The Devine Doughnut Shop(44)

Raelene took a couple of steps back, dropped her backpack, and slumped into a chair. “I guess the rumors aren’t true?”

“What rumors?” Macy covered a yawn with her hand as she entered the room.

Grace shrugged. “Rumors have made a mountain out of a molehill. Do you girls remember that old game of Telephone, where someone would whisper something to the person sitting next to them, and then that person whispers it to the next and so on, all the way around the room? The last person says what he heard?”

“No,” Audrey whispered, as dramatically as if it might be her last word.

“Me neither,” Raelene said.

Macy sat down in a rocking chair near the cold fireplace. “The game starts out by someone writing down a sentence on a piece of paper; then he or she starts it like Grace said, and the final person either writes down what they heard or else just says it out loud, and then the first one reads what was really said at the beginning of the game. That’s kind of like what happened today, and the rumor that reached the end is a far cry from the first sentence that was said.”

“Yep,” Sarah agreed with a nod.

“What was the original sentence?” Raelene asked.

“That I’m going to have lunch in Travis’s office and give him pointers on a factory that will turn out doughnuts,” Grace answered. “What is the final one?”

“That you and Travis Butler have been secretly dating for months,” Raelene answered, “and you’re getting married this summer, and Audrey is going to have her prom dress made by a French designer next year.”

“Oh. My. Goodness!” Macy giggled. “And you believed all that, Audrey?”

“Don’t be giving me grief,” Audrey smarted off. “You believed Neal.”

“That’s coming close to sassing, and there is a penalty for that—like maybe you get to work in the shop on Saturday,” Grace said in a low voice.

Macy’s face turned beet red, and it was not a blush. “And, girl, we are trying to protect you from people just like Neal. Your new friends are worse than he ever was.”

“Sorry!” Audrey grumbled. “And they are not.”

“Yes, they are,” Raelene said.

Audrey popped up to a sitting position, tucked her blonde hair behind her ears, and glared at Raelene. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

Raelene raised a shoulder in half a shrug. “Crystal and your other best friend, Kelsey, were whispering about punking you while I was having lunch in the library. Their mamas told them about Travis Butler when they came to the school to bring their lunches. That gave them the idea, and they just ran with it. Crystal said they could tell you anything and you’d believe it, and Kelsey mentioned that you’d covered for them with the cigarettes and liquor, so you thought they were really your friends.”

Audrey’s lower lip quivered. “That’s not true. They are my friends, and they wouldn’t do that to me.”

Grace moved over to the sofa and draped an arm around Audrey’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, darlin’.”

“But, Mama”—tears began to flow down Audrey’s cheeks—“it can’t be true. I gave up all my other friends that I’ve had since kindergarten because Crystal and Kelsey want us to be exclusive.”

Grace pulled a tissue from a box on the end table and wiped her daughter’s tears away. “It’s a tough lesson, but one that I hope you only have to learn just this one time.”

Audrey buried her face in Grace’s shoulder. “I just can’t believe they would do that to me when I’ve been so good to them.”

Grace remembered saying the same thing to her mother when Justin had left the note on her car. She caught Macy’s eye and knew, without a doubt, that her thoughts were going in the same direction—how could Neal do that to her when she had been so good to him? Then she shifted her gaze over to Sarah, and the expression on her sister’s face said the same thing—how could Joel treat her like he did?

Thank God we’ve had each other to get through the tough times, Grace thought, then turned her attention back to Audrey. “You will make other friends—and maybe this time, you’ll think more about real friendship than popularity.”

“But, Mama, I want to be popular,” Audrey moaned.

“Then you have to pay the price for it, and it’s high dollar,” Raelene told her.

Audrey raised her head and shot Raelene a dirty look. “What do you know about it?”

“I’ve never been popular. Don’t want to be,” Raelene answered. “So I don’t know much about it, but I sure don’t want to be if I have to sell my soul to be in with that crowd. If you would have been sitting with me on the bus, I would have told you what they said before now.”

Grace had had a few close friends as a child and up into junior high school, but when Justin came into her life, she’d done the same thing that Audrey had—spent less and less time with them and devoted more and more to Justin. Then he left, and her old buddies moved on, and she had no one except Sarah and Macy.

Sarah spoke up. “Friends can be and often are fickle . . . but, honey, family is forever.”

“And sometimes family is just as fickle as friends,” Raelene whispered.