Another small grin made its way onto Spencer’s face. She couldn’thelp it.
“There’s a smile.” The waitress delivered Mary Beth’s soda and sheunwrapped the straw, took a sip. “It’s okay, Spence. Tell me what happened.”
Spencer swallowed again, knew there was no way her sister couldguide her if she didn’t tell her what she’d done. Staring into her soda, shesaid, very quietly, “I slept with someone.”
“I’m assuming you’re not talking about Marti,” Mary Beth said, ameager attempt to make her smile that almost worked, but not quite.
“No.”
“So, you cheated on your fiancée.”
Spencer’s eyes snapped to her and widened in slight horror.
“Spence, we’ve got to call it what it is here. Don’t we?”
“Yeah. I guess we do.” Spencer dropped her head down, shook itslowly. “I don’t know what to do, Mare.”
“All right. Let’s look at it logically.” This was exactly whySpencer had called her and not her mother. She needed logic over emotion rightnow, and she was pretty certain her mother would be mortified by Spencer’sactions. Rightfully so.
The waitress arrived with their sandwiches and left them to it.
Mary Beth took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. “You need to answersome questions, I think. Things only you know the answers to.”
“Like?”
She repeated the process of biting, chewing, thinking. “I don’twant you to answer them right now. I want you to think about them for a bit.”
Spencer nodded, chewing a bite of her own sandwich, savoring theblend of the creamy tuna and the sharp tang of the cheese.
“First question: What caused you to do it? Is there somethingmissing in your relationship with Marti? If so, is it something that can befixed?”
Spencer nodded again, happy not to speak as she absorbed thequestions.
“Two: The person you slept with”—she held up a hand—“don’t tell mewho it is. I don’t want to know yet. But this person, do you have feelings forher?” She leaned forward a bit and said, with a comically arched brow, “Iassume it’s a her?”
Spencer allowed herself a slight chuckle. “Yes. Still gay.”
“I figured.” Mary Beth ate the rest of the first half of hersandwich. “Three: Are you still letting what happened with Chelsea dictate thedecisions you make today? Because I think you have. For a long time now.”
Feeling her eyes well up, Spencer shifted her gaze to the windowand willed the impending tears away.
Her sister, maybe sensing that she needed her to keep talking,did. “And finally: How do you feel about all of it? What do you want to do? Doyou want to double down on your future marriage and focus on that? Do you wantto end things with Marti and pursue this other girl? Do you want to be on yourown?” She studied her for so long that Spencer squirmed slightly in her seat.“I think that last batch…those are the big ones. And any of those choices areokay. You know? They’reallokay.” Her expression softened, and her eyes filled with love forSpencer. “You’re a smart woman, Spencer, and I’m pretty sure you know that youwouldn’t have strayed outside your relationship if something wasn’t missingfrom it. I think you need to figure out what it is.” Leaving half a sandwich,she slid the plate to the edge of the table, then folded her hands and lookedSpencer square in the eye. “I’m not always the biggest Marti fan. You knowthis. But she deserves better than what you’ve done, so you need to figure itout. You’re a better person than this.”
She’d allowed a bit of her disappointment to seep in, and whileSpencer knew she was right, she still felt ten years old again, like she’dtouched Mary Beth’s hairbrush or favorite CD without permission. She would muchrather have her sister, her parents, her friends be angry with her thandisappointed in her. But she had done this to herself. She could have stoppedRebecca that first time. She could have stopped herself the second time. Sure,Rebecca knew Spencer was taken, but Spencer had flung the door wide open andinvited her in. Easy as it would be to push some of the blame onto Rebecca, sheknew she couldn’t.
No, Spencer had done this to herself. And now she had to eitherfix it or live with it.
She wasn’t sure how to do either.
* * *
Once Spencer had left her, satisfied but at the same time not,Rebecca had spent the rest of the weekend alone. At first, it was alone withher thoughts. But when that became too much to deal with, she went to a movie.Being able to focus on something else for two hours was awesome, but as soon asshe left the theater, Spencer came screaming back into first place in her head.Visions of her sexy eyes, soft hair, gorgeously feminine curves pummeledRebecca’s mind until she wanted to shout for them to leave her alone—especiallywhen the accusatory thoughts about how she’d overstepped her bounds as atrainer began to seep in. So the rest of the weekend was spent with Lysol. AndComet. And Tide. And Pledge. And Windex. Whenever Rebecca got stuck in a rut ofendless thoughts, she cleaned.
By the time she got to work on Monday, she felt the slightest bitbetter and her house sparkled like the calm ocean in the sunshine.
She would talk to Spencer. That was the plan.
It made her nervous. With every hour the clock ticked away, thebutterflies in her stomach kicked things up a notch. But she was sure it wasthe right thing to do.
