Free The Life You've Imagined by Kristina Riggle Page B

can’t—”
    Agatha has returned with an armful of gowns, which she hangs on the outside of fitting room doors, to display them. They’re all tents, really. Huge sacks with some neck detail, in pastel colors. Gargantuan parodies of Easter eggs.
    I squeeze my mom’s hand as she flinches away from them.
    S tepping out of the air conditioning at Agatha’s, we get the full smack of afternoon sun right in our faces. Mom grimaces. “Oh, Lordy, it’s hot,” she says, and I know what she means. Heat is so much worse when you’re already wrapped in layers of excess skin and fat. It’s like being cocooned.
    “Let’s get you a bottle of water before I take you home and head back to work.” The Nee Nance is between Agatha’s and our car.
    Mom lumbers to a bench outside the store, next to the ice cooler. The Nee Nance isn’t air conditioned, anyway.
    Anna’s at the register. “Hi!” I wave to her.
    She looks through me for a second, before she blinks and says, “Oh. Hi, there. You’ll never guess who was just here,” she says, scrubbing with vigor at the surface of the front counter while I grab two cold waters from the cooler.
    “Who?”
    “Your fiancé.”
    Her voice sounds odd. I feel like I’m missing a punch line or something. “Oh,” is the only thing I can think of to say. “Well, his work is just down the road.”
    “Right. His work at Becker Development, my mother’s new landlord.”
    “Really?” I put the bottles on the counter, but she doesn’t look at them. She has stopped scrubbing the counter and she’s staring at me now. “Isn’t that interesting.”
    “The new landlord who’s evicting her.”
    Evicting? “What? No, he wouldn’t . . . Are you sure?”
    Anna narrows her eyes. “How would I be unclear on something like that?”
    I know he must have a reason; there’s more to this story, something important I’m missing, that Anna’s missing. But I don’t know what it is; I learned early on Paul hates to be pressed for details. He shares on his own agenda.
    “I don’t know what to say. I don’t get involved in the business, really.” I drum my fingers on the counter and check on my mom, in silhouette out the front window. She’s fanning herself with her hand. She’s baking alive out there. “My mom is waiting for me, and I’m late for work.”
    Anna punches the register buttons hard, and it seems like she has had to start over, because it takes her longer than it should.
    “Look, I didn’t know anything about it. Anyway, it’s not up to me.”
    “I suppose that’s true. Do you want a bag for this?”
    I shake my head, and I take my change from her. “I’m sure Paul has his reasons for what he’s doing. He has the best interests of Haven at heart.”
    “Because this store, my family store, is a blight on the neighborhood?” Anna gestures around the store.
    “No, but . . . I mean . . . He’s not a bad guy.”
    “I’m sure he’s swell. I bet he rescues kitty cats from trees.”
    I snatch the water off the counter and stomp outside.
    I help my mom stand up and we begin our slow progress down the block to the car. I look over my shoulder at the outside of the store with its pukey green siding and the one e hanging sideways and the beer posters, and come to think of it, actually, it does look like crap.

Chapter 14
    Cami
    L ucky for me, it’s not hard to beat my dad to the mailbox.
    Lucky is not a word I use often, or if I do, I have to laugh as soon as it occurs to me. Lucky that my dad is usually so drunk he’s still passed out when the mail gets here on Saturday?
    I take what I can get. The mail truck pulls away with its distinctive rumble, and I dash out into the hard summer rain.
    It was sticky-hot all morning until the clouds crashed the party around lunchtime, and now all the wet is pouring out of the air. I love it, actually. If it weren’t for the rain streaming so hard into my eyes I can’t see, I’d just stand out here and let it soak me