Second Chance Friends

by Jennifer Scott

  “Sorry, I don’t want to be depressing, but it is what it is. You going to talk to Mr. Sidwell about getting Travis out?” She turned to the counter. “Pork lo mein,” she shouted over the din of the crowd. “And don’t put any of those disgusting baby corns in it.” She turned and made a face at Karen. “Those things are unnatural. You want to split an order of spring rolls?”

  Karen shook her head. “I’m not all that hungry. Just some soup, Mr. Wong,” she called out. “A small.” She turned back to Antoinette, who was loading soy sauces and napkins into her purse. “I don’t think so. What am I supposed to do? Hi, Mr. Sidwell, I know you don’t know me—I’m one of the drones you hide in the basement—but I’m wondering if you could get my son off on a possible murder charge? At a discount?”

  At the words “murder charge,” Karen touched her fingertips to her temples. She hadn’t heard from Kendall in several days, so she had no idea whether the mystery man on the other side of the bar fight was still alive. Surely if he’d died, Kendall would have blown up her phone with calls and texts. Unless the girl had already moved on, and not bothered to tell Karen about it. She wouldn’t put it past her.

  “So you’re going to let him cool out in the clink this time?” Antoinette asked, reaching over the counter to snag her order. “I think that’s the right thing to do. He’s never going to learn if you keep bailing him out, you know.”

  “I know,” Karen said miserably. Mr. Wong placed her soup on the counter and she grabbed it, then passed her credit card to the impossibly young-looking girl who always ran the register. Her arm was jostled by a man distracted with his cell phone, but she felt too numb to care. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Excuse us,” Antoinette snarled, shoving past the man, never too numb to give it back to what she considered the overly rude, me-first business crowd.

  Karen followed Antoinette toward the door. Mr. Wong’s was so crowded now, the line held the door open, and they had to shimmy sideways through it. Once on the sidewalk, Antoinette stopped short, Karen nearly smashing her soup cup against Antoinette’s back.

  “Okay, new subject,” Antoinette whispered, tugging on Karen’s sleeve with two fingers and gazing pointedly at the middle of the line. “Guess who’s back?”

  Karen followed her friend’s gaze, and when she saw the subject of the stare, she sighed. “Come on,” she mumbled, aiming her face to the sidewalk and walking quickly ahead.

  But Antoinette lagged behind. “Oh, hey,” she said, sounding mortifyingly fake to Karen’s ears. “Long line today, huh?”

  Karen stopped, resigned, and glanced up. There he was, looking right into her eyes, just as she knew he would be. She swept as much of a smile as she could across her face. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi, there,” he answered in that voice of his that somehow managed to be soft-spoken and confident all at the same time. Like his ideas were so good, he didn’t need to be loud about them.

  His name was Marty Squire. Mid-fifties, built like a thirty-year-old, with meticulously combed salt-and-pepper hair and light blue eyes that went so deep, Karen couldn’t hold his gaze for more than moments at a time before feeling like she needed a life vest. He worked at an accounting firm on the fourth floor of their building, but he dressed like a lawyer, in navy suits with power ties and shoes so shiny they were like he was walking in little black pools.

  Karen knew all of this through Antoinette, who Karen had always suspected had missed a lucrative calling in private investigation. Antoinette always knew everything about everyone and never apologized for snooping. And if you asked her something that she didn’t know the answer to, you could guarantee that within the day she’d have it sniffed out.

  “Eating at the desk today?” Marty asked, motioning to the foam soup bowl Karen held.

  She looked down, blushed. She hated it when she blushed around him. It was like she was a teenager again—oh, no, a boy talked to me!—but the last thing she wanted was for Marty to mistake her for interested. “Oh. Yeah.” She lifted up the bowl as evidence.

  “It’s crowded as balls in there,” Antoinette said, and Karen blushed again, on her friend’s behalf. If only she had half the ease in conversation that Antoinette did . . . and if only Antoinette could be a tiny bit more reserved. “If you’re planning to eat in there, you better strap on some hockey gear. You’re going to have to fight for a table.”

