Second Chances (4 page)

“Meat is murder,”
Reagan quickly countered and shook her head. “And no, Allison’s not vegan. She was just being accommodating, I guess.”

“So what else?” Ashley pressed. “Any other disasters?”

“Luckily no. But it was painfully awkward.” Reagan worried her lip, remembering.  “I didn’t know what to say half the time and she wasn’t helping either.  We mostly just ate at the same table.”

“Well, at least you gave it a shot,” Ashley observed. “You should be proud of yourself for standing up to her.”

Reagan hesitated. “She invited me to visit her at Brown.”

Ashley’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Well it couldn’t have been a complete disaster then.  Are you going to go?”

Reagan shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

“Why not?” Ashley pressed.

“At least here I was on my home turf,” Reagan reasoned.  She hadn’t put much serious thought into the invitation until now. “Up in Providence I’d be trapped in her world, surrounded by snobby Ivy-League girls.  It would probably be like high school all over again.  Just with better clothes,” she added.

Ashley looked thoughtful. “You’re right.  You probably shouldn’t go,” she said, nodding her head in agreement. “If you and this chick didn’t get along in high school like you said you didn’t, you’re probably just tempting the Fates if you spend more time with her.”

Reagan broke eye contact with her roommate in favor of doodling on a blank page in her notebook.  She found it telling that Ashley’s thoughts about spending more time with Allison had been her own initial reaction as well.  But, she also hated being told what she could and couldn’t do. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so horrible,” she said out loud, more for her own benefit than Ashley’s.  “And I’ve always wanted to see more of New England,” she tried to reason. “I haven’t really traveled much beyond the city.”

Ashley leaned back further in her chair, nearly toppling it backwards.  “Whatever you say, Prez.  It’s your funeral.”

Reagan looked at the napkin.  She looked at her cell phone innocuously sitting on the study table.  She picked up her phone, its weight in her hand somehow grounding her.

“What are you doing?”

Reagan licked her lips and carefully pressed 10 separate buttons. “Probably making a big mistake.”

+++++

Allison Hoge stepped onto the commuter train by herself.  Her roommates and friends had left back for Rhode Island earlier that morning.  Brunch with Reagan, regardless of the venue change, had caused her to miss meeting up with them.  She actually preferred riding back to Brown by herself, however, rather than having to make pointless small talk for the duration of the trip with the girls with whom she’d lived.  She saw them enough already.  She’d only agreed to the New York trip because they’d harassed her so much about it.  Running into Reagan Murphy was an unexpected consequence of that decision. 

Allison
took an empty seat by a window and carefully returned her ticket to her overnight bag.  Her phone made a noise, indicating she’d received a text message.  She dug in her bag briefly before producing the phone.  She didn’t recognize the number, but read the text anyway:

“
Thank you again for brunch today.”

The phone rattled again with a second incoming message.

“This is Reagan Murphy, by the way.”

Allison
smirked and immediately sent her reply: “
Did you think I had brunch with someone else this morning and therefore you needed to identity yourself?”

A minute later, her phone chimed again.

“I didn’t want to assume anything. You could have double booked.”

Allison
’s response came easily: “
I might love pancakes, but one breakfast a morning is my limit.”

She fidgeted with her phone, waiting for
Reagan to return the text with one of her own.  Three years. It had been three years since high school.  She typed out another text.

“What do you think about coming to Providence to see me?”

She frowned, eyebrows furrowed together.

“
I suppose I could find a free weekend sometime.”

“
Well don’t sound so excited about it.” 
Allison scowled.  Why did Reagan Murphy insist on being so difficult
all
the time?  Apparently three years hadn’t been enough to rid her of that habit.

“I’m sorry
.  I think I’m still in shock from the past two days.”

Allison
frowned deeper.  She knew she’d made life difficult for Reagan in high school – impossible, even. Maybe nothing would ever be enough to make amends for her bullying.  Maybe that was a bridge they’d never be able to cross.

