As for Natalie, she’d gone home the night of the uproar and, surprisingly, slept all night and most of the morning after she cried herself to sleep. She barely made it to the grocery store in time to work her shift. She was grateful for the job, because it took her mind off the painful argument with Mack and the vicious tongue-lashing Vivian had given her. For the first time in years, she really did feel like an orphan. She was worried about how her exams would be graded, as well, and about graduation. It seemed that the weight of the world had fallen on her over the weekend. Worst of all, of course, was Mack’s anger. Perhaps she’d provoked it, but the pain was terrible.
Chapter Eight
Natalie received her grades from the registrar the following week, and she laughed out loud with relief when she saw that she’d passed all her subjects. She would graduate, after all.
But as her classmates placed their orders for tickets to the baccalaureate service and the graduation exercises, Natalie realized with a start that she had no one to get tickets for. None of the Killains were speaking to her, and she had no family. She would have nobody to watch her graduate.
It was a painful realization. She went through the rehearsals and picked up her cap and gown, but without much enthusiasm. No one would have known from her bright exterior that she was unhappy. Even at work, she pretended that she was on top of the world.
She saw Dave Markham briefly before her big day. They hadn’t had much contact since her student teaching stint had been over, and she’d missed his pleasant company.
“I hear through the grapevine that you’re graduating,” he told her, tongue in cheek, as he waited at the grocery store for her to check out his groceries.
She grinned. “So they say. It’s really a relief. I wondered during exams if I was going to pass everything.”
“Everyone goes through that,” he assured her. “Finals in your senior year are enough to cause a nervous breakdown.” He studied her quietly as she bent over the computer keyboard after she’d scanned his purchases into the machine. “There’s another rumor going around.”
She stopped, her head lifting. “Which is?”
He grimaced. “That you’ve had a split with the Killains,” he continued. “I didn’t believe it, though. You and Vivian have been friends for years.”
“Sadly,” she said, “it’s true.” She drew in a long breath as she gave him his total, then waited for him to count out the amount and give it to her.
He waited while she finalized the transaction before he spoke again, taking the sales slip automatically. “What happened? Can you tell me?”
She called for one of the grocery boys to come and help her bag his purchases before she turned to him. “I’d rather not, Dave,” she said honestly. “It hurts to talk about it.”
“That’s why it hurts, because you haven’t opened up.” His eyes narrowed. “I hear Whit Moore’s going around with a new girl and Vivian’s quit taking classes at the vocational school.”
That was news. “Did she?” She couldn’t really blame her former best friend for that decision, of course. It wouldn’t have been easy for her to go back into one of Whit’s classes after they’d broken up in such a terrible way. She wondered if he’d ever been honest with Vivian about what had happened that night and decided that he probably hadn’t. It was a major misunderstanding that might never be cleared up, and Natalie missed not only her former friend, but the boys, as well. She missed Mack most of all. She supposed that he’d heard all about it from Vivian. She’d hoped that he wouldn’t believe his sister, but that was a forlorn hope. Natalie had never, in her acquaintance with the other girl, known her to tell Mack a deliberate lie.
“Mrs. Ringgold asks about you all the time,” Dave added, trying to cheer her up. “She said she hopes you’ll come and teach at our school in the fall, if there’s an opening. So do I. I miss having you to talk to.”
She remembered his hopeless love and smiled with fellow feeling. “Maybe I’ll do just that,” she said.
The bag boy came to sack his groceries, another customer pushed a cart up behind him, and the brief conversation was over. He left with a promise to call her and she went back to work, trying to put what she’d learned out of her mind. She wished Mack would call, at least, to give her a chance to explain the misunderstanding. But he didn’t. And after Vivian’s fierce hostility, she was nervous about phoning the house at all. She hoped that things would work themselves out, if she was patient.
Late afternoon on the Thursday before baccalaureate exercises Friday night, she walked out of the bank after depositing her paycheck and ran right into Mack Killain.
It was the first time she’d seen him since the day she’d had the falling out with Vivian. He moved away from her, and the look he gave her was so contemptuous, so full of distaste, that she felt dirty. That was when she realized that Vivian must have told Mack what she thought Natalie and Whit had done. It was painfully obvious that Mack wasn’t going to listen to an excuse. She’d never imagined that he would look at her like that. The pain went all the way to her soul.
“How could you do that to Vivian, to your best friend?” he asked coldly.
“Do...what?” she faltered.
“You know what!” he thundered. “You two-timing, lying, cheating little flirt. He must be crazy. No man in his right mind would look twice at you.”
Her mouth fell open. Her heart raced. Her mouth was dry as cotton. “Mack...”
“You had us all fooled,” he continued, raising his voice and not minding who heard. Several people did. “Vivian trusted you! And while she was in
