Second Chance Friends

by Jennifer Scott

  And she’d let him think that it was physical pain that had caused her tears, because she was too afraid of how fast and how fully she’d fallen for him. She’d half cried over the anticipation of the pain she’d feel when he came to his senses and left her for someone better. She didn’t want him to know that even if he walked away, she’d still have felt it worth it to give herself to him.

  A lot had happened since that first night. Dates where he swept her off her feet. Arguments after which she was shocked and thrilled to find he still wanted her. That Christmas when they accidentally gave each other the same gift—DVD copies of Fiddler on the Roof, to commemorate their first date at an outdoor theater—and then Valentine’s Day of the very next year when they accidentally did it again, this time with gold cross pendants. The engagement, the wedding, the I-love-yous and the promises that Melinda could feel Paul really, really meant. House hunting—they found their perfect house on the first day—and furniture shopping, which should have taken agonizing months, but instead took only a few hours for the two of them to fall in love with exactly the same couch, the same bedroom set, the same dining room table, without having to really even talk about it. Slow dances in the living room, and fast dances at parties. Over time, she had come to accept that this perfect man did want plain-faced, simple her and her only—they were soul mates—though occasionally that same fear, that same unwarranted pain, crept through again. Most notably, every morning when her deception started anew.

  She shut her jewelry box, and Paul stirred, turning over sleepily and opening one eye.

  “Hey,” he said, breathing in deeply, as if he’d just come up from underwater rather than from a dream. He reached over and turned the alarm clock so he could see it. He rubbed his face. “It’s early. I thought you were off today. Come here.” He swept a muscled arm open as invitation.

  “Babysitting, remember?” she said, going to him, standing at the side of the bed. “My sister has jury duty.”

  He curled his arm around her lower back and pulled her so that her thighs were butted up against the mattress and she was about to topple over on him. “Ah, babysitting is good practice,” he said. He reached up into her shirt and laid his warm palm flat against her stomach. “Who knows? Nine months from now we may be needing your sister to babysit our little guy.”

  Melinda wriggled out of his grasp, tugging on the hem of her shirt. “Well, you know, it hasn’t happened yet,” she said. She turned away, afraid he’d see guilt on her face, and pretended to look for shoes tucked under the bed.

  “We can always try again right now, if you think last night didn’t take. Hedge our bets.” Paul pulled himself to sitting, the sheet falling around his waist. He was still nude from the night before, and part of Melinda wanted nothing more than to slip under the sheets with him, to feel him against her.

  But it hadn’t been that way lately. It’d been purposeful, and in some ways relentless. She’d felt afraid every time he touched her these days, irrationally so. She knew that it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t going to work. The tiny white pill she took every morning made sure of that. But it was the fact that he so wanted it to happen, that he was so sure it was going to happen, that made it seem scarier, as if the pill would somehow be rendered ineffective just by the force of his desire.

  “I’m late,” she said. “Sorry. Rain check?”

  He let out a pouty sigh. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He pulled himself all the way out of bed and kissed her on the temple as he headed for the bathroom. “Have fun with the kids. I love you!”

  Her heart tugged. “I love you, too,” she said. She paused, then went to the bathroom door and rested her forehead against it. “I really do.”

  He opened the door. He’d put on a pair of boxers and stood in the light, scratching his chest. “Good,” he said. “I really do, too. Now, go, or I won’t let you go.”

  • • •

  Her cell phone rang the minute she pulled out of the driveway.

  “Where are you?” Holly demanded on the other end. Ever since they were little, Melinda’s older sister seemed to have only one volume setting: loud and bossy. They were opposites in just about every way. Where Holly’s hair was long, thick, and glossy black, Melinda’s was shoulder length, thin, and blah. Where Holly was tall and curvy, Melinda was short and flat-chested. Where Holly was a palette of color on porcelain skin, Melinda was plain and makeup free on honey skin. But they were sisters—close, despite their differences. Or maybe close because of them.

