Chapter 19
Vic loved and hated how The Second Chance Shop smelled like home to her—or the home she would like to have one day—and she suspected her yearning was broadcast all over her face.
Madeline looked up from the till, but if she was surprised to see Vic, her expression didn’t give it away. Her hair was up in slightly messy space buns, and she was wearing a vintage Wonder Woman T, flared jeans, and red sequined high-top sneakers. She looked like a superhero.
“Hey . . .” Vic said, mouth dry and stomach anxious.
“Hey,” Madeline returned evenly. Like her face, her tone gave no hints about what she was feeling or thinking.
“Do you, um, have time to talk? I didn’t want to come when the shop might be busy, but if you have plans and need to split right away, I get it.”
“I’m picking up sushi at 6:00, but until then, no plans.”
Vic’s palms sweated. That gave her an hour.
Surely their chat, even if it went wonderfully—which she wasn’t sure would be a thing—wouldn’t take that long.
Then again, it was a good sign that Madeline mentioned the six o’clock deadline because it suggested, at least, that she wasn’t kicking Vic out immediately.
“Let me flip the sign and hit the lights. We can sit in the dining room.”
Normally, Vic loved that Madeline used the dining room, with its vintage crockery, antique china, and various sets of tables and chairs, as an informal meeting room. Today, she worried the room would be forever ruined for her if the conversation ended in heartbreak.
“I just made tea—plain old orange pekoe. Would you like a cup?”
“Please,” Vic said.
“Take a seat. I’ll just be a minute.”
Ugh, their stilted, polite-say-nothing back and forth was killing her.
Vic perched on the edge of an ornately carved Baroque high-back dining chair with barley twist columns and a red leather seat.
Man, she was really picking up the lingo!
She tried not to fidget or drum her fingers on the table, but her body almost crackled with nerves.
“Oh, hey, Vic.”
The voice behind her made her jump. Gwen. Here. Obviously back from her trip. Great. Vic winced.
“Hi, Gwen. How was your honeymoon?”
“Amazing.” Gwen sighed happily as if remembering specific details, then came around to the front of the table so she wasn’t talking to Vic’s half-turned head.
“Do you mind if I crash your and Vic’s visit, or would you prefer to chat in private?
I understand if you prefer the latter.” Gwen sounded completely sincere, and Vic believed she could send her on her way, and she’d be fine with it.
On the other hand, there was zero chance that Madeline hadn’t mentioned her raging inappropriateness and latest behavior debacle to her best friend, especially since Gwen worked at the store too, and having a crazy coworker would affect her.
“You might as well stay.”
Gwen pulled out a chair and sat, folding her long legs to one side.
It was uncanny. They were close to thirty-five years older than they’d been when they’d chummed around at school, and Vic knew they looked older.
Of course they did. Yet somehow, as soon as more than a few minutes passed, the years fell away.
Kind, no-drama Gwen looked the same to Vic as she had all those decades ago.
“Yes, the trip was wonderful,” Gwen continued the original vein of their conversation, no doubt to set Vic at ease, “but it feels even better to be home again.”
“With milk, right?” Madeline carried a tray of three cups and saucers, obviously having heard Gwen was staying—or, equally possibly, having asked her to stay for backup.
She set a black-and-green Royal Albert teacup and matching saucer, decorated with delicate gold filigree, in front of Vic.
Madeline had made the color of her tea exactly as Vic liked—barely lightened.
“It’s perfect, thank you.”
Madeline took a seat at the end of the table, kitty-corner to Vic. Her tea, in Royal Albert’s most famous design, Old Country Roses, had so much milk, it was almost the color of a latte. Vic couldn’t see the contents of Gwen’s cup, but the cornflower blue porcelain was a near match for her eyes.
“I just wanted to thank you,” Vic started at the exact same time Madeline said, “So . . .”
Madeline looked surprised, as if gratitude wasn’t what she expected Vic to open with.
“Can I—may I—go first?” Vic hoped it wasn’t rude.
Madeline nodded, and Vic exhaled and began. After all, she had nothing to lose.
“I hope what I’m going to say won’t sound like an excuse. I don’t mean it to be. I just—” Vic exhaled and tried to organize the flying monkeys rioting through her brain.
Madeline sipped her tea and waited.
“I’ve always been a bit of a shitshow, but these days, it’s not just a bit. I’m more like 99%.”
Madeline’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t say anything, and her gaze was speculative.
