The Devine Doughnut Shop(4)

“What was that?” Grace asked.

“Nothing,” Sarah answered. “I was just talking to myself. Do you ever wish that Justin had stuck around and been a father to Audrey?”

“Of course I do, especially on days like today.” Grace got started on filling a dozen doughnuts with a fluffy cream cheese pudding. “But he disappeared when he found out I was pregnant. Remember the story of the frog and the scorpion?”

“Yep,” Macy answered, “and the moral is that you can’t change a person’s nature. Justin was the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen, but he really was a bad-boy type. He probably hasn’t grown up or accepted responsibility for anything, even yet.”

“And that’s why I have to make Audrey accountable,” Grace said. “She’s got his genes as well as mine. From the time she was three months old, she could flash that smile of hers and bat those brown eyes, and we’d do anything to make her happy.”

“Just like you did with Justin, right?” Sarah headed toward the dining room.

“Yep.” Grace nodded. “But I learned my lesson about bad boys the hard way. No more of that type ever for me again. If I hadn’t been past twenty-one, Mama might have put me in a convent during those few months that Justin was around.”

Sarah remembered those days well. She had just finished her first year of college and would have been on probation in the fall if she hadn’t quit. Grace was pregnant, Justin was in the wind, and they had no idea where he had gone. Macy was a sophomore in high school, and Sarah was needed in the doughnut shop. She had loved the party life at college—but the classes, not so much. She had managed to pass a couple of basic business classes, and those had helped when a blood clot went through her mother’s heart, killing her instantly, two months before Audrey was born. She was resentful, angry, and grieving all at the same time; but after a while, all that passed, and she had settled into the family business and routine. Sometimes she wished for a few days off, but that just wasn’t possible.

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” Grace asked.

“Life in general and how things can turn around in the blink of an eye.”

She carried the trays into the dining area and noticed that Audrey was trying to hide behind the counter. “What’s going on here? That door hasn’t been cleaned.”

“That is”—she pointed toward the door—“Crystal’s and Kelsey’s mamas coming this way.”

“So?”

Audrey rolled her brown eyes toward the ceiling. “They’ll see me cleaning windows.”

“So?” Sarah asked again, then said, “Good morning, Lisa and Carlita. What can I get you today?”

“Two coffees, black, and half a dozen maple doughnuts,” Carlita said.

“We’ll take them to go,” Lisa said. The woman was a short brunette with brown eyes, so much like her daughter, Crystal, that she often referred to the girl as her mini-me. “Audrey, we heard that you were caught with contraband at school. Our girls are good churchgoing kids, so we can’t have them affiliated with someone who smokes and drinks. We’ve told them to end their friendship with you.”

Anger rose in Sarah’s heart so fast that she got light-headed. “Sorry, ladies, but we’re all out of maple doughnuts.”

“I’m looking at a dozen right there,” Carlita said.

“We had a call-in order just before you arrived, and they are taken,” Sarah said through clenched teeth. She would bet silver dollars to doughnut holes that the contraband belonged to Crystal and Kelsey.

“Then forget the whole order,” Carlita snapped and whipped up a forefinger with a perfectly manicured nail to point right at Audrey. “You stay away from our girls. They don’t need your kind as friends.”

She had jet-black hair, brown eyes, and a temper—something that Kelsey had inherited right along with her mother’s hair and eyes. The two women left the shop in a huff, slinging dirty looks over their shoulders and whispering back and forth all the way out the door.

Audrey covered her eyes with her hands and started to cry. “Look what y’all have done.”

“Honey, you brought all of this on yourself. We didn’t do anything but make you accountable for your mistake,” Sarah told her. “Dry your eyes and wait on these next folks coming in here. And you probably won’t listen to me, but you need to reconnect to your old friends. They would never ask you to do something like take the rap for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“I’ve lost all those friends,” Audrey whined. “Raelene doesn’t even speak to me anymore.”

“Is that the truth, or did you throw her friendship away and quit talking to her when you started running with this new crowd?” Sarah asked.

“It doesn’t matter—and besides, I’m not going back to them anyway. Crystal and Kelsey are my real friends,” she huffed.

“I’m going to get the last of the doughnuts that Macy and your mama have made. You take care of orders and hold your head up. You don’t need those girls in your life.” Sarah hurried back to the kitchen.

“How’s Audrey doing?” Grace asked.

“She’s about to have a meltdown, but Mama told us that whatever doesn’t kill us will make us stronger,” Sarah said and went on to tell them what had happened. “My first instinct was to tell her to go on to the house and drown her sorrows in ice cream, but she has to learn to own her mistakes.”