Stay Sweet(91)

“Cate, that’s not going to happen! Please don’t be jealous of the stand or jealous of Grady, or any of that, because you’re the most important person to me.”

“I shouldn’t have said Grady was controlling you. That was insulting. I mean, it kills me to think that Grady was more supportive of you than I was.” Cate sniffles, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You always think you’re nothing special—but don’t you see how many people seek you out? Frankie Ko picked you to work at Meade Creamery. Molly picked you to be Head Girl. Grady picked you to fall for. And I picked you as my best friend.”

Now Amelia’s crying too. “I love you and I’m so incredibly sorry.”

“Can I please have my job back? I know I don’t deserve it and I know the stand’s only open a couple more weeks, but—”

Amelia rushes forward and hugs Cate tighter than she’s hugged anyone before.

It goes without saying that Cate’s not coming back next year to Sand Lake. And Amelia will be running the stand in a different way. This really is the end of an era. But a good end. A happy one. The kind best friends like them deserve.





CHAPTER FORTY-NINE


IT’S KIND OF INCREDIBLE, HOW fast change can happen when you let it.

In two weeks, Amelia has raised all the money she’s asked for. The last few hundred dollars came in slowly, and there was a moment when Cate half-jokingly suggested that Amelia hock the flower pin.

Like she would ever.

Cate’s been reading Molly’s diary—its existence is still a secret between the two of them—and has come to a new appreciation of Molly Meade. Especially when, late one night, Amelia reveals everything Tiggy told her.

“I had no idea Molly was such a badass. Then again, I had no idea you were such a badass either.”

It’s been nice, being out in the open with Grady. They’ve gone on a few dates. And he took her out to a nice dinner when she hit her fund-raising goal. But it’s also been strange, watching the farmhouse get emptied out.

Amelia has decided there are two things of Molly’s that she does want to ask Grady for: Molly’s high school portrait and the original hand-cranked ice cream maker. She plans to hang Molly’s picture up somewhere inside the truck, and take the ice cream maker with her to Gibbons. Hopefully it will help her make friends the way it did for Molly. And she might try to come up with a recipe for a new flavor of her own for next summer. But she’s keeping the name Meade Creamery for sure.

Losing the stand is still hard. Every time Amelia is inside it, like now, she tries to remember one more little thing about it. As exciting as it is to be embarking on this new adventure, the process of counting down these last days of summer still hurt—saying goodbye to the stand, knowing that no matter how good a job she does with the new incarnation, it won’t be the same. It can’t.

She heads outside, a bucket on her arm, and walks toward the truck. Grady and Cate are inside working on it. And she can hear them talking about her. Amelia pauses to listen.

“It sucks that her parents haven’t come around yet,” Cate says.

“Well, her dad did help her clear some space in their garage for the equipment. And her mom helped us transplant some of the honeysuckle bushes. So I guess in their own way, they are.”

“Ugh, this stuff is beyond gross.” Amelia peeks in and can see that Cate is on her knees in the truck, using a butter knife to scrape the grease off in waxy rolls.

“Still . . . you’ve got to admit this was one good idea I had.”

“Okay, Grady, okay.”

Amelia smiles, heartened that Cate and Grady have been getting along as well as she thought they might initially.

Amelia climbs aboard. “Leave it for me, Cate.”

“No, no,” Cate insists. “This is penance. Though I’ll have you know this is more disgusting than the worst the stand bathroom has ever been.”

Grady’s phone rings and he excuses himself to take the call. His Realtor has been fielding a bunch of offers. He’ll have no problem paying his way through Truman on his own.

“So, are you coming to Truman for homecoming?” Cate asks Amelia.

“I’m not sure.”

“But you and Grady are a thing, right?”

Amelia smiles. She’s fallen in love with Grady Meade, though she hasn’t told him yet. She will. Or maybe he’ll say it first.

Cate rocks back on her knees. “So this beast runs now?”

“Yep. She’s all tuned up.” Grady insisted he would pay to get the truck running for her.

“Have you taken it for a drive yet?”

“No.”

“Well, come on! Let’s go.”

Amelia freezes. “Right now? Will you drive?”

“Absolutely not.”

“But I don’t even like driving the Cadillac. And this thing is way bigger.”

“You’ve got to get used to it eventually. There’s no time like the present! Come on. I’m riding shotgun. I’m tired of driving you around.”

Amelia slips behind the wheel, starts the engine. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“It’s stick! I’ve never driven stick before.”

“It’s not hard. Just ease into it. Find the point where the gas pedal and the clutch catch.”