arms over his considerable middle and gave her his fish-faced pout. “And yesterday I said you could come in for your shift or not come back at all,” he told her with his eyes closed.
Mr. Simmons always talked with his eyes closed. It drove Meredith nuts.
But she couldn’t think about that now. Meredith’s heart, which had been thumping hard, started racing. “Mr. Simmons, I need this job. You know I need this job.”
Her sour boss blinked at her, his expression never changing, but she plowed on.
“Please give me another chance. My… Oscar’s grandmother left me in a lurch. I didn’t have anyone to watch him. I would’ve brought him with me if I could.”
She’d beg. She wasn’t above begging. After everything she’d been through in the last two years, a little begging wouldn’t be so bad. “Please,” she added, wringing her hands together and cursing Jamie’s mother for the ten thousandth time.
“I’m sorry, Meredith,” Mr. Simmons said, shaking his head and sounding most unsorry. “But coming to work with your toddler would’ve been worse than not coming in at all — which is what you did. For the last time, I might add. Please turn in your apron and cashier’s badge. You may collect your last check in the office from Miss Bonnie.”
With that, he swiveled on his heel and left her standing at the front of Champagne’s Grocery, her nails digging into her palms and her nose stinging.
Do. Not. Cry.
Meredith refused to let herself cry. She refused to cry over losing her job because it was Leona McCormick’s fault she’d lost her job, and Meredith wasn’t going to let Leona McCormick bring her to tears anymore. It had been six months since the last time, and she wouldn’t break her streak now.
The woman hated her. It was that simple. Leona McCormick hated her, but she loved Oscar. Which meant that Meredith and Oscar had a place to live. And, as Meredith Ryan knew all too well — after her parents kicked her out when she was seventeen and pregnant — there were worse things than living with someone who hated her.
Sharing a bed with her ex-boyfriend was one of them.
A month into her senior year, Meredith would have married Jamie McCormick the minute that stick turned blue. Any of the girls at Lafayette High would’ve. Dimples. Blue eyes. Sandy blond hair that made him look like a golden Harry Styles. And a smile that had her believing she was everything.
Walking out to the parking lot with a pack of Pampers and her last paycheck, Meredith rolled her eyes at the memory. He’d done her a favor, really. By dumping her for Veronica Sanger when she’d refused to get an abortion, Jamie had kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
She wouldn’t marry him now. And he’d asked. More than once. That smile, she now knew, meant one thing and one thing only. Jamie McCormick wanted some.
Meredith didn’t know what was worse. That after more than two years, Jamie still tried out his come-hither smile on her. Or that she still gave into it.
Of course, a whole lot of opportunity didn’t exist for either. Jamie worked twenty-one on and fourteen off as a roughneck on an offshore rig, so more than half the time, Meredith didn’t even have to see him. But during those other two weeks, he was doubly persistent in his smiling efforts.
Another obstacle for him (and safety measure for her) was that they lived with his parents in a 1300-square-foot house with three bedrooms. Leona and James “Big Jim” McCormick’s bedroom shared a wall with theirs, and the only thing worse than having your baby-daddy’s parents next door while he tries to get it on with you is trying to sleep while said parents get it on with each other. And as much as it made Meredith throw up in her mouth when she heard Leona calling Big Jim’s name, it saved her from Jamie’s advances because, while Jamie McCormick was pervy on many levels, getting off to the sound of his mother’s Os was not on any of them.
And, finally, while the house technically had three bedrooms, that third room was, in fact, Leona’s sewing room. She took in alteration work and made the occasional wedding, bridesmaid, or formal dress, so the third bedroom contained her Bernina, her serger, a dressmaker’s dummy, an ironing board, a worktable, and racks of clothing for alterations, but it didn’t have even one bed.