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Paula opened her clutch while Lia dug into one of March’s pockets. Phones were passing hands when light suddenly flooded the room. The silhouette of a server appeared between the double doors. “Can I get you people anything?” said a feminine voice, its owner swaying forward with a tray.
Paula shook her head in refusal but handed over her glass automatically. Then looked up from the phone in her hand as she sensed a stillness in the room.
The server was locked in a staring war with Lia. Bastian held himself stiffly, and March was advancing, wearing a thunderous expression. Lia held him back while saying to the server, “That’s not true, Trisha.”
“You sure you didn’t plan it that way all along?” the server said back.
“You know I didn’t,” Lia said.
Lia getting into it with a server now? What’s going on?
Confused, Paula watched the server turn to Bastian with a sweet smile, as if her bitch face had never existed. “Hello, Bastian. Your mother told me you wanted to have a word with me.”
Aha!
This must be none other than Trisha, the impressive pharmacist who’d married into the supermarket family that the elder Spencers desired in their neighborhood. And Lia and March were apparently not fans.
“Not really,” Bastian said, sounding bored.
“Something about the neighborhood?” Trisha prodded. “You wanted to tell me what it’s like where you are?”
“I’m sure you, Alex, and the kids will do fine wherever you end up.” Bastian had donned his aloof, standoffish look that Paula now suspected was reserved for a select group of people Bastian considered dangerous…a group that Paula had once been lumped into.
Trisha’s gaze darted about, landed on March’s stare of cold malice—he seemed to have gone into tiger-ready-to-spring mode—then moved on.
She regarded Paula for a microsecond, and then, very much as Belinda had done, she dismissed her and moved on to Maylin. Who was also promptly dismissed.
Trisha then turned to Trey and Bastian. “What can I get you two gentlemen?”
The remaining four exchanged glances; the snub toward them all was pretty marked.
Bastian stepped around Paula. “Trisha, it’s time for you to go.”
Even as he said it, Lia burst out, “You’re truly a bitch, you know that?”
Paula was stunned to see such fierceness coming from the shy one. “I’m sick of it, Trisha,” Lia hissed. “I’m done. Don't talk to me anymore. Stop pretending to be my friend. Just stay out of my life. We’re going now,” she announced as the server stomped off after setting her tray on the floor and glaring at them all. “Paula, Maylin, it was good to meet you. I’m sorry you had to see all that unpleasantness.”
A series of hasty good-byes, and then it was only the four of them left.
“What the hell was that all about?” Trey said, scratching his chin. “You know what, never mind. We need to get those kids to bed.”
“Bye, Paula! Come over sometime!” Maylin said, waving.
“Okay,” Paula smiled. Bastian looked down at her and reached for her hand. “Let’s get your coat and get out of here.”
