In Your Dreams (Blue Heron #4)(34)

It was back. Kevin’s fat was disappearing, but after all these clean years, her stutter was back.

Kevin looked at her, his face gentling. “I’m going to say this for your own good, Emmaline,” he said tenderly. “You’ve gained weight this year. You might want to watch what you eat.”

* * *

AND THAT WAS THAT. The Kevin she’d loved, who’d made being picked last for teams tolerable, who’d loved her when her words were stuck, was gone, shed like a snake skin.

He moved in with Naomi.

She wrote him a letter, unable to stop herself. It was filled with phrases such as “never stop loving you” and “don’t understand” and “please give us another chance” and all those wretched, horrible, debasing phrases that your friends tell you never to say. He didn’t answer.

When it seemed truly final, she went home to Malibu to break the news to her family.

“Kevin and I broke up,” she said that night around the kitchen table with her parents (who no longer spoke directly to each other, yet still lived together) and Angela, who was visiting from Stanford, where she was getting her PhD in astrophysics.

“We figured that was coming,” her mother said smoothly. “I accept you exactly as you are.”

“And I love you unconditionally,” Dad said, not to be outdone.

“Um...thanks,” Emmaline said. “What do you mean?”

“We always knew,” her father said.

“Knew what?”

Mom patted her hand. “That you’re g*y, honey.”

Emmaline blinked. “No, I’m not.”

“You don’t need to pretend, Emmaline. Your father and I don’t care what your sexual orientation is.” She handed Em a tissue.

“Your mother and I had dinner with the Bateses the other night,” Dad said. “They told us about Kevin’s weight loss. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Good old Dad, ever clueless.

“I liked Kevin better when he was fat,” Angela said. “And I’m so very sorry about this, Emmaline.” Flawless Angela always said exactly the right thing.

Em went back to Ann Arbor, only to find that the paper was downsizing, and she was out of a job.

Nana had left Angela and Em her little house in her will. They’d planned on renting it, but now, it was a godsend.

The newspaper in Manningsport had one paid employee. Even if there was an opening, Em had her fill of covering town meetings and school concerts.

There was a job advertised for administrative assistant at the police department, which had all of one full-time cop and one part-timer. Levi Cooper, the chief, had been a year behind her in high school, a bit of a toughie, on the football team. All grown-up now, a veteran, somewhat grumpy and good at his job.

Em found that people confided in her as they called with their problems. “Oh, Emmaline, hi, honey. My husband is late coming home, and I hate to be neurotic, but you think Levi would swing by Suzette Minor’s house and see if Bill’s car is there? You know Bill. You don’t? Well, he’s not the most faithful dog on the sled team.”

One day, a woman came into the station and introduced herself. Shelayne Schanta, looking to start a book club. Could she put up a notice on the bulletin board? “My fiancé dumped me for my aunt, can you believe that?” she said. “Gotta find something to do in my free time.”

“My fiancé left me six months ago,” Em heard herself saying.

“Did he cheat on you?”

He had claimed no, but even if hadn’t slept with Naomi before he dumped her, he’d been emotionally unfaithful, putting all his trust and attention and time into that shrew. Also, People magazine’s “Half Their Size” edition had just come out, and Em (and the rest of the world) got to hear what Kevin really thought of her. That was infidelity enough.

“I think so.”

“Welcome to the club,” Shelayne said. “The bitter betrayed.”

The name stuck, and the Bitter Betrayeds became her refuge. There wasn’t much reading, but there were martinis and venting. They hung out at O’Rourke’s from time to time. Emmaline joined the town hockey league, having become a pretty good skater during high school. She kept up her grandmother’s flower garden; the smell of lilacs and irises reminded her of happy memories.

As it had been in school, her attitude became her armor. If she was a tough, mouthy jock, then she wasn’t a woman who’d been tossed over for a mean girl.

But God, she missed Kevin.

She kept a button-down shirt of his from when he’d been at his heaviest. It was massive; she could wrap it around herself twice. It reminded her of the man who would make her macaroni and cheese on the second day of her period each month. Who had cut out Dilbert cartoons for her all through high school. Who sent her the complete set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when she had her appendix out.

Whenever she felt lonely, or whenever she felt that maybe the time had come to register on eCommitment or Match.com, she found herself staring into her closet at that old soft blue shirt. She’d take it out and sleep in it, and even though the old Kevin was no more, she couldn’t help remembering the boy who’d befriended her when she’d had no one else.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DRIVE FROM LAX to Rancho de la Luna was not going to be long enough.