Page 117 of The Wedding Favor

When Abe came home that night, I was polite but distant. Hallie modeled her new (purple) dress for him and we sat through another magic show practice. True to his word, we practiced the song but it all felt like going through the motions.

After, I didn’t stay a minute longer. I took myself over to Shady Cove to talk to Gloria. I found her dozing in her room. Bruce the Death Cat stared at me from her bed, seemingly annoyed I had disturbed him. My heart dropped. I knew it was foolish to think a cat could predict someone’s death, except I’d seen it happen over the years.

“You need to go away,” I told Bruce, snapping my fingers at him to get him to move. But all he did was change positions. “Don’t get any ideas. You can’t have her.”

Gloria had woken long enough to tell me she was feeling under the weather and was “taking to her bed.” And yes, she said it with all the dramatic flare one would expect.

“Go away. I need my beauty sleep.” Then she shooed me off.

I stopped by Kathy’s office on the way out. “Iris, what can I do for you?”

“Is everything okay with Gloria?”

Kathy pressed her lips together. “You know I can’t tell you anything legally.”

“I know, I just hoped you throw me a bone.”

“Can’t do it.” She stood and gave me a hug. “The best part of this job are the people. The worst part of this job is saying goodbye to those people. Just keep being her friend. That’s all she needs right now.”

The whole visit had made me anxious. Something wasn’t right and Gloria wasn’t telling me. I wasn’t ready to lose her; I needed her for at least another couple of decades.

Maybe Gloria was right. I needed to get a life. Or at least a friend who was born in the same decade as me.

Instead, I went home to an empty house. Mom was off with her friends. (Oh, the irony.) So, I took a shower, indulged in a large bowl of ice cream for dinner, and watched Sabrina, the old version from the fifties with Audrey Hepburn.

But in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. The conversation with Abe played on a loop in my head. I’d been hurt and disappointed and angry and… I’d also been selfish. Abe had spent years without his family. I didn’t want to be part of the reason he lost them again.

My feelings for him were not more important than him having his family back in his life.

Or Hallie getting to know her grandparents. They had birthdays and holidays and silly random days to spend together. What right did I have to make him feel bad or guilty for choosing them? The truth was I didn’t.

There was Mae and Ali to consider, too. The two of them had been friends forever. It would be ridiculous for anything to come between them. But both were stubborn as mules, and they’d said things that weren’t easy to take back. One never backed down and one didn’t argue; she got revenge.

Tomorrow, I would be the grown-up I wanted to be treated like. I’d apologize to Abe. I had a stupid, silly crush. That was it. (See? I could even lie to myself.)

As for my sister, she was a reasonable person. I just needed to have a conversation with her and clear up all this. Once I explained, she’d understand.

Everything would be fine tomorrow. I was sure of it.

I was wrong. Like really, really wrong.

It started in the morning. Mae went to open the library as usual and discovered the key no longer worked. She spent the next two hours trying to contact city maintenance, but no one would answer. Finally, hot, tired, and livid, she marched down to city hall and found Ali in the middle of an interview she was giving with a local magazine that was doing a piece on small towns in Texas.

The two almost came to blows when Ali admitted to having the library locks changed for “safety reasons.” Not to be outplayed, Mae sat down at the table and proceeded to tell the journalist every single revenge prank Ali had ever pulled.

The sheriff was called. It was a whole thing.

“People in town are taking sides,” Ellie said as we closed the café for the day. “There’s Team Mae and Team Ali. I overheard some of the old guys arguing about it today.”

“Which side are you on?”

Ellie smiled. “Your side, of course.”

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me all day. I turned my head quickly before she could see how much those four little words had affected me.

With less than two weeks before the pageant, the number of practices increased to three a week and an all-day practice would be this Saturday. Each practice was a little worse than the last. We’d spent all last week learning choreography for two dance routines. One of those routines required all of us to wear matching outfits, a weird unitard thing but with sequins, and high heels. I seriously considered how much it would hurt if I “accidentally” had one of my legs run over by a car.

Then there was the other kind of choreography—the entering and exiting of the stage, the music cues, and an obnoxious amount of time spent reminding us to stand on the X. The required clothing had a practice all of its own. Two formal dresses, athletic wear, something to wear for the talent portion. Oh, and headshots. I had to have headshots.