Chapter 32 Amanda

Chapter 32

Amanda

The rest of the town might be in quite the festive mood, but my heart is hollow tonight.

Not because of Grandma.

She’ll be okay.

She’s retiring immediately, no questions. She had stupidly high blood pressure when she got to the hospital last night, and she’ll be monitored by her doctor regularly while they figure out what happened.

But the bigger point is, she’ll be okay.

I apologized for lying to her. She said apologies were unnecessary between family, and that was that.

It feels . . . incomplete.

But that’s not my biggest heartache tonight.

My biggest heartache is wrapped around all the little reminders that Dane left.

He and Chili went back to San Francisco.

Work emergency is what Lorelei told me when I left Grandma’s room and found her in the hospital waiting room solo. He texted himself and said something had come up and he had to get back ASAP.

He also promised we’d stay in touch, but there’s this lingering question of how much of what I felt was real, and how much was all an act , and it has me forcing every smile at what was to be my wedding reception on a beautiful evening in Reindeer Square.

Not that Tinsel needs a reason to celebrate, but everyone insisted on keeping the party in honor of us mending the feud between our families.

It’s not fully mended—my grandmother has some apologizing to do to people outside of our family, and I suspect Dane’s grandparents could own up to a few things with a sincere sorry as well.

But my mom is chatting with Dane and Lorelei’s dad and uncle over a plateful of food from the potluck tables. My uncle and one of my cousins flew in, and they’re talking to Esme’s husband while watching Jojo on the play set at the edge of the park.

Grandma is here too. I can’t look at her without picturing her being loaded up onto the stretcher and into an ambulance last night.

It sucks that you can be trying to do the right thing and still feel so guilty about it.

“You two were so cute together,” Pia says to me over an amaretto sour while we linger on the grass between the gazebo and the food tables. The owners of Holly & Mistletoe insisted on setting up a bar for the party, and they insisted on amaretto sours as the drink of the evening.

In honor of the sweet-and-sour nature of my relationship with Dane.

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I’m irrationally angry at the implication that Dane was the sour one in our relationship.

I know it’s supposed to be an opposites-attract homage, not a true sweet-and-sour thing, but I’m still put out.

“Dane is a very good man,” I tell Pia. “The absolute best. He’s even better than your cake, and you know how much I love your cake.”

The cake that’s displayed inside the gazebo, waiting for someone to cut it.

Probably me.

But I don’t want to cut it. It’s not truly my cake.

It’s the town’s cake now.

Maybe the mayor can cut it. Or Lorelei. Or Pia herself.

“I wish you’d been for real,” Esme says. “The way he smiled at you— swoon . How could anyone not want you to be happy together?”

“Lorelei has always been one of my favorite people. It makes sense that her brother would be, too, once I got to know him.” The words sound hollow to me.

He’s so much more than one of my favorite people.

He’s someone who made me believe that there could be someone out in this world who could love me in all my flighty, unpredictable glory. When I told him about my play—all I felt was support. Belief. Pride.

“What I want to know is whose idea it was,” Mrs. Briggs says as she joins us, also carrying a plate overflowing with food from the potluck tables.

I spot the sausage balls that the mayor brings to everything—the sausage balls that have been my second favorite after fruitcake my entire life—and the sight of them does nothing but turn my stomach.

The sight of the fruitcake did the same.

I think I hurt Dane.

I don’t know exactly how, but I think I did, and I want to fix it and I have no idea if he’d let me try.

“It was my fault,” I tell Mrs. Briggs. “I didn’t know how to tell my grandma that I didn’t want to work at the Gingerbread House, so instead of telling her the truth, I made up a fake fiancé. Dumb, right?”

“I’d say it was brilliant,” Esme says with a sweep of her arm, indicating the party where Grandma and the eldest Silver generation keep eyeing each other across the square.

I shake my head. “That wasn’t me. The brilliant part was when I told Dane and he insisted we keep up the act. For exactly this reason.”

Which he’s not here to see.

Because he’s hiding from me?

I shake my head, pull out my phone, and snap a few pictures, then text them to him. It’s what a friend would do, right?

Good job, partner. The whole town turned out to celebrate the end of The Great Silver-Anderson War.

