Free Second Chance Friends by Jennifer Scott Page A

out of the booth, answering her phone as she went, and after a few awkward minutes Joanna and Melinda both agreed it was best that they move on with their day. Melinda tried not to think about what that meant for her—her anxiety over meeting Paul at the fertility clinic had abated, but she was sure it would be back. She went to the cash register and paid for her juice, then plunged outside, calling a good-bye to Joanna over her shoulder.
    She gave the divots only a glance as she walked by on her way to her car. The divots seemed unimportant now.
    Now that they had a plan to see Maddie herself.

SIX
    J oanna could hear the strains of “Luck Be a Lady” before she even got close to the amphitheater. She hummed along as she walked the paved park trail, yanking the visor of her baseball cap farther down over her eyes and pushing the oversized sunglasses up on her nose, adjusting the hem of her runner’s shorts, in which she always felt so exposed and uncomfortable. She much preferred maxidresses and flip-flops to this getup.
    She probably looked ridiculous. She didn’t fit in with the other park-goers at all. She wasn’t health-conscious, nor was she a young mother looking for some fresh air and a way to exhaust a busy toddler. She’d never been great at blending in with her surroundings—which she always considered a by-product of feeling constantly hidden withinher own life—but right now she looked like the stalker she was as she plodded along the trail toward the piano chords.
    She knew the production by heart. She’d been one of the Hot Box girls in her high school production, a part with which she’d never felt comfortable—giggly and shimmying and wrapping feather boas around herself. She’d secretly pined to play Adelaide, and so when the community theater announced its plans to run
Guys and Dolls
for its fall season finale, she’d jumped at the chance to audition. She’d turned her East Coast accent up to its highest decibels, had put extra swagger in her hips, had mooned over Nathan Detroit like no one else.
    Instead, they’d cast her in the part of straitlaced, straight-faced, stern, and sexless Sarah Brown. She’d been disappointed, but more than that, she’d felt exposed, as if everyone knew she could never pull off a sex kitten role, swooning for a man. She might as well have been wearing a neon sign that flashed the words
CLOSET LESBIAN
across her chest. And then, of course, she felt ashamed of herself for finding the prospect so distasteful.
    She’d considered turning down the part, actually. Even though she knew all of Sarah Brown’s songs and could follow the fold as straight-faced as a nun. But then she saw who was cast in Adelaide’s part, and the result was so mesmerizing, she couldn’t have argued with it if she tried.
    Sutton Harris. Long, swoopy hair the color of decadent dark chocolate, skin so smooth and white it invited touch, and an easy smile. Sutton looked amazing in sweatpants tied loose and rolled up at the cuffs, and she lookedamazing in jeans with jewels on the back pockets, and she looked amazing in her Hot Box dresses, and she even managed to make feather boas not look ridiculous.
    Joanna knew instantly that she was in trouble. She’d felt this once before, for a girl named Alyria in college.
    Alyria Payne—a name meant for the stage, and that was exactly where Joanna had met her. And where she’d fallen in love with her, as well. On the set of
Little Shop of Horrors
, in which neither of them had much more than a bit part.
    Not that Joanna was terribly surprised that she’d fallen in love with Alyria. She’d had stirrings of feelings for girls as far back as middle school. Hell, maybe even further, if she wanted to be really honest with herself. But she’d always dated boys. It wasn’t difficult. She was blond and athletic and cute, and when she put on makeup, she was actually