Spencer stabbed a piece of meat with her fork and looked at hermother. “Anybody hear from Mary Beth lately?” Her older sister led a busy lifeand it was rare that their paths crossed unless they made them.
“I called her last week,” her mother said. “Everything is fine.Work is busy. Life is busy. Still dating Brent. Trent? Troy?”
“Bryce,” Spencer supplied, with a grin.
“Yes. Him.”
“I should shoot her a text,” Spencer said, more to herself than toher mom.
“So, what’s new with you, honey?” Spencer’s father asked. GregThompson was a quiet man with a big presence. He rarely raised hisvoice—Spencer suspected that came from having a son like Travis, as shouting athim didn’t help anything at all. Made things worse, in fact. Instead, Greg had agentle, soothing tone pretty much all the time. Spencer felt safe andcomfortable with him, always, and knew others felt the same way.
“Not a lot,” Spencer said, chewing a bite of grilled chicken. “Istarted a class at the gym, quit it, and am going back tomorrow.” Her chuckleheld little humor, as she was now beginning to regret agreeing to givingRebecca McCall a second chance.
“Oh?” her mother asked. Margie Thompson was a small woman, petite.Spencer got her blond waves from her mom, as well as her ability to adjust toalmost any situation. “What’s the class?”
“It’s called Be Your Best Bride. We’re all getting married fairlysoon and we all want to get in better shape for it.”
“That sounds great. How’d you find it?” Her mother was listening,while also keeping an eye on Travis. It was a skill she’d mastered over theyears.
“I didn’t. Marti did. She signed me up.”
There were several beats of silence around the table before herfather broke it.
“Marti signed you up? For a fitness class? Did she run it by youfirst?”
Spencer cleared her throat. “No, but it’s fine. I could stand tobe in better shape.” Wishing she hadn’t said anything, she pulled a Travis andstuffed a too-big salt potato into her mouth so she wouldn’t have to speak.
Her parents didn’t love Marti. They liked her just fine, butSpencer knew Marti wasn’t their ideal partner for her. It had nothing to dowith Spencer’s sexuality and everything to do with Marti. Her parents lovedSpencer and respected her, so they never badmouthed Marti or said mean things.Mostly, when Marti did or said something of which they didn’t approve, theysimply got quiet. Spencer had suspected it for a while, but it became crystalclear when she’d told them Marti thought they should get married. The silencehad been deafening.
“I just think she…could treat you better,” her father had said,when Spencer had questioned his lack of input. “And I don’t think you’re happy.I don’t think you’ve been happy since you and Chelsea broke up.”
Spencer wanted to argue. She wanted to explain to her father justhow wrong he was, how mistaken. Except that he wasn’t.
“Anyway, I didn’t like the instructor, so I ended up quitting theclass.” Spencer talked now to take the focus offhowshe’d gotten into the class. “As itturns out, she lives next door to the open house I ran for Jennifer today, andshe saw me and came over to apologize.”
“Well, that earns her points,” her mother said.
“I guess it does. She asked me to give her another chance, andpeople were starting to show up for the open house, so I said yes just to movethings along.”
“And now?” asked her father.
Spencer sighed, wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I wish I hadn’tsaid I’d go back, but…I gave her my word, so I will.”
Greg Thompson gave one nod of satisfaction. “Good girl. Why wereyou running an open house for Jennifer?”
With a shrug, Spencer said, “She asked me to. She double-bookedherself today.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t finish up getting your license.You could sell houses easily. You know that business inside and out.”
“I know.” They’d had this discussion more than once, and Spencerwas in no mood to do it again. To prevent it, she turned to her brother. “Hey,buddy, do they have cats at adoption day, too?”
“Uh-huh,” Travis said excitedly, and the discussion about catswent on for a long time, just as Spencer had hoped.
* * *
“That is a crazy weird coincidence.” Nick’s eyes never left the TVover the bar as he spoke, then took a swig of his Heineken.
“Right?” Rebecca’s gaze was on the same thing, and she sipped herclub soda with lime. This was how she and Nick did golf. And football. Andbaseball. And hockey. And occasionally soccer. Well. How Nick did sports andhow Rebecca got to spend time with him. They carried on entire conversationsbarely looking at each other. “I glanced out the window and thought the womanlooked familiar, but then she turned around and bam! It was totally her. Soweird.”