It doesn’t show as immediately read, so I pocket my phone again.

Maybe he really did have a work emergency.

Maybe he’s tied up.

He doesn’t owe me anything. We didn’t have a real relationship.

But it certainly felt real to me.

“You were behind the letters,” I say to Esme. “How long did you have them?”

She blushes. “I first saw them in high school, but when I heard that you two were engaged, I decided it was time to share what I knew. But I couldn’t do it openly without pissing off my dad at first.”

“You knew the whole story?”

She shakes her head. “The letters never said what the dowry was. I assumed it was something like a lock of an ancestor’s hair or the confession of our serial killer great-great-however-many-times-grandfather or uncle or whatever he was.”

“You have a serial killer in your family tree?” Mrs. Briggs says reverently.

“Family secret. But since we’re airing family secrets ...”

“Dane told my mom and grandma,” I tell them. “Mom had just listened to a podcast about him. And speaking of secrets ... I got a fascinating text message from Ben this morning.”

Esme smiles. “We were young and idealistic, more in love with the idea of doing what you just did than we were into each other for real. I’m glad he found someone who makes him happy.”

“I’m glad you both did. And that you did all the heavy lifting to help solve the mystery of why our families fought in the first place.”

Winona slides into our group. “Amanda. Have a minute?”

I nod and excuse myself from Pia and Esme and Mrs. Briggs. “What’s up?” I ask Winona as she leads me into the gazebo.

“I have a confession.”

Two weeks ago, I would’ve been frothing at the mouth with excitement over the idea of one more confession in a string of tumbling truths.

Right now, though, I’m bracing myself. “Yes?”

“I might have latent talents related to guilt and manipulation.”

What would Dane say to that? I open my mouth, then slowly close it again.

Winona grins. “That’s code for I convinced your grandmother to give me her gingerbread recipe in the name of the town records .”

My mouth opens again, and this time, I hear myself making an inhuman choking sound.

There’s no way Grandma gave up the original recipe.

Zero.

Chance.

None.

Winona smirks. “She gave me the recipe and the gingerbread candles that she says have been used in family rituals for generations.”

I squeak.

“I think what you did this past week made a huge impact on her.” Winona squeezes my arm. “What you did this past week made a huge impact on all of us. Mrs. Briggs is donating the dress you were going to wear to the historical society, and Dane gave me the ring before he left too. We’re putting together a display at city hall to commemorate the end of the feud. With the letters and the recipe too. The handwriting matches, by the way. You were correct. The gingerbread recipe was to be Dane’s great-great-grandmother’s dowry. It was her grandmother’s recipe, only written down one time before the poor thing succumbed to a fever and passed away.”

My eyes water.

I’m so tired of being a Weepy McWeepy-Face.

But I’m also so glad that it worked.

That Dane and I accomplished the impossible. And in a week, no less.

“Do you think they’ll stay at peace?” I ask Winona.

“They’ll have to,” Lorelei says as she joins us inside the gazebo. “Your mom just asked me if I’d be interested in joining the bakery staff.”

I look at my hometown BFF, take in the implications of what she’s just said, and burst into full sobs.

“Oh my god, don’t cry.” Lorelei smothers me in a hug. “I’ll tell her no if you changed your mind and you want it instead! Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

“Just—so—happy,” I sob.

She pats my back and keeps hugging me. “I’ve ... never seen you ... happy ... like this.”

“So happy,” I insist.

I am.

Lorelei should join the bakery. She loves to bake. It was her family’s recipe. She’s always been a sister of my heart.

She belongs there.

I’m thrilled that my mom is willing to recognize it.

Provided Mom’s also willing to make everything fully right, considering the stolen recipe.

“Are you sure this is happy?” Lorelei says.

“Amanda, honey, what’s wrong?” Mom rushes into the gazebo and pets my hair. “Sweetie, what happened?”

“I love Lorelei,” I wail. “So—happy—for all—of us.”

“This is ... happy?” Mom asks dubiously.

“Furiously . . . hic! . . . happy!”

Dammit.

Dammit.

I’m crying so hard I have the hiccups.

My thighs shake. My belly grumbles. My heart—

My heart is being pulled in so many different directions.

