Ruth isn’t coming.
Blinking away the stinging sensation in her eyes, Mia tucked two twenties under the saltshaker and scraped back her chair as noiselessly as possible, intent on slipping from the dining room before any more pitying glances came her way. And she would have, perhaps, succeeded, if her cell phone hadn’t sounded, causing many nearby patrons to turn and glare.
Funny how fast pity can change to indignation.
Although her phone was softly chiming “Crystals”, from the looks she was getting you’d think it was blasting the drum solo from “Wipeout”. She stopped dead in her tracks and fumbled in her purse. An excruciating length of seconds passed before she found and silenced her cell and read the message from Ruth.
Something came up. Rain check?
A wave of relief swept over her. Ruth had not forgotten. She simply couldn’t make it tonight.
No big deal.
Mia tapped out her response:
No worries. How about next Friday?
One second passed and then another.
She stared, but no scrolling dots appeared on the screen.
A reply was not in the offing.
Keeping her gaze on the floor, she made her way to the door. Not until she’d crossed the threshold of the dining room did she glance up—only to find Jane Glasgow entering the restaurant. Too late, Mia ducked her chin.
Jane had seen Mia see her.
Her cheeks heated, followed by the tips of her ears.
Could Mia pretend she hadn’t seen her? Would Jane?
“Mia!” Jane smiled and waved. “Hello!”
Oh, well.
At least it was Jane. She wouldn’t go blabbing on Monday morning about bumping into poor Mia all alone on a Friday night. Mia’s shoulders loosened. Come to think of it, Jane seemed to be on her own, too.
Not likely.
Popular Jane would surely be meeting someone.
“Hello, yourself.” Suddenly aware she’d been blocking the door, Mia stepped out of the way of traffic and made an effort to smile. She liked Jane who worked with her at the preschool and had a gentle manner perfect for putting the little ones at ease. Early on, Mia had dared hope the two might become friends, but more than a year had passed, and they hadn’t yet shared a coffee—in or out of the break room.
Of course that was Mia’s fault, not Jane’s.
Mia had never been adept at making friends.
“Are you here with a date?” Jane peered past her.
“Yes. I mean, no.” Why couldn’t she answer a simple question without stumbling? “I was supposed to meet Mrs. Hudson—Ruth—but something came up.”
“Tennyson’s mother?” Jane lifted one eyebrow, clearly surprised.
And why wouldn’t she be? Their posh preschool catered to a crowd teetering on the edge of the upper class. Unless it concerned their children, the moms and dads rarely talked to the staff, much less dined with them on a Friday night. “Like I said, Ruth couldn’t make it. I’m just leaving.”
A look of comprehension crossed Jane’s face. She stuck her index finger in the air. “That’s right! She recently split with her husband. She must be lonely.”
More like desperate if she’d resorted to going out with Mia. Ruth might have lost her friends in the divorce, or perhaps she didn’t want to discuss her failed marriage with them over the main course. In the corner of her mind, Mia understood this. But to her, desperation seemed as good a basis for a friendship as any. “I guess. Anyway, I’ll see you Monday,” she said, her knees locking as she sensed someone behind her.
“Jane! Get your ass over…” a lively voice trailed off.
Jane stepped forward, and Mia rotated the upper half of her body while her legs remained facing the door.
With one hand on her hip, the other waving a purple drink in a martini glass, Celeste Cooper approached, gorgeous auburn hair shimmering over bare shoulders, a billion-watt smile illuminating her path. And she would have an $800 Michael Kors snakeskin tote, just like the one Mia had been admiring for months, dangling carelessly from her arm. The bag gaped. Its glittering contents, lipsticks, breath spray, a big, fluffy pom-pom keychain, and what appeared to be condoms, hinted at a world Mia could only imagine.
A world Mia coveted.
In truth, Celeste Cooper didn’t just have Mia’s dream purse; she had her dream life.
Mia commanded her jaw to unclench.
“Look who I found!” Jane exclaimed.
Celeste frowned, but made a quick recovery. “Hey, Mia.”
“Hey. I was just—”
“Why don’t you join us?” Celeste asked, extending an arm toward the patio.
Mia peeked outside, and there, seated around one of the fire-pit tabletops, she spied the remaining unmarried staff members of Harbor Youth Academy—all the single teachers, save Mia, gathered for a night on the town.
“We’re just getting together for our monthly…” Jane’s tone turned apologetic “… for drinks.”
“You do this every month?”
“Only for the past year,” Celeste said.
There was a brief silence during which tension leaked into the air like moisture from a rain cloud before it bursts wide open.
Jane shifted her weight. “It’s, er, very informal. We didn’t think you’d be interested or we would’ve mentioned it.”
That couldn’t be true.
Perhaps Jane wasn’t as nice as Mia had supposed. Or maybe Jane went along with the others for fear she’d be ostracized, too. But this was no oversight. It was a deliberate exclusion that had been backed up by a code of silence. To think of the effort it had taken to conceal a year’s worth of outings from her. Not to speak in front of her, even once, of the fun they’d had, the bands they’d heard, the men they’d flirted with. All those conversations that had stopped when she’d walked into the teachers’ lounge suddenly made sense.
She managed a tight smile, hoping the scalding embarrassment she felt hadn’t reddened her face. “No worries. Like I said, I have to get home because…” She paused, scrambling for an excuse, but there was no need to invent one—the women who worked alongside her five days a week at the preschool, and who were the closest things to friends she possessed, had already turned their backs.
As
