River actually reached down and pinched her thigh to make sure she hadn’t passed out and was dreaming all of this. Decent pay and room and board? To not have to live in her car? It felt like Christmas.
“What do you think, honey?” Cora asked. “Are you interested?”
“Yes,” River heard herself say. “Very.”
“Great!” Cora looked pleased with herself. “When can you start?”
She’d clearly lost her mind. She’d come to case out the place and steal back what was hers, and now she worked here? “Right this very minute,” she said.
Cora stood and took the empty plate in one hand and River’s hand in another and helped her up.
Ridiculously grateful—getting up out of a chair was starting to be as difficult as . . . well, checking to make sure she had her shoes on—she followed when Cora pulled her along.
Her mom had told her to never be a follower, to make her own way along her own path, but River had been fifteen back then. On top of her world. She and her mom had been a team, a good one. She’d never known her dad, but she hadn’t missed his presence. Granted, life hadn’t been easy. They’d lived in a rough neighborhood and her mom had worked a lot, but together they’d been invincible. At the time, the thought of making her own path had seemed exciting, and easy.
It’d turned out to be anything but.
But even if she’d managed to resist Cora, River had a feeling that God himself would follow the woman’s soft, sweet demands.
They ended up in the next building over, which was set up with open-room-style offices. Cora stopped at a desk in front of a woman who had to be her own age. She wasn’t sitting, but instead stood behind her desk glaring at it.
“Mia,” Cora said. “Meet River, our new temporary receptionist.”
“Can’t talk right now,” Mia said. “A spider just landed on my desk. Oh, and in other news, it turns out when I’m startled, I can jump five feet in the air with just the power of my butt cheeks.”
“As long as you didn’t kill it,” Cora said. “Spiders are our friends.”
“Mom, are you kidding me? I murdered the shit out of that spider. Right now I’m just waiting to make sure he didn’t call out the cavalry before I took him down.”
Cora didn’t so much as blink at this. She just shook her head, a small, indulgent smile on her lips. She clearly loved her daughter very much, and suddenly River knew why she was so drawn to Cora.
She reminded River of her own beloved mom. But because that was a slippery slope, she shut it down and smiled at everyone Cora introduced her to, until they came to a big L-shaped desk in the back corner, holding two impressive-looking printers, a big-screen computer, and a bunch of other equipment.
“River,” Cora said, “this is Lanie. She’s our resident graphic artist.”
River froze, but Lanie stood up and reached out a hand for River to shake. “Nice to meet you.”
River still couldn’t move, and then Cora’s smile started to fade, so she galvanized herself into recovery. With a forced smile, she took Lanie’s hand. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Pregnancy brain.”
Lanie nodded but didn’t smile. Not as friendly as Cora, not even close, River realized.
Cora’s cell rang on her hip and she looked at it with a frown. “I’m sorry, I have to take this. Lanie, River has offered to start right now. Can you take her back to the front desk at reception and wait with her until I send someone down with the forms she needs to fill out for employment? River, honey, after you fill out the forms and give them to Lanie, I’ll have someone get your things into your cottage.”
“Oh, no,” River said quickly. “I can do that myself—”
“I’m sure you could, but what kind of a human being would I be if I let a pregnant woman do such a thing?” She smiled. “Besides, I have a misbehaving employee I want to torture. Don’t make things too easy on him, you hear me?”
River had no choice but to nod. Still, there was no way she was going to let that happen. She didn’t want anyone to know her humiliating truth, that not only was she alone and pregnant, but that she’d also screwed things up so much that she was living out of her car.
On the walk to the reception area, Lanie remained reserved but pointed out the staff room and where to put her things.
“So you’re new too?” River asked.
Lanie looked at her. “Yes, how did you know?”
Shit. You’re an idiot. “Uh . . . Cora mentioned it just now.”
“No, she didn’t,” Lanie said and looked like she might’ve said something else, but two little girls came running down the hall and threw themselves at Lanie.
“Lanie!” one of them cried happily. “Look, we’ve got our own lip gloss now!” In unison, they pulled lip glosses from the pockets of their matching jeans. “Just like yours, only they’re clear because Daddy said we can’t wear color until we’re forty or until he’s too old to chase us, whichever comes first.”
Lanie softened and smiled. “Nice. So where are you two really supposed to be right now?”
One of them grinned a toothless, guileless grin.
The other bit her lower lip. “Um . . .”
Lanie turned to a huge whiteboard schedule and ran her finger down the “twins” column. “Looks like you’re supposedly with Grandma.” She pulled her cell phone from a pocket. “Cora, did your phone call have to do with missing product? Say, a pair of three-feet-high missing product? Yep . . . uh-huh. Okay, I’ll tell them . . . Sure thing.” Lanie disconnected and crouched down to face both the little girls. “Your grandma says you have three minutes to get your ‘cute little tushies’ back into her office before she reports you missing to the sheriff, and the word is that the sheriff’s this close to reducing your bedtime for bad behavior.”
This caused twin squeaks of alarm, and then the two girls vanished hand in hand down the hall.
Lanie shook her head, but she was also still smiling a little bit, looking suddenly very human as she led River to the front desk without another word.
“You don’t have to wait with me,” River said when Lanie just stood by, looking at her watch.
“You don’t know this yet,” Lanie said, “but Cora’s the sweetest, kindest tyrant you’ll ever meet. She asked me to wait with you. I’m going to wait with you.”
River nodded.
Lanie gestured to the chair. “You really should sit. Do you want some water or anything?”
“No, thank you,” River said, feeling guilt settle onto her chest just as sure as her baby was tap-dancing on her bladder. Guilt and . . . confusion. Because for months now, Lanie had been the devil incarnate in River’s eyes. But now she was wavering on that belief. Lanie was quiet and reserved and . . . human. And so much more accomplished at life than River could ever hope to be.
“So how did you know I was new?” Lanie asked.
And smart, River added with an inner wince. “You just seemed new.”
Lanie studied her and then thankfully let it go without another word.
And not a minute later, someone came by with the forms and Lanie vanished.