  “I’m on my way. Sorry, I’m a little behind,” Melinda said.

  “Oh, great. Well, I’ll just tell the judge that you were a little behind. I’m sure he’ll feel sorry for me right before he tosses me in jail for contempt of court.”

  “You’re not going to be late. You live half a mile from the courthouse. And I seriously doubt they lock people up for being tardy to jury duty. Besides, if he tosses you in jail, I’ll bail you out if it takes me a hundred years to do it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Holly deadpanned.

  “That’s what sisters are for,” Melinda said, grinning.

  “Okay, well, since I’m obviously going to be leaving the second you get here, let me tell you some things now.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Mitchell has engineering camp today at the university. You have to have him there by nine.”

  “Engineering camp? Is that a thing? He’s eight. What about school?”

  “Shush, I’m not finished. I’ve packed him a lunch—just grab it out of the fridge before you go. Reenie was up teething all night, so good luck with that. She can have more Tylenol at noon, but I wouldn’t expect her to eat anything at all today. And Gregory is . . . well, he’s just Gregory.”

  “Got it.”

  “You sure? Maybe I should write some of this down. I’ll write it down.”

  “No, come on. This isn’t that complicated. Gregory goes to basketball camp, Reenie has a lunch in the fridge, and . . . what’s the name of your third kid again? The one with the hair?”

  “Darn it, Linds, it’s not a good day to mess with me! I’ve had three hours of sleep, there’s spit-up on every item of clothing I own, and with my luck I’ll spend the night in the clink because my inconsiderate sister doesn’t think being late to jury duty is any big deal.”

  Melinda chuckled. “Relax, Hols, I’m just teasing you. I’ve got this. But listen, I’m on the road, so I need to go.”

  “Okay, okay, Safety Officer Sam, I’ll let you go. But hurry up.”

  Melinda hardly ever talked on the phone while driving. And never texted. She’d seen the result of those decisions too many times. Someone thinks he’s making an innocent phone call to say he’s on his way home and wraps his car around a tree and dies. Blip. Just like that. Nothing that she, or any of the other paramedics, could do about it. The worst was when they got to a scene and the victim’s hand was still wrapped around the phone.

  Scratch that. The worst was actually when they got to a scene and the victim’s hand was still wrapped around the phone, and the phone was still working.

  Of course, there were so many things that could go wrong in a car. Things people really couldn’t control. She’d probably seen them all. Bad brakes, someone falls asleep, a squirrel runs out into the road. Once a rollover accident she’d been called to had actually begun as a fistfight in the driver’s seat. And there was the time a guy had a seizure and ended up sitting in his car in a stranger’s living room.

  But cars weren’t the only way to go. Not even the most surprising, Melinda supposed. People died all the time from accidents they could never have prevented in a million years. Hell, for that matter, she could choke on one of her clandestine birth control pills and die in the bathroom with sexy, naked, sleeping Paul clueless on the other side of the locked door. Wouldn’t that be a surprise for him? So many layers of surprises, he wouldn�
�t know what to do with them all.

  “God, morbid enough, Melinda?” she said aloud, and flipped on the radio. She was going to be spending the day with two rowdy boys and a teething toddler—she needed to lighten up a little or it was going to be a very long day.

  The song ended and a local newscaster came on. “Today, on the one-month anniversary of the deadly school bus crash in Caldwell, parents of the injured children have announced that they intend to file suit against the school district. . . .” Melinda’s attention perked. It had been a month already? How was that even possible? She hadn’t been back to that diner since the crash. It had seemed like only yesterday, though.

  She listened to the rest of the newscast, and then turned the radio off.

  “One-month anniversary,” she muttered. “Like it’s a celebration.”

  As if on autopilot, she found her car turning onto Forest, and then Shady Tree, and finally onto Highway 32, heading toward the intersection where the crash had happened.

