“I think it would be best,” snapped Chris. “After all, Sue doesn’t know where she lives and her car is a good advertisement for the sale. Frankie’s already pouring coffee and I need to stay and make sure everything runs smoothly.”

“Okay,” said Lucy, overwhelmed by her argument. “When you put it that way…”

“We don’t have time for this,” snapped Chris, losing patience. “Just go and get back as fast as you can. We need all the help we can get.”

It was true. The people in the line were definitely getting restless. One man had even commented, quite loudly, that the service was better at Dunkin’ Donuts.

“I’ll be as fast as I can,” she promised, running to her car.

Her heart was pounding and she was out of breath when she started the engine and spun out of the parking lot. It was the squeal of the tires that brought her to her senses. She’d never left rubber in her life and she wasn’t about to start now, not for a bake sale. Chris was a tad overwrought, she thought, slowing to a sedate and legal thirty miles per hour. Just because she was a frustrated housewife who missed her high-powered executive job didn’t mean everybody had to go along for the ride as she turned a simple bake sale into an emotional roller coaster. You’d think she was on some TV reality show or something but as far as Lucy knew Donald Trump wasn’t coming to Tinker’s Cove to point his finger and announce “You’re fired!” if the bake sale didn’t meet its goal.

She was tempted, in fact, to turn right around and go back to the bake sale. She didn’t like being Chris’s messenger girl and she didn’t like checking up on Mimi. The woman worked in the town hall, after all; she’d probably been called in to work an extra shift because somebody was sick or something. Or maybe she had a family emergency. Or maybe she’d decided to go and see Tommy play his first JV game. Whatever it was it wasn’t any of Lucy’s business and she felt uncomfortable playing truant officer.

She hesitated for a minute when she pulled into the Stantons’ driveway, worrying that she might encounter Fred instead of Mimi, then decided she was being silly. If anyone should be embarrassed it was him, for making nasty phone calls. It was too late to leave anyway; by now somebody would surely have noticed her car. She might as well see if Mimi was home and, if she was, politely remind her of the bake sale. She’d make it clear that Chris sent her, that she was in a sense following orders, and was in no way a busybody. Having decided on her approach, Lucy reluctantly got out of the car and immediately noticed the scent of burned sugar.