“You think she’ll like it?” Winnie asked cautiously.
“Oh yeah.” Cadence was breezily confident. “And I think it’s the exact kind of thing that will help her remember what she learned. June would agree, I think, if she were here. I bet she’ll bring Benjamin too.”
Winnie did a celebratory dance in her seat, then froze, worrying that this was too dorky. But everyone was still looking at her with the same beaming excitement.
“Aah,” she cheered, giving in to her impulse. “Okay, this is amazing. Now, I’m going to pick your brains a little more. I want you to think of all the carnival games you can. I want to pair things as best I can with the history that makes the most sense.”
They were a book club so, naturally, this devolved quickly into a discussion of all the carnival scenes they’d read in books.
“Kiss an Angeltakes place in a circus,” Miriam mused, referencing the Susan Elizabeth Phillips book that had been published decades prior. Winnie hadn’t read it, but she knew that it was considered a classic among avid romance readers, of which Miriam was one of the most established. “But that has perhaps a bit too much knife-throwing to apply to an educational carnival.”
“And a little too much hanky panky for a kid-friendly event,” Diana teased. Miriam was completely unabashed.
“Well, it’s still a very good book,” she said. “You should read it, Winnie.”
“Be careful, Winnie,” Cadence said. “Once you let Miriam recommend one book to you, she’ll have about thirty-seven more. And then a thousand after that.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” Miriam exclaimed, making everyone laugh.
The silliness eventually faded, and her friends came up with a list of ideas, both from books and from the carnivals they’d attended as a child. Winnie whipped out her phone and began taking notes, thinking of the different ways she could pair the games with different stories from Magnolia Shore’s past. The town had been incorporated toward the end of the Colonial Era, and there had been, of course, Native American groups living in the area for centuries behind that. There was a lot of history to draw from, and Winnie had ideas coming to her so quickly that she could barely keep up writing them down… or typing them down, as it happened.
“The great thing about having a colonial history,” she said as she typed, “is that a lot of the things they did in those days are super fun for kids in a carnival setting. Like even those hoop and stick games. Most modern kids wouldn’t want to play them on arandom Tuesday, but call it a carnival, throw in a little prize, and they’re ready to party like it’s 1734.”
Eleanor laughed so hard at this that she snorted, causing all her friends to look up at her in surprise.
“What?” she protested. “That was funny. You’re funny, Winnie.”
Winnie beamed. She might not feel like this was the best time to tell Eleanor about her… thing with Shane. She might not even know what that thing with Shanewas. But she definitely still felt like she’d broken the ice with Eleanor… with all of them, really. She had been brave and vulnerable and she was now reaping the benefits of it.
Winnie only made it as far as her parked car, her tray entirely empty of cupcakes, before she pulled out her phone again and shot off a text.
WINNIE: you were right.
The response came immediately.
SHANE: Obviously, I, like every reasonable person, am thrilled to hear this, but what am I right about?
Winnie bit her lip and grinned as she typed out her reply.
WINNIE: I gave people a chance to care. I let them in. It was scary, but it totally worked!
SHANE: I’m so happy! I knew you could do it!
It was only because Winnie was alone in her car that she let herself hug her phone tight to her chest, just for a moment, before she drove herself home. Not at one point during the journey did her smile fade from her face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Knowing Eleanor had improved Garrett’s life in a million ways, but even so, he could not discount that one of those things was the way she’d gotten him in the habit of stopping by the Honey Bee Bakery more than he had in the past. He had no regrets. Their caramel pecan sticky buns were to die for.
He was standing in the line enjoying the smell of baked goods, which he counted as a kind of appetizer, when he heard his name.
“Garrett, hey! It’s been too long.”
Garrett turned and grinned when he saw Shane… whom he had seen in Eleanor’s kitchen about fifteen minutes earlier.
Garrett had been the tiniest bit nervous when Shane had come to town. He knew that Eleanor adored her brother, and Garrett had fretted, just a little, that he wouldn’t measure up to Shane’s opinion of the kind of man who deserved to be with his older sister. Garrett was, after all, known around town to be a grump, and Eleanor was the brightest ray of sunshine that he had ever met. If Shane disapproved, he had worried, would it negatively affect how Eleanor saw him too?
But Garrett found that he not only got along well enough with Shane, but that he actually liked the man. That was a pleasantsurprise, as Garrett historically didn’t reallylikevery many people, but maybe that was just another way that Eleanor was changing him for the better.
