Smiling, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “So we’re good?” he said, and I realized we hadn’t really talked about anything. He’d brought up stuff, I’d denied it, and then we’d made out for a little while. It was becoming something of a pattern.

But that probably means we’re good at conflict resolution, I thought.

“We’re better than good,” I told him, smiling back.

Still rubbing one of my hands, Ryan glanced down. “So what were you reading so intently it made you use a four-letter word?”

Before I could stop him, he picked up They Saw the Future! Both of his eyebrows went up as he studied the Oracle. “Whoa.”

I snatched the book back, half shoving it under my bed. “Doing some research. Essay on ancient Greece for a college application thingie.”

I’d been so happy to see Ryan that for a few minutes, all thoughts of Paladins and Oracles and whatever the heck was going on with me and David Stark had fled my brain. But looking at the picture reminded me that while things may have been better in Boyfriend Land, the rest of my life was only getting twistier.

Chapter 13

Thanks to a little more making out, Ryan seemed willing to let the subject drop, and I think he’d totally forgotten about it by the time we heard the garage door opening. “Your mom,” he said, moving back.

“Yeah, we better get downstairs.” Mom loved Ryan and I think she already thought of him as her son-in-law, but that still didn’t mean she’d be okay with the two of us alone in my bedroom.

We made it to the living room before she came in, both of us striking nonchalant poses, me on the couch, him in my dad’s chair. “Har—oh, you have company,” Mom said as she came in the living room. She glanced back and forth between us and decided no rules were being violated. “Excellent!” she said. “Four hands to help me with groceries.”

Once we’d helped Mom unload the car, Ryan decided to head home. After one last kiss, he drove away, and I went back into the kitchen. As I did, I spotted the space where David’s car had been yesterday. He’d gotten it this morning, apparently—the gate unlatched easily enough, and my parents never locked it—but I hadn’t seen him. Still, it reminded me that while things with my boyfriend might be okay for the time being, things with the Starks definitely were not.

But I had an idea. While Mom put groceries away, I rummaged around in the pantry, grabbing flour, some spices, and a can of crushed pineapple. Dumping those on the counter, I fished out a mixing bowl and some measuring cups and went to work.

“What are you doing?” Mom asked, setting the paper bags of food on the counter.

“Making a cake,” I replied. I measured out a tablespoon of vanilla as Mom walked over to the bowl, taking in the assembled ingredients. “Hummingbird cake? Fancy. Who’s the lucky recipient?”

“Miss Saylor.” Reaching in one of the drawers, I pulled out the biggest spoon I could find.

Mom gave me a careful look. She knew what hummingbird cake meant. “And what did you do that requires a ‘sorry I screwed up’ cake?”

I was already lucky the school hadn’t called Mom and told her about me skipping class, so I decided to keep it as simple as possible. “David and I had a thing the other day.”

Mom heaved a sigh. “Harper . . .”

“We weren’t fighting,” I quickly added, earning me a snort of laughter.

“That’s a first, then.”

“We had a disagreement, that’s all. Miss Saylor saw us, and I thought a cake would smooth things over a little bit.” Which it would, hopefully. And it would give me a good excuse to go tell David about the connection I’d made between Paladins and Oracles.

With a rueful smile, Mom walked over to the fridge and pulled out the eggs and sugar for me. “Well, in that case, let me help. You’re a good baker, but you’re not the best one in this family.”

Mom cracked the eggs in a separate bowl while I lifted two bananas out of the fruit basket on the counter. We fell into a comfortable silence as she whisked and I mashed. And then, when I leaned over to scrape the bananas into her eggs and sugar mixture, Mom gave a little chuckle. “Do you remember how bad Leigh-Anne was at baking?”

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I started to stir. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about my sister, but I never knew how it would go. Sometimes, Mom could look at pictures of her and tell stories, and it was fine. We’d smile or laugh, and then move on to some other topic.

Other times, her voice would get tight, and her lip would tremble, and then the tears would come. And even though I knew it was awful of me, when she got like that, all I wanted to do was run away. To ignore it.

But there were no tears in Mom’s voice now. “Yeah,” I said carefully. “The baking soda brownies.”

Mom’s chuckle turned into a real laugh. “Yes! Oh, God, I knew I should’ve tasted them before we started wrapping them up for the bake sale.”

