The Devine Doughnut Shop(45)

Audrey set her jaw and narrowed her eyes. “I’ll get even. Maybe not tomorrow or even next week, but they will pay for pulling this mean prank on me.”

“The best way to get even is to ignore them. Just pretend that they don’t exist,” Macy advised. “Don’t let them bait you into an argument. Ignoring them gives you power over them and takes away all the power they have built up over you this year.”

Audrey nodded, but the look in her eyes said that she would take care of it in her own way. Grace had seen the same determination in Sarah’s eyes more than once when they were teenagers, and it never involved ignoring someone who had been hateful. One time when she and her sister had been in junior high school came to her mind as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday.

“You are thinking about . . . ,” Sarah whispered and poked her in the arm.

“Yes, I am—and thank you again.” Grace grinned.

“What?” Audrey sat up straight and raised an eyebrow.

“A girl was spreading rumors about me when I was a freshman. Sarah was in seventh grade, and she took up for me,” Grace explained.

Audrey stood up and began to pace the floor. “I wish I had a sister. What did you do, Sarah?”

“I took care of the problem, and then I was suspended for a week for fighting and had a devil of a time getting my grades back up to passing since I had to take a zero on every assignment that week,” Sarah answered. “Then Mama made me work at the shop all week. I had to get up and be there by three in the morning. She told me I needed to learn to use my brains instead of my fists, to think about that every morning when my alarm went off while it was still dark outside.”

Audrey stopped in front of the fireplace and popped her hands on her hips. “Raelene, if you hear anything else, will you tell me?”

“Depends,” Raelene answered with a shrug.

“On what?” Audrey asked.

“On whether you are my friend or not?” Raelene asked. “At home, you treat me like maybe I’m one, but you still think you’re better than me. Around your so-called school friends, you treat me like they do. I don’t want a half-time friend, Audrey, and I don’t want to feel like I’m someone you wipe your feet on, either. It’s either all in or all out.”

Grace could almost see the wheels in Audrey’s head spinning. Evidently, Raelene did, too, because she stood up and went nose-to-nose with Audrey. That reminded Grace of the times when she’d done the same thing with Sarah, back when they were both about the same age as these two girls.

Finally, Raelene shrugged and stepped back. “It’s a simple question, but I can’t think of a better way to get back at Crystal and Kelsey than to ignore them and be friends with me. You don’t have to make up your mind right now, but could we please go have some cookies and milk in the kitchen? I miss the days when y’all brought home leftover doughnuts from the shop.”

“So do I,” Grace said as she stood up, “but we’ve still got some of those really good peanut butter cookies you made, so I’m not complaining too much.”

Raelene led the way to the kitchen. “I love to cook. Granny let me stand on a chair and help her when I was little.” She took a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and set it in the middle of the table. “Y’all just go on and sit down. You’ve served people all morning. Let me take care of this.”

“I’ll get the glasses while you get the cookies,” Audrey said.

Grace could hardly believe that her daughter was offering to help do anything. Usually, she had to be told—sometimes half a dozen times, and then results came only after an argument about how she was treated like hired help. Maybe the days of Crystal and Kelsey using her were coming to an end.

“This is really nice, girls,” Macy said as she pulled out a chair and sat down. “It’s not often that we get to be the ones who are waited on.”

“You are welcome, but it’s the least I can do,” Raelene said.

Audrey sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a whoosh as she set five glasses on the table, then added a fistful of paper napkins. Grace had seen that gesture many times and knew that what followed it wasn’t always pleasant.

“Raelene, why did you even tell us what Crystal and Kelsey did?” Audrey asked. “You could have kept quiet about it and let me make a bigger fool of myself.”

Raelene set a plate of cookies on the table and took a chair. “Several reasons. One is because you need to know before they embarrass you even more by spreading around to the rest of the school that you’re an easy mark who will do anything to stay in their mean-girl group. They have a private little message group among the two of them and a few more girls where they gossip about everyone. The second reason is that family takes care of family, whether they’re related by blood or by heart. And three is that those two girls have picked on me since we were in elementary school, and I don’t owe them anything like keeping my mouth shut.” She filled her glass with milk and passed the jug over to Macy, then stacked three cookies on a napkin.

“Thank you,” Audrey muttered. “How do you know about the message group?”

“Are you a part of that?” Grace asked.

“Not yet, but Crystal said if I pass a year’s initiation, then I could be,” Audrey answered.