ou’ve been a popular one tonight.” Aunt Olivia gave
me a knowing look.

I was fairly certain she didn’t know why I’d engaged with every single person who had approached. Why I’d memorized their names.

Why I’d taken a mental picture of every man’s face.

“You’re practically the belle of the ball,” my aunt continued, and even though there was nothing pointed in her tone, I got the sense that in her perfect world, that honorific would have gone to Lily.

“We’re lucky I haven’t flashed anyone.” I tugged at the top of my dress, and Aunt Olivia shooed my hands down.

“They are beautiful,” she sighed.

“My boobs?”

She treated the question with absolute seriousness. “The pearls. I remember wearing them, of course. And then, at Ellie’s Pearls of Wisdom…” She trailed off.

If there was one thing I’d learned growing up bar-adjacent, it was that sometimes, the best way to keep someone talking was to say nothing at all.

Sure enough, only a few seconds passed before my aunt picked up the conversational slack. “Your mama was beautiful in that necklace, Sawyer. Quiet, of course, a bit awkward, and Lord knows she was angry at the world. But beautiful.”

“Angry?” I asked. My mom was many things, but quiet, angry, and awkward wouldn’t have made my list.

“I swear, sometimes it seemed like Ellie liked being angry.” As if she’d caught herself saying a curse word, Aunt Olivia immediately amended her statement. “Not that she didn’t have her reasons, poor thing. Our father died shortly after he purchased that necklace at my Pearls of Wisdom. I felt just awful that he wasn’t there to bid on it for Ellie.”

My grandmother had said, very clearly, that her husband had purchased the pearls both times. I said as much out loud, and Aunt Olivia shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she reiterated. “Your uncle J.D.—we’d just gotten married that summer—he bought them on Ellie’s auction night, just like he’ll buy them for Lily tonight. You don’t mind, do you, Sawyer? Some days it seems like your cousin has been in love with those pearls since the day she was born. I always thought…”

You always thought Lily would be the one wearing them tonight.

This time, I didn’t use silence as a means of making her put that into words. Instead, I decided to get her chatting on a different—­and more useful—topic. “Is there anyone here who was a Deb with my mom?”

“Ellie and I were six years apart.” Aunt Olivia fanned her face with her right hand. “I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t exactly tuned in to the particulars of her social situation. Maybe if I had been…” Almost immediately, she redirected herself. “Water under the bridge! Now, let me think, who here was Ellie’s age? Charlotte Ames—used to be Bancroft—had a little sister in that year. I believe she’s a Farrow now.” My aunt snapped her fingers. “And Greer!” she said triumphantly. “Greer Richards. I’m not one to talk badly about anyone, but she was a real piece of work, and your mother was just glued to her side.”

Greer Richards, I thought, rifling through my memory banks. Recently married, chairing the Symphony Ball, and her new last name is…

“Waters,” my aunt corrected herself.

“Yes?”

The two of us turned to see an inordinately handsome man looking vaguely confused, as if he’d just woken from a deep and consuming sleep.

“Charles,” my aunt said. “How are you? Have you met my niece, Sawyer? She and your Sadie have just hit it off already.”

The man momentarily focused when he heard my aunt say Sadie. As in, Sadie-Grace—his daughter.

“Yes. Well.” He smiled at me, affable, if a bit distant. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Aunt Olivia melted into the crowd, and I found myself trying to gauge how old Charles Waters was.

Too old. He’s too old to have been a Squire with my mother.

His gaze caught on the necklace. “Beautiful specimen,” he mumbled. “Just beautiful.”

I was about to reply with my thanks—as I had dozens of times already this evening—when he lifted a finger to my shoulder. I was on the verge of introducing him to the “top ten reasons you don’t touch Sawyer’s bare skin without permission” list when I realized that he hadn’t been reaching for me.

He’d been reaching for the ladybug on my shoulder.

“Beautiful,” he said again, as it crawled onto his fingertip. ­“Coccinella septempunctata,” he told me. “The seven-spotted lady beetle.” Almost belatedly, he seemed to realize that this was a formal affair and not an entomology conference. The ladybug took flight and he sighed. “I suppose that was horribly rude of me,” he said sadly.

“Just between us,” I replied, “I’m rather partial to the horribly rude. I could belch the alphabet if it would make you feel better.”

He scrutinized me for a long moment and then smiled. It was pretty damn easy to see where Sadie-Grace had gotten her looks.

“Charles!” A woman appeared beside him, hooking her arm through his. She wore her dark red hair long and straight, and I could tell just by the way she held herself that the unusual color was her natural hue. “You haven’t been talking our newest Deb’s ear off, have you, sweetheart?”

I would have put a thousand dollars on this being the infamous Greer Waters. Sadie-Grace’s stepmother was dressed similarly to Aunt Olivia, but her dress was just a smidgen shorter. Her heels were just a smidgen taller.

I would have gone double or nothing that neither of those things was an accident.

“We’re ready for you backstage,” Greer told me. “And look at that necklace! Gorgeous.”

I let myself be shepherded to the curtained area behind the catwalk.

“I’m guessing you’ve seen the necklace before,” I said. “My aunt mentioned that you and my mother were friends.”

Greer Waters didn’t hesitate. She didn’t pause. But I saw something shift behind her green eyes.

“Your mother was a dear. An absolute dear, but I’m afraid we didn’t have much in common.”

Silence proved only slightly less effective on her than on Aunt Olivia.

“I was…” She laughed. “I suppose you could say I was horrible back then. Always in the middle of things. Just plagued with attention and admirers and secretly loving it—you know the kind of girl.”

She didn’t quite seem to have the hang of self-deprecation.

“Ellie Taft was a sweet little thing. But she was a bit more… alternative, I guess you would say? She had the world at her finger­tips, and I would have sworn she didn’t even want it. We were just very different people.” She bared her teeth at me in a pageant-­perfect smile. “Now, let’s get you into position.”

She clamped a manicured hand onto my shoulder and physically guided me into a line that had formed backstage, right behind Lily and Sadie-Grace.

“Stand up straight, sweetheart,” she told the latter. “And remember: there is absolutely nothing to be nervous about.”

Sadie-Grace seemed to find that statement nerve-racking in the extreme.

I stepped out of line and in front of Greer as she attempted to pass. “Greer,” I said, then corrected myself. “Mrs. Waters.” That bought me a few bonus points. With every intention of cashing them in, I continued. “You at least knew my mother. Do you remember who her friends were? Who she spent time with?”

Greer studied me for several seconds with an intensity I suspected she typically reserved for floral arrangements and choosing the perfect shade of pink polish. “I suppose she was close to Lucas.”

“Lucas?” I repeated, my heart thudding in my chest.

“Lucas Ames.”