Happiness for Lorelei and Mom and the Gingerbread House. Relief that I haven’t been disowned. Lingering irritation with my grandmother for all the times she faked heart attacks, making me doubt a true medical emergency, and gratitude that she seems to be turning a corner, willing to face that this long-standing feud might have been our family’s fault. Utter misery for being alone at what was supposed to be my wedding.

But it wasn’t real.

None of it was real.

I know this, and yet—“But I—miss—Dane,” I gasp out.

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom whispers.

“He’s such—a good—man.”

“He’s the absolute best,” Lorelei agrees.

“I think—I—love him.”

Lorelei squeals a short squeal, like she’s reining it in, while she hugs me tighter.

“And he’s—gone,” I finish on a desperate, sad sob.

“He’s not gone ,” Mom says firmly. “He’s just in another place. Physically.”

“He had such a crush on you in high school,” Lorelei says.

“I know.” I hiccup. “Kind of. He— hic! —told me.”

“And the way he looked at you this past week ...,” Mom says.

“But he left .”

Lorelei heaves a sigh and releases the hug, but grips me by the arms and holds me so she can stare me square in the eye. “Amanda. You’re Amanda Fucking Anderson . Do you have any idea how intimidating it is to like you?”

“I don’t mean to be intimidating.”

I don’t. But I know when I’m home, I feel like that girl who was always the best actress on the stage, universally loved by all the shopkeepers and former teachers and postal workers.

And while Dane never said he still feels like the band geek, and while he clearly has more confidence, he’s also quieter and more reserved than I am.

We are vastly different people.

And I absolutely adore every bit of him exactly as he is.

“This past week was a lot for both of you,” Lorelei says. “But it’s not too late to see what things would be like for you in normal times.”

“I wouldn’t have truly supported you marrying a serial killer,” Mom says. “But it was so obvious how much you liked him.”

“Was it?” I swipe at my eyes.

“ Yes ,” they reply in unison.

“And don’t get me started on how obvious it was that he still thinks you painted the stars in the sky,” Lorelei says. “He was always on edge when he was dating Vanessa. Like he was waiting for the next bad thing to happen. But this past week—he was so happy. Like he found where he belonged. He has a quiet kind of happy—it’s not a big happy, you know?—but he was happy. I could tell.”

And now I’m crying again.

“ Amanda ,” Mrs. Briggs hisses from just outside the gazebo. “Honey, I don’t know what’s wrong, but you need to see this. Look. All of you. Just look.”

She points to three people standing near the start of the potluck line.

My grandma.

Dane’s grandparents.

All going for food at the same time.

“She better be getting a fucking salad,” Mom mutters.

Lorelei stifles a whimper of amusement and hooks her arm through mine as we watch my grandmother extend a hand to her grandfather.

There’s definitely wariness in the way Grandma’s holding herself. I can see it in Mrs. Silver too. Hesitancy. Caution.

But a willingness to still shake my grandma’s hand too.

“You did it,” Lorelei whispers.

“ We did it,” I correct, my voice thick as I try to suppress even more tears. “Because Dane thought it would work. And he was right.”

My phone dings in my pocket.

I absently pull it out as I keep watching the stiff conversation happening between our grandparents.

But when my gaze snags on Dane’s name with a text message alert, I instantly swipe my phone open and hungrily read his message.

Success all around. Great job. Wish I was there to see it.

He’s attached a picture of our grandparents from another angle.

I look around, searching for him, but I can’t find him.

He’s not here. He’s not waiting behind a bush to surprise me and ask me to be his girlfriend and give this a shot for real.

I see Esme’s husband tucking his phone back into his pocket, though.

Oh.

Oh.

If it wasn’t Esme’s husband sending him the photo, someone here likely did.

Gossip spreads like wildfire, and geographical separation is no match for cell phones.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper.

“Can’t do what, sweetie?” Mom asks.

“I can’t not go talk to him. I have to. I have to go see him. I want to know—I want to know if we can work.”

Lorelei squeals and hugs me again.

Applause breaks out among the townspeople gathered in the square.

I know they’re not clapping for me. I know they’re clapping for my grandma and the Silvers’ grandparents attempting to make up.

But it gives me more determination anyway.

I want to date Dane Silver.

And I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to him that I mean it.