Chapter 30 Amanda

Chapter 30

Amanda

I used to love parties, but this week, they’re the absolute bane of my existence.

Last night’s anniversary party was awkward.

Tonight’s party is even worse. On top of the questions about the wedding, I’m getting questions about where Dane and I will live with Grandma passing her share of the bakery to me.

Grandma hasn’t even made the announcement yet, but everyone knows it’s coming.

Fiftieth anniversary of taking over the bakery party.

No one believes that.

Everyone knows I’m the only one of her grandchildren here because she plans to name me as her successor.

Secrets in this town are apparently only well kept when they’re about why two families are feuding.

Grandma makes her rounds visiting with all her guests and making sure they’re enjoying their gingerbread and insisting that they enjoy the light appetizers and the wine bar too. Mom’s pulled in, too, doing much of the same.

But the deeper we get into the first hour of mingling, the more questions pop up about where Dane and I will live.

It gets overwhelming enough that I escape to the bathroom, feeling like a complete asshole for leaving Dane to handle the questions solo.

Lorelei follows me. She and her dad arrived not long after Grandma. “Are you okay?” she demands after checking all the stalls to make sure we’re alone.

“I don’t want to run the bakery,” I blurt.

“Duh. You belong in the city.” She visibly clamps her mouth shut like she’s keeping herself from asking which city, by the way?

“And I really wanted my grandma and your grandparents to get over this stupid fight before my wedding.” God, I hate lying to Lorelei.

She trusts us.

What will she think tomorrow? Will she figure out that we’ve been faking when we break up? Will she be brokenhearted that we’ve called it off?

Why can’t she see that we’re lying right now and give me some sign that she’s been going along with it for the good of Tinsel?

She wraps me in a tight hug. “There’s a reason you two have always been my two favorite people in the world, and everything you’ve done this week has cemented it. This will work out. I promise you, this will all work out, and you’ll be happy. I can feel it.”

Not. Helping. “I want to feel it, too, and tonight, I just can’t .”

“You’ll feel it tomorrow. Tomorrow is what matters.”

I suck in a heavy breath at the thought that tomorrow, Dane and I have to break up in just the right way to make sure our families don’t start arguing again, while knowing we’ll be breaking Lorelei’s heart probably almost as much as I’ll be breaking my own.

Which is not what I need to think about tonight.

I inhale again and get a hint of nutmeg and ginger on my bestie. “You smell nice.”

“I perfumed for the occasion.”

Lorelei doesn’t wear perfume. She’s allergic.

But she bakes.

She’s always baked.

The only reason she’s not involved in the fruitcake side of her family’s business is that she doesn’t like it.

“I wish you could take my place in the bakery,” I whisper, not even realizing how true it is until the words escape my lips.

But I do.

I wish she could take my place.

Especially if the recipe was originally her family’s.

She sucks in a heavy breath of her own. “I think that’s a stretch too far.”

“For you?”

“For our families.”

“Fuck our families,” I grumble.

She laughs. “Next week. For now, let’s pretend we’re all very happy for our families.”

We take a few minutes where I ask Lorelei if she knows anything about Esme possibly having a crush on my brother back in high school—she swears she knows nothing—before we emerge from the bathroom to return to the party.

I instantly wish we’d stayed inside.

The party is breaking out in pandemonium.

Why?

Because Dane and Lorelei’s grandparents have arrived.

And my grandmother is not happy about it.

“I said, you are welcome to leave ,” Grandma says loudly.

Not that she has to speak loudly.

No one else is saying a word while they have a stare-down in the middle of the room.

“We’re here to make amends at the request of our grandson,” Dane’s grandpa says.

“You’re here to look like you’re making amends,” Grandma replies. “I know this game. Look like the bigger person while someone else is out putting salt in my gas tank.”

Dane slips to my side.

He looks as weary as I feel.

“Could you quit being a suspicious ass for one minute for the sake of someone else?” Dane’s grandmother snaps.

“Could you quit acting like I’m the problem here?” Grandma snaps back.

“You are the problem.”

“This is my party . I didn’t interrupt yours, did I? No. No, I didn’t.”

“Maybe it’s good to let them get it out before the wedding?” Lorelei murmurs.

“And don’t even think about passing gas in here,” Grandma adds to Mr. Silver.

“ He does not have gas, you hussy ,” Mrs. Silver screeches. “That was your husband! He always tooted in the market!”

Dane and Lorelei’s father and uncle both hustle over to the Silver grandparents while Mom leaps between them. “Vicki. Let’s go get a drink and take a deep breath. This isn’t worth making a scene.”

“ They’re making a scene.”

