Starting Now (Blossom Street #9)(40)
“You can order whatever you’d like.” Her own stomach was in knots. Everyone was counting on her to help Ava. Good grief, she knew nothing about teenage girls, let alone pregnant ones. What she did know was what it was like to be a motherless daughter. That was her main connection with Ava and she prayed it would be enough.
The waitress returned a couple of minutes later.
“I’ll have the soup special,” Libby said, handing the other woman her menu.
Ava continued to study the page. “Do you have peanut butter and jelly?”
“Sorry, no,” the waitress informed her.
“Can I have a tuna sandwich, then?”
“On wheat, sourdough, rye, pumpernickel, or white bread?” she asked, her hand poised over the order pad.
“Ah …” Ava’s gaze shot to Libby, as if the question had overwhelmed her.
“Wheat,” Libby said, answering on her behalf.
“Lettuce and tomato?”
Ava nodded.
“Mayo?”
Ava smiled. “Yes, please.”
The waitress finished penning the order. “One tuna sandwich on wheat with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, plus a bowl of butternut squash bisque coming right up.”
Libby waited until their food arrived and they were both eating before she made another attempt to broach the subject that needed to be addressed.
“After my mother died, I felt lost and alone,” she told Ava. “Have you felt that way?”
“Sometimes. Do you ever dream about her?”
As soon as Ava posed the question, the memory of a vivid dream played back in Libby’s mind. She set her water glass down but kept her hand folded around the cold glass. “About a month after Mom’s funeral I dreamt that I was in a rowboat on a big lake. It was foggy and I couldn’t see the shore. I was scared and I kept calling out for my mother, until I remembered she couldn’t hear me. I woke up shaking and crying.”
When she stopped speaking, she found that Ava had abandoned her sandwich.
“Do you ever dream about your mother?” Libby asked.
“I did earlier this summer. She was going to the car and I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen. I kept telling her that if she got in the car she was going to die, and she said she didn’t care if she died because her life was hell anyway.”
“Oh, Ava, that must have been horrible.”
The teenager shrugged and reached for the second half of her sandwich.
Libby stiffened and dipped her spoon into the bright orange bisque. It was now or never.
“Sometimes when we don’t have our mothers to watch over us, things happen,” Libby said.
Frowning, Ava looked up and seemed confused.
“What I mean is,” Libby added, leaning forward until her stomach pressed against the edge of the table, “we find ourselves in situations we probably never would be in if our mothers were alive.”
“Did you?”
Libby nodded, although for the most part she’d focused on her studies and strived to be the daughter her mother had wanted her to be. Thankfully, Libby hadn’t gotten involved with boys or drugs. The thing was, she could understand how that might have happened for Ava.
“As motherless daughters we often look for someone to step in and love us, and we do what we can to be worthy of that love.” Libby sincerely hoped Ava understood where she was leading the conversation without her needing to spell it out chapter and verse.
Ava just stared at her as though she was completely lost.
Beneath the table Libby bunched her hands into tight fists. The only thing left was to ask Ava outright.
She inhaled and held her breath for several seconds. “Do you remember when you met Dr. Stone in the elevator that day in the hospital?” she asked.
Ava smiled. “You like him, don’t you?”
“I do,” she admitted.
“Casey said the two of you are dating.”
This wasn’t the direction she wanted to take their conversation in. “Dr. Stone and I have gone out a couple of times on his boat. The reason I mention him is because …”
“He’s cute.”
Libby agreed.
“Does he really have a heart of stone?”
“Not once you get to know him.”
Not knowing what else to do, Libby stretched her arm across the table and gently set her hand on Ava’s forearm.
“Ava, I realize you don’t know me very well, but I hope you will count me as your friend.”
“Okay,” the girl mumbled.
“If you are ever in any kind of trouble, I want you to know that you can come to me or talk to me about it.”
Ava lowered her gaze to her empty plate. “Okay.”
Libby reached inside her purse for a small notepad and a pen and wrote out her cell number. “You can phone me anytime, day or night, understand?”
Ava looked away.
“Now I’m going to ask you something and I don’t want this to embarrass you.”
Ava continued to stare down at the table.
“Could you be pregnant, Ava?”
The girl’s eyes shot up. “No …” She stood and tossed her napkin on the plate. “I have to go now.”
Libby tried to stop her, but Ava darted away in the opposite direction of the yarn store. She would have raced after her, but Libby had yet to receive the bill for their food. All she could do was watch helplessly as the teenager made her escape.