Shay tugged away as Miles kissed her on the head. She turned to me and shrugged.
“Let’s sit and order something,” I said. “I’m starved.”
Shay and I ordered, and waited, and ate. I still hadn’t seen anyone I knew. Maybe I’d imagined my entire existence here. Maybe Chance had always been a beehive of small-town abundance and I somehow missed it, or worse, ignored it.
“So, I was thinking about the contest,” I said with my mouthful of muffin.
“Uncle Beck said I have to apologize for that. For bugging you. That it’s not your thing and I have to respect that. So you don’t have to do it. You shouldn’t do it. Forget I mentioned it.”
“Maybe I want to do it.”
“I promised Uncle Beck I’d apologize, and if you enter the contest he’ll think I guilted you into it.”
“No he won’t.”
“Yes he will.”
“I’m a grown-up. If I want to enter that contest, I can. I just haven’t decided whether I want to.”
“I don’t want to get into trouble.”
“Oh my God, Shay, it’s not like you could’ve forced me against my will.” But she totally could have. I should have been relieved, but I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. Or not do—especially not Beck.
Shay sipped on the straw of her oversized chocolate milk and then blew into it, creating a crown of light brown bubbles. I didn’t tell her to stop.
Shay rested her elbows on either side of her plate of challah French toast.
“They’re going to make me move, you know. They think I don’t know, but I heard them talking about selling the house. They can do what they want with the house but I’m not leaving.”
I stabbed a piece of my omelet and chewed as many times as was possible, which wasn’t very many.
“Maybe you didn’t hear right. If you were moving, surely someone would have told you.”
“I guess.”
“Is there a For Sale sign in the yard? People coming through and looking at the house?”
“No.”
“Did your dad make you clean out your closet?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not for sale.”
“Not yet.”
“Right, so don’t worry about it yet. What do you want to do today?”
“I have to go home for a stupid dress fitting before art class.”
“Nothing stupid about a dress fitting! I love dresses. Want me to come?”
“Daddy said you can’t.”
Really? I could fly across the country to take the pictures at the wedding but I couldn’t watch Shay have her dress hemmed. “But I’ll see you later, right? When I come over to talk about the wedding pictures?”
“Don’t go back to Nettie’s on Lark, Aunt Tee! Stay with us! Dad’s always saying it’s a shame that there’s no nice hotel around here. Our house is better than a hotel anyway! You can stay in my room.”
I would not, could not, sleep in Celia’s house.
“I’ll text him!”
“Shay! Stop!” I grabbed her phone. “Your dad and Violet need their privacy.”
“They don’t live alone. I live there too. And why shouldn’t you be there, you were Mom’s best friend.”
“You’re right, but it just wouldn’t be comfortable.”
“Why not?”
“Because things are different now.”
“Obvi.”
“Shay—”
“I just wanted you to be close since you’re usually not around at all.”
Called out by a twelve-year-old. Again. “I’ll be around all week. We’ll have lots of time together. How about we hit that mall you love? Tomorrow after art class, okay?”
Shay smirked. “Fine.”
The door opened to a blast of giggles, and a group of girls walked in, no discernible space between them. I recognized only the idea of them. At that age, Celia and I had always wanted, needed, to be close enough to whisper and be heard.
I hoped Shay knew these girls. I wanted to meet her best friend, to see flashes of my and Celia’s past in their private jokes and feel hope for the future in their rays of laughter. I wanted Shay to know, really know, how twelve-year-old promises could last a lifetime, to one day look back and know that twelve-year-old jokes could always be funny. Or that remembering them could be funny. I wanted to tell her that these friendships, the ones she had today, mattered in the scheme of her big, long life. Especially her best friendship. The simultaneous need and independence of a lifelong best top-tier friendship was unparalleled and irreplaceable. That was both the blessing and the curse. I couldn’t tell if these girls knew Shay. She’d never mentioned a best friend before. I hadn’t asked. Shay stared at her food, and I stared at her.
I focused my attention on the chattering of the girls, the pitch and cadence of their giggles, snaps, and foot taps. They read the chalkboard menus aloud, as if for the first time.
“That’s a hideous banner,” one girl said, pointing at the banner Shay had designed for Miles. “Stupid thing to hang in here.”
“Hey…” I said.
The girls swiveled their bodies toward us, then back to the counter.
“Don’t, Aunt Tee!” Shay whispered and shook her head.
“Do you know them?”
“Yeah,” she said.
One girl surreptitiously pressed her foot on the banner, leaving the dusty print of a flip-flop.
“Holy—”
“Shit?” Shay whispered. “I know.”
I should have said no, that holy moly was what I was going to say. I might not have been a perfect faux aunt, but I wasn’t a liar. “Yes. Holy shit. Shouldn’t we do something? Call the manager?”
Shay just shook her head.
The girls stood near the counter, collected bags and cups, and floated toward the door without a glance our way. I watched until each of them was outside and the door shut.
“What was that all about?”
“Leave it alone.”
“Tell me.”
“Can’t we talk about something else?”
“What’s going on?”
“Let it go, please!” Shay wasn’t demanding, she was pleading.
“Fine.” How was I supposed to follow what had just happened? Talk about the weather? “Chloe and Rebecca from last night seem nice.”
“They are.”
“Are they your best friends?”
“I just met them. In art class. Not everybody has to have a best friend, you know.”
“I know, but…”
“Who’s your best friend now?”
I swallowed. Celia had been the only person I’d ever called my best friend.
“See? You don’t have one. Why should I?”
“Well … when your mom and I were your age we were inseparable.”
“Well,” Shay said. “I’m not my mother.”
“Oh, you’re just like her. You look like her, you even sound like her, and you’re talented like she was—crazy talented. That sculpture? That banner? I bet you could sew too if you wanted to.”
“I don’t want to sew.” Shay looked away from me, at the wall, then the table, then back to the wall.
“Well, that’s okay, I just meant you were a lot like your mom. That’s a good thing. A really good thing.”
Shay shrugged, and tucked her hair behind her ears, but wisps of preteen insecurities remained.
I wondered how Shay would have been different if Celia were alive. Or was this Shay—a little uncertain, sometimes bold, and both serious and whimsical—predestined from the start?