At noon, Angela Healey came up to the booth. Evelyn hid a grin as Blake stared at her, his eyes wide.
“Uh, wow. Angela, you look… uh… nice.” Blake kept staring.
Emily jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “Really smooth, cuz.”
“Hi, Blake. Emily. Mrs. Carlson.” Angela’s face flushed a rosy blush color.
“Blake, why don’t you go ahead and walk around with Angela? Livy will be here soon to help us.”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine. Go.” Emily grinned.
“Uh… okay.” Blake walked out of the booth. “So, you ready?” he asked Angela, still staring at her with a bit of an awestruck look on his face.
“Yes.” Angela’s cheeks darkened a bright red.
“Go. Have fun,” Emily said.
The pair walked off into the crowd. Emily turned to Evelyn. “Boys are so silly sometimes, aren’t they?”
She laughed. “They can be.”
“I thought he was going to keel over when he saw her. She looked great, didn’t she?”
“Livy said you took her shopping?”
“I did. Had the best time.”
“She looked very pretty.”
Just then Livy and Heather came walking up. Heather stared off after Blake and Angela with a smile on her face.
“Your reinforcements are here,” Livy said, coming around the back of the booth with Evelyn and Emily.
Heather finally tore her gaze from Blake and Angela and joined them behind the booth. “I told Livy I’d help her here this afternoon. Mom, you should take some time to walk around the festival.”
“Oh, I couldn’t leave.”
“Yes, you could,” Livy insisted. She placed her hands on Evelyn’s shoulders and turned her around, tugging at the apron ties at the back of her waist.
“But…”
“Look, here’s Rob and Violet.” Livy turned her around again and smiled, lifting the apron from around Evelyn’s neck. “Rob, I was just saying that Evelyn should take a break and go walk around the festival. You guys could go over to the picnic basket auction. It starts at twelve-thirty.”
“What’s that?” Rob’s forehead crinkled in confusion.
“They auction off picnic baskets. It’s for charity. Evelyn has a basket entered in it. Whoever wins the bid on her basket has a picnic lunch with her.”
“You do?” He turned to her.
“Yes.” Of course she did. It was for a good cause. She’d planned on popping over there at the end of the auction and hoping that whoever won her basket would do a quick picnic break with her so she could get back to the booth.
“And take your time. Go see the sandcastles, too.”
Livy was making it hard to say no. Especially since she stole her apron.
“What do you say, Evelyn? Should we head over there?”
She nodded, unable to come up with any reason not to. And it might be fun to see the bidding…
