Father Knows Best (10 page)

I giggled, then opened the message from Lila.

It read:
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah. Exactly how I felt.

Lila:
He does look older tho, C
.

She was right, of course. Definitely over twenty-one. But it didn’t matter, because guys weren’t on my radar at the moment. Still, who had expected Thomas? Harmless eye candy, and I got to hang with him for the whole summer!

I texted:
Older, 4-sure. Don’t worry, not looking 4 any more Bobby Slade-esque luurve, just having fun, fun, fun.

I slipped my BlackBerry into my bag and grinned to myself.

New York City, watch out! Caressa Thibodoux’s in town.

Meryl

I slid the antique cash register drawer closed, enjoying its familiar coin jangle, and handed the customer her change. “Here you go. Be sure to use two droppers full of the green tea extract in an eight-ounce glass of water.”

“Thank you. I will,” she said with a smile.

“Come back and see us!” I called out as she headed toward the door, trying not to sound as desperate as I felt. I don’t know exactly why I’d been worrying about this lately except that it seemed like business might be slowing down. To say I loved my job at Inner Power was a gross understatement. Everything about it fit me—the serenity, the size of the store, the products we sold, the women I worked for.

But we’d been deathly slow all day thanks to a steady, chilly rainstorm hanging low over White Peaks, and weak sales always set me on edge. I guess people felt they could only get metaphysical in good weather or something. In any case, the lack of foot traffic had me tightening my shoulders and searching my brain for ways to bring in more business. There had to be something. Reese, one of the owners, had sensed my tension earlier and asked about it, but I put it down to missing Caressa. Which I did, but that wasn’t the real reason I’d been stressing. The truth is, I don’t want to lose this job.

I’ve been with Inner Power for two years now, and I can’t think of another place in White Peaks I’d rather work. But if we kept having low sales and zero foot traffic, there was a distinct possibility Reese and Kelly might have to let me go. Not that they’d ever mentioned that, but we studied economics in school. I’m not blind to the realities of small business.

I don’t know…maybe I was overreacting.

Maybe I wasn’t.

Maybe I needed to calm down. Meditate. Do a yoga pose, or have a little of that green tea extract myself.

Still, I glanced out the front display window, silently willing customers to simply open the door. Was that so hard? The store is cozy and clean, filled with treasures. Once they come in, I guarantee I can sell them just about anything we stock. Sales, as it turns out, is one of my latent talents. I guess people tend to trust earnest, freckle-faced, redheaded nerd girls. Or maybe they can sense how much I believe in our products. I don’t know.

The rain continued to pelt the street, turning everything a hazy gray. It pinged on the roof, steamed the front door. And no one came in. Dang.

With a sigh, I picked up the ostrich feather duster intending to keep myself busy by making the shop sparkle. Anything’s better than sitting here fretting about the possibility of impending unemployment.

I headed toward the display of crystals, and that’s when I saw her. Jennifer Hamilton.

Again.

She sat on that same park bench where I’d seen her the first time, the day she’d told me she was pregnant. Today, she sat hunched in an oversized gray hoodie she wouldn’t be caught dead in normally. But obviously nothing was normal in her world at the moment. She didn’t have on her usual full face of makeup, and her chunky blond highlights were growing out, exposing a wide alley of mousy brown straight up the middle of her head. Sopping wet at this point. She looked so not Jennifer. So alone, and it made me sad. Maybe she wanted some alone time, but come on. Out there? The rain was really was coming down.

Ever have one of those internal struggle moments?

Count me in, right then.

A pang of that signature Meryl Morgenstern compassion made me forget that, oh yeah, she hated me and my best friends. I tucked the feather duster under one arm and bit my pinky nail, warring with myself over the whole convoluted situation. I didn’t know what to do. Fact: Jennifer Hamilton is Lila’s archenemy now that Lila and Dylan are an item. Not only that, but Jennifer has treated me like a leper since the first day of middle school for absolutely no reason other than the fact that I don’t fit her mold of someone “worthy.” I’d count that as fact number two.

Still, she’s pregnant, friendless, and sitting outside in a chilly rainstorm hanging her head. Dejected. Lost.

Moral dilemma.

What was I to do? Turn away? Reach out? The whole thing was awful.

Some might say her predicament is pure karma in action, that Jennifer deserves what’s befallen her for all the evil things she’s perpetrated over the years. Maybe so, but I just can’t buy into that kind of nanner-nanner meanness. I don’t believe in paybacks. What good do they do?

It only took me a moment to get clear on my decision.

“Reese?” I called toward the back as I set the duster aside and grabbed my rain jacket off of the coat rack adjacent to the door. Reese and her partner (in life and business) Kelly had started Inner Power together, and I loved them like second moms, even though they aren’t old enough to be my moms really.

“Yeah, hon?” The familiar rhythm of the adding machine permeated the shop as background. Reese is old-fashioned when it comes to tallying up sales. So cool.

“I’m going to run outside for a minute if that’s okay.”

“It’s pouring, you know.”

“I have a slicker,” I said. I crossed to the back of the shop and peeked my head into the office. “I’ll watch the front door. If any customers show up, I’ll follow them in so you don’t have to interrupt your work, okay?”

