Chapter 5
HARRIET
The cake van pulls up at two, and I have never in my life been so happy to direct traffic.
"Tent, not the porch," I tell the balloon guy, and Heath catches my eye over a wall of gold Mylar and grins like we're getting away with something.
We are, a little. Getting away with it.
The caterers arrive next with enough chafing dishes to feed a small army, which is probably what Gram's eightieth requires. Heath hauls the heavier ones, shoulders shifting under his t-shirt, and I point them toward the long tables we've set up on the lawn facing the lake.
The afternoon has turned into a choreographed dance of suppliers and rentals and people asking me where things go, as if I have any more authority here than Heath does. But Gram disappeared an hour ago—probably napping before her own party—so Heath and I have become the de facto coordinators.
"String lights go on the tent poles," I tell the rental crew, and one of them waves a thumbs-up. "The extension cords are by the back door."
Heath appears at my elbow, close enough that his arm brushes mine. "You're enjoying this," he says, and there's laughter in his voice.
"I am not." But I am. Being useful, being in charge of something that actually matters to Gram, having Heath here as my partner in all of it—it's the kind of afternoon I didn't know I was allowed to want.
"You are. You're in full professor mode. Next you're going to start making charts."
"Charts would help. Do you see how that man is trying to hang lights from a tree branch that will not support them?"
Heath follows my gaze and sighs. "I'll handle it."
He lopes across the lawn to intercept the disaster, all easy stride and broad shoulders, and I watch him go with something fluttering warm in my chest. This partnership we've fallen into feels so natural it scares me.
The florist van pulls up next, and I wave them toward the tables. Gram wanted wildflowers in mason jars, nothing fancy, but there are dozens of arrangements and they need to be distributed just right. The woman in charge looks harried, so I grab one end of a flat of flowers and help her carry it.
"You're a lifesaver," she says. "Usually we get left to figure out placement ourselves."
"What you don't get is people who care whether it looks good." The jars are perfect—daisies and black-eyed Susans and something purple I don't recognize but love immediately.
Gram will be thrilled. She will scoff and probably purse her lips, but deep down, she'll love this.
Heath returns from his light-hanging intervention looking pleased with himself. "Crisis averted. Also, I may have volunteered us to help set up the sound system."
"Us?"
"You have steady hands. I have height and the ability to carry heavy things without dropping them."
"A compelling combination."
"We make a good team."
The way he says it, casual but not quite casual, makes my pulse skip. We do make a good team. Have been making a good team all weekend, in ways that have nothing to do with party logistics.
The sound system turns out to be more complicated than either of us anticipated, involving multiple trips to the house for extension cords and a brief argument with a speaker that refuses to cooperate. Out of frustration, I may have smacked the darn thing, and it somehow worked.
Huh.
Heath figures out the wiring while I untangle approximately seven miles of cable.
We finally get music playing—The Temptations, The Mamas & the Papas, and some Simon & Garfunkel because "anything else is just noise"—and he spins me around the lawn in a ridiculous little dance that makes me laugh until my sides hurt.
The way he's looking at me, eyes bright with mischief and something warmer, makes the world feel smaller and bigger at the same time. Like everything important is right here in this circle of his arms, and also like there's so much possibility stretching out ahead of us I can't see the edges.
More suppliers arrive—the rental company with extra chairs, someone delivering ice, a florist's assistant with a corsage for Gram.
Each time a van or truck pulls into the driveway, Heath and I exchange glances and fall into our rhythm.
I direct, he lifts, we both solve problems and share the small victories of getting everything right.
The suppliers often have to do a double take, but they're usually too starstruck to ask Heath for photos or autographs.
At some point, I'm arranging place settings at one of the long tables, focusing on getting the silverware aligned just so, when Heath appears beside me.
He glances around, checking the coast, and when he sees we're alone, he leans down and kisses me.
Quick, warm, and gone before I can properly react.
But my hands still on the fork I was holding, and I simply refuse to believe that Heath just kissed me in broad daylight where anyone can see. Me, the nerdy girl from high school, the boring academic researcher, the nobody.
"Heath."
