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Jennie nodded toward the other side of the pool where her coworker and friend, Samantha Page was talking to Kelly’s sister, Jesse. The two were opposites, physically. Samantha was tall with dark hair that hung down her back. Jesse was petite with honey blonde hair.
“I’m glad to see Sam,” Jennie said. “She looks like she’s doing a lot better.”
Samantha might work at Sutton Capital, but she was often included in lists of the country’s top hackers, sometimes even topping the list. She recently took time off to help the FBI track a group of women who had been sold into sexual slavery. It hit her hard and she’d had a rough time dealing with the emotional toll of the work. They were all worried about her.
Kelly nodded. “She is. She’s back at work and she’s been working on her game again.”
Jennie grinned. “She let me try a beta version of the game. It freaking rocks.”
Samantha had been working on a multiplayer online fantasy game and they were all waiting for her to release it when it was ready.
“No fair!” Kelly said. She pouted in Samantha’s direction even though the other woman couldn’t hear her.
Jennie laughed at Kelly and raised her hands in the air. “Hey, don’t blame me.” She smirked. “Besides, she said she’s going to let you try it this weekend.”
Kelly scowled. “Hmmm, I guess that’s okay.” Kelly grinned then. “Did she tell you the name she’s picked out?”
Now it was Jennie’s turn to pout. “No! What do you know, woman?”
Kelly laughed and made a zipping gesture over her lips. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
Kelly lifted a shoulder in a shrug as she grinned. “Because if you knew then we could talk about it.” She looked at Jennie then, growing serious. “How’re you holding up?”
Jennie tilted her head back and forth. “I’m good. Hangin’ in.”
Jennie sipped the last bit of lemonade from her glass before setting it on the table next to her. “Oh, Jeez, Zeke. Cut that out!” Jennie shooed Zeke down off the table where he’d been busy stealing the remnants of a hotdog off someone’s plate. She hadn’t even seen him get up.
Kelly laughed as the dog-slash-garbage-disposal swallowed down the hotdog in one bite, not looking the least bit chagrined at being caught stealing food. But when she looked back to Jennie, Jennie could see the concern in Kelly’s expression.
“I forget sometimes, you know. Until days like this and then it hits me that this probably hurts like hell for you.” Kelly reached out and held Jennie’s hand, squeezing. Her voice was lowered now, maintaining the private nature of the topic she’d just broached.
Jennie appreciated Kelly’s commitment to keeping her secrets. She shrugged and plastered her standard smile on her face. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have. “It is what it is. I can’t change it so why dwell?”
She could tell her friend didn’t buy her act and if Kelly was thinking Jennie’s smile was just for show, she was right. Some days, it was all an act.
But, for the most part, she’d found happiness with her friends and her life at Sutton Capital. They were really good friends she treasured. And, she loved her work. After feeling like she was floating around untethered, with no real goals for years, she finally had a job she loved.
Good friends and a good job. That was all Jennie could hope for.
Kelly reached over and put her hand on her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish things were different. It isn’t fair.”
Jennie just nodded and swallowed. Hard. Her chest tightened and she willed away the lump caught in her throat and the tears that threatened to fall. Four years later and she still had a hard time talking about it.
She and her husband, Kyle, had been more than just high school sweethearts. They grew up next door to each other, were best friends through junior high, dated in high school, and managed to keep their relationship strong through four years of college.
The year they graduated from college, they married. By the following year, Kyle was gone – he’d lost his fight with cancer a few short months after his diagnosis and just two days after their first anniversary.
Jennie still couldn’t stomach vanilla cupcakes – the memory of the vanilla cupcake her mother-in-law brought her and Kyle in the hospital for their anniversary was too strong and painful.
Jennie and Kelly had only been friends for two years, and it had been awhile before Jennie told Kelly about her husband. The rest of the group had no idea she had ever been married.
“I’m okay. Honestly, it’s harder sometimes with my friends who knew Kyle and me. They never forget. Kyle was like a part of my identity with them. With you, I get to forget. Or, at least pretend for a while. But, I’m good. I’m happy for you guys. For all of you.”
She looked out over the lawn at Andrew and Jill, and at Jesse and Zach, then glanced to where Jack watched Kelly as only a man waiting for the arrival of his first child does. His look seemed to encompass so many emotions: everything from sheer joy to excitement to fear of the unknown.
Neither said anything else. There wasn’t really anything left to say. The two friends sat quietly as Kelly’s kick-off-to-motherhood party wound down.
