Page 17 of When In Doubt

I look up, flattening my lips. “No…”

“Oh.” She shrugs. “That’s a shame.”

“Mom.” I roll my eyes.

“What?” She grins. “I’m just saying, maybe a craft stand would be nice.”

“We’ve already got everything set. There wouldn’t be space for her, even if she was interested.”

“You could make space,” she reasons, talking around a mouthful of pot roast.

“Mom, no. Just leave it, okay?”

“Fine.” She huffs. “Well, you should still ask her to go.”

“She’ll see the posters, she can come if she wants to.”

“But you should ask her.”

“What, like a date?” I give her a challenging look, not about to start this game. “When are you gonna drop this?” She’s been trying to meddle in my love life since I was a dumb kid admitting to my first crush. She once threatened to call Freya’s mom to try to set up a “playdate.” Thank God my dad intervened before it got that far.

“I’m not doing anything! I’m just saying, maybe it would be nice for her to come spend some time with everybody, get to know people a little more.”

“Why are you so set on this?”

“I thought you liked her?”

“I don’t know her!” I’m getting dangerously close to raising my voice with my mother.

“You used to like her.”

“What, when we were kids?” I ask incredulously. “It was over a decade ago, I’m sure she’s a very different person these days.”

“You told me, and I quote, ‘she is the prettiest girl I have ever seen, and I am going to marry her’,” she says smugly, using the line she pulls out any time she wants to embarrass me.

“Jesus Christ, I was twelve.” I groan. “And I think I talked to her a total of two times back then. It’s not exactly the stuff that strong marriages are built on.”

“I met your father when we were kids.” This is her trump card. My parents were elementary school sweethearts and it has her thinking that everybody can meet their soulmate while they’re still using safety scissors.

“Well, I bet you guys had more than one conversation back then.”

“Sometimes one is all you need.”

“Mom.” I draw out the word on a groan. Sure, after Freya moved away I spent a long time hoping she’d come back. But it’s been years. I don’t need my mother getting involved and turning this into something it isn’t.

“Okay, okay.” She laughs. “I’ll drop it, but you should still make sure she knows about the Open House. I worry about her holed up in that store. It’s been months, and I don’t think she has any friends yet.”

There’s a twinge as I think of Freya, spending all day alone in the store. Maybe I’ll just double-check that she knows about the event.

“I’ll drop her a flyer,” I grumble, hoping this can put an end to it.

“Make sure you tell Joni I said how pretty they are this year.” She nods firmly. Joni’s been handling pretty much anything that requires taste for the past few years. Left to his own devices, Mack would probably just put sticky notes all over town with the date and time scrawled on them.

“I’ll be sure to pass that along.” I huff out an amused chuckle, before a thought occurs to me. “When did you see them? We’re not sending Ryan out canvassing until the end of the week?”

“Really? Somebody must have dropped them by Doctor Bennett’s office. They were in the waiting room.”

My head snaps up, the pleasant, familiar atmosphere of dinner popping like a soap bubble. “You were at Doctor Bennett’s?”