“A shake, in this weather?” I look at her.
“Hmmm.” She scrunches her mouth. “You have a point. Maybe I’ll get a hot chocolate with marshmallows.”
“That sounds so good. But I think I had better get a soup, or maybe a salad.”
“Why? If you want a burger, get a burger.” She lays the menu flat and looks up at me. I can feel her eyes boring into me, burning with questions she wants to ask but maybe doesn’t want the answers to.
“I’ll just get the soup and some water.” I keep pretending I’m looking at the menu.
Within a few seconds the waitress approaches. “Hi, what can I get you two ladies?” she asks as she flips open a small order pad and grabs the pen behind her ear.
“Um,” I start, but Shayne cuts in.
“We’ll have two burgers, medium, with fries, and two hot chocolates. Extra marshmallows in the hot chocolates, please.” Shayne picks up both the menus and quickly gives them to the waitress. She does it in a way that leaves me speechless and before I can say anything the waitress is gone.
“Why did you do that?” I whisper.
“Because you want to eat it and I think you may have been embarrassed to admit it, so I just ordered it. Now if you keep complaining, I’ll make sure I order you a slice of cake, too.” She lifts her eyebrows at me, and a devious little smirk appears on her lips.
“Nope,” I say shaking my head.
“Nope what?”
“Nope, you haven’t changed one little bit. Never change, Shayne. I love you just the way you are.”
“I won’t. Now tell me about everything that’s been happening with you. Did you finish college?”
“No, I had to leave. It didn’t work out.”
“What’s that mean? You had to leave and it didn’t work out? You had a full scholarship. You’re the smartest person I’ve even known, there’s no way you flunked out. So…what happened?”
“You know, Trent and I got married then I got pregnant, and we decided it was best if I left school and Trent concentrated on his career.”
“Wait up. You’ve got a child?” She half jumps out of her seat over to me.
“No, I lost the baby,” I say softly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Lily. Really sorry.”
Again there’s a tense cocoon of awkward quiet that embraces us until the waitress brings over our hot chocolates. “It just wasn’t meant to be; it’s okay. I couldn’t care for a baby anyway. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
“You’d have Trent’s mom to help.”
I look away, avoiding her again. “Yeah,” I answer half-heartedly. “Anyway, Trent’s doing well in medical school. Well, he’s doing his residency now and although there’s a lot of stress for him, he’s enjoying it.”
“Good,” Shayne says and sits back on the bench seat. “Why didn’t you finish school, Lily?” She picks her hot chocolate up and sips on it.
“Trent’s career is so much more important than mine. We made the decision that I’d work and he’d go through medical school.”
“So then when he’s a doctor, you’ll go back to school and finish?”
“Um. We haven’t talked about that. I’m happy at the grocery store. They’ve promoted me a few times.”
Shayne squints her eyes at me, and nervously I push my fingers through my hair. “All you’ve ever wanted to do was read and teach, why can’t you do it once he’s a doctor? They earn really good money, maybe not initially, but a couple of years into him being a doctor, you can go back to school.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to see what Trent wants to do.”
Shayne straightens in her seat and her face takes on a questioning look. “What do you mean by that, Lily? I know you’re married and you have to discuss things with your husband, but you’re also fifty percent in your marriage. Your voice on what you want should be considered too.”
“Oh, it is,” I say too eagerly. “He’s looking after our finances because he says we need to save to buy a house. And he says him being a doctor is much more important than me being a teacher. He’s looking out for both of us.”
“Do you see how much is in your bank account? Do you know what’s happening with the finances?”
“Trent says I don’t need to know.”
“For God’s sake, listen to yourself. It’s been seven years, Lily. Seven damn years since I’ve seen you, and I don’t recognize the person you’ve become. Physically or mentally. The Lily I knew was battling demons from her past, but now I think she’s living with the biggest demon of them all.”