He looked at the table.
Willa was laughing at something Margo had just said, her head tipped back slightly, the tension of the morning briefly and entirely gone from her face. Grace and Becky were following Katey and Zoe back to the table where Dean was. Andy was explaining something to Tyler in what looked like great detail.
Ace stood watching for a few moments and swallowed. His heart felt even heavier as he took out his phone, found Sienna’s number, and hit call.
16
WILLA
The campground felt different once the chairs were gone.
Willa worked alongside Margo at the food tables, stacking empty platters and folding the white linen covers that had been pressed and arranged so carefully that morning. Around them, a small team of volunteers was dismantling the seating rows and returning the grounds to their ordinary state. The sound of it, the scrape of chairs and the low voices alongside the occasional burst of laughter from the teenagers still gathered near the treeline, was the particular sound of a community that had done something hard together and was finding its way back to the ordinary afternoon on the other side of it.
Willa glanced toward where Grace was helping Harvey coil extension cords with the focused, methodical attention she brought to practical tasks. Beside Harvey, Penny was handing him cable ties from an open box, and the two of them were talking with an ease that Willa hadn’t noticed between them before today.
She frowned slightly.
Mina had said something at one of the earlier meetings to Harvey about Penny being a far more suitable match for him than Sienna. Willa hadn’t thought much of it at the time. She filed it away now, intending to speak to Mina when the opportunity arose. Mina didn’t say things like that without a reason, and Willa wanted to know why she didn’t like or trust Sienna.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Margo observed from beside her, folding a linen cover into thirds with practiced efficiency.
“I’m thinking,” Willa replied.
“About Ace,” Margo said. It wasn’t a question.
Willa didn’t answer immediately. She stacked another platter and looked across the emptying campground to the spot where the table had been, where they’d all sat together after the ceremony with pie, coffee, and the particular, fragile relief of a day that had gone the way it was supposed to go.
Ace had come back from the phone call he’d mysteriously taken as a different person.
Willa had noticed the difference in him the moment he’d returned to the table. There was a shift in Ace, the way he’d settled back into his chair with a quality of distance that hadn’t been there before. He’d said the right things and responded when spoken to, but he’d been elsewhere in some way she couldn’t quite put a finger on. When Willa asked him to come to dinner that evening, after mentioning that Margo was bringing the leftovers and everyone was coming back to hers, he had turned her down. Quite abruptly, and it had cut through her as he’d so carelessly said he had other plans. After that, he’d left without the usual,I’ll call you later.Ace had just gotten up, saidthanks for the ceremony, and didn’t even check if she had a lift back, as he’d brought her to the memorial. He’d just left!
Ginny had wondered aloud whether Ace might have gotten some bad news about his grandmother in Miami. Margo had suggested an unexpected air cargo run. Both of them had offered their theories with the careful kindness of people who understood that something had shifted and weren’t sure how to account for it, while being mindful of Willa’s feelings.
She had said nothing. All Willa had done was fake-smile, hoping it looked real, and agree with both possibilities. She’d been so relieved when it was time to clean up the grounds, she’d nearly knocked her chair over to get up and start working. Anything to keep Willa’s mind off why Ace had suddenly just gone so cold. He’d never in all the years she’d known him done that. Even after she’d abruptly walked away from him when Ace had admitted he had feelings for her in the cave, he had never been so cold and aloof.
Willa was helping Margo pack up the leftover food, pies, and snacks when Sienna appeared at the end of the refreshments table.
Sienna looked at the remaining pies, then at Margo, with the expression of someone who had decided in advance how this interaction would go.
“Do you have a caramel pie left?” Sienna asked Margo pleasantly, knowing full well there were three left and were right there in front of her. “I’d love to buy one. Ace is coming over for dinner tonight, and it’s his favorite.”
The words were aimed at Willa as directly as a thrown object, and Sienna made no effort to disguise it. Her eyes moved toWilla’s face the moment she’d finished speaking, then stayed there with the patience of someone waiting to observe the impact of something they’d just said.
Margo’s posture changed beside Willa. It was subtle, but Willa felt it as her friend stiffened.
“I’m sorry,” Margo replied, her voice entirely pleasant and what Willa knew to be just as fake. “I don’t have any available.”
Sienna looked at the table. “There are three right there.” She pointed to the pies.
“They’re not for sale,” Margo told her, standing her ground.
“They have price tags on them,” Sienna noted. “Right there on the packaging.”
“They’ve been sold,” Willa said, before she’d made a conscious decision to speak. “I bought them.”
Sienna’s eyes moved back to Willa with a slow, uncomplimentary, deliberate sweep.
“Should you really be eating such sweet things?” Sienna asked, her voice laced with a soft viciousness while her eyes blazed with their cruel intent.
