Chapter 11 #2
"It's more important than that," Delia says gravely. "This is about committee approval."
The door bursts open, and Finn stumbles in carrying what appears to be half of Giuseppe's restaurant.
"Food delivery!" he announces, dumping containers on the table. "Giuseppe made extra of everything."
"I stress-cook!" Giuseppe explains. "Today I stressed about love, so I made romantic pasta!"
"How is pasta romantic?" Holden asks, already reaching for a container.
"I whispered sweet nothings to it while it boiled," Giuseppe says earnestly.
"That's... disturbing," I say, but grab a fork anyway. Stress makes me hungry and committee meetings are basically concentrated stress.
"Now we can practice meal sharing!" Delia announces. "Holden, offer Wren a bite of your pasta."
"Seriously?" he asks.
"Gerald Thompson," Teddy warns darkly, wiggling his eyebrows for emphasis.
Holden sighs and twirls some pasta on his fork, then offers it to me. The pasta, however, has other plans. It slides off the fork and lands directly in my lap.
"Zero points," Delia announces.
"The pasta betrayed us!" I protest, dabbing at the sauce on my dress.
"Try again," she commands.
This time Holden successfully navigates the pasta to my mouth, but I somehow manage to bite his fork in a way that makes a sound like a garbage disposal meeting its nemesis.
"That was audible from here," June notes, scribbling furiously.
"My teeth are enthusiastic," I defend.
"One more time," Delia insists. "With feeling this time."
"Feeling?" Holden asks. "It's pasta, not Shakespeare."
"I once made pasta perform Hamlet," Giuseppe announces proudly. "Very moving death scene."
"Can we please focus on our pasta performance?" I interrupt stress-eating directly from the container now.
"You're supposed to share," Delia points out.
"We are sharing. We're sharing the experience of pasta-based anxiety," I say through a mouthful of carbs.
Holden reaches over and steals my fork, taking a bite from my container. "There. Shared. Gerald Thompson can deal with it."
"Don't tempt him. He might bite back," Teddy warns. "Remember the incident at the harvest festival?"
Several people shudder visibly.
"Why doesn't anyone talk about the harvest festival?" Holden asks.
"Legal reasons," June says vaguely.
"Everything in this town leads back to legal reasons," he observes.
"That's why I'm also the town lawyer," Mr. Jackson pipes up. "Job security!"
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. Reading it, I nearly choke on my pasta.
"What's wrong?" Holden asks immediately concerned.
"Malcolm Conway is coming to the gala," I manage.
"Who's Malcolm Conway?" he asks.
"Wren's ex," June supplies helpfully. "Very tall. Spectacular teeth. Owns a yacht."
"A yacht? In Vermont?" Holden asks.
"He keeps it in Connecticut. Takes women there for the weekend. Very impressive," Teddy explains.
"You've been on his yacht?" I ask Teddy.
"No, but I've heard stories. Maritime stories," he says dreamily.
"Why is your ex coming to the gala?" Holden asks, his voice hardening.
"To torture me, probably. He does that. Shows up at important events with whoever he's dating to prove he's won the breakup," I explain.
"Nobody wins a breakup," Finn says philosophically.
"Malcolm does. He has a scoring system," I say. "And a PowerPoint."
"I respect the PowerPoint," Delia admits grudgingly.
"Don't take his side!" I protest.
"I'm not taking sides. I'm acknowledging presentation skills," she clarifies.
"This changes things," Holden says quietly. "Your ex being there adds complexity."
"Complexity? It adds humiliation. He once gave a speech about my failures as a girlfriend. At my birthday party. With charts," I explain.
"Charts about what?" Giuseppe asks, fascinated.
"My inadequacies. He had metrics," I explain. "I scored very low in 'yacht appreciation' and 'cocktail party conversation.'"
"Those aren't real metrics," Holden says, his hand tensing in mine.
"They are if you make charts," I point out. "Charts make everything official. You should know that, Mr. Relationship Behavior Graphs."
"That's different," he protests. "My charts were for research."
"Malcolm's were for destruction," June adds. "Very effective destruction. Wren cried for a week."
"Thanks for that reminder," I mutter.
"We need a new strategy," Delia announces, pulling up a fresh slide titled "Ex-Boyfriend Countermeasures."
"Do you have a prepared slide for this?" I ask.
"I have prepared slides for everything," she says. "Page forty-three of the binder covers ex encounters."
"Of course it does," Holden mutters, flipping through the binder. "This is incredibly detailed. There are footnotes."
"And appendices," Delia adds proudly. "Appendix C covers maritime-themed humiliation specifically."