  The line inched forward, thankfully causing Marty to have to take a few steps, leading him away from them. “Nope. At the desk for me today, too,” he said. “I’ve got a hot date with a calculator and a very messed-up audit.”

  “Good times,” Antoinette said. “I cannot be trusted with anything that might take a calculator to figure. Thank God I have Karen here—”

  “Well, have fun with that,” Karen said. She grabbed Antoinette’s arm and started pulling her down the sidewalk back toward Sidwell, Cain, Smith & Smith.

  “Okay, maybe we’ll get a chance to eat together tomorrow,” she heard Marty say, but she didn’t slow her stride.

  “If I can talk the workhorse here into it,” Antoinette called over her shoulder. “If it weren’t for me, she’d never leave her desk.”

  “Not true,” Karen said under her breath, but she didn’t slow down, and didn’t let go, until they had rounded the corner.

  Antoinette giggled. “You are so adorable when you’re in lust.”

  “I’m not in lust.”

  “Oh, really? Is that why you’re sprinting down the sidewalk with soup in your hand? Did you take a sudden interest in marathon running?”

  Karen hadn’t really thought she’d been jogging, but now that Antoinette mentioned it, she was panting a little. And Antoinette was having to skip a few steps to keep up with her. “I’ve got work to do,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. Well, he, my friend, is in lust, whether you are or not.”

  “Oh, please. Does your mind go nowhere else?”

  “From your lips to Sal’s ears,” Antoinette said. “He thinks he’s the most neglected husband in all of history. If my mind went there, he’d probably go to mass and light a candle.” She slowed, and Karen was forced to slow alongside her. “Come on, Karen. What’s so bad about Marty? I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “I haven’t noticed.” They’d reached the Sidwell Cain building, and immediately her gut had turned sour again. What would she tell Kendall when (if?) the girl ever called back, wondering what the attorneys would do for Travis?

  “I call bull on that one,” Antoinette said, her heels clacking on the shiny marble vestibule floor. “He’s adorable. You’d have to be dead not to notice. And you’d have to be dead not to notice that he’s into you.”

  “I am dead.” She punched the down button on the elevator. “In the romance department, that is.”

  The truth was, she hadn’t ever been alive. After she’d found out she was pregnant with Travis, the boy she’d been messing with—Doug—had run for the hills, never to be seen or heard from again. Not that she wanted his loser, pot-smoking carcass hanging around her baby, anyway. It hadn’t been love between Doug and her, and it hadn’t been love—or even anything close to it—for her and anyone since. She loved Travis, and he was enough. And after he’d moved out, she was just too tired for it. And out of practice. And scared to take lessons.

  The elevator doors opened and Karen and Antoinette stepped in. They were alone, Karen noticed with a pang of regret.

  “Well, that’s just sad,” Antoinette continued. “You have a lot to offer. You’re cute, you’re self-sufficient, you’re funny, you have a great ass. . . .”

  “And I have a son in jail,” Karen reminded her. “Don’t forget to add that to my selling points.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  The elevator settled to the basement level with a thump. “Marty just wants to have l
unch. What’s wrong with lunch?”

  Fortunately, the doors opened, and Karen sprang through them, taking her soup to her office, where she closed the door and sat before her computer, pulling up another search for “fight manslaughter legal options.” After a few minutes of searching, she opened the soup, but it looked cold and congealed, as unappetizing as bile. She re-covered it and threw it away.

  She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes and sighing. She tried not to think about what it meant that Kendall wasn’t calling. She tried not to think about how Travis was doing in jail—if he was getting tormented or stonehearted or if he was suffering withdrawal from drugs. She tried not to think about Doug, which she rarely ever did, and how he’d gotten off so easily when he’d walked out on her life. What if he was a rich surgeon now? Or happily married with an entire brood of doctors to call his own? What if one of Doug’s other kids was a warden in the jail where Travis was currently sitting?

  “God, don’t think, Karen,” she whispered to herself. “Just don’t think at all.”