She smiled. Her long dark hair was wound into a messy knot at the back of her head with an ink pen stuck through it. “That’s fine. Try and stay dry.”

“Right,” I replied in a wry tone.

The bell jangled over the door as I exited. I grimaced at the tiny bullets of rain that immediately pelted my face, then lifted the hood of my bright yellow slicker over my head and tucked my chin into my chest. The pavement had that chalky rain smell, which I usually loved, but to be honest, right then I couldn’t enjoy it. I was concerned for Jennifer. I was concerned that Lila would hate me for being concerned.

Concern, concern, concern.

I know, I’m a sap. A doormat. A sucker.

Bottom line, Jennifer hates me, so why should I care?

That was the Great Imponderable.

The thing is, if I were in her predicament—not that I ever would be—I’d want someone to reach out. Period. Her fair-weather friends obviously didn’t want anything to do with her now that her life had gone from wild popularity to sad statistic, and she didn’t seem to have anyone else. I mean, her mom wasn’t even sitting there with her. It just seemed so wrong to me.

After looking both ways at the curb, I jogged across the desolate street, my shoes slapping up sprays of water that soaked my socks and the ankles of my jeans. On the other side, I sat on the bench next to Jennifer without saying a word, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. I huddled into myself, stuffing my cold hands into my pockets. For a minute, we stayed that way, tight from the chill, awkward from our not-so-pleasant history.

Finally, she sniffed. “What do you want?”

“Are you okay?”

She huffed, sounding utterly miserable. “Yeah, right. I’m just great. I’m knocked up, exhausted, and my boobs totally hurt. Senior year is ruined, my parents are so utterly disappointed with me that you’d think it was World War Three in our house, and my so-called friends are talking about me behind my back. I’m just peachy, Mary,” she said, with heavy sarcasm. “My life is one big F-ing party.”

A renewed tense silence stretched between us. I guess it had been a pretty inane question now that I thought about it, but she didn’t have to be so bitchy. “Meryl,” I said, finally.

“Huh?”

“My name is Meryl, not Mary.”

“Oh.”

No apology, just more silence. I cleared my throat. “So, what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“About the baby.”

She hiked one shoulder. “Have it. I guess. What else is there to do? You can’t exactly clench up and keep it in.”

I didn’t feel like it was my place to point out all the various options. This whole conversation was weird enough already. “Is everything progressing…normally?”

“I guess.” She glanced over at me then, her narrowed eyes laced with suspicion.

I expected her to grill me about invading her personal business, but she didn’t. I remained silent, giving her the next opportunity to speak.

“You work there?” she asked, hiking her chin toward the pretty purple façade of Inner Power.

“Yes.”

She studied me from head to toe. “You’re not a witch, are you? I heard that was some kind of a witch store.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. Obviously she’d never been inside, but then again, why would she? We didn’t carry designer purses. “It’s a metaphysical shop. There’s a Wiccan section, but there’s more to the shop than that. It’s very cool, actually.”

She nodded, then crinkled her nose. “Yeah, but isn’t it run by a couple of lesbians?”

Okay, line crossed. The back of my neck prickled at her judgmental tone, and I stiffened, immediately second-guessing my decision to be the bigger person and come out here. Pick on me all you want, but don’t judge my friends. “Reese and Kelly have been together since college. They’re one of the most loving, stable couples I know. Yeah, they’re two women,” I added, in a snappish tone. “So what? This is the twenty-first century, in case you haven’t noticed.”

My uncharacteristic lashing out seemed to subdue her. After a moment, she said, “I suppose you’re right. I’m not exactly in the position to question other people’s choices, am I?” She shrugged. “After all, if I’d chosen to be a lesbian instead of a post-breakup slut, I wouldn’t be in this predicament, would I?”

I didn’t bother launching into the “homosexuality isn’t a choice” lecture. That’s what I believe, but she could believe whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t bash people I care about in my presence. “You’re not a slut just because you happen to be pregnant,” I said instead. Speaking of judgmental. I hate the crap society piles on women. What about the guy? Was he a slut?

“Well, you’re the only person who thinks that,” she muttered.

I took a deep breath. “What are you doing out here?”

A beat passed. “Sitting.”

Queen of the obvious, this girl. She was shivering violently, I noticed, and her fingers were white. Her normally perfect manicure consisted of chipped purple polish and nails bit to the quick. My (irritating) compassionate side returned. I silently forgave her for the ignorant comments about Reese and Kelly, even though my annoyance about it still lingered. With a sigh of resignation, I said, “You know, it’s cold out here.”

“Gee, really? You should be a meteorologist.”

My face flamed again, but I told myself her snotty tone was a self-protective measure and ignored it as best I could. “Well, if you’re just sitting, why don’t you come inside the shop?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are some comfy chairs. I’ll make tea. You can stay as long as you like and no one will bother you. We’re that kind of shop. Inclusive.”

“Are you serious?”

I nodded. “You know us lesbian witches. Sweet to the core,” I said, in as sarcastic a tone as I could ever manage, which wasn’t saying much. Lila, now she was president of the Snark and Sarcasm Society. I wasn’t even an associate member.

Jennifer flicked a surprised glance my way. “Are you—? Oh. No.” She shook off the notion. “You’re dating that Bosnian guy.”

“They actually name their children in Bosnia now.”

“Huh?”