“
Don’t make me beg.”

As soon as she hit the send button, she immediately wished she could take it back.  She wanted to jump into cyberspace, or whatever invisible space text messages traveled, and pluck the message from the ether.

“Do I have the right number?”
came Reagan’s response.

“
What are you doing this weekend?” 
Allison knew she was being pushy, bossy; but that seemed to be the only kind of Allison to whom Reagan had ever responded.  She didn’t know how to be any other kind of Allison around her.

“
I guess I’m coming to see you.”

Allison
read the message over a few times and suddenly felt a little queasy.  She pushed it off as motion sickness; she’d never done well reading in a moving vehicle.  She rested her head against the windowpane, soothed by the chill radiating from the glass.  She closed her eyes and let herself be lulled by the perpetual rocking of the moving train.

Reagan Murphy was coming to
Providence.

+++++

CHAPTER
THREE

Reagan stared out the slightly tinted glass of her window seat as the New England coast rushed by outside.  Beyond the confines of the Amtrak train it had started to lightly snow, giving the impression of driving through space.  It reminded her of her father and driving through snowstorms at night in northern Michigan.  She smiled at the memory.  They’d pretend they were in a spaceship on their longer winter road trips and he would periodically flip on the high beams to make her squeal.

Her father had been her closest friend and confident all through middle school and high school.  Ever since the summer before seventh grade, they’d been close.  They were the only family they had anymore.  Neither of her parents had any siblings, all of her grandparents had died when she was too young to remember them, and she herself was an only child.

Leaving her father behind in Michigan while she attended college in New York had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.  She had told him she would be fine attending a college closer to home, but when the accepta
nce letter to her top choice school had arrived, her dad had practically packed up her childhood bedroom for her.

“
Do you mind if I steal your power?”

Reagan snapped out of her daydream and looked up to see a man standing in the aisle.
He was tall and lanky in that East Coast hipster kind of way she’d become accustomed to, and his blond hair looked to be the product of a vigorous dye job.  Her face revealed her confusion at the question, so the boy spoke again.  “That seat.  Is it taken?” he asked. “My laptop’s almost dead and you have a plug-in.”

“Oh!” Reagan exclaimed. “I’m sorry!” She collected her thoughts along with the oversized school bag currently occupying the seat
next to her.  The man waited patiently with a small smile curling the corners of his lips.  “Sorry,” she needlessly repeated as she pulled the bag onto her lap.  “I guess I’ve been living in New York for too long, acting like I own the train or something.”

The man sat down beside her in the sparsely populated train car.  “You live in the city?” he politely conversed. “Where abouts?”

“Manhattan,” Reagan responded.  “I go to NYU.”

“Wow.  That’s impressive,” the man said with an approving nod. “I go to CUNY,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing fancy.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Reagan replied. “That’s a really good school, too.”

“Thanks for saying so.  My parents think I’m a massive disappointment because I didn’t get into NYU.  I’m Christopher, by the way,” he said, sticking out his hand.

“Reagan,” she supplied with a winning smile.  She shook Christopher’s pale hand.

“Like the President?”

Reagan laughed. “Yeah. I think my parents were trying to be ironic or something; they’re really not that conservative.”

“So where are you heading to, if you don’t mind me asking?”  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I promise I’m not a stalker.”

Reagan laughed. “Would a stalker admit to being a stalker?”

Christopher smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You got me there.”

“Providence, Rhode Island,” Reagan supplied, only half-teasing about the stalker comment.  But the train was sufficiently crowded and she had her whistle in the front pocket of her bag.

“Oh yeah?
” Christopher’s voice raised in excitement. “Me too.  I’m visiting my grandma.  It’s her 90
th
birthday this weekend.”

“That’s got to be a line, right?
” Reagan said, arching a skeptical eyebrow.  “I bet you ride this train all day and tell girls how devoted you are to your grandmother.”