  But she couldn’t help it. Her mind turned to Marty, standing there watching her back as she hightailed it away from Mr. Wong’s, practically dragging Antoinette by her hair. Did he feel hurt by her rudeness? She didn’t want him, but she didn’t want him to be offended, either.

  Antoinette didn’t get it. It wasn’t just lunch. It would never be just lunch. It was so many other things. It was sharing. Sharing a meal, sharing information, sharing a heart, sharing a life. And Karen had never been too keen on sharing. Not with anyone. Not with her aloof brother or her cold mother or her absent father or Doug the Runner. She was settled. She was set. She’d managed to escape even a single date for all these years, and she didn’t intend to change that now.

  She didn’t have time, or the mind, to share.

  FIVE

  Paul had slipped a pamphlet under her cereal bowl before he’d left for work. He’d attached a sticky note to it: See you at two! With three x’s lined up next to the exclamation point—three kisses. If she’d been out of the shower before he’d left, he would have planted those kisses right in the middle of her forehead. He would have pulled her in close, whispered into her hair something positive and encouraging—something about them getting answers today. She knew it as well as she knew him. Instead, she’d lingered, waiting until she heard the roar of the garage door opening and closing, and then leaned into the scalding water stream once more before getting out.

  She’d dressed like the traitor she was—furtively, behind a locked bathroom door—before digging into the tampon box and pulling out the pills. She’d held one in the palm of her hand, considering. Last night they’d made love. And then again this morning. He’d switched to boxer shorts, on his mother’s advice. He’d urged Melinda to take cough medicine—also on his mother’s advice. For a woman who’d never even graduated high school, she sure seemed the expert on fertility. Melinda wished she would stay out of their business, out of their bedroom, but then again, she’d come with advice only when Paul had gone looking for it. He’d gone to so much trouble, such worry, all the while ignorant to what was really going on.

  It was this realization of just how much a baby would mean to Paul that made Melinda pause and stare at the little white culprit in her palm that morning. The guilt was eating her alive.

  But then she thought about the SIDS babies they’d gotten calls on over the years. Only a few of them, but a few dead babies were more than enough. She could still see the looks of astonished, helpless grief on the mothers’ faces every single time. No, grief wasn’t a strong enough word for it. Implosion was more like it. An implosion of the heart, the back draft sucking the soul into such recesses of existence as to never appear again.

  She’d tossed the pill into her mouth and chewed, grimacing. Paul wouldn’t understand, and maybe it was wrong, but it was done, and she wouldn’t have to wrestle the wrongness again for another twenty-four hours.

  • • •

  With trembling fingers, she pulled the pamphlet Paul had left out from under her bowl. On the cover was a beige brick building, in front of which stood a serenely smiling man and woman—the man standing behind the woman and both of them lovingly cradling her pregnant belly.

  “‘Women’s Care Reproductive and Fertility Center,’” she read aloud. She gave a sardonic chuckle. “For when your birth control pills are doing a stellar job.”

  She dropped the pamphlet facedown on the counter. How could they look so damned happy about it? How could they not be terrified? Maddie Routh had probably once had that happiness, but the terror in her eyes the day of the wreck was nothing that Melinda ever wanted to experience. It was a terror not only of losing her husband, but of losing something more. Something all-encompassing. Did she smile when she wrapped her own hands around her belly? She must be going on three months along now. If, that is, the baby survived the crash.

  Suddenly, not knowing the fate of Maddie Routh’s pregnancy was an indignity Melinda could no longer bear.

  Her mind turned to the older lady she’d run into last week at the diner. Karen. She’d said she’d come to the Tea Rose every day, sat in the same booth she’d been in the day of the accident, said it made her feel better. Maybe she’d sleuthed out information about Maddie.

  Melinda put her clean cereal bowl back into the cabinet and slid the pamphlet into her purse, first folding those smiling faces in on themselves—what she couldn’t see couldn’t hurt her, right?—and then grabbed her car keys.