Now I smiled, too. “Yeah, but even though they were terrible, Leigh-Anne sold all of them, remember? Said they were special ‘vitamin brownies’ and that’s why they tasted so bad.”

“And then you told her she shouldn’t lie at a church bake sale,” Mom added, holding the mixing bowl as I dumped the wet ingredients into the dry.

“Right,” I nodded. “But she said the more brownies she sold, the better it was for the church, so God would understand.”

We both laughed again, and then that silence fell, this time a little heavier than before.

“That’s the Leigh-Anne I wish people would remember,” Mom finally said. Her voice wasn’t tight, and her lips were steady, but sadness clung to every word. “I wish people could focus on her, not . . . not how she died.”

I wanted that, too. More than anything. But Leigh-Anne’s death hadn’t only been a nuclear bomb going off in the middle of my family. It had been a scandal. A source of gossip. The pretty and popular Homecoming Queen getting drunk on prom night, wrecking her car, killing herself and nearly killing her boyfriend? It wasn’t something people would easily forget.

They wouldn’t forget no matter how much Mom wished, or how hard I tried to make up for my sister’s one stupid decision. Not that I thought running SGA or organizing charity bake sales could wipe out the memory of that night. But maybe I could . . . I don’t know, reset the balance.

Clearing my throat, I turned away and grabbed a few cake pans from the cabinets. I focused on pouring the batter, waiting for Mom to leave the kitchen and go up to her bedroom, the way she almost always did when we started talking about Leigh-Anne.

But to my surprise, she started unwrapping the packages of cream cheese for the icing. “I hope Saylor appreciates all the trouble you’re going through.”

“It’s not that much trouble,” I insisted, sliding the cake pans into the oven. “I’ve been meaning to make hummingbird cake for The Aunts for awhile now.”

At the mention of The Aunts, Mom rolled her eyes affectionately. “Well, don’t let them know you gave their cake away to Saylor.”

The Aunts were actually my great-aunts, but since my grandmother—their sister—had died when I was a baby, they’d kind of adopted me as a granddaughter by proxy. They got together at my Aunt Jewel’s house every Friday afternoon to play cards, and I usually tried to stop by, but between school and Cotillion, I’d been too busy lately. It had probably been nearly a month since—

Suddenly, what Mom said registered. “What do you mean? Don’t The Aunts like Saylor?” They’d never said anything to me about her, and trust me, if The Aunts weren’t crazy about someone, they didn’t exactly keep it a secret.

Mom shrugged as she started to whip the cream cheese and sugar together. “Saylor’s monopoly on all major town events has never sat well with them. Especially since she’s still a relative newcomer and a Yankee.”

Now I rolled my eyes. “She’s been here for nearly eighteen years, and she’s from Virginia.”

“You know The Aunts don’t consider Virginia the South.” Triumphantly, she pushed the bowl of icing toward me. “Can you take it from here?”

“Sure, thanks,” I replied, but my mind was still on The Aunts. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. If there was something weird about the Stark family, they would know it. They knew everything. Seriously, why had I wasted any time searching the internet when I had them? I made a mental note to stop by Aunt Jewel’s on Friday—and to buy more cake ingredients.

Mom and I chatted while the cakes baked, and once they were done, I stuck them in the fridge to cool and went to my room to make myself a little more presentable. That accomplished, I headed back to the kitchen to find Mom frosting the cake for me.

“You’re seriously going to take this to Saylor tonight?” Mom asked, nodding to the microwave clock. “It’s nearly seven.”

“Which is perfect timing,” I insisted. “After dinner, but before people start getting ready for bed.”

Mom looked up, a strange expression flitting across her face.

“Harper, you know . . . you don’t have to prove anything. Not to me, or Saylor Stark, or this entire town. You could just—”

“Chill?” I suggested, thinking of Ryan.

Mom didn’t laugh. “I worry about you. You’ve always taken things so seriously, and—” She broke off with a little laugh. “While I’m proud of all you’ve accomplished, it’s not like the fate of the world depends on dance decorations or when you bring people cake. Or Cotillion.”

I tried to shrug that off. Again, what was wrong with a little dedication? But Mom’s words seemed to lodge somewhere inside my chest. She was right that the whole world didn’t revolve around what I did at the Grove, but she also didn’t know about David. About whatever I was now. What if the entire fate of the world did depend on me taking this cake to Saylor Stark?