  Melinda knew she was on borrowed time, and that Holly was ready to kill her as it was. But Caldwell was a small community. You could get from one end to the other in just a few minutes, especially this early in the morning. You could drive from your house to the Tea Rose Diner, for example, in plenty of time to still arrive at your sister’s house before jury duty convened.

  She couldn’t explain it, but she felt pulled. Like she needed to see it, to be back at that scene on this one-month milestone. Like she needed to kneel next to those god-awful divots that everyone could see from the highway. The city really should have filled those in.

  She’d still been clutching the stick, for Christ’s sake. That girl, that Maddie Routh, had still been holding the white stick so tightly her nails were digging into her palms. Her husband’s whole body had been crushed, the car flattened, every window busted out, every door sunk in, but she didn’t drop the stick. It had been covered with blood—whose? hers? Michael’s? who knew?—and her hand was slicked with blood, too, but she would not let it go. The pink plus sign was crowded out by the crimson, but she would not release it. Even after they freed her from the vehicle, she held on to that test stick. As if it would save her from something.

  Melinda didn’t think she would ever forget that pink plus sign.

  She didn’t think she would ever eat hash browns and sausage and banana pancakes again.

  She didn’t think she would ever be able to pull into that parking lot another time.

  But she was wrong. She was pulling in. She was getting out of her car. She was walking toward the divots. The grass was starting to regrow in them. Soon nature would do what the city had not done. Time would fill in the ruts, and there would be nothing left. No reminder of what had happened that day.

  Except for the memories in her heart.

  Paul hadn’t understood. Of course he hadn’t. Thank God Melinda was there to help, he’d told people, proudly. She’s used to seeing these things. She knows how to handle it. He’d assumed life would go on as it had. They’d keep trying to have a baby, keep trying to start their family.

  But he’d been wrong.

  Yes, she was used to seeing these things.

  And that was precisely why she couldn’t carry on as normal.

  That stick. That bloody stick with the pink plus sign.

  She nearly bumped into a woman in a dowdy brown skirt coming out of the diner and then did a double take. How weird. Melinda hadn’t thought of the woman since the day of the accident and would never have been able to describe her if anyone asked—it had been such chaos she couldn’t focus on anything other than the impossible task of trying to keep Maddie Routh calm—but she knew the woman the minute she caught her profile in her periphery. She was tall, but thin, wore clunky-heeled shoes, a pair of cheap stud earrings poking out from under her short grayish brown hair.

  “Hello?” she asked, stutter-stepping toward the woman.

  The woman paused, and Melinda could see recognition set in her eyes. “Oh,” she said. She half waved with a hand that was gripping a cell phone. “I was in my own world there, I guess. How are you?”

  Melinda nodded, and then instantly wished she’d never spoken to the woman at all, as she didn’t know how on earth to follow up the hello. It seemed like there should be more, but the more was so weighty and enormous, how could one say it to a stranger?

  The woman gestured toward the divots. “It’s been a month, today,” she said.

  Melinda nodded. “That’s why I stopped. They were talking about it on the radio.” She squinted into the sun, which was the warm beautiful orange of morning. “Probably stupid to come back here. Nothing to see.”

  The woman shrugged. “I come every day.” She pointed with her cell phone at the nearest window. “Sit right there, right where I was sitting when it happened.”

  Melinda turned and gazed at the window. To watch the sun rise over those marks in the grass every day. It seemed so . . . “Pointless,” Melinda muttered. The woman didn’t hear her, but she burned with apology anyway. She offered a grin. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about what happened to her,” she said. “The girl in the wreck? Maddie Routh?”

  The woman shook her head. “I wonder about her all the time. I hope she’s okay.”

  Melinda nodded and turned to stare at the divots again. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the new grass was a different color. Richer, somehow. A deeper hue. “Yeah,” she said, unable to tear her eyes away.

  “And I hope the baby’s okay,” the woman added softly.

  “Yeah,” Melinda said, and, without realizing it, gripped both arms around her stomach tight.

