"Lauren? Are you okay?"
Lauren looked away quickly, as if to hide tears. "Yes. Thats it. Im afraid well be . . . separated. " The word seemed almost too much for her.
Angie reached out, placed a hand on Laurens shoulder. She noticed that the girl was trembling, and she didnt believe it was from the cold. "Thats perfectly normal, Lauren. When I was a senior I was in love with Tommy. He--"
Lauren jumped up suddenly, pushed Angies hand away. Moonlight traced the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I gotta go. "
"Wait. At least let me drive you home. "
"No. " Lauren was crying now and not trying to hide it. "Thanks for the pep talk, but I need to get home now. Ill be at work tomorrow night. Dont worry. "
With that, Lauren ran into the night.
Angie stood there, listening to the girls footsteps until they faded away. Shed done something wrong tonight, either by commission or omission; she wasnt sure which. All she knew was that it had gone badly from the start. Whatever Angie had said, it was wrong.
"Maybe its a good thing I never had kids," she said aloud.
Then she remembered her own teen years. She and Mama had engaged in daily knockdown, drag-out fights about everything from skirt length to heel height to curfews. Nothing Mama said had ever been right. Certainly her advice about sex, love, and drugs had fallen on deaf ears.
Maybe that had been Angies mistake. Shed wanted so much to solve Laurens problem, but perhaps that wasnt what the teenager wanted from her.
Next time, Angie vowed, she would just listen.
SIXTEEN
DATE NIGHT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS. IT SEEMED THAT many of the West Enders, young and old, had been looking for an excuse to go out for dinner and a movie. The weather had probably helped. This had been a gray and dismal November, and with Thanksgiving just around the corner, it didnt look like it would improve much. There wasnt a lot to do in a town like this on a cold and rainy night.
Angie moved from table to table, talking to their guests, making sure that Rosa and the new waitress, Carla, were getting the job done. She refilled water, delivered bread, and bused many of the tables herself.
Mamas specials had been especially good tonight. Theyd run out of the risotto with mussels and saffron by eight, and it looked like the salmon over angel-hair pasta with roasted tomatoes and artichoke heart aioli wouldnt last another hour. It was surprising how good this success felt.
Angie had given that some thought lately. Ever since shed seen Conlan, in fact. After all, she had a lot of time to think. In a small town, a single woman with no children and no romantic prospects had plenty of thinking time.
Once she began to contemplate her life, she couldnt seem to stop. She thought about the choice shed made, so long ago, before shed even been old enough to understand what truly mattered.
At sixteen shed decided to be Someone. Perhaps because shed grown up in a big family in a small town, or maybe because her fathers adoration and respect meant so much to her. Even now she wasnt sure what had shaped her choices. She knew only that shed longed for a different, faster, more sophisticated life. UCLA had been the beginning. No one else in her high school class had gone to college so far away; once there, shed studied things that set her even farther apart from her high school friends and her family. Russian literature. Art history. Eastern religions. Philosophy. All of that learning had made her aware of the bigness of the world. Shed wanted to seize it all, experience it. And once you strapped yourself into a race car and roared onto the fast track, you forgot to slow down and see the scenery. Everything was a blur except t
he finish line.
Then shed met Conlan.
Shed loved him so much. Enough to vow before God that shed love no other man in this lifetime.
She wasnt sure when it had started to be too little, that love, when exactly shed started to judge her life by what it lacked, but that had been the end result. It was ironic, really; love had set them in search of a child, and that search had depleted their ability to stay in love.
If only loss had brought them together instead of pulling them apart.
If only theyd been stronger.
These were the things she should have said to him at the theater. Instead, shed acted like a silly teenager with an unreciprocated crush on the quarterback.
She was still thinking about it when the restaurant closed, so she poured herself a glass of wine and sat down by the fire. It was quiet in the restaurant now that everyone had gone. She saw no reason to go home. Here, she was comfortable. There, it was too easy to go down the dark road of feeling alone.
Alone.
She took a sip of wine, told herself the shiver shed just felt had been caused by the fires heat.
The kitchen door swung open. Mira walked into the dining room, looking tired.