  • • •

  Karen was just where Melinda expected her to be, sitting in the same booth, a cell phone cupped in one hand, a cup of coffee steaming in front of her. But she wasn’t alone. At first Melinda walked to the counter and started to pull out a stool, feeling intrusive, but then she got a good look at who was sitting across from Karen—the pretty blond girl who’d pulled the children out of the bus that day. Joanna, she’d said her name was.

  Guess Melinda wasn’t the only one with this idea.

  Guess the diner was a draw to all of them.

  She pushed the stool back in, offering a sheepish grin to the waitress who’d just shown up with a menu, and walked over to the booth.

  Joanna saw Melinda first, and the recognition seemed to dawn on her as slowly as it had on Melinda. Karen followed Joanna’s gaze.

  “Oh, hi,” Karen said.

  “Melinda,” she reminded her.

  “Yes, of course,” Karen said. “I remember.”

  Melinda gestured to the booth seat Joanna was sitting on. “Can I join you?”

  Joanna scooted over, and Melinda sat, just as Karen said, “Sure!”

  “I was just telling Joanna here that I’m waiting for a call from my son’s girlfriend, so I apologize in advance if I should jump up.” She flicked her eyes worriedly to the phone, which she still gripped tightly, as if she could squeeze a ringtone out of it.

  “No problem,” Melinda said. “I’m actually on my way to an appointment.” She checked her watch, even though she knew it was hours before she was expected at the center.

  A waitress appeared with a plate that she set down in front of Joanna. “Can I get you anything?” she asked Melinda. “Coffee?”

  “Just some orange juice,” Melinda said, feeling a wave of anxiety push in on her stomach as she remembered Paul’s note under her cereal bowl. She doubted she’d even be able to handle the orange juice. Wouldn’t Paul be filled with hopeful delirium if she were to show up to the fertility clinic vomiting? The waitress left, and Melinda watched as Joanna stared down into her plate.

  Bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, two sausage links. Melinda swallowed a few times, her hands never leaving the bench, where they pressed into the vinyl on either side of her.

  “That looks delicious,” Karen said. She sipped her coffee, one eye sliding over to the screen of her cell phone.

  Joanna unrolled he
r silverware and smoothed the paper napkin over her lap. She leaned forward to dig in and noticed Melinda staring at her.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Melinda swallowed again, tried not to inhale the scent. “Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile. “Fine.”

  Karen narrowed her eyes. “You sure?”

  Melinda nodded, tearing her eyes away from the plate. She tried not to think about the greasy egg coating her tongue, the back of her throat. Tried not to hear the children’s cries when she looked at the school bus yellow of the yolk.

  Joanna and Karen looked alarmed, Joanna’s fork poised over her plate.

  Melinda tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a cough. “It’s just that’s what I was eating that day. The day of the crash. Big breakfast.”

  “Oh,” Joanna said. “I can . . .” She gestured to the booth behind them, indicating that she would move to it.

  “No, no, I’m just being stupid,” Melinda said. “Kind of a bad morning. I’ll be fine. Please. Eat.”

  “You’re sure?” Joanna asked, and Melinda nodded, waving her off. Get a grip, Melinda—you look like a freak, she thought.

  Joanna took a few bites and Karen sipped her coffee, and soon the orange juice arrived, and Melinda thought it a good thing after all. The juice was cold against her throat, which she hadn’t realized was burning, and the sugar actually helped calm her stomach.

  Finally, Karen let out a lengthy sigh. “Well, I guess I’m not going to hear from her this morning after all,” she said, letting her phone clatter to the table. She rubbed her forehead with her palm. Melinda noticed that the older woman didn’t wear a wedding ring. “This is so ridiculous, you know?” she asked, peeking through her fingers with one eye, and groaned, let her hands drop back to the table. “Coming here every day, I mean,” she finished. “I come here, I sit at this table and stare at the grass. The whole time I’m telling myself it makes me feel better to be here, but the truth is, it doesn’t. I feel . . .” She trailed off, rested her chin in her palm for a moment as she stared out the window, shaking her head. Joanna dropped her fork and reached across the table, putting her hand on Karen’s arm.