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Jenna sighed. “Go ahead. You won’t be the first.”
I set my cup down and chuckled. She smiled as she gathered up some of the shopping bags.
“Let’s get a few of these tried on to see what works. Then I’ll have Chuck put what you don’t like back in the trunk.” She winked. “He’s going to like returning items more than shopping for them.”
I gasped. “You are torturing the poor man.”
“Sure am.” Her voice was chipper. “He deserves it, the cane toad. Plus, I can’t be mad at Cam. He’s doing this crazy protective BS from a place of love and concern. Chuck’s egging him on.”
I spent twenty minutes trying on various outfits until Jenna deemed the linen slacks and a simple, sleeveless white-and-blue pinstripe blouse as the best choice.
“Ooooh, you look so crisp.” Jenna clapped her hands. “Like a sailing girl. Did they have female sailors? Why didn’t they have female sailors back in the day? Man, we were kept out of everything good.”
“Being a guitar craftswoman seems like a pretty great gig.”
Jenna grinned. “It is, except for the fumes from the sealers. I can’t do those while I’m pregnant.”
For a moment, anxiety and fear flashed in her eyes, but she slid her lashes down to conceal them.
She cleared her throat. “Didn’t I buy you some white or blue slingbacks? Those would be perfect. Casual but dressier than sneakers.” She sorted through boxes until she found the right one.
“How did you know my sizes?” I asked.
“Mama Grace remembered some. The rest I made Chuck find for me.”
“That’s on the internet?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Probably. I mean, you’re rich. You dated rich men. People like to keep tabs on us simply because of that.”
I wrinkled my nose.
Jenna shrugged. “This goes back to that chatter I was talking about earlier. Writing about people like us—it’s about status. We live in a very status-oriented world. You have it because of your wealth but also because your partners have wealth.”
“But the articles about me always find flaws,” I said.
“People want to bring you down to their level. The easiest way to do that is by ripping apart your appearance.”
I sighed. “You’re really smart.”
She shook her head with a slight smile. “Nope. I’ve just been doing this, with Cam, longer than you have, and I like to read books about how our brains work, mainly because mine seems janky.”
“You’re not janky,” I said.
She smiled. “Oh, I am. But I try to embrace it more often than not, especially since Cam loves me both because of and in spite of that jankiness.”
I narrowed my eyes, but Jenna waved me off. “It is what it is—and yes, it started with my public humiliation.”
She explained how her ex-boyfriend’s friend had manipulated her in high school, causing her to be trampled in a crowd.
I clasped her hand as I settled next to her on the side of the bed. “You’re right,” I whispered. “We have a lot in common.”
“Except you handled it better.” Jenna smiled.
“I don’t think I did.” The words formed slowly because I was just understanding them—and my actions. “In fact, I think anything else I’d done would have been better, even lashing out.” I pondered that. “Like Nash used to do.”
“Used to being the key phrase. He turned it all inward after you left,” Jenna said.
I inhaled long and slow. “He hurt himself, badly.”
