Page 30 of Something Old

“Oh no, that’s terrible—yet perfect.” It was true. Monika’s lean-to-the-point-of-emaciated physique and sleek coiffure with its trendy dramatic black streak had reminded her of someone; she just hadn’t realized who. “I’ll never get that comparison out of my mind.”

“Well,” Gwen said a little awkwardly, a moment later, “I’ll just get you to ring these up, and I should head out too.” She held out five beautiful china teacups—a steal because they had no saucers or sets.

“I’m so glad you’re taking these,” Madeline enthused as she wrapped each one in paper. “I worried they wouldn’t find homes.”

“I have an idea for them,” Gwen confessed, a hint of sparkle coming into her tired eyes, “and when I saw how reasonable they were, I couldn’t talk myself out of the tiny splurge.”

“Everyone should treat themselves from time to time. It’s one of the things I love most about my shop. There are some extravagant items, for sure, but there are also lots of treasures for almost any budget.”

“Yes,” Gwen agreed. “It’s wonderful. I love coming here—as you’ve probably noticed.”

“I have, and I’m so glad.”

They beamed at each other, and Gwen turned to leave, then hesitated and turned back. “I’m sorry about all that.”

“About all what?” Madeline was honestly confused.

Gwen waved her hand around. “Monika. Her general passive-aggressive, bitchy awfulness.”

Madeline laughed again. “Well, you definitely describe her well, but her behavior is nothing for you to be sorry about. Besides, she was more awful to you than she was to me.”

Gwen shrugged, and her cheeks went pink, not denying it.

“I am curious about how she knew about my family, though. At first, I thought I was misreading her tone, being paranoid, but she knew.”

Gwen sighed and put her bag of teacups down on the counter. “Finding tender spots and poking bruises has been Cruella’s favorite hobby for a long time. I mean, I’ve known her since I was eight, so she has lots of fodder, but as to how she learned your story . . . It was probably from Kelsey at Jack’s Hardware. She’s a cashier there, has been for years, though she—as she’ll tell you any chance she gets—doesn’t ‘need’ to work, like it’s some flaw to be a normal person who does.”

Kelsey. The hyper-chatty cashier at Jack’s, where Madeline’s personal history had no doubt leaked out from little things she’d said to the staff who helped her buy supplies and from the contractor who’d helped her and did most of his purchasing there. The same cashier who thought Grant was a sweetheart and seemed personally affronted by Madeline even having contact with him, let alone her not thinking he hung the moon or something. That was how Madeline had the misfortune of falling onto Cruella’s radar? Awesome.

“In my less charitable moments,” Gwen continued, “I’ve wondered if Monika actually pays Kelsey’s wage—uses her as an information source.”

“I don’t know if that’s uncharitable of you or just astute.” Madeline mustered a wry smile. “Anyway, no worries. It’s not like I hide it—and there are Monikas and Kelseys everywhere, unfortunately. When I was a teenager, my sister and I continually had run-ins with this group of girls at school. Our mom always tried to comfort us by saying they’d grow out of it, but I don’t know. . . . We grow out of a lot of stuff as we mature, of course, and obviously not every kid who was mean in school stays mean—”

“But some do. Some mean girls become mean women.”

“Yep, indeed. The toughest part is not stooping to their level.”

“Amen.” Gwen paused. “Is your mom . . . still around?”

“No.” Madeline shook her head, sighing. This was not the conversation she would have started with to possibly strike up a new friendship. “Both my parents died in my first year of college. My mom had been sick for a long time. Cancer. My dad went six months later. Heart attack.”

Gwen looked somber and empathic, but not pitying. “And then you lost your husband, your baby, and your sister all at once. That’s brutally sad.”

The starkness of it hit Madeline like a punch in the gut. “Well, my ‘baby’ was twenty, but, yeah.”

“I have three kids,” Gwen said softly. “Forest, my son, is the eldest. Rose, my baby, and Lily, my middle. She’s twenty-nine. My three grandkids, her children, live with me because she—” Her voice caught, and her eyes welled. Then she shook her head, making a cutting motion with her hand. “I can’t . . . ”

Madeline felt terrible. “We don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry—just I hope you know they’re lucky to have you. Must be challenging, though.”

To Madeline’s surprise, Gwen sniffed a bit, then laughed. “Challenging. That’s a good word for it—but also a complete understatement. There’s a lot of good in the situation, but a lot of . . . other stuff too.”

“I bet.”

Gwen stretched her hands in front of her and studied her wedding rings. “If you and I had met last year, you wouldn’t have recognized my life.”

Oh, how Madeline related to that sentiment, even if her time frame was a few years longer.

“Mick, my husband, retired—early, to his great excitement. We sold our family house and bought a sixty-foot motor home if you can imagine. The thing was huge. We wanted room to bring the grandkids on trips, an irony that hasn’t escaped me.”