"What?" He grins, completely unrepentant.
This is my life right now. Heath helping me set up my grandmother's birthday party, stealing kisses when no one's looking, grinning at me like we share secrets. It doesn't feel real. It feels like something I'm borrowing, something that belongs to a different version of myself.
But for this afternoon, this golden afternoon with suppliers coming and going and Heath at my elbow making everything easier, I let myself believe it might actually be mine.
The pastry delivery arrives at four-thirty, and I'm expecting the usual catering truck or unmarked van. Instead, a sleek white vehicle with "Cross Cakes" painted in elegant script across the side pulls into the driveway.
My stomach drops, but I ignore it. Penelope's family has run the bakery downtown for as long as I can remember. Of course Gram would order from them. It makes perfect sense.
Penelope herself climbs out of the driver's side, tall and effortlessly put-together in jeans and a white button-down that somehow looks intentionally casual rather than thrown-on. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail.
God, she's still so gorgeous.
She sees me across the lawn, and she waves and calls my name.
"Harriet! Oh my God, hi! I didn't know you were in town."
She sounds genuinely pleased to see me, which is its own small knife because it would be so much easier if I could dislike her.
But Penelope has always been like this—warm without calculation, the kind of person who makes sure nobody around her feels out of place.
She was never mean to anyone, never nasty.
Even now, even when every instinct I have is telling me to find an excuse to disappear, I can't resent her for simply existing.
"Hey, Penelope." I walk over as two young guys—her employees, presumably—start unloading an impressive array of desserts from the van. "This is beautiful work."
"Thanks. I took over from my parents last year, so this is actually my first time doing one of Gram's parties. I was so nervous I made backup cakes."
She laughs, and it's the same laugh I remember from high school—bright and unself-conscious.
"Gram will love everything," I tell her. "Where do you want the desserts set up?"
"Oh, wherever works. I defer to the experts."
She grins and turns toward the house, probably looking for Heath or Gram to ask about logistics. And that's when Heath emerges from the house and catches sight of Penelope, his whole face lighting up with a smile that stops me cold.
Bile rises from my stomach, and there's a sour taste in my mouth.
They move toward each other with the easy comfort of old friends. Penelope says something I can't hear from this distance, and Heath throws his head back and laughs, the sound carrying across the lawn.
Her hand lands on his arm as she talks, and he doesn't pull away. Doesn't even seem to notice. They stand close enough that their conversation is clearly private, clearly theirs. Even from thirty feet away, I can see how well they fit together. How right they look.
I tamp down the sudden flash of anger. Instead, I turn away and focus on directing the dessert setup, but the image of them talking burns behind my eyelids.
The memory hits without warning, sharp and unwelcome. The summer I worked at the bookstore downtown, the one that shared a wall with Cross Cakes. Thin walls, propped-open doors on hot days, and voices that carried more than they should have.
The scent of vanilla and cinnamon would drift through from the bakery, mixing with the musty smell of old paperbacks.
On slow afternoons, I'd shelve returns near the shared wall, half-listening to the muffled conversations next door.
Most of it was background noise—orders being placed, the hiss of the espresso machine, the cheerful chatter of customers.
But then I heard Penelope's voice, light and teasing, floating through the doorway like smoke. "Why are you so obsessed with me, Heath?"
The words made my hands still on the spine of whatever book I'd been holding.
And later, another day, when I'd been sorting inventory in the back corner. "You always know where to find me, even when school's out. I don't know if that's sweet or creepy."
That same playful cadence.
I filed those overheard fragments away without meaning to, the way you do with information that hurts but doesn't quite make sense yet. Evidence of something I wasn't supposed to witness. My chest tightened each time, a knot forming that I couldn't name or untangle.
Now I know what it was. Recognition, maybe. The sick understanding that I was hearing pieces of a story I'd never be part of.
Heath had been the golden boy in high school—football star, student body president, the guy every girl noticed and most of them wanted. And Penelope had been his perfect match. Cheerleading captain, homecoming queen, the kind of beautiful that made everyone else disappear by comparison.
Everyone assumed they'd end up together. It was the obvious pairing, the story that wrote itself.