“What am I going to do, Char? I’ve got no job, no place to live and now I have a baby on its way.” An unexpected wave of protectiveness ran through Lily and she pressed her hand to her belly.
“You know you can stay here with Bradley and me for a while, just till you get on your feet. As for a job, there’s bound to be something around. Even with the economy how it is, there just aren’t that many people here. Surely there’s something. I’ll ask around when I’m in town tomorrow. I know Beth is looking for someone at the Cat Whiskers Café.” Charmaine paused to raise her mug to her lips, “Don’t worry, Lily, we’ll find you something.”
A small amount of pressure eased from her shoulders. At least she had somewhere to stay for a few days. Not that she expected Charmaine to cast her out, but it was nice to be invited. “Do you mind if I come with you to town? I’d better go see the doctor and I want to get some olives from the store, I’ve been craving them for days.”
Charmaine laughed, “Oh dear, you’re getting cravings already? It wasn’t until I was showing that I got mine. I always craved peanut butter and pickle ice cream when I was pregnant. Olives aren’t so bad.”
“Well, I was also hoping to buy some cooking chocolate as well so I can melt that and then dip the olives in it before I eat them.”
“You want to cover your olives in chocolate, and you didn’t know you were pregnant until this week? What kind of stuff have you been eating for that to be normal?”
Lily blushed, “Deep down, I knew. I just didn’t want to know. Look at me,” Lily spread her sweatshirt-clad arms wide, “what the hell am I going to do with a baby?” She had nothing to offer a tiny human. No job, no career, no home. She was going to be a horrible mother. She couldn’t even get her own life in order and now she was going to be responsible for another person. That’s what scared her most of all.
“Love it, honey, that’s all you can do.”
*
Lily replayed her friend’s words over and over in her mind on the drive into town the next day. Charmaine was right. All she could do was love her baby. And in a funny way, she already did. It seemed impossible to her to love something that didn’t entirely exist yet, at least not as a whole human, but the little group of multiplying cells growing in her belly already held her whole heart. And she’d do anything for it.
Finding a job so she could care for it was the first thing on her list. Then she’d work on finding a place to live.
Charmaine pulled up in front of the Cat Whiskers Café. There was a large ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window.
The building had been recently painted and she could hear music pumping from the speakers when she got out of Charmaine’s minivan. This place sure brought back memories. She spent a whole lot of time here as she was growing up. It was always the place to be when she was a teenager. From the look of the clientele she could see through the windows, that much hadn’t changed, but it wasn’t just full of pimply faced kids anymore, it seemed that everyone from town had stopped in for lunch. She was sure she could even see Suzy Little sitting next to one of the speakers.
“Is that who I think it is?” she asked Charmaine, pointing at the little old lady with purple hair.
“Suzy? Oh yes, she loves it in there. She declares it’s her very favorite place to eat. Of course she’s fallen in love with Beth ever since Beth catered for her birthday party last year and put all the other ladies of the nursing home out of sorts. You know how she loves the attention.” Charmaine smiled. “Come on, let’s see if Beth still has that job available.” She opened the door and herded her three youngest kids into the welcoming café.
The aroma of freshly ground coffee hit Lily as soon as she walked through the door. The tea she’d drunk earlier at Charmaine’s threatened to wash Beth’s floor. She covered her mouth, shoved Charmaine’s kids out of the way and dashed back outside.
She ran a few steps and dragged deep breaths into her lungs, trying to settle her stomach. Cold sweat ran down her face from her forehead and she shivered as the cool breeze rushed up the street. It was still cold out even though it was supposed to be spring.
Spring. Concentrate on spring, she told herself. Flowers, green grass, new babies… no, that is not what she wanted to think about… rain, thunderstorms, little birdies, newborn lambs, newborn calves, newborns…
Oh God, she couldn’t do this. She leaned against the building, gasping for breath. She was seeing stars again. How was she going to get any work if she was going to lose her lunch every time she smelled coffee? Everyone lived on coffee in this western town.
“Lily, are you all right?”
She jumped at the hand that touched her shoulder and she spun around.
“Beth?” she whispered. She hardly believed her eyes. She hadn’t seen her friend for years. “You look exactly the same,” she blurted.
Beth’s tinkling laugh filled the street.
“Thanks… I think.” She looked at Lily and asked again, “You okay?”
She realized she was still leaning against a wall of a building. She straightened up and looked around. She’d made it past Bill’s Barbershop and Tony’s Hardware. She didn’t realize she’d run so far from the café. She thought she’d only just made it out the door. She took a step away from the wall and straightened her skirt. “Um, fine. I uh, just don’t like the smell of coffee right now.”
Beth tilted her head and looked at her for a moment, just long enough for Lily to grow uncomfortable, then shrugged. “Well, you should meet Helga then,” Beth said, “she doesn’t like coffee either at the moment. She used to live on the stuff, now she gags at the sight of it.”
Lily didn’t know what to say and after a few moments of awkward silence Beth pulled her into a hug.
“It’s so good to see you again. I can’t believe you’re finally here. Charmaine mentioned you might be coming home, but when you didn’t show up for Christmas, I thought you must be busy. Are you? Busy, I mean?”
Lily missed this. The happy chatter of close friends who want to know anything and everything of each other no matter how much time has passed since they last saw each other. But Lily wasn’t ready to let her secret out and because her life hadn’t exactly turned out the way she’d planned, she didn’t really want to head down this road right now.
“Who’s Helga?” she asked, instead of answering Beth’s questions. “You said she doesn’t like coffee either?”
“Helga Hansen, surely you know she was shooting a film here last year? Your mom would have mentioned it I imagine… and it was in all the papers, not to mention the magazines. Do you still read them? Remember when we were teenagers and we’d pool our money together to buy the latest DIRT edition? I was still getting it up until last year.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“They published some unfavorable reports about Helga.” Beth’s usual happy look turned hard.
“You know her then? What’s she like? Just like in the movies?” Lily couldn’t stop the curiosity from coursing through her. After all, she’d wanted to be an actress too.
“I’ll introduce you to her. She’s really nice.”
“Is she still here, in Bassville?” Surely not. Why would a big movie star stay in small town Canada?
Beth looked at her strangely for a moment again. “Don’t you know?”
Lily thought she must be missing something. “Know what?”
“Helga’s marrying Ben this weekend.”
“What?” Lily felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under her