Don't Let Go(38)

“Oh, my God, Mom,” she said, rising to her feet. “No, I don’t. But that’s what you hear because all you hear is you. This is exactly why I didn’t come to you.” She gestured around her. “I didn’t want a lecture on love and birds and bees. I’m not stupid, Mom.”
“I never said you were stupid.”
“No, you said I was a brainless twit,” she said, snatching her book from the table.
Of all the things I’ve said in her life, that’s what she remembered.
“Bec—”
“I’m not a five-year-old, either,” she said. “If you’d actually listen to me, and hear me for once, you’d know that—yes, okay, maybe I’m asking questions and I’m interested but I’m also not an idiot. If I was an idiot, I wouldn’t be asking about birth control.”
I met her gaze and let a few beats pass. “I just don’t want to see you do something foolish and ruin your plans, baby.”
Becca let out a long breath and shook her head, walking up the stairs. “Whose plans, Mom? Mine or yours?”



Chapter 10

Saturdays were always my biggest days at the store, and at this time of year it jumped up to chaotic at times. Ruthie did a children’s story time right before lunch, so many moms could bring their kids for an outing of stories, lunch at the diner, and dessert at the ice cream shop just down the sidewalk. Also, since everyone else with normal jobs had Saturdays off, many of them saved their holiday shopping time for the weekends.
And that was okay.
Normally.
Today, I wasn’t in the mood. I knew Noah was next door, having seen his truck parked out front, and that knowledge sat like acid in my stomach. Too much had transpired the night before, and not just the fight. The moment we’d had on the back patio had stirred my blood and gripped my heart, making me relive it on long loop over and over.
You bailed on our son.
And Becca had me irritated, both at her and at myself. The things she’d said had hit home, about being the perfect dream child with all my rules, and about my plans versus hers.
Dream child? Pregnant at seventeen was hardly a dream child, but she didn’t know about that. I still didn’t know how I’d gotten that lucky, having grown up in the same town, but basically time dulls memories and no one cared much about two dumb kids who got themselves in a pickle. Especially when the child never showed up. Made it easy to forget, I guess. For them.
Nana Mae kept bending my ear about telling Becca, though, before someone suddenly grew a memory, and she was right. I knew she was right. The latest topic, however, made that a little awkward.
I had followed the rules before all that, though. Mostly. But they weren’t mine. They were my mother’s. Her way of keeping control and order in the life around her, and I guessed I’d grown up to do the same.
Sitting at her counter, in her bookstore, selling one gift certificate after another and watching her customers mill about while Ruthie acted out Brown Bear, Brown Bear in the corner amid a mob of little people—and letting that realization settle over me like a blanket, my skin prickled all over. Whose life was I living? Mine or my mother’s?
Whose plans, Mom? Mine or yours?
My clothes suddenly felt heavy and hot, and I got up and headed to the back break room for a bottle of water. I got the water, but the leftover Mississippi Mud in the fridge caught my eye as well, and I unwrapped the cellophane-covered plate and pulled out a gooey piece.
“Mmm-mygod,” I mumbled around it as the heavenly comfort food excited my taste buds and put me in a chocolate state of Zen.
I heard it from the kitchen. The unmistakable sound of a cane against a wall. My Zen moment melted away with the chocolate down my throat, and I chugged the water on my way out to the sales floor.
Bam-bam.
Feeling like everything inside me was riding on the edge, I fisted my hand and banged back. Pictures rattled on the wall around me and a bronze sign with the saying No better peace than right her clattered to the floor. I heard Ruthie’s voice halt abruptly, and I turned to see her staring at me along with fifteen sets of little eyes and many of the parents.
“Sorry,” I said.
Bam.
That was it. I set my water bottle down on the counter and walked right out the front door, the bell jingling madly behind me. The brisk air hit me full-on, making me suck in a chest full of the cold, thick air, but it felt good. I wanted it to chill everything in me and freeze over.
Noah’s truck was gone and I felt an odd mix of massive relief and the twinge of disappointment. When I pulled open the heavy diner door, warmth hit me again, coupled with the mouthwatering aroma of fried chicken.
But I wasn’t there for that. I couldn’t show weakness.
I smiled briefly at Linny as she looked up from taking an order, and she winked at me. I walked right up to the counter and stared at the top of Johnny Mack’s head as he bent over the grease pits. I was determined to stand there until the force of my will made him look up.
“Hey, Jules,” said a voice to my left.
I jerked my head to see Shayna sitting alone at the lunch counter, smiling at me with tired eyes. Some of my ire fizzled down, but a large part of it just started a whole new swirl of uncomfortable.
“Oh—hey,” I responded, not moving at first. I glanced back at Johnny Mack, who hadn’t budged, and then back to her.
The polite thing to do would be to go talk to her, especially after the night we’d had and the fact that she had been very nice then, too. Everything inside me battled as I wished her not to be so damn nice.
She looked girl-next-door pretty in a long denim skirt and matching jacket, and tall brown boots. It made me fidget with my own boring Ruthie-inspired black sweater and tank top over a black wraparound skirt and leggings. Maybe I felt the all-black would help me disappear. Maybe I wanted to feel as confident as Ruthie. But as I walked closer to Shayna, I felt like an old woman or a school librarian next to her freshness. I could have looked that good thirteen years ago, but I didn’t then either. I was just as boring then.