Christopher laughed. “I don’t know the guys you’re used to, but in my experience being fond of your grandmother isn’t good for a guy’s rep.”

Reagan hummed in agreement.  The majority of boys she’d been hanging out with lately were her less-than-masculine art school classmates.

“My parents worked like all the time, so she basically raised me,” Christopher explained.  “Plus, she makes the best date bars you’ve ever had.  She’s awesome.” He shook his head good-naturedly.  “I’m sorry. I’m babbling, aren’t I?” 

Reagan nodded, but didn’t comment on the boy’s ramblings.  She appreciated someone who wasn’t afraid to talk and share intimate details with strangers.  It was charming, in fact.

“What brings you to Rhode Island?” Christopher asked, turning the conversation to her.  His floundering laptop seemed forgotten for the moment.

“I’m meeting up with…” Reagan paused.  There was that word again.  What
was
Allison to her?  Yes, she was visiting her and even spending 4 hours on a train to get there, but that didn’t mean they were
friends
. “…someone I knew in high school,” she opted for instead.

Christopher’s eyebrows furrowed. “That’s awfully vague and mysterious,” he noted. “Now I’m starting to suspect you’re a Russian spy or something.”  He looked around in a comical, over-exaggerated manner.  “Am I on an episode of
Alias
right now?”

Reagan found herself wanting to flirt with this boy, enjoying the unexpected attention.  She batted her long eyelashes. “Well unlike you, maybe I don’t reveal my whole life story in the first 5 minutes of meeting someone.” 

That of course, was a total lie, but this boy didn’t need to know that.  Actually, she was proud of how much she’d settled down since her freshman year at NYU.  She’d quickly discovered that thrusting her hand in someone’s face and launching into her “I’m Reagan Murphy, let’s be best friends,” spiel was just as unsuccessful in college as it had been in high school.

Christopher leaned a little closer and grinned a wide, mega-watt smile. “Then I guess I’ll have to see you again if I want to learn more.”

Reagan returned the smile, but didn’t say anything else. If this boy liked a mysterious girl, she was only too happy to oblige.

+++++

Reagan chatted amicably with Christopher as they stepped off the train and onto the Providence train station platform.  He helped her with her overnight bag when she briefly struggled going down the narrow stairs that led to the wooden platform below.  Normally she liked to do things like that for herself, being a perfectly capable modern woman, but she wasn’t too proud to dismiss an act of chivalry. 

She thanked him for his help off the train and for the conversation, apologizing for keeping him from his homework.  Three years removed from high school and she still felt like she had to apologize to people for talking to them. He brushed off what she insisted must have been an inconvenience and noted he still had all weekend and the train ride back to finish his college work.  They said their goodbyes and shook hands again in parting with the promise that they’d talk soon and arrange another meet up back in New York. 

Reagan watched Christopher walk away, his luggage trailing behind. The wheels made two tidy lines in the light layer of snow on the platform.  She was shaken from the imagery when a familiar voice cut through the thin winter air.

“Friend of yours?”

Allison Hoge stood alone on the platform, her arms hugging her lithe form. Choosing to ignore Allison’s icy tone, Reagan was more struck by how icy she
looked.

“My goodness, Allison; you didn’t have to wait outside for me!” she exclaimed in horror. “How long have you been waiting?”

“A while,” Allison revealed, averted her gaze. “I didn’t want you to get lost when you got off the train,” she said miserably.

Reagan shook her head.  “That’s ridiculous,” she chastised. “I live in
New York City
.  How on earth would I get lost in Rhode Island?”

“Fine,” Allison conceded. “I didn’t want to miss you coming off the train and have you think I didn’t show up.”

Reagan clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.  So much for feeling nervous around her former tormenter; now she was in total protector-mode.  “You’re taking me to your favorite coffee shop so you can properly warm up,” she immediately ordered.

Al
lison appraised the smaller woman as she shouldered a comically oversized duffle bag.  “When did you get so bossy, Murphy?”

