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OUR TOWN’S SPRING FAIR IS tomorrow, and Kitty has promised the PTA a cake for the cake walk
on my behalf. At a cake walk, music plays while kids walk around a circle of numbers, like musical
chairs. When the music stops, a number is picked at random, and the kid standing in front of the
corresponding number gets the cake. This was always my favorite carnival game, of course, because I
liked looking at all of the homemade cakes and also for the sheer luck of it. Certainly, the kids crowd
around the cake table and earmark the cake they most want and try to walk slowly when they come
upon the number, but beyond that there isn’t much to it. It’s a game that does not require any skill or
know-how: You literally just walk around a circle to old-timey music. Sure, you could go to the
bakery and pick out the exact cake you want, but there is a thrill in not being sure what you’ll end up
with.
My cake will be chocolate, because kids and people in general prefer chocolate to any other
flavor. The frosting is where I’ll get fancy. Possibly salted caramel, or passion fruit, or maybe a
mocha whip. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing an ombré cake, where the frosting goes from
dark to light. I have a feeling my cake will be in demand.
When I picked up Kitty from Shanae’s house this morning, I asked her mom what cake she was
baking for the cake walk, because Mrs. Rodgers is vice president of the elementary school PTA. She
heaved a sigh and said, “I’ll be baking whatever Duncan Hines I can find in my pantry. Either that or
Food Lion.” Then she asked me what I was baking and I told her, and she said, “I’m voting you Teen
Mom of the Year,” which made me laugh and also further spurred me to bake the best cake so
everyone knows what Kitty’s working with. I never mentioned this to Daddy or Margot, but in middle
school my English teacher sponsored a mother-daughter tea in honor of Mother’s Day. It was after
school, an optional thing, but I really wanted to go and have the tea sandwiches and scones she said
she was bringing. It was just for mothers and daughters, though. I suppose I could have asked
Grandma to come—Margot did that a few times for miscellaneous events—but it wouldn’t have been
the same. And I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that would bother Kitty, but it’s still something I think
about.

The cake walk is in the elementary school’s music room. I’ve volunteered to be in charge of the
walking music, and I’ve made a playlist with all sugar-related songs. Of course “Sugar, Sugar” by the
Archies, “Sugar Shack,” “Sugar Town,” “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch).” When I
walk into the music room, Peter’s mom and another mom are setting up the cakes. I falter, unsure of
what to do.
She says, “Hello, Lara Jean,” but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and it gives me a sinking
feeling in my stomach. It’s a relief when she leaves.
There’s a decent crowd all day, with some people playing more than once for the cake of their
dreams. I keep steering people toward my caramel cake, which is still in rotation. There’s a German
chocolate cake that has people entranced, which I’m pretty sure is store-bought, but there’s no