“The same as what?” César asked me quietly.
“The same as every other man,” I said, eyes closed. So sleepy.
“Camdyn? You said that some of your mom’s boyfriends got physical. Did any of them do that with you?”
“Yeah, sure,” I murmured. I thought I said it out loud, but I was too tired to really notice. I fell asleep in another moment, my feet feeling wonderful and so glad that César and I weren’t arguing anymore. That had felt way worse than the fancy shoes.
Chapter 5
What even was all this? I stood in the produce section of the grocery store that César had recommended, staring at the piles of green things. He wanted a specific kind of lettuce for a salad he was making but there were so many choices. I had never, ever given this much thought to a vegetable. I picked up a bunch of wet, dirty leaves and decided that it was probably close enough.
“Camdyn?” a woman asked.
I turned and was at a loss here as well. She looked vaguely familiar but not enough for me to come up with a name, so I just smiled. “Hello!”
“I’m Lindy Nyland. I used to be Lindy Baumgartner,” she explained. “I think you know my brother Caleb.” She pushed her cart to the side and I saw that she was very pregnant.
“Hi! Yes, of course,” I said. My eyes were glued to her rounded stomach. “I ran into Caleb last fall. He said that you’re a caterer, now.”
“I am.” She pointed at her cart, brimming with all kinds of specialty ingredients that I recognized only from César’s kitchen. “We’re trying, anyway.”
“It sounded like your brother is doing really well.” He had moved onto better things from his former job as my manager at the ice cream shop when I had been in high school. “No more cleaning out the soft-serve machines and dealing with the mistakes I made balancing my cash drawer.” It had never, ever come out right at the end of the day.
“He’s doing great,” she agreed. “I remember him talking about you around the dinner table that summer. You were his favorite employee.”
I laughed. “I find that had to believe. He fired me!”
“You guys had so much fun, though. But I do also remember there was a small problem with you giving away cones.” She laughed, too. “He did used to say that he yelled at you some.”
I remembered the lines of my friends waiting to get their free ice cream. “Probably not as much as he should have, but he took those cones out of my paycheck, which I see now that I deserved. I guess we all grew up.” And out, I thought, eying her stomach. “And you’re having a baby?”
Lindy got a big smile and rested her hand on the giant bump under her sweater. “I’m due in March.”
“March,” I repeated. It was already February, so she was getting close.
“Logan and I were surprised for sure but really happy about her,” she said, smiling bigger.
“A surprise?” I threw the dirty lettuce into my cart and thought quickly. “Do you want to go out for coffee or something? I’d love to hear more about your baby.”
“Really? Most people are pretty sick of hearing me talk about her! Sure,” she told me, and we made plans to meet. “I’ll see you soon, Camdyn,” Lindy said. She plodded slowly away, swaying some, too. I winced as I watched her and I shoved my cart in the other direction to go check out.
“This is spinach, not lettuce,” César told me at home when he removed the leaves I had picked out from the grocery bag. He delved back in and shook his head as he unpacked the rest of what I had bought. “Camdyn, the rest of this bag is full of cookies.”
“They’re organic,” I told him. “But they have the worst cookies at that store and they’re so expensive. Why did you send me there?”
He shook his head. “You’re a terrible grocery shopper. What did I tell you before you left?”
“Get a lot of organic cookies?”
“Follow the list,” he reminded me, but he laughed. “That was what I told you, to follow the list. Cookies weren’t on it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I grabbed one of the carrots he had already cut and slathered it in dip. It was yogurt with some special spices that César claimed I needed, but it still tasted good, and there wasn’t a way to eat vegetables plain. “I saw a woman I know there. We chatted over the lettuce.”
“Spinach,” he reminded me. “You bought spinach. Every time you go out the door, you see people you know.”
“I grew up here. Small town.” I took a slice of red pepper and anointed it with his dip.
“Is there a vegetable under that?” he asked, then shrugged. “At least you’re getting calcium.”
I swallowed the dip. “Anyway, I saw Lindy Baumgartner, but she got married so she’s Lindy Nyland now. She’s pregnant and she’s due in March. She looked like she ate a small planet but she seems happy about it.”
“You seem happier now that you’re not throwing up anymore, too,” César said.
It had been a real relief to have that stop. I had woken up about two weeks before and felt better, and it had continued. I had more energy, too, which César attributed to the improvements in my diet and exercise. Whatever it was, I could get through the day at work without having to spend excessive time ill in the bathroom or freezing as I took a nap in my car. It still didn’t mean that there was anything for me to do there at my desk, but at least I was awake. I had even been able to see more of my friends—I had gone to dinner and to a few parties and César had never said a word about either of those activities, so I had relaxed about him
