Chapter 10
“What about this one?” Mom pulled a deep blue dress out of her closet and held up the hanger. It was a one-shoulder piece with a flutter cap that matched a swath of draped fabric at one hip. When she shifted it, it sparkled subtly.
Preparing the dessert for the mayor’s party had been a more intense process than I’d expected, which meant I’d had no time to stop at the thrift store for other options. I hadn’t even had time to tweak my cookie recipe at the sugar shack like I’d planned to do.
I’d already taken everything to Town Hall, and now I had an hour and a half before the party started.
“When’d you get that?” I asked. I’d never seen the dress before.
“Oh, about…thirty years ago?” Smiling, Mom brought it over, pulling it from the hanger. “Thankfully, the ‘90s are cool again, right? This will look great with your hair. Archer will love it.” She winked as she handed it to me.
I shot her a look and stepped into the closet to try on the dress. “We’ve been over this. So many times. Archer and I have no interest in each other.”
“And yet, you’re going on a date.”
I pulled off my jeans. “I’m forcing him to socialize—and there’s someone he’s interested in that’ll be there.”
Mom made a disappointed noise. So far, Ryan was the only one of her kids who’d successfully fled the coop and given her a grandchild.
I stepped out of the closet, tugging at the tight fabric around my hips. “You were a lot skinnier than I am.”
She didn’t even respond. She just smiled and looked me up and down. “It’s perfect.”
I wouldn’t go quite that far. Nineties fashion might have made a comeback—I wasn’t really the one to ask about fashion—but this dress had a distinctively vintage vibe to it.
The sparkle detail wasn’t totally intact, and the elastic-y fabric was a bit too elastic-y in places where it had started to break down. Mom must’ve worn it a lot. Like, a lot.
But short of wearing Levis or my bakery apron, it was all I had.
“Ryan said you’ve been working at the maple farm.” Mom’s voice was nonchalant as she went through her shoes. Too nonchalant.
“Yeah,” I said. “Mrs. Keller’s daughter gets into town tonight, so I’ll be working fewer hours there during the season. We figured it’d be a good way for me to earn some more money while helping the farm.”
That we was a bit deceptive, but the memory of the altercation between Mom and May Carver in the grocery store had prompted me to use it.
“Hm.”
I should probably have mentioned that working at the farm also included working with James, but I hadn’t even talked to Ryan about that yet, and I felt like he should be the first to know.
Wade came in, Mia in his arms, Rusty panting happily at his heels. Ryan and Lily were out on a date, so Mom and Dad had offered to babysit.
Mia’s eyes went wide at the sight of me. “You look like a pwincess, Aunt Sadie!”
I laughed. “Did Uncle Wade tell you to say that?”
She shook her head. “He told me to say you smell bad.”
I shot him a look. He was wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and a suit jacket.
“I would never say that,” he said with fake innocence.
“Please tell me I can count on your students helping at the party tonight.”
Wade narrowed his eyes as Mia wriggled out of his arms to join her grandma in the closet. “Let’s see…you’ll have Diego and Kayla and Zoey. Oh”—he grimaced slightly—“and Ethan. He’s the one to watch out for.”
I groaned. “I don’t have time to babysit, Wade. I thought these were star students who volunteered.”
“The other three are. Ethan was…voluntold. He got in some trouble last week and is doing community service as penance.”
“Couldn’t he do that community service when my job isn’t on the line?”
“It’ll be fine,” Wade insisted. “He knows what’s expected, and I’ll be there to lay down the law if you really need me to.”
I grimaced but got a call from Archer right then, which I immediately answered, ready to hear some lame excuse for why he couldn’t make it tonight. I was prepared to remind him that he’d receive zero maple bars if he didn’t go.
I was wrong, though. He just wanted to ask where to pick me up.
With my dress chosen, it was time for hair and makeup.
Neither of those were my strong suit—I wasn’t sure I had a strong suit when it came to feminine things.
I’d experimented over the years with foundation, but it had never sat quite right.
It either didn’t quite cover my freckles, making them look like fading acne scars, or it erased them entirely, making me look like a ghost.
I settled for some mascara and light eyeliner, using some concealer on the light bruising from my sneeze.
I did my best to pin my curls up near my crown, using a Google image result from quick easy elegant up-do for natural curls and bangs.
The result was my using almost an entire sleeve of bobby pins.