"Why maritime-themed?" I ask.
"The yacht," Finn explains.
"Right. The yacht," I sigh. "The stupid yacht with the stupid name."
"What's it called?" Holden asks.
"'Better Without You,'" I admit.
"He named his yacht after your breakup?" Holden asks, incredulous.
"He's very committed to winning," I explain.
"He sounds delightful," Holden says dryly. "Can't wait to meet him."
"We don't have to meet him. We can avoid him. The gala's big. We'll stay on opposite sides of the room at all times," I suggest desperately.
"The room is a circle," June points out.
"Then we'll... orbit differently," I try.
"That's not how circles work," Finn says.
"It could be!" I insist. "With enough determination!"
"FOCUS!" Delia commands, slapping the table. "The ex-boyfriend situation requires a tactical response. Holden, you'll need to be extra affectionate. Wren, you'll need to appear blissfully happy. Together, you'll need to project romantic superiority."
"Romantic superiority?" I repeat. "Is that measured?"
"Everything's measured in this town," Delia says darkly. "Everything."
"This gala sounds less like a party and more like a competitive sport," Holden observes.
"Welcome to Snowfall Creek," I say, patting his hand. "Where everything's a competition and the points don't matter but also totally matter."
"The points always matter," Delia corrects. "Which is why you're going to practice. Right now. Stand up."
"What? Why?" I protest.
"Dance practice. If Malcolm has one weakness, it's that he can't dance. Two left feet, possibly three," she explains.
"How can someone have three left feet?" Holden asks.
"There's no music," I point out.
"Giuseppe, hum something romantic," Delia commands.
Giuseppe immediately starts humming what might be "My Heart Will Go On" or possibly his grocery list set to music. It's genuinely hard to tell.
"This is ridiculous," I mutter, but stand anyway.
Holden pulls me into position with surprising grace. "Just follow my lead."
"You can dance?" I ask, shocked.
"Boarding school requirement. That and Latin. Both equally useless until now," he says, guiding me into a simple box step.
"Your hands know exactly where to go," I observe, then immediately regret my phrasing.
"That sounded different in your head, didn't it?" he asks, grinning.
"Shut up and dance," I mutter, very aware that everyone is watching us.
But then something shifts. Giuseppe's humming becomes actual singing—the words are definitely not from any song I recognize—and Holden spins me gently. Suddenly we're not practicing anything. We're just dancing in a community center while our friends watch.
"You're good at this," I tell him softly.
"You're easy to dance with," he replies, pulling me closer.
"Nine points!" Delia announces. "Deduction for Wren stepping on Holden's foot."
"That was one time!" I protest.
"Twice," Holden corrects. "But who's counting?"
"Delia. Delia is literally counting," I remind him.
"Meeting adjourned!" Delia suddenly announces. "Practice your synchronized walking on the way home. I'll be watching from my window."
"That's not creepy at all," Holden mutters.
As we file out, Finn pulls me aside. "You know this is crazy, right? The training regimen, the binders, the maritime-themed contingency plans?"
"Welcome to my life," I say.
"No, I mean... you two don't need any of this," he says, gesturing at Holden, who's now trapped in a conversation with Giuseppe about sentient bread. "You look at each other like..."
"Like what?" I ask.
"Like Malcolm and his stupid yacht don't matter. Like the committee doesn't matter. Like you've already won something nobody else knows is a prize," he says simply.
My heart does that thing where it forgets its basic job description. I watch Holden show something with his hands while Giuseppe takes notes, probably about bread consciousness.
"We're just really good at pretending," I say weakly.
"Sure," Finn agrees. "And Giuseppe's food is totally safe to eat."
Walking home, Delia does indeed watch from her window. She's got binoculars and what might be a clipboard.
"We're failing the walking test," I inform Holden.
"Want to really fail it?" he asks with a mischievous grin.
Before I can answer, he picks me up and carries me down the street.
"ZERO POINTS!" Delia shouts from her window. "THAT'S NOT WALKING!"
"It's synchronized not-walking!" Holden calls back.
I laugh so hard I nearly fall out of his arms. "She's going to fail us!"
"Worth it," he says, not even breathing hard. "Your face right now is worth every lost point."
Tomorrow there will be more training, more binders, more PowerPoints about our relationship metrics. Malcolm will show up with his yacht stories and his perfect teeth and probably a newer PowerPoint about my failures.
But right now, carried through snow while Delia shouts point deductions and Giuseppe sings, I realize something.
We're definitely going to fail the synchronized walking test.
And somehow, that feels exactly like winning.