Debbie Macomber: 1022 Evergreen Place

“Do you dislike her?”

The girl shrugged. “Not really.”

“Do the two of you have a history I should know about?”

Tanni stared down at the floor and shook her head. “No.”

“But you don’t like her, do you?” Grace asked, pressing the point.

“No,” Tanni was honest enough to admit.

Grace leaned forward. “Do you mind telling me why?”

Tanni didn’t answer right away. When she did respond, the words seemed to spew out. “Kristen isn’t doing this because she wants to help these kids. You realize that, don’t you?”

Grace raised her eyebrows. “She told you this?”

“Well, no, but it’s obvious. She’s volunteering because she’s hoping for this Citizen Award that’s given out at graduation.”

Olivia had gotten the award the year they’d graduated. The Rotary Club gave it to a graduating senior with good marks who’d shown leadership skills and had a history of volunteering in the community.

“She’d never get it with her grades,” Tanni said scornfully.

“You know this for a fact?” Grace asked.

Tanni hesitated. “Not for sure, but like I said, it’s obvious.”

It didn’t appear all that obvious to Grace. “I think you’re making an assumption about Kristen that might be way off base.”

“It isn’t,” Tanni said without a hint of doubt. “She’s a cheerleader.” This was added in the most contemptuous tone.

“You don’t like cheerleaders?” Grace asked mildly.

“Hardly.”

“I was a cheerleader in high school,” Grace told her.

Tanni chanced a look in her direction. “But things were a whole lot different back then.”

She made it sound like the days of the Wild West, when covered wagons roamed the prairie. “Oh? How’s that?”

“You know,” Tanni said with another shrug.

“Sorry, I don’t.”

“Cheerleaders these days are real airheads. Kristen is, anyway. She’s got this laugh that makes me want to puke every time I hear it.”

Grace wondered what that was about. “Does she have a boyfriend?” she asked.

Tanni lifted one shoulder. “I suppose so. They all do in that crowd.”

“Oh.”

“If you think I’m jealous, you’re wrong! I have a boyfriend, too. Shaw Wilson.”

“Shaw who works at Mocha Mama’s?”

“He isn’t there anymore. He’s at art school in San Francisco. A friend of Will Jefferson’s helped him get in. It’s a really big deal that he was accepted.”

“I didn’t know Shaw wanted to be an artist.” Grace was well aware that Tanni’s mother, Shirley Bliss, was both gifted and successful.

“He’s really talented,” Tanni said, her voice fervent with conviction.

“How wonderful that he has this opportunity.”

She nodded, but Grace could see that the girl missed her boyfriend. “I’ll bet you’re at loose ends without him around,” she said.

Tanni gave the same careless shrug, which wasn’t really a response. “I am. It’s one of the reasons I volunteered here.”

“I’m glad you did.”

Tanni raised her eyes to meet Grace’s. “You mean you want me to stay?”

“Of course.”

“Even if I don’t get along with Kristen?”

“Well, I’m hoping you’d be willing to cut her a little slack.”

Tanni frowned. “How?” she asked.

“Drop the dirty looks and the sarcastic comments.”

Tanni shuffled her feet back and forth. “I’ll try. The thing is,” she said wryly, “it comes sort of instinctively.”

“I’m not saying you have to be friends, Tanni. All I’m asking is that you respect her and stop judging her motivations. So what if she volunteered because she’s going after the Rotary award? Her being here isn’t taking anything away from you, is it?”

“Not really,” she reluctantly agreed.

“That’s what I thought.”

Tanni bent to grab her backpack. “Can I go now?”

“Of course. Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Sure thing.”

“You’ll be back next week?” Grace asked, following her to the office door.

Tanni nodded. “I might not like Kristen, but I think Tyler and Boomer are cool.”

Rachel Peyton stopped at the dry cleaners to pick up her good jacket on the way home from Get Nailed. As she waited, a wave of dizziness nearly overwhelmed her and she quickly found a chair.

“You okay?” Duck-Hwan Hyo asked, his eyes dark with concern.

Rachel tried to reassure him. “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said, but her voice sounded shaky.

“You have baby?”

Rachel nodded. Funny, the man at the dry cleaners had figured it out, but not her own husband. There were times Bruce could be so dense that she wanted to hit him over the head with her shoe. She longed to tell her husband; despite the fact that this pregnancy wasn’t planned, Rachel was excited about the baby.

Duck called something in Korean to his wife. The petite woman came out from the back of the shop and joined her husband at the front counter. They had a brief conversation that involved several sympathetic glances at Rachel.

“You want tea?” his wife, Su Jin, asked softly. “I make you cup of green tea.”

“No, I’m okay, really.”

“You sure?” her husband asked.

“I’m sure, Duck,” Rachel told him. “Thank you. I just got light-headed for a moment.”

“I change my name,” Duck said with a polite bow of his head. “I not Duck anymore. I pick American name.” His face beamed with pride.

“I choose American name, too,” Su Jin announced.

“My American name,” Duck said, squaring his shoulders, “is José.”

“José,” Rachel repeated, and struggled not to laugh.

“My American name,” his wife said next, “is Serenity.”

“I’ll remember both,” Rachel promised them. She collected her dry cleaning and went out to her car. Going to the cleaners had been a delaying tactic. Jolene would be home and there’d be the usual tension between them once Rachel entered the house. If anything, that tension had been escalating.

Jolene and Rachel used to be close; Rachel had been friend as well as surrogate mother to the girl. That changed when Rachel married her father. Then they’d gone from friends to adversaries. Jolene appeared to see Rachel as competition for her father’s affection. The groundwork of friendship Rachel had laid had given way like quicksand as soon as Bruce slid the wedding ring on her finger.

Rachel was still shocked that her relationship with Jolene had disintegrated so fast. She’d done her utmost to be patient and understanding. At first, she’d tried to keep Bruce out of it; she didn’t want her husband caught in an impossible situation, forced to side with either his wife or his daughter. That hadn’t worked. Jolene’s antagonism had grown to the point of near-belligerence, and Rachel no longer knew what to do.

The pregnancy complicated everything. She’d warned Bruce that they needed to be more careful about protection when making love. She’d gone on the pill right away, but had a rare adverse reaction to it. So Bruce had said he’d take responsibility for birth control and he had—most of the time.

She blamed Bruce; she blamed herself. When she’d realized that their occasional slips had resulted in pregnancy, Rachel had been stunned. She’d needed to adjust to it before she told Bruce, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret from Jolene for long. Based on recent experience, Rachel recognized that the situation, which was barely tolerable now, would only get worse.

She should be heading home and getting dinner started, but the thought of facing Jolene was more than she could bear, especially when she felt queasy, as she seemed to every afternoon. She suspected it was a combination of nausea caused by the pregnancy, worrying about Jolene’s reaction and the constant stress at home.