I wouldn’t call the outcome elegant, and it certainly hadn’t felt quick or easy—twisting my bangs back into something orderly might’ve been the hardest thing I’d ever done—but it did look fancier than my go-to ponytail or braid.
It wasn’t like I was trying to impress anyone.
The party would be made up almost entirely of Autumn Ridge residents—people who knew me in my natural habitat: a hairnet over my head and a generous dusting of flour on my face and clothes.
Archer picked me up ten minutes later. He did not come to the door, which lost him some points in Mom’s book. I didn’t tell her I’d warned him against a porch pickup.
When I’d dropped off the dessert fixings earlier, Town Hall was still being decorated. A lot had happened since then, and the building had been transformed from its usual boring white.
“Why are you smiling?” Archer asked.
I cleared my throat, shoving away the image of James calling my cookies boring. Why had it made me smile in the first place? Unclear. “It looks so much better than usual.”
Golden balloons covered the ceiling and walls, while bright yellow flowers sat in the middle of round tables draped in black cloth.
I told Archer to find us a seat—“Not in the back! And save seats for Wade and Ari!”—then ducked into the kitchen to make sure nothing had happened to the precious dessert fixings.
The cheesecake was safe inside the fridge and the two bottles of glaze next to it.
I pulled out the glaze to give it time to come to room temperature so it’d be easier to work with.
After a quick chat with Liv Rawlins, I rejoined Archer, Wade, and Ari just as the food was being served.
The tables had filled, making the room a who’s who of Autumn Ridge. In a town as small as ours, pretty much everyone was a who.
As we gorged ourselves on steak, mashed potatoes, and asparagus, I attempted to force Archer to acknowledge that the food alone had made our attendance worthwhile. He responded with a distracted affirmative answer.
I followed his gaze and smiled when I realized what had gotten him that way.
Juliet Monroe, the mayor’s daughter, was sitting a few tables away.
I cleared my throat—to no effect. “Too bad there are absolutely no pretty or interesting single women here tonight…”
“Yeah…” he mumbled, still not paying attention.
I thought about jabbing him with my elbow but decided against it when I saw a couple of Wade’s students walk in. I glanced at Wade, but he was too busy flirting up a storm with Ari. It was…a lot, honestly.
A good time for me to do some prep work with the students.
I scooted my chair out. “I’ll be right back.”
It took a few minutes for me to brief Wade’s students on what they’d need to do, and then Ethan walked in late, so I had to start over.
Just as I was finishing round two, one of the caterers asked the students if they wanted some dinner, since there was plenty.
Anything I still needed to say was drowned out by nearly audible teenage salivation, so I told them I’d be back in fifteen minutes to start the prep.
I weaved my way through the tables toward Archer but winked at him and made a U-turn when I saw him with Juliet. Atta boy.
I looked around to see how many people were still eating.
Most, but I had a feeling the dessert service would creep up on me faster than I wanted it to.
I might as well get started. Heaven knew it had been difficult enough for Mrs. Keller to leave the evening to me—she was picking up her daughter from the airport.
I had to make sure the dessert left a good taste in everyone’s mouths, literally and figuratively.
I headed back to the prep area, where the students were finishing up their plates of food.
“Once you’re done,” I said, “go ahead and put your dirty plates in the sink, then we’ll get an assembly line going. Once the cheesecake is cut, it needs to be plated, then I’ll do the glazing and let you know when we’re ready to start serving.”
Glazing was the step that required the most artistry, and Mrs. Keller would want photo evidence of the dessert presentation.
She’d been highly opposed to allowing high school students near anything associated with the bakery.
Only my firm assurances that they would be minimally involved and the realization that we’d have to refuse the event otherwise had led to her relenting.
Ethan scarfed down the last bits of his food as I handed the cheesecakes into the hands of the other three, one by one.
“So good,” he said through a full mouth as he slipped his plate onto the other dirty ones.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” I said as I grabbed for the two squeeze containers of glaze. “Would you bring the dessert plates from that far cupboard?” I stopped, frowning, then looked around. “Where’s the other glaze?”
Ethan was stacking his arms full of dessert plates—way too high—but he stopped.
“Is this it?” Diego asked, picking up a bottle by the sink.
Once upon a time twenty minutes ago, it had been full. Now there was about a quarter of it left.
My heart hammered. “What? What happened?”
All three of the honor roll students’ eyes went to Ethan.