. ”
She almost added that Shane had helped her come up with the idea, but she paused, darting a glance at Eleanor, who had her head bent together with Cadence and Diana, still scheming up ways to help June and Benjamin as the week went on.
Winnie was just starting to get on firm ground with Eleanor, so she didn’t want to rock the boat by revealing that she had been spending time with her brother.
She wanted to get a little more information about how Eleanor would react, first. And she felt that it was probably best to have that conversation in private, not in front of the whole book club, just in case Eleanor wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea.
There was some part, however, that she could put before the group.
“Actually,” she said, raising her voice just a little, so the rest of the crew would know that she meant them too, “I wanted to get your feedback on something that I’m planning.”
The group looked a little surprised to see Winnie was the one seeking their attention, but there wasn’t anything resembling hostility in their gazes. Just curiosity, happiness, and encouragement.
Winnie told them about her carnival plan, explaining how this would help her hit the objectives of the historical society’s fundraising goals, particularly as pertained to bringing in new benefactors who might not otherwise know or care about the things that the society did.
She was gratified to see the dawning excitement on her friends’ faces. She thought briefly of Shane and his advice that she let others in. He’d been right, of course. This was scary, but it was working.
“So there will be all the interactivity that my boss wants,” she told her friends. “And it will be fun and games, but there will be an educational twist, which I’m hoping will lure in parents and kids.”
“Yeah, it sounds amazing,” Cadence said excitedly. “It reminds me of the fair scene in The Last Song.” This was a Nicholas Sparks book that the book club had read a few months prior. “But with learning. I’ll absolutely bring Izzy.”
This was her six-year-old daughter… and exactly the kind of audience that Winnie wanted to draw with this event.
“You think she’ll like it?” Winnie asked cautiously.
“Oh yeah.” Cadence was breezily confident. “And I think it’s the exact kind of thing that will help her remember what she learned. June would agree, I think, if she were here. I bet she’ll bring Benjamin too.”
Winnie did a celebratory dance in her seat, then froze, worrying that this was too dorky. But everyone was still looking at her with the same beaming excitement.
“Aah,” she cheered, giving in to her impulse. “Okay, this is amazing. Now, I’m going to pick your brains a little more. I want you to think of all the carnival games you can. I want to pair things as best I can with the history that makes the most sense.”
They were a book club so, naturally, this devolved quickly into a discussion of all the carnival scenes they’d read in books.
“Kiss an Angel takes place in a circus,” Miriam mused, referencing the Susan Elizabeth Phillips book that had been published decades prior.
Winnie hadn’t read it, but she knew that it was considered a classic among avid romance readers, of which Miriam was one of the most established.
“But that has perhaps a bit too much knife-throwing to apply to an educational carnival.”
“And a little too much hanky panky for a kid-friendly event,” Diana teased. Miriam was completely unabashed.
“Well, it’s still a very good book,” she said. “You should read it, Winnie.”
“Be careful, Winnie,” Cadence said. “Once you let Miriam recommend one book to you, she’ll have about thirty-seven more. And then a thousand after that.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” Miriam exclaimed, making everyone laugh.
The silliness eventually faded, and her friends came up with a list of ideas, both from books and from the carnivals they’d attended as a child.
Winnie whipped out her phone and began taking notes, thinking of the different ways she could pair the games with different stories from Magnolia Shore’s past. The town had been incorporated toward the end of the Colonial Era, and there had been, of course, Native American groups living in the area for centuries behind that.
There was a lot of history to draw from, and Winnie had ideas coming to her so quickly that she could barely keep up writing them down… or typing them down, as it happened.
“The great thing about having a colonial history,” she said as she typed, “is that a lot of the things they did in those days are super fun for kids in a carnival setting. Like even those hoop and stick games. Most modern kids wouldn’t want to play them on a random Tuesday, but call it a carnival, throw in a little prize, and they’re ready to party like it’s 1734. ”
Eleanor laughed so hard at this that she snorted, causing all her friends to look up at her in surprise.
“What?” she protested. “That was funny. You’re funny, Winnie.”
Winnie beamed. She might not feel like this was the best time to tell Eleanor about her…
thing with Shane. She might not even know what that thing with Shane was.
But she definitely still felt like she’d broken the ice with Eleanor…
with all of them, really. She had been brave and vulnerable and she was now reaping the benefits of it.
Winnie only made it as far as her parked car, her tray entirely empty of cupcakes, before she pulled out her phone again and shot off a text.
WINNIE: you were right.
The response came immediately.
SHANE: Obviously, I, like every reasonable person, am thrilled to hear this, but what am I right about?
Winnie bit her lip and grinned as she typed out her reply.
WINNIE: I gave people a chance to care. I let them in. It was scary, but it totally worked!
SHANE: I’m so happy! I knew you could do it!
It was only because Winnie was alone in her car that she let herself hug her phone tight to her chest, just for a moment, before she drove herself home. Not at one point during the journey did her smile fade from her face.