  THREE

  Hiding was exhausting. It sounded so easy. After all, hiding was full of don’ts. Don’t go to work. Don’t call in. Don’t answer your phone when they call you. Don’t go home to Sunday dinner. Don’t go to rehearsal. And, whatever you do, don’t go out with the cast on a Friday night. What was simpler than inactivity?

  But the truth of the matter, as far as Joanna Chambers could see, was that don’t wasn’t as full of inaction as it seemed. There was willfulness behind shrugging off the most important parts and pieces of your life. It stuck in the pit of your stomach and leapt in your heart. The phone never rang to indifference.

  Not that she’d answered her phone in a month. Not that she’d checked her missed calls, and especially not her voice mail. The last time she’d done that was a mistake.

  Voice mail #1 had made her toes go icy: “Joanna, hello, it’s Max. Not sure what’s going on with you, but we’re really missing you here at LaEats. Stephen told us you’re sick with the flu? It’s been a long time. Hope you’re okay. Listen, I don’t want to fire you. But Leese will probably really start going apeshit if you don’t at least call. Stephen’s been taking your shifts. Call soon.”

  Voice mail #2 had made her swim with guilt: “Joanna, it’s Stephen. What the heck is going on? It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth. Is this about that night with the wine? It’s okay. It really is. I don’t even remember most of it anyway. I was stupid to say something. I was drunk. It’s fine. . . . I wish you’d answer your phone. I can’t keep covering you forever. Leese is on the warpath. Plus I’m afraid you’re trapped in a hole or something. If you don’t answer by the end of today, I’m going to come to your apartment. I love you. In a nonweird way, okay? Please answer.”

  Voice mail #3 had crushed her: “Yes, I’m calling for Joanna. This is Eliot, your stage manager? Stan said to tell you you’re off the cast. And to, uh, never audition for him again. Uh, sorry. Good-bye.”

  Voice mail #4 had broken her heart: “Hey, sweetie, it’s me. Your father and I are wondering if you might have time to come to dinner this Sunday. We know you’re busy with the show, but it’s been so many weeks now, we’ve forgotten what you look like. Just kidding, a mother could never forget such a precious fac
e. Come home. We miss you.”

  Voice mail #5, she couldn’t even listen to: “Um, hi. It’s Sutton. You probably know that. . . .”

  Hiding was such a bad idea. She should have known that. She’d tried it before. It didn’t work out then, so why would she have any reason to expect it to work out now? She’d hidden so well the last time that she’d disappeared from college for what, so far, looked like would be forever. Was she prepared to disappear from acting forever? From working? No, according to her bank account, she could disappear from working for only about two more months, and then she’d be screwed.

  Not that LaEats was going to keep her job open for two more months. Not that Stephen was going to cover her shift for that long.

  God. Stephen.

  He might not have remembered most of what happened that night with the wine, but she did. She remembered every single second of it. She remembered him showing up for their standing Friday night movie date, a box of Franzia under his arm. His turn to buy; her turn to cook.

  “Whatever you’re making, it better go with . . .” He’d paused, checking the box as he followed her to the kitchen. “Red.”

  She’d bent, pulled a cookie sheet out of the oven with flourish. “Pizza pockets. I believe red is, in fact, the proper pairing.”

  He set the box on the counter. “What the hell? Frozen pizza pockets? I made beef bourguignon for you.”

  “It was delicious.”

  “It took me all day!”

  “Whatever. You just made it because you like saying it.” She’d scraped the pockets onto a plate.

  “Saying what?”

  “Beef bourguignon. Sounds like boof.”

  “It’s French,” he protested.

  “It’s naughty, and that’s why you love it.” She stuffed a bite of pizza pocket into her mouth. “Get the glasses. I’m thirsty. And I’ve got vintage Sandra Bullock cued up.”

  They’d sat on her couch, munching on pizza pockets and popcorn and Skittles, and drinking way too much wine. They watched While You Were Sleeping, talking over the movie, trying to decide which of their LaEats regulars would be most likely to be the subject of secret marriage fantasies.