“Yes. He was impressed by you. Although I can’t imagine why.” Agatha made a face. “All those pranks. And when he found out you’d dropped out of college, he just thought you were finding yourself.”

“He knew I dropped out?” It didn’t seem possible, but Willa’s brows rose even more.

“Of course he knew.”

“How do you know?” Paxton asked, amazed that her grandmother had been harboring not only her own secrets but Willa’s father’s as well. What else was in that hard head of hers? All these years, Paxton had thought her grandmother was nothing more than a mean old lady. But she had a complexity and depth that no one suspected.

“Ham and I had a very long conversation when the time came for him to move his mother into a nursing home. He was going to travel. I promised I’d watch over Georgie.” She straightened her shoulders. “Not that I ever stopped.”

Willa sat back in her seat, seeming to think things over. Paxton used that opportunity to ask, “Why did you never tell me the club had lost its way? Maybe I could have done something.”

“Paxton, I think you’ve tried to make the club more about the deed than the social aspect, and I give you credit for that, but I also believe it’s more because you don’t have friends than because of a higher calling.” Paxton reared back at that. “Friendship started that club, and if you ever want to see it back to what it was, you have to understand what it means to be a friend. I know you’ve always looked at me and thought, I don’t want to be like her. Well, here’s your chance. People always say life is too short for regrets. But the truth is, it’s too long.”

“Will you come to the gala?” Paxton asked again. “I think it’s important that you be there.”

“Maybe. Keep bringing me chocolate like this and … maybe. Leave me to eat in peace,” she said, opening the box.

Paxton and Willa stood, and each was lost in her own thoughts as they walked down the corridor. Paxton was heading toward the front doors when Willa stopped.

“I’m going to see my grandmother,” Willa said.

“Oh. Right. Okay.”

“Do you want to have some coffee first?” Willa pointed over her shoulder, toward the dining room.

Paxton smiled, almost relieved. “Yes. That would be nice.”

They got their cups and filled them, and then they walked to a table near a window that overlooked the side garden.

“Why do you think we never became friends?” Paxton asked as Willa was emptying a packet of sugar into her coffee. “I’ve always been aware of the way you looked at me. You never liked me, did you?”

“It’s not that,” Willa said.

“What is it, then?”

Willa hesitated. “I guess it was jealousy in high school. I hated not having what you had. I ended up resenting my family because of it, and I wish I could take that back. As adults, I don’t know.” Willa shrugged. “You set an impossible standard, and no one can live up to it. And sometimes it seems like you do it on purpose. Your clothes are perfect. Your hair is perfect. You juggle a work schedule that would take three normal people to manage. Not all of us can do that.”

Paxton looked into her coffee cup. “Maybe I do do it on purpose. But it’s only because everyone else seems happier than I am. They have their own homes, husbands, children, businesses. I sometimes think there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Willa said. “Why did you never make friends with me?”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Paxton smiled as she looked up. “You scared me.” That made Willa laugh. “Seriously. You were so quiet and intense. Like you could see right through people. If I had known you were the Joker sooner, maybe it would have been easier to get to know you. I would have at least known you had a sense of humor. Then, when you came back, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with the people you grew up with. You took up with the National Street set like you were thumbing your nose at us, like we were silly yokels.”

“It’s not that,” Willa said immediately. “It’s not that at all. After my dad died, I came back here to the realization that I could never say I was sorry for making it seem like he didn’t do enough. I made a promise to myself, and to him, to be happy with what I had. Every day. But being around people I grew up with brought back all those insecurities at first, so I just got used to avoiding it.”

“There’s no avoiding me now, you know,” she said. “You know my secrets. You maced people for me. You’ve got me for life.”

Willa laughed and tried to wave that off. “Any of your friends would have done the same thing.”

“No,” Paxton said. “They wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Willa said, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans. “I need to return this to you.” She handed Paxton a folded piece of notebook paper.

“What is it?”

“It’s a note you dropped one day in the hallway at school. I picked it up and read it. After that, I was just too embarrassed to return it to you.”

Paxton took it and opened it. As soon as she realized what it was, she laughed in surprise. “My list of qualities in the man I wanted to marry.”

“I’m sorry,” Willa said sheepishly.

“This is how you forged my handwriting with that note to Robbie Roberts!”

“Yes. I’m really, really sorry.”

Paxton shook her head and put the note in her tote bag. “That’s okay. It’s just a list. One of many. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“It’s an impressive list,” Willa said.

“I knew what I wanted back then.” Paxton smiled and decided to go ahead and ask Willa what she was dying to know. “Speaking of wanting. My brother didn’t come home last night. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

Willa looked away. “He might have slept on my couch.”

“Then why are you blushing?”

Willa turned back to her with a glint in her eye. “I might have slept there with him.”

“I knew it!”

They laughed, and she suddenly felt like she was on such good footing with Willa. She never thought she was good at making friends. But maybe she was just trying to be friends with the wrong people.

They ended up talking long after their coffee had gone cold.

PAXTON OSGOOD’S FUTURE HUSBAND

Will be kind

Will be funny

Will be accepting

Will be able to cook

Will be a good kisser

Will smell good

Will always surprise me

Will argue with me and sometimes let me win, but not always

Will be mysterious

Will always love me, no matter what I look like

Mama will not like him, which means I will love him even more

Hours later, after they left the dining room and Willa went to see her grandmother, Paxton got in her car and immediately took the note out of her tote bag and read the list again.

She remembered losing it and panicking for days about where it could be. She’d been afraid some ridiculous boy like Robbie Roberts would find it and tease her. But years passed and she’d forgotten about it, one of many things she’d managed to leave behind.

Where did this girl go? Paxton wondered. It was just like looking at that old photo of her grandmother. Where did this girl go? Colin said she was the only one in their group who hadn’t changed. But she had, and not in a good way.

The girl she used to be would not approve of the woman she’d become. That girl always assumed she’d be happy at this age, as happy as she’d been back then. What happened?

She sat there, staring into space, the note on her lap, until her cellphone rang.

She looked at the screen. It was her mother, probably wondering why she wasn’t home yet for the last fitting of her dress for the gala.

With a sigh, she put the phone and the note back in her tote bag and started the car, then drove away.