“For what?” Janice knew, of course, but she wasn’t about to let Darby off the hook.
“For the way I treated you in high school. And beyond,” she added.
She’d been the queen of cocky when she returned from her first year of college. Lesser beings got snubbed. Some of them got tortured. Janice, manning the refreshment counter at themovie theater, had been one of the unlucky ones. Reamed out for not getting Darby’s popcorn order right one night.I paid for a large. Are you embezzling popcorn now? I can see you really need it.
Ugh. Who was that girl? And why hadn’t everyone in town cornered her in a dark alley and beaten her up yet?
“That’s right, you do,” Janice said, enough venom in her voice for ten snakes.
It was hard to continue looking her in the eye. Darby took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and laid it on the counter. “Would you join us for a few minutes? The latte’s on me. And anything else you want. Just keep the change.”
For a moment she thought Janice was going to either throw the money in her face or turn her back on her. But she didn’t. She took it with an unenthusiastic, “All right.”
“Thanks,” Darby said, then headed for a table in the middle of the room with four chairs around it.
“Did you bring me along for protection or as a witness?” Gregory said as they settled in.
“Maybe a little of both. I’m not sure how I’m going to make up for being so rotten to her, but I figure this is a good start.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed.
It seemed to take forever for Janice to make her drink and join them at the table, and Darby began to shred her muffin as she waited. She hoped Janice wouldn’t take advantage of their close proximity and pour the scalding drink in her lap.
Gregory finally laid a hand over hers. “You got this.”
She was more sure that she was going to get it.
Janice arrived at the table, slipped into the seat next to Gregory, and turned to Darby, her face like stone.
“I wish I could travel back in time and take back every bad thing I ever said to you,” Darby told her. “All I can do is say how sorry I am.”
Janice’s only reply to that was a shrug.
“I do want to make it up to you.”
The bell on the shop door jingled, and Janice’s stone face unfroze and morphed into a scowl. Darby turned to see who had come in. Ainsley and Laurel, of course.
Janice started to get up, but Darby put a hand on her arm and stopped her. “They can wait.”
“They’re customers. I can’t make them wait,” Janice said, shaking off her hand.
“She’s gotta keep the customers happy,” Gregory said to a frowning Darby as Janice returned to her position behind the counter.
“Nothing keeps those two happy like making someone else miserable,” Darby said. “I know how they think.”
Neither friend came over to the table to say hi after getting their order. Of course not, because Darby had broken the mean girl rules. She had fraternized with inferior people.
“Yep. Looks like you’re off the team,” Gregory said.
“I don’t want to be a player anymore, anyway,” she told him.
To her surprise, Janice returned to the table. “You were saying?”
Was this some sort of test? Probably. Darby knew her former posse was watching.
“I was saying that I can’t undo the past, but I can be different in the future.”
“How are you going to do that?” Janice scoffed.
