I know. You’re doing very well.” And I wasn’t jealous, not like I was of Natalie. I’d never begrudge Jenna any of her success because I knew how hard she’d worked for it. She’d always been ambitious, like Eddie. Maybe that was why they’d hated each other; they’d been too much alike. Then. Not now. Because Eddie hadn’t ever achieved what he’d hungered for. Whereas even Jenna’s tailored business suit, a rich burgundy suede, shouted out her success as loudly as my mother did. She looked great, but she shrugged off my compliment.
“Well, interest rates are good right now, so we’re busy. And my processor, the person who handles all my paperwork to make sure the loan closes, is pregnant. She wants to take it easy. She’ll come back after she has the kid. But she’s as big as a house now and needs to kick back. You in?”
I blinked. “What? The poker game?”
“The job, you interested?”
“Working for you?”
“It’s crazy, demanding work. But you don’t have to wear that apron.”
I dragged the offensive garment over my head and tossed it on the counter. Yeah, it was temporary. I was becoming my own temp agency. Someone off with a hip replacement or a maternity leave, send in Mary Ellen Black. But I wouldn’t be handling raw meat. And hopefully I’d make more than quarters and hear a lot less pity over my divorce.
And maybe while her processor kicked back, I could figure out just exactly what I did want to be when I grew up. Hopefully, she’d be off a long time with this pregnancy and baby, because if I hadn’t figured it out in almost thirty-one years, I didn’t like my chances of figuring it out in six weeks. “Yeah, I’m interested.”
CHAPTER F
Friendship
Jenna nodded as I came around the counter. “And what about the poker game? You in?”
“Since they’re playing for money, I guess that depends on what you’re paying me,” I hedged.
She glanced around the small store; we were the only two inside. “Cash, or that creep might sue you for alimony.”
Just like Jenna, always thinking, even when I wasn’t. Just what the heck did go on inside my head? Only the orchestra of crickets singing?
“And he would,” Jenna continued. “Creep never deserved you.”
That was why Jenna and I had stopped being friends. Because of her and Eddie’s mutual animosity, I had had to choose between them, a choice I shouldn’t have had to make. Now it was clear that I shouldn’t have dropped her friendship. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, too proud to admit if I’d hurt her. But pain showed in her dark eyes. “You were knocked up, scared, and pressured by your parents.”
And she would know that because she’d always known everything about me. “Yeah. And in love. I really loved him. How stupid was that?”
“Cut yourself a break. It happens to the best of us.”
“Not you.”
She lifted her ringless left hand, but a faint indent marred the third finger. “I was.”
“Was not!” I ignored the pang of hurt over not being invited to her wedding. Why should she have invited me? We hadn’t been talking after my wedding day.
“Your mom never told you that?”
“She mentioned something once, but it was around the holidays and she was making rum balls. Mom’s never completely lucid when she’s making rum balls.”
Jenna chuckled and grabbed my arm, tugging me toward the door. “Mr. Black, we’re leaving for the bridge game.”
“Have fun!” my dad called from the back, a puff of smoke drifting in through the open door.
Jenna’s car waited at the curb, a black Cadillac. She clicked a switch to unlock the door, and I stepped over the leaves in the gutter to crawl inside. “God, I stink like the store. You sure you want me in here? I can walk.”
“Shut up and buckle up,” Jenna said as she slid behind the wheel. “You’re fine.”
No, I wasn’t. But talking to Jenna again after all these years gave me hope that I might be. After all, I wasn’t the only one with a newly ringless hand. I’d pawned mine to pay the cheap, neighborhood lawyer. “So tell me about your marriage.”
She laughed with no amusement. “I fell for a pretty face, a very pretty face.”
“That makes more sense than falling for Eddie. Nobody could ever call him pretty.” Thank God the girls didn’t look a bit like him. When we’d first met, I had thought he looked like Andy Garcia. Now he looked more like Danny DeVito.
She laughed again, in agreement, but no resentment flared in me. How could I resent the truth? “So he was pretty. Tell me more,” I urged.
“You know, Mom was right. Pretty is as pretty does. Never could figure out what that meant until it was too late. He was in construction. So picture the big, hard bod. Strong, silent type. Mom also says beware of the quiet ones, still waters run deep. I don’t know about deep, but he ran all around.”
“On you?”
She snorted. “Yeah, go figure. Guess I worked too much for him.” She’d always been so driven. Growing up poor had given her ambition.
“But he worked a lot, too. Out of town. Building houses.” She snorted again as she maneuvered the Cadillac through the back alley to my parents’ house. “Playing house was more like it.”
“So how’d you find out? Did he finally tell you?”
“Stupid ass had my little brother working with him—remember Rye?”
As a thirteen-year-old too small for his age. “Yes.”
“Well, Rye picked up on it. Told him to come clean. So he did…on Christmas Eve. Merry freakin’ Christmas, huh?”
“So you killed him, right?”
She laughed again as she jerked the Caddy to a halt behind my mom’s minivan. “I’ll never tell.”
“It’s me, Jenna. You’ll tell me.” It was my way of saying I hoped we could be close again, as close as we’d been when we’d told each other everything.
She stared at me for a minute, dark eyes cautious, reminding me that I’d betrayed her trust as much as her ex had. Then she sighed. “Yeah, I probably will. But right now, I’m feeling lucky. They were playing five-card stud when I left, and your granny was kicking ass.”
“Grandma?”
She nodded. “Yeah, she’s a shark.”
Did I know any of the women in my life? Grandma and Mom played poker. And Jenna had gotten cheated on, too, just as I had. I would definitely have to pay more attention to my daughters, make sure I knew them
