The Next Best Thing (Gideon's Cove #2)(109)

“Hi, sweetie,” I say, smiling. “How are you?”

“I’m great!” she answers, and she does indeed look great. A cute kid turned beautiful, long hair, slender waist, the dewy skin of the blessed. I can remember us playing Adventure on Care Bear Island, a game I’d made up which involved piggyback rides and some happy screaming. Time flies.

“Is Doral-Anne here?” I ask.

Her smile drops, and she gives me a mock grimace. “Um, sure. Hang on.” She goes into the storeroom, says something and scuttles back. “She’ll be right out, Lucy.”

“Thanks, Pretty Perry,” I say. She smiles sweetly, making my heart tug.

Then Doral-Anne emerges. At the sight of me, her Isn’t Starbucks just the best thing to happen to Planet Earth expression drops.

“How’s Ethan feeling?” she asks, and I have to say, that’s not what I expected her to say. Fuck you, maybe, or Get out. Not something polite.

“He’s doing okay, Doral-Anne,” I say. “Do you have a second?”

She scowls at Perry, who’s obviously listening. “Why?”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

With a grunt of disgust and a matching eye roll, she gestures toward the storeroom. “Fine. Come on out back.”

Visions of fifth grade dance in my head, Doral-Anne tripping me at least once each recess, causing my knees to be constantly covered in scabs. Nonetheless, I follow her through the back, past the bags of coffee and mountains of cups, until we emerge into the parking lot.

“So what do you want?” she asks, her expression once again the familiar sneer.

“I just wanted to say thanks for looking after Nicky Mirabelli when Ethan was hit,” I say. “That was great of you.”

Doral-Anne’s head jerks back in surprise.

“You were a lot more help that I was,” I acknowledge. “I just stood there like a fern. Until I fainted, that is.”

“And started screaming,” she adds, apparently unable to resist the dig.

My face flushes. “Yup.”

She stares at me a minute longer. “Did you want something else?”

I take a deep breath and look at her steadily. “I also wanted to say I was sorry about slapping you. That wasn’t real mature of me. I apologize.”

She looks down. “Yeah, well, you had reason.” She glances at me from beneath her too-long bangs. “I guess it freaked you out hearing about Jimmy and me being an item, huh?”

“It did,” I admit.

She sucks in her left cheek and makes a slurping noise. “Well. Thanks for stopping by. I was wondering how Ethan was. Glad he’s okay.”

I remember the bag under my arm. “Here. A peace offering.” I hand her the bread.

“It’s still warm,” she says, looking down at it with a little smile. The healing power of bread.

A thought occurs to me, so freakish and wrong that I can’t believe I came up with it. Even beyond that, I can’t believe what I say next. “Doral-Anne, Bunny’s is looking for a baker to take over the bread for me. Ethan mentioned that this Starbucks might close. Whether it does or not, Bunny’s is expanding, doing the whole coffee and pastry thing. But we’re also selling bread to NatureWorks. The hours are early, but you’d have more time with your kids after school.”

Her mouth falls open. With one hand, she pushes her bangs off her face. “Lang, are you offering me a job?”

“I guess I am. If you’re interested, give me a call. Or drop by Bunny’s. The sooner you could start, the better.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

ON FRIDAY EVENING, I’m staring into my cupboard, realizing I have to make dinner, when my phone rings.

“Sweetheart, it’s Marie,” says my mother-in-law.

“Hi!” I say. “How are you?”

“Well, honey, we’re having a little party here tonight. At the restaurant, and of course we want you here.”

I open my mouth to respond, but she keeps talking.

“It’s our anniversary, see? Forty years, we haven’t killed each other, that’s worth celebrating, right? So Gianni, he says to me, ‘Call the kids, we’ll have a party. Call everyone.’ So I’ve been on the phone all day, and your mother and aunts are coming, and that nice sister of yours, too, and Ethan of course, it would be good to see him before he starts gallivanting all over the world, and of course Parker and Nicky will be there, the more the merrier. Of course, I tried you before, but you were out, and machines, who knows if you’d get the message or not, so—”

“Marie,” I interrupt. “I’m so sorry. I’d love to come, but I…I just can’t tonight.” I just don’t want to see Ethan. And God knows, he probably doesn’t want to see me.

Marie is silent for a beat or two. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I should’ve thought…Of course you don’t want to come to the party. I’m so insensitive.”

“No, no,” I say, a guilty heat in my face. “I just…I have plans.”

Her voice rises to operatic levels. “I ask my son’s widow to a party celebrating a long marriage. So stupid! Oh, I hate myself!”

“Marie, please! No, seriously, I would come…I just have plans.” And it wasn’t your first son I was thinking of, by the way.