Reagan started walking toward the train station exit, not waiting for
Allison.  “Since you didn’t have the good sense to wait inside the terminal for me,” she shot back over her shoulder.

Allison moved at a brisk pace to catch up.  “At least let me help you with your bag.  That thing looks like it weighs more than you,” she observed. “How many days did you pack for anyway? Are you moving in?  I must have missed that memo.”

Reagan snorted. “Very funny, Hoge.  But less sarcasm and more walking.”

Allison shook her head incredulously as she watched Reagan stomp away with purpose. Her awkward duffle bag managed to hit everyone in her path as she maneuvered through the dense commuter crowds like a true New Yorker.

As she watched Reagan put more distance between them, one thought popped into Allison’s head: This might be a
very
long weekend.

+++++

“One café mocha, skim milk, with a sprinkle of chocolate dust.”

Allison
smiled and took the proffered, oversized ceramic mug.  “Thanks, Jimmy.”

After catching up with
Reagan, who had stormed away without looking back, Allison had led her in the direction of her favorite coffee shop in downtown Providence.  The downtown area, just a few blocks from the main campus, was quaint and picturesque in the way you’d imagine a New England town would be.  Allison often found herself at this particular coffee place after discovering the university library too crowded to be conducive for studying.  One of the drawbacks of going to an Ivy-League school where everyone was supremely competitive regarding academics was the difficulty in finding a decent study carrel in the library.

“Oh!” The man working
behind the front counter lit up with excitement. “Marie just made a new batch of those white chocolate, macaroon muffins you like.”

R
eagan eyeballed Allison and her interaction with the barista.  She looked amused as the man bent and disappeared momentarily behind the front counter.  When he stood and reappeared, he held a muffin wrapped in wax paper.  “On the house,” he grinned.

Allison
held up her unoccupied hand.  “No, that’s not necessary,” she politely declined. “I don’t need the extra calories today.”

The lanky man snorted and pushed it closer.  “I won’t take no for an answer.  Does your friend want one, too?”

Allison flicked her hazel eyes in Reagan’s direction as if she’d forgotten she was still standing there during the exchange.

“I assume there are dair
y products in your muffins?” Reagan spoke up, not content to be left out of the conversation.  “As well as in the white chocolate?”

The grin fell from the man’s face, and he nodded.

“Then I too will have to regrettably decline your kind offer,” she said with a definitive nod.

The two women turned from the front countertop area, each
with their own drinks.  Reagan had opted for a cappuccino with soymilk.  Allison, once again, had insisted on paying. And once again, Reagan had failed at turning down her hospitality.

“Is everyone in
Providence so friendly?” Reagan asked in a hushed tone as they made their way to a small table near the front of the shop.  The table offered a pleasant view of the postcard-like atmosphere just beyond the oversized windows.  Even though the Christmas holiday had passed, the town still seemed decorated for the winter holiday.

“You’ve j
ust gotten used to New York,” Allison remarked, taking a seat at the table and setting down her drink.  She took off her long winter jacket to reveal another three-quarter-length cardigan that showed off her defined clavicle and skinny jeans that elongated her legs. “It’s no different here than back home.”

“For you, maybe,” R
eagan countered, settling down in the second chair. “Everyone’s nice when you’re gorgeous.  Haven’t you ever seen that episode of
30 Rock
?”

Allison
waved a dismissive hand. “I just spend a lot of time here studying and doing homework,” she noted.  She cupped her oversized mug and blew across the top of her hot beverage.  The heat felt comforting against her palms.  Her bones ached from the cold, but she didn’t want Reagan see her discomfort. She didn’t know why she’d felt compelled to wait outside on the train platform. “They like me because I don’t take up a lot of space, and I’m a decent tipper.”

“Uh huh,” R
eagan said, unconvinced.

Allison
shook her head and took a sip of her drink. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince you, Reagan, but I’m not that girl anymore.  I’m not actively seeking out special attention.”