She’s not overdressed, not showy—just…her. Soft sweater the color of late peaches, skirt that looks like it was cut from a cloud, and boots that could fight a hurricane. Her hair’s half up, the other half conspiring with the wind, and there’s a streak of flour on her wrist like she lost a fight with Daisy’s kitchen. She tips her head back to laugh again at something Lila says, and I have to fight the urge to walk into traffic just to reset my brain.
I’m moving before I tell myself to. The crowd parts on muscle memory. People say my name like we share a secret that’s not mine to keep. Ivy spots me first and grins like she’s emceeing fate.
“Wright,” she singsongs. “We were debating whether you’d last longer than the five minutes of hellos.”
“Lucky me, I made it ten,” I say, eyes on Bailey because lying is rude.
“Hi,” Bailey says, and the word settles like a landing I’ve been missing for years.
“Hi,” I say back, very sophisticated.
Ivy pops a caramel in her mouth. “God, I love being right in the middle of this.”
“Go sing to people,” Bailey tells her, even though we all know Ivy just finished up a worldwide tour.
“In thirty,” Ivy says. “In the meantime, we have a pie auction to rig.”
“Rig?” I echo.
“Strategically influence,” Lila corrects. “Don’t you want to raise money for the library roof?”
“Yes,” I say. “I also want to survive the evening without becoming a meme.”
“Impossible,” Ivy chirps. “Okay, lover boys and girls, to the gazebo. The auction’s starting.”
We shuffle toward the stage. I end up beside Bailey on the bottom step, our shoulders almost touching. The air is bright and cold and tastes like cinnamon and nerves. A kid runs past and smacks my thigh by accident. I catch him by the back of his hoodie and set him upright. His mom mouths, “Thank you,” like I did something heroic.
Onstage, the mayor taps a mic until it shrieks. I flinch. Bailey grins without looking at me.
“Nerves?” she murmurs.
“Just don’t like being told when to be loud,” I say.
Her mouth curves. “Same.”
The first pies go fast. People bid like it’s a sport, which here it is. Daisy’s triple-berry sparks a fight between two retired Coast Guard chiefs that ends with the mayor threatening to call their old CO. Holt auctions a Butter Bars monstrosity that shouldn’t exist and still goes for $110 because Coral Bell Cove has lost its mind.
“Next up,” the mayor crows, “a Wright family classic: Mom Wright’s pecan pie—baked under the supervision of her semi-competent sons!”
The crowd roars. Mom blushes. Lila screams her bid of twenty. The number rockets to seventy, then ninety, then a hundred and thirty because nostalgia is a drug.
I clap and do not think about microphones or expectations or the way people still want us to be fine in public, even when, in private, we are all lopsided. Then the mayor says my name, and I remember the thing about microphones.
“And now—” he booms, winking like a magician about to saw a volunteer in half. “A special lot. Donated byA Pagein Timeand our very own lighthouse lady: aLiterary Lovers’ Basket—rare romance hardcovers, handpicked by Bailey, and one private after-hours story hour for two at the lighthouse—tea and cookies included.”
The crowd oohs like it has rehearsed.
My ears ring. Beside me, Bailey goes very still and then very composed, like a cat deciding whether to panic in public.
She leans toward the mayor. “That’s not what I called it.”
“Artistic license,” he stage-whispers. “Roll with it.”
A man near the front yells, “Fifty!” and a woman from the boardwalk counterbids with “Seventy!” and suddenly, there’s a whole buffet of strangers trying to buy time in a room I’ve only just remembered how to breathe inside of.
Something territorial and irrational rises in me like a tide that didn’t check the schedule.
I do not like that feeling. I also do not ignore it.
