Page 9 of Something Borrowed

The recently acquired Pumpkin Spice soap was there, of course. And the tiny pastel tin buckets. And the Royal Albert Teacup sans saucer. There was also an antique pillbox, a crystal frog wearing a tiny gold crown on a green crystal lily pad, and a pair of fuzzy pink socks with red eyeglasses all over them. (Why? As in, why were they ever made in the first place? And also . . . why had she felt utterly compelled to have them?) And still, that wasn’t all.

There was a beautiful hematite ring. Hematite was supposed to shift negative energy, enhance willpower—ha ha ha, nicely ironic quality for a stolen ring to have—and boost self-esteem and confidence. It also purportedly helped overcome impulsive behaviors and addictions. And perhaps it would’ve done those things for her, except Vic only let herself wear it in fits and spurts. She slid it onto her thumb now—yes, another pathetic thing about her. She not only stole things. She stole things that didn’t even fit her properly.

There was a milk glass vase. A pink and cream conch shell. An ornate silver letter opener with a cat on its handle. And that, she believed, was the end of the Second Chance Shop items. She’d spare herself the cataloging of other stores’ pieces.

Vic studied her collection with squirming discomfort and stomach-churning dread. Madeline had been correct. Had seen right through her. Knew her for the thief she was.

She held the bar of soap to her nose and inhaled deeply. It really did smell good. She imagined the kind of woman who bought soap like this, just for regular use. She’d be put together, classy. She might’ve been a bit reckless as a teenager, but she had a beautiful son—and she’d gotten her act together and realized a man wasn’t the answer to anything. She’d done an MBA and not just ended up working in insurance. She met her husband doing volunteer work, and they’d gone on to have two more biological children, but he was just as close to his stepson as he was to his own bio kids and considered him his firstborn. They’d been married for twenty years but were still in love. They had a family dog. And a minivan. Every Saturday, she went antiquing with her mother. They were close—

Vic slammed the soap back into the box—but carefully so she wouldn’t damage its corners. She left the hematite ring on, and though she had planned to avoid looking at the other pilfered items, her attention snagged on one thing. The stupid pink “lady’s hammer” she’d lifted from Jack’s Hardware. What a horrifying, humiliating—ugh . . . She felt sick thinking about it.

She’d definitely been seen, and just like at The Second Chance Shop with her old high school friend Gwen as witness, it was by people who knew her back in the day.

Unlike Madeline and Gwen, however, Monika and her minion Kelsey, who worked at Jack’s Hardware, were not kind. And they never had been. Not as kids. Not as teens. Not in the rare, uncomfortable times she’d run into them as grownups when she came back to town.

She still couldn’t understand why they hadn’t confronted her. She didn’t even feel thankful about the “near miss.” She felt . . . unnerved. Monika had met her eye, cocked a brow, then gave the tiniest, most derisive shake of her head. Kelsey looked like she might approach, but Monika stopped her with a long-nailed, expensively manicured hand and whispered something. Then both she and Kelsey pinned her with another look—and laughed. Vic fled and hadn’t been back to Jack’s since.

“Enough!” she whispered vehemently. “This isn’t helpful.”

She put the lid back on the box. Then clicked out her bedroom lights and lay on her pink bed, fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling she knew was there, but couldn’t see. She had no idea what she should do—or, rather, what she would do. Show up at The Second Chance Shop tomorrow or just never, ever go there again?

Chapter 7

“Will you please just take a check?”

Madeline laughed, but it wasn’t a mean sound, and her eyes crinkled at the edges. Her mirth seemed genuine—and gentle. Still, Vic wasn’t sure what the laughter meant. It must be derisive. It had to be, right? And who could blame Madeline if she thought a check from Vic wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. Also, who even wrote checks anymore? She was such an idiot.

Her cheeks flooded with heat. “Or, I mean, I can do an eTransfer or make a debit or credit card payment through your POS system.”

One of Madeline’s eyebrows quirked, and she gave Vic an evaluating look but didn’t say anything for a long moment.

They were inside, talking by the antique general store counter, but Madeline hadn’t turned the lights on yet. The dim shop was all shadows and dark corners, and Vic’s anxiety was a twitching, scratching thing inside her, clawing to get out. The silence—and Madeline’s stare—were excruciating. She wanted to climb out of her skin.

“The deal was you’d work off the items,” Madeline finally said. “You showed up, so I’m taking that as you accepting my terms.”

The shop’s delectable scent of sugary lemons and sunshine might’ve been soothing if Vic let it, but she didn’t. Instead, she forced it to be another way to scold herself. You stole from a shop that smells this pure, this good. A shop belonging to a woman who seems equally pure and good. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I am, Shoulder Angel shrieked. I am.

It was all too much. Vic exploded like a bottle of soda, shaken and uncapped. “I don’t understand! Why do you want me to work in your shop? Why would you trust me around your things? Why? What do you want from me? What’s the catch?”

Madeline shrugged. “There’s no catch, Victoria.”

“Vic,” Vic mumbled.

Madeline’s expressive eyebrows rose again. “There’s no catch, Vic. It’s like I said on Saturday. The things you take are relatively inexpensive. You won’t make me go broke.” She motioned at Vic’s Gucci bag. “You obviously don’t need to shoplift, but you clearly need something.”

“And it’s not soap,” Vic mimicked snidely, finishing Madeline’s sentence before she could and rolling her eyes. It wasn’t exactly the same speech Madeline had given Saturday, not word for word, but it was close enough.

Madeline shrugged, but didn’t seem put out by Vic’s rudeness. “If you don’t want to be here and you don’t trust my offer, why are you here? It’s no skin off my nose if you decide to stay away.”

Why are you here? It was a very good question. Why was she?

Vic stared at the floor for a very long time. Madeline didn’t fidget. She seemed to have all the time in the world, though surely it was close to 10:00 by now, and she must be antsy about getting the shop open.

“I’m here because . . .” Vic kept her gaze nailed to the floor. “I’m not a thief.” She waited for Madeline to scoff or make some cutting comment to the contrary. When no such thing poured forth, she glanced up. At the very least, Madeline would be making a face about such a bald-faced lie, wouldn’t she? Surprise flickered through her. Madeline’s expression was one of attention, of listening. No judgment. God, she was maddening.

“Okay, except, obviously, I am . . . a thief, I mean.”