Free The Scarlet Letter Scandal by Mary T. McCarthy Page B

her life seemed to be doing was therapeutic in itself.
    The jingling of the shop bell caused her to look up . Crap , she’d forgotten to lock the door back up after bringing boxes in, and she wasn’t planning to open back up until tomorrow.
    Maggie looked up to greet her customer. What she saw took her aback. It was Jeannie Robbins—what was her new name? Applesomething? Maggie’s eyes narrowed as Jeannie entered the shop, not yet seeing her, and pretended to peruse the vintage clothing. Maggie quietly stepped back behind the rack of clothing she’d been steaming, a tall display of vintage lingerie, to collect herself for a moment.
    Having grown up in Boston, Maggie moved to Keytown at the start of ninth grade. Beginning a new high school as a foster kid from another state was awful. She’d been moved from home to home for years, and the agency told her she was lucky to find a family who would take a thirteen-year-old, but they were moving to Maryland. She’d met Jeannie the first day of high school, and after a run-in at the cafeteria on day one where she’d made the mistake of trying to sit at the yearbook editor’s table, had hated her ever since. Jeannie had somehow found out about Maggie’s past in the Boston foster care system and been cruel enough to spread the word around the school before Maggie had a chance to meet a single new friend. Fortunately their paths didn’t cross much since Jeannie had married so much later; Maggie’s girls were in high school when Jeannie returned to town much later to marry and have kids.
    Maggie took a deep breath, mentally mapping where her anxiety pills were in her purse under the counter, and stepped out from behind the clothes rack to face her longtime adversary.
    “Welcome to Wings Vintage Clothing. May I help you?” Maggie said in as polite a pretend-new-customer voice as she could muster, not being someone who could hide her emotions easily. The smile on her face did not reach her eyes.
    “Well, hello, Maggie. It’s been quite some time,” said Jeannie, picking up a long, belted ’70s leather jacket Maggie knew she wouldn’t ever dream of wearing.
    Maggie pretended to think for a moment, a purposefully quizzical look on her face. “Oh, I’m sorry, hello, Jeannie. Yes, hardly recognized you, no offense. Haven’t seen you much since high school.”
    “Yes, well, I haven’t stayed here since then,” said Jeannie, glancing around with faux interest and an overly polite faux smile, “ no offense to you or your adorable shop. But of course I was away in North Carolina for college and had a successful human resources career, and then when I met Chaz again at our twentieth reunion and he had such a good job at the financial firm… It was lucky we were both single and fell in love of course and well, I was back in Keytown.”
    “Yes, here you are,” said Maggie, who knew all of that from a friend who’d attended the reunion she herself never would have. Having stayed in town since high school, she didn’t need to know what happened to those who’d left. “Is there something I can help you find? I don’t know if we have anything befitting a former color guard captain.”
    Jeannie looked at her to see if she was being sarcastic, which of course she was, though her casual smile hid it relatively well. Maggie walked over to the counter, picking up her water bottle.
    “I’m just browsing,” said Jeannie, walking down one of the aisles and fingering vintage blouses as though they were a thing she would never pick up, much less put on her Talbots-dressed body, currently clad as it was in navy slacks (because yes, Maggie noted silently to herself, Jeannie was the type to wear slacks ) and a conservative floral blouse.
    Interesting she looks like she’s on her way to church , thought Maggie. Back in the day she wore the trampiest short-shorts that existed and more than one football player bragged about seeing her wearing less than that.
    Maggie took the moment