“Oh, should I have the sticker go to Darla then?” she asked, her head tipped to the side.
“No. I didn’t give it to Darla. I will be giving the trophy to the Bartons, though. It can be a fun story they tell little Phillip when he’s old enough.”
“Whatever you’d like to do, dear,” she said with confusion.
“Darla is the second reason I’m here,” I said, swallowing down the panic, so my voice stayed even.
“I know you two have never gotten along,” she agreed. “Did something happen?”
“You could say that, on both accounts,” I agreed. “I don’t know where her issues with me come from, truthfully.”
“Darla is just that way, Haylee. She picks the person she thinks is the weakest and uses them to make herself look better.”
“That’s what Brady said, too,” I whispered, doubt creeping in about what I thought I knew about Brady Pearson. “Regardless, I heard she won Strawberry Fest Princess last night.”
“Fair and square,” she said. “We brought in judges from outside of the county, so there was no favoritism.”
“That was a good idea,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “The thing is, I don’t know if you want someone like Darla representing the city as the princess. I didn’t know it yesterday when she approached us after the competition, but my recording app was still open on my phone. I always record the judges’ decision and use the sound bites for advertising and such,” I explained, nervously swallowing around the lump in my throat. “I was playing it back last night and was surprised to hear that it had also captured an exchange between us that occurred after the judging. Can I play it for you? Fair warning, some of her language is colorful.”
She motioned for me to go ahead, so I hit the play button, the audio already cued up to play at the right spot. I let the whole thing play, even the part where I got snippy with her. I believed I was justified in what I said, but even if Mrs. Mulberry didn’t, she would have to agree Darla started the whole thing.
When I clicked the phone off, she stood in disbelief, her mouth hanging open. “She just started that out of the blue?”
I shrugged callously. “Not exactly out of the blue. She lost the bake-off and wasn’t happy about it. I probably shouldn’t have egged her on, but she could have walked away. That’s not taking into account what happened at the bakery a few weeks ago.” I explained to her about the fight and how I refused to press charges as long as she stayed away.
“This isn’t good,” she fretted. “I wish we had known about that. We don’t allow anyone to participate in the pageant if they aren’t upstanding members of the community. They have to be good ambassadors. We all know she can be snippy, but I didn’t know there was this kind of thing going on in the background.”
“She likes it that way,” I said, everything weighing heavily on my shoulders now. “The more people she fools, the more she can get away with.”
“I need to call the other committee members. I don’t know what to do. Is there a way to get me a copy of that?” she asked, pointing at the phone.
Anticipating that request, I had made an MP3 of it before I left home. “I can email it to the email address I have for the committee if that helps.”
She patted my shoulder with her lips turned down in a frown. “That would help. I’m going to call everyone now.”
I attached the file to an email and sent it, holding it up for her to see. “I put in the body that you’d be calling everyone. I’ll let you go. Thanks for listening to what I had to say. I just thought you should know.”
She patted my shoulder on her way to the desk to make her calls. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I’ll let you know what our decision is.”
I stopped in the doorway and gave her a sad smile. “Either way, I don’t feel good about this, Mrs. Mulberry, so just do what you think is best for the festival and the town. Enjoy the rest of the fair,” I said, tapping the doorframe and heading back to my car.
What I said was the truth. I didn’t feel good about what I’d just done, but I also couldn’t give Darla another pass. She’d gotten nothing but passes for her entire life from the time she was a little girl. It was time for her to own up to her decisions in life. She needed to know her words would come back to haunt her.
I sat down in my car, the weight of the world heavy, and rested my head on the headrest. Something told me if the committee pulled her crown, I’d hear about it sooner rather than later, but what was done was done. I started the car and pulled out of the parking spot and back toward the bakery, knowing I needed to face my responsibilities there, too. When I parked next to my apartment and noticed Brady’s car was still on the street, I decided those responsibilities could wait until he was gone.
I quickly jogged up the stairs, so no one saw me, and locked the door. Just the thought of Brady’s conversations that I overheard at the fair made pain and anguish stab through my heart like a hot poker. There was no way I could work with him and pretend everything was okay.
I sank onto the couch and buried my face in my hands, the tears falling again. I’d cried so many tears since yesterday afternoon I didn’t think I had any left to cry. How could I be so naïve? Darla was right. There was no reason for Brady to be with me. If nothing else, shirking my duties at the bakery would prove it to him. Maybe then he would take that job in Milwaukee and leave me and my business far behind. Brady deserved to run a bakery. He deserved to be with someone who had fewer issues than I did, too. Someone with a family behind them that he could call his own eventually. I didn’t have that, and now, I never would.
“IT’S TIME TO FACE YOUR fears, Haylee,” I said to the woman staring back at me in the mirror.
I shut off the bathroom light and walked to the front door, somewhat ashamed of my behavior in the last thirty-six hours, but also proud I had stood up for myself against Darla. I hadn’t heard anything from the committee, which meant they hadn’t done anything about it. That was okay. My conscience was clear. I’d done what I could to make it known the kind of person she was behind the community’s back. It still stymied me that she had lived here all these years and had managed to fool everyone with her lies. She wasn’t fooling me. With any luck, she wasn’t fooling the members of the committee anymore, either.
That was then, and this is now. At almost midnight, I had to get downstairs and start baking. I had three hours until Brady would show up, and I planned to be done with everything at the bench, so I could be at the decorating table while he was making bread. We’d have to talk, but I couldn’t do it during work hours. I had planned to go in after he left yesterday, but I was too exhausted to remember my name. I hadn’t slept the night before, and there was no way I was going to be able to hold it together long enough to work around dangerous equipment.
I’d texted Amber and told her I was sick and was going to bed. I promised her I’d be in at midnight to get the baking done, and she’d texted me back saying she understood. I half expected her to show up early to talk to me since she’d been trying since we left the fair on Friday night. I felt shitty about it, but sometimes, a girl just needed to sulk.