The woman who’d called me a gold digger to relatives I’d never met. The woman who’d told her book club my baby probably wasn’t Jake’s. The woman who’d never once agreed to see my face.
And she still didn’t know she was seeing it now.
The woman who’d called me a gold digger.
“Well?” my boyfriend’s mother snapped. “Is there a problem? Has pregnancy brain kicked in already?”
I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt as if it belonged to someone else.
Behind Lydia, past her shoulder, I saw movement at the service desk. Maurice, my manager, had stepped out from behind the counter. He was staring at Lydia with an expression I couldn’t place. Not anger. Not surprise.
Something older and sadder.
“Has pregnancy brain kicked in already?”
His expression was like that of a man who’d seen a ghost walk into his store wearing pearls.
He started walking toward my register. Slowly and deliberately. The kind of walk you use when you already know how a conversation is going to end.
Lydia hadn’t noticed him yet. My cash drawer sat half open, forgotten. And I realized, very clearly, that whatever was about to happen next was no longer mine to control.
He started walking toward my register.
Before I could find my voice, Maurice was beside my register.
He’d heard the whole thing from the service desk, and his eyes moved slowly from Lydia to me, then back again.
“Is there a problem here, ma’am?” he asked.
Lydia straightened up, all smug again.
“Yes. Your cashier is slow and rude. I want her fired.”
His eyes moved slowly from Lydia to me.
Maurice didn’t answer right away. He just studied her face as if he were trying to place a song he hadn’t heard in years.
“Lydia,” he said quietly. “Don’t you remember me?”
Her smirk faltered. Something flickered behind her eyes, confusion tangled with something colder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. But her voice had lost its edge.
“Don’t you remember me?”
“I was Kevin’s best friend for 22 years,” my manager said. “I stood next to him at your wedding. I sat two pews behind you at his funeral five years ago.”
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