the crops didn’t grow, the animals got sick, and cattle prices dropped to nothing despite the impossibility of keeping the damned things alive.
She’d loved that life, ridden the ups and downs with all the enthusiasm of a drama-addicted teenager, but the steady grind of corporate life fit her better now that she’d grown up.
Starting up the Malibu, she swept down the drive, almost bottoming out in a washout. Turning toward town, she breathed a sigh of relief as civilized blacktop hummed under her wheels. It was time to quit thinking about her personal life and start thinking about work.
And that was a relief, because her personal life was way too complicated.
She hadn’t driven more than a few hundred feet before her cell phone rang. Pulling onto the road’s narrow shoulder, she put the car in park and picked up her phone. Gloria, the screen said.
Great.
“Hello?”
“Sarah! I have a new boyfriend! And I owe it all to you.” She started a little singsong to the tune of “Glory Hallelujah.” “Thaank you, thank you, thank you, thaaaank you! Thaank you, thank you…”
Slumping her shoulders, Sarah suppressed a groan. She always felt like a killjoy dealing with Gloria’s peppy enthusiasm. “Eric?”
“Yup! It was great,” Gloria said. “I’m telling you, he’s just as wild as his brother once he’s out of that handsome suit. We…”
Sarah couldn’t help waving her hand in the air even thought Gloria couldn’t see her. “Stop,” she said. “I don’t want to know.”
She really didn’t. After seeing Eric scamper off in his birthday suit, the prospect of hearing about his and Gloria’s sexcapades was about as attractive as hearing about Kelsey’s trysts with Mike. Eric was kind of like a brother to her, she realized. There was really no sexual attraction there at all.
“Well, it was one heck of a night. And I was wondering…”
Sarah could hear Gloria breathing heavily, like she always did when she was nervous. She pictured her friend sitting at the back of the coffee shop, twisting the tie of her apron in her hands like a little kid confessing to robbing the candy jar.
“Wondering what?”
“If he could come over tonight.” Once the words started, they came out in a rush. “I thought maybe you could go out with Lane or something, because I said I’d make him dinner and he said no, we’d get takeout, and then he got all cute, like. He has this thing he does where he lifts one eyebrow and looks at my boobs and I’m telling you, it’s so sexy I…”
“Gloria, stop.” Sarah slumped over and thunked her head on the steering wheel.
“Oh.” All Gloria’s spunky enthusiasm was gone. “You’re mad.”
“Mad? I moved out, Gloria. Did you not notice my stuff was gone?”
Gloria sighed into the phone. “I knew it. I knew he was the one you wanted. But remember I said how Lane was right for you? Well, it’s true. I know you probably want Eric, but he says opposites attract and he doesn’t feel that way about you.”
Sarah rolled down the window, but she managed to resist the urge to throw the phone into the ditch. “I’m not mad about that. I’m…”
She paused, realizing there was no way to explain her feelings of betrayal to Gloria. As far as her roommate was concerned, it was open season on all men, all the time. Sarah’s insistence that she stay away from Eric had gone in one ear and out the other.
“I’m really happy, Sarah,” Gloria said in a little-girl voice. “I really like him. I think he might be The One. I’m sorry you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad,” Sarah said. “It’s just that my sister needs me to stay there.”
“Oh!” Judging from Gloria’s tone, the dim corner of Starbucks where the staff took their breaks had probably brightened considerably. That made Sarah feel a little better about the whopper she’d just told. Kelsey didn’t need her—not one bit. She had Mike back, and the last thing they needed was Sarah’s disapproving presence in the limited space of the trailer.
But she could hardly go back to the apartment and watch Eric and Gloria do whatever it was they were doing.
“Maybe we could double-date!” Gloria said.
“Um—right. Except I don’t think Lane and I are going to work out. But Gloria, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” Perky Gloria was back in full force. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s huge.”
It took Sarah a minute to figure out what she was talking about, and then she had to thunk her