“I recently came out of a bad relationship, one that I’m .
. . very ashamed of.” She wanted to bow her head, hide her face, but forced herself to keep looking at them.
“When I discovered what Brent and I had was nothing at all like what I’d thought, I still—” She shook her head.
Nope. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell them how terrible she was. Or at least not yet.
Neither Gwen nor Madeline said anything, but they were listening, and that was the main thing.
“I’m estranged from my adult son, Michael. It’s my fault and I deserve it, but it’s like a weeping sore.” Vic swallowed hard. She wasn’t trying to elicit sympathy. She really wasn’t. She was just trying to explain—to herself as much as to them.
“Even when I try to focus on other things, it’s a constant pain running in the background.
He’s polite to me, but that’s the extent of our relationship.
He interacts with me the way you do with a social media ‘friend,’ someone you don’t know particularly well, but you don’t actively dislike, so you heart something they say on occasion or give them a thumbs up.
Maybe once in a while, you even tag them in a photo. ”
Madeline nodded, but her face still unreadable as she took another sip of tea.
“No one can break your heart the way an adult child can,” Gwen said softly, and unlike Madeline’s, her expression was an open book—an open book telling a terribly sad story.
Vic felt awful. There was clearly something personal behind Gwen’s comment.
She would ask about it sometime—if she got another sometime with these women.
“I’m living with my mother, and—” Vic broke off. She didn’t want to take up too much of Madeline’s time or dive that deep. Finally, she muttered, “Let’s just say she’s, uh, a challenging personality.”
Gwen visibly winced. “Still, hey? I’m sorry.”
Of course, Gwen would remember Audra. Maybe other parents screamed at their kids—in fact, Vic was sure of it—but she’d had the only mother she knew who didn’t keep it behind closed doors. A familiar burn of self-consciousness, rage, and a strange conflicting protectiveness churned through Vic.
Madeline nodded again, still actively listening, still impossible to read.
Vic pushed on. “And then there’s my stealing.”
This last line finally elicited a visible response from Madeline. Her eyes widened, possibly at Vic’s candor or maybe at her conversational tone.
“I know it may sound unbelievable, but it’s a relatively new thing for me.
I didn’t really understand it myself, but .
. .” Vic splayed her hands on the dining room table and stared at her fingers.
“I’m doing my best to get to the bottom of it—and please don’t worry.
I haven’t taken anything else from you. I was good to my word on that. ”
Madeline’s head tilted and she leaned in slightly.
“So, well, that’s it. I’ve been trying to work through some stuff—and I’m clearly failing badly.
I deeply appreciate you letting me work off the money I owed you, and I’m so, so sorry about my absolutely unacceptable outburst the other day.
You have been nothing but incredibly generous and kind to me—but even if you hadn’t been—you didn’t deserve me to take out my garbage on you. ”
Both Gwen and Madeline nodded.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but please don’t ban me from the store. The Second Chance Shop is really special and I, well—”
To Vic’s horror, her eyes welled. She swallowed hard. “I’d really like to be able to stop by from time to time, but I totally get it if you don’t want me to.”
Gwen made a small sound of dismay. Madeline arched an eyebrow and looked more than quizzical. She seemed irritated. “What are you talking about?”
Sheesh, people asked her that a lot these days. Before Vic could grasp what part hadn’t been understood, Madeline continued, “Did you enjoy working here?”
“I loved working here.”
“Then why would you just give up and quit? Why wouldn’t you apologize, like you did, and then fight for yourself?”
Why, indeed? Answerless, Vic shook her head.
Madeline’s eyes glinted like flame-lit amber, and Vic shivered.
So the woman could get angry, after all.
Her voice was still calm, though. “I thought, hoped, that you’d stay on.
The shop’s steady as it is and with Christmas coming, it will be busy.
Gwen will be back to work next week, but she’ll be up to her eyeballs in Christmas arrangements and décor. ”
Gwen had been biting the corner of her bottom lip. Now she spoke up. “We’ve—Madeline and I—handled it before and we will again if we have to.” She glanced at Madeline, directing the next comment to her. “Aisha might be able to pick up some hours.”
Madeline nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “The holidays are busy at River’s Sigh B&B too, but yeah, we’ll figure something out.”
Gwen directed her attention back to Vic. “But like Madeline said. We both really hoped you’d stay on.”
Vic had finally picked up her own cooled tea, but she merely held the delicate cup without sipping and stared at her . . . boss?