“No offense, Amanda, but I don’t think it’s my grandparents making a scene,” Lorelei murmurs.

“No offense taken. I don’t think you’re wrong.”

“We should sign them up for a reality TV show,” Esme says from Dane’s other side. “ Old People Fighting over Stupid Shit. It would be a train wreck and it would make millions.”

“Mom, Dad, maybe we should go,” Dane’s dad says.

“ We were invited ,” Dane’s grandma snarls.

And suddenly, I can’t take it anymore. “ Enough ,” I snap.

Every eyeball in the room turns to stare at me.

“That’s. Enough,” I repeat.

Dane squeezes my hand.

“We’re not actually engaged,” my mouth says before my brain can stop it.

Exclamations of surprise go up around the room.

Dane jerks a look at me.

I squeeze his hand tighter. I don’t want to let go.

But I’ve started this and now I can’t stop it.

“I made it up,” I tell the entire community gathered here. “I made up the whole lie about being engaged to a Silver because I don’t want to move home and make the Gingerbread House my whole life. I have a life and a community and a job I love in New York. And a play. I wrote a freaking play and we revitalized our community theater to put it on.”

I need to shut up.

I need to stop talking.

But Dane squeezes my hand, a quiet I’ve got your back , and more comes tumbling out of my mouth. “When I told Dane, he agreed to go along with it because he hates how much our families fight, and because he knows Lorelei is one of my favorite people in the entire world and he just wanted us to be able to go to dinner without having to sneak around for fear of making any of our elders upset. And that’s so fucking stupid .”

“Amanda,” my grandmother whispers.

It’s so quiet in here.

So quiet.

“Your grandfather stole our family’s secret gingerbread recipe from the Silvers,” I say. “He was engaged to Dane’s great-great-grandmother, but he dumped her because he said he was tricked, and he refused to give the dowry back. The dowry was the gingerbread recipe. Everything we’ve built our family fortune on started with a recipe that was a stolen dowry.”

“ Amanda ,” Grandma says stronger.

“Ooohhhhh, that makes so much sense,” someone in the crowd says. Winona. The town historian. “All of those letters ...”

“Great-great-great-however-many-times Lucy saying that she couldn’t send it again because her mom had been struck with the fever and wasn’t lucid,” Esme whispers. “She couldn’t recite the recipe again.”

“I can’t find the recipe to prove it, but the handwriting matches,” I say. “I know the handwriting matches.”

It does.

I’m not making that up.

Why would I make up something that would hurt my family?

Grandma Vicki gapes at me.

I can’t give up my grip on Dane’s hand.

This is it. I’ve ruined it all. It’s over.

And I can’t let go of his hand.

I don’t want to let go of his hand.

At the same time, I can’t bring myself to look at him.

I got us into this with my big mouth.

And now I’ve ended it with my big mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I add in a whisper.

I don’t know if I’m apologizing to Dane or to Grandma or to my mom or to the entire Silver family on behalf of what my family did to them.

I just know I’m sorry.

So, so sorry.

“You faked being engaged so that we’d get along with the Andersons?” Rob says.

“Without a single regret,” Dane answers. “I’m done being a pawn in your feud. Find something else to brag about or shut the hell up.”

He’s not trying to shake me off. Not trying to get away from me.

“You promised no tragedies,” Mr. Briggs says.

“That’s in our family’s hands now,” Dane replies. “But as for my generation, the Silvers are completely good with the Andersons. This feud ends with us.”

My eyes water. My throat threatens to close in on itself.

He’s a good man.

Doing the right thing for all the right reasons.

The community center door bangs open, and one of the daytime Gingerbread House staff comes dashing in, wearing an apron and a hairnet.

“I found it!” she shrieks. “ I found the engagement ring in a ball of dough! And look at it—the mixer didn’t mess it up a single bit.”

She lifts the ring, making it sparkle in the light.

My breath catches in my throat.

The mixer didn’t mess it up.

I look at Grandma.

She stares back at me with the guiltiest of guilty expressions on her face as her entire complexion goes paler than real winter snow.

“Amanda,” she starts, and then she clutches her chest.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I say. “You are not pulling that again.”

“Sincerely, Vicki, don’t do this,” Mom says, quieter, but everyone can hear her.

“I didn’t want—” Grandma starts, but she doesn’t finish.

And that’s when I start to realize she might not be faking it this time.

What’s whiter than snow? That’s Grandma’s face. Her breathing is rapidly growing labored, and she’s reaching for one of the tables for support.

Mr. Briggs leaps to her side and holds her while she slumps against him, gasping. “Someone call 911,” he says. “I think this one’s real.”