Claire smiled, looking from Holly to Ella. “I don’t even think I stopped long enough to think about being happy. I just found out last week and then this week has been crazy.”
“Auntie Care, baby!” Ella yelled.
“Shhh,” Holly said to Ella. Ella grinned and held her finger to her lips.
“You are going to be a great mother,” Holly said, ruffling the soft hair on Ella’s head. “There is nothing better,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears as she turned from Ella to look at Claire, and then over Claire’s shoulder. Her eyes grew wide.
Claire turned around slowly to follow her gaze.
Amanda. Why was that woman always around?
“Do you think she remembers me?” Claire asked, unable to think of Amanda without thinking of humiliation.
“Honey, you stabbed a pregnancy test through Jake’s hamburger. Yeah, I think she remembers you.”
Claire gave her an irritated frown. “No, I mean, do you think she remembers me from high school?”
Holly touched her arm gently. Claire had been surprised when she’d returned from college that so many people hadn’t recognized her. Sure, she’d lost weight, but the fact that they didn’t even know who she was had been disconcerting. It had taken her a while to figure out that to many people she’d been invisible, and to others…they remembered her as the laughingstock. But when she’d come back from school, she’d exuded confidence and maturity, and many people didn’t even associate her with that girl in high school.
“No, let’s just walk away slowly. She probably won’t even see us,” Holly whispered.
She nodded but didn’t budge. “Do you think she’s changed?” Since she owned a popular store, she ended up having a lot of old high school peers purchase something at one time or another. Most had grown into nice, respectable adults, and when they realized who she was, looked embarrassed when they remembered their behavior in high school.
Holly shook her head. “No, she hasn’t changed at all.”
“You didn’t tell Jake anything about Amanda, did you?”
“Of course not! You know I would never say anything. I may have questioned him about why she was attached to him like a leech. And he seemed to catch onto something about the way I said her name or something or other.”
“Holly,” Claire moaned, clenching her hands around the shopping cart handle.
“No, no, don’t worry. I totally got out of it.”
Claire felt like a frozen ice sculpture as she watched Amanda pick up a bunch of celery. “It’s stupid, right? It’s stupid to even be affected by things that happened so long ago. I’m sure if she knew who I was, she’d be the one mortified for everything that happened in high school.”
Holly mumbled something under her breath that didn’t really sound too favorable. “Well, it was a long time ago. I get what it feels like to have a hard time burying the past, but you have to. As for Amanda, I’d still like the chance to stuff an éclair down her throat. Or maybe we could roll over her with our shopping cart.”
Claire broke out into a smile and looked at her friend. Both of them burst out laughing. “Figures she’d be buying celery. Keep walking, we’re almost at the bakery section. There’s no way she’d be headed there,” Holly said with a giggle.
Apparently Ella didn’t get the memo on being inconspicuous because she managed to wrestle a cantaloupe free of the pile, which consequently sent the entire mountain tumbling.
“Uh-oh,” Ella said. Holly’s head had dropped to her chest.
“Just move away from the pile slowly. Don’t make eye contact with anyone,” Holly whispered as Claire tried to laugh silently.
“Oh, you’re going to love being a mother,” Holly said under her breath.
…
Jake paused for a moment, his fingers gripping the cool iron door handle as he watched Claire from outside the store. He tried to picture her as a teenager, but since he was six years older he had a hard time remembering any specific details about her. They hadn’t even been in high school at the same time. He’d been caught up in his own problems at that time and Reverend Holbrook’s daughter wasn’t much on his radar. Sure, Claire and Holly had been amusing when they’d followed him and Quinn around, but that hadn’t lasted long. He’d stopped hanging around his brothers after a while, and the places he went, the trouble he got into, was way beyond anything Claire would know about. She was a perfect daughter in a perfect family. It wasn’t until she was in her twenties, and his life was back on track, that she entered his line of vision. Obviously there was more to her than he’d ever known.