Holly left her to it and walked up the driveway alone. On the lawn, a roll of red carpet unfurled to an oversize throne. Next to it, a woman in slacks and a button-down placed a gaudy, jeweled crown on an elephant’s head. Then she swapped it out for one covered in red velvet. No, neither of those, Holly thought. Then a third one, plain gold. Yes. That was what Babar would wear.

Holly waved at the woman. “That’s perfect!” she said, and kept moving.

The old instinct to call her mother came over her. She’d been gone for ten years, but even if she were still alive, talking to her wouldn’t have helped. She’d been against Holly marrying Ted.

“He’ll own you,” she’d said. “People that rich treat regular people like things.”

“What do you know about people that rich?” Holly had asked. The richest person in Frazier Park was the mayor. He owned an RV dealership, had a big boat, and was worth a fortune compared to Holly’s parents, but he wasn’t in the same league as Ted, not even close.

“Trust me,” her mother had said. “I know.”

But four years later, when her cancer was diagnosed in its late stages, it was Ted who found the best specialists, speaking to them himself when Holly and her father were too exhausted to make heads or tails of what they were being told. As quickly as ovarian cancer took her mother’s life—just six months—she lasted twice as long as the doctors expected. A year later, it was her father’s turn. Pancreatic cancer. Holly was pregnant with Zoe then, and Ted was her rock. She wished it hadn’t taken fatal illness to prove her mother wrong.

Holly wove her way past white trucks out of which people with headsets and walkie-talkies unloaded segments of train track and then stacked them onto dollies. Two men with their caps on backward each raced a bumper car, one foot in, one foot out, around the fountain. There was still time for all the chaos to take shape, for something wonderful to emerge, but Holly knew from experience that the hours until the first guest arrived would fly by.

The terrace was next on her checklist. The caterers weren’t here yet, and it looked just as it always did except for that girl on the chaise longue. Lying down with her shoes kicked off and a book in her lap. Like she owns the place, Holly thought. Who was she? Holly looked around for someone to ask. The doors to the great room were open and inside she could see Flora, up on a ladder, washing the windows.

Holly took a couple of steps closer to the girl. Young, brunette, her brown skin soaking up the sun. Did she work here? But why wasn’t she working?