Sweet Contradiction (15 page)

he cloud of contentment and peace when I woke up in the next morning quickly faded as soon as I got a look at the puffy, dark circles under Jen’s eyes. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring out into space and I could see the stress and strain of all the she had endured etched clearly onto her face.

“Jen?” I asked softly. She jumped and then shook her head gently to clear it, managing a small smile. I went in and sat cross legged on the bed beside her. I pushed a strand of her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. I sighed deeply and took her hand in mine. “We’ll get through this. We’ll call today to make an appointment and then we’ll go together.” Jen sucked in a breath sharply, her eyes widened and then she released her breath with her shoulders slumping a little.

“How long have you known?” she asked, deflated.

“Since yesterday morning.”

“How?” She chewed her bottom lip.

“I found the letter in your night stand when I was searching for my ipod.” She nodded with her head still bowed, her eyes on her lap.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you, I just couldn’t think about it right then, not with my mom ….” She stopped as her voice broke and cleared her throat.

“I know. It’s okay. I’m here and now that I know, you don’t need to keep so much on your shoulders. Let me help, let me be the person you yell at, cry on, or whatever you need. You’re strong and no matter what, you’re going to be okay. You have to be.” Jen sighed deeply again before leaning over and laying her head on my shoulder. I smoothed my hand over her head and kept saying all the things I knew she needed to hear, all the things I needed to hear, and all the things I hoped with all my heart would turn out to be true.

When we went down stairs, Jen called for an appointment and they said they wanted to see her the next day. I tried not to think about that and about her mom dying of cancer. What were Jen’s odds of having it? I didn’t know and I really didn’t want to. I just couldn’t.

“So, tomorrow is a long way away when you have something coming you don’t want to think about,” I said conversationally as we ate our Chunky Monkey ice cream, which we’d decided was perfect for breakfast that morning.

“It is. We should do something. Movie?” She dug out what was left of her ice cream and licked her spoon.

“I actually have something planned,” I said, my eyes still on my ice cream.

“Oh no,” Jen groaned.

“What?” I asked around a spoonful of what could aptly be described as
heaven
.

“You had that tone.” I raised a brow and Jen rolled her eyes. “You know … that one where you have an idea and I ended up knee deep in some kinda trouble.” I smirked and pointed my now-empty-spoon at her.

“I’ll have you know it wasn’t entirely my idea.” It was Jen’s turn to lift her brow.

“Oh really? Pray tell, what exactly is your idea and whom have you been conspiring with?” Jen crossed her arms over her chest and I beamed at her.

“
Conspire
is such a nasty word.” I complained. Jen signaled for me to get on with it.

“Matt is taking me to the barn dance tonight.” Jen’s face fell. “And Hunter is taking you.” Jen gasped and vaulted out of her chair.

“You set me up on a double date?” she yelped. I flinched.

“It was Hunter’s mom too,” I pouted. Jen gasped and collapsed back down into her chair.

“Oh this just keeps getting better and better. I went from my best friend setting me up with her boyfriends’ brother, to a guy’s mother setting me up with her son.” Jen plunked her head down on the table in front of her. “I’m pathetic.” I began laughing until Jen threatened to tell all my dirty little childhood secrets to Matt.

“It’s not as bad as all that … he said you’re pretty.” I smiled when her eyes grew thoughtful.

“Did he now?” she asked softly. “Well, it really doesn’t matter. He’s definitely not my type and it’s obvious that this is a pity date, so I won’t worry about it. You better realize how much I love you, I’d have killed anyone else for this.” Her eyes narrowed and I kept my grin in check …
barely
.

“So, what are we entering in the baking contest?” I asked. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. Two things I adored—baking and a good, healthy competition. Jen laughed as she got out her mom’s hand written cookbook.

“You’re going to be nice if you lose, right?” I put a hand on my chest and gave her the most innocent look I could muster. She laughed even harder, so I’m not entirely sure I could pull off innocent.

“I promise to be a good sport.” I held up my hand in what I hoped was the boy scout salute and not some sort of gang symbol. Jen still looked unconvinced, so I shrugged and began on a first draft of my acceptance speech for the first place ribbon we’d be taking home. Jen’s laughter was a wonderful sound to my ears.

By the time we baked several batches of goodies and made huge batch of blackberry jam, the kitchen was a disaster area. But, we were too busy baking, tasting, cleaning, and laughing to take too close a look at Jen’s impending appointment the next day and that’s exactly what I wanted.

“What do you think of this one?” Jen pulled out a pretty dress and a cardigan from her closet to add to the growing pile of clothing on her bed. She was putting an awful lot of thought into an outfit for her “pity date”. I didn’t bring that little fact up though.

“It’s cute.” I said. She dropped her arms and glanced over at me.

“By cute, you mean boring?” She groaned. “I have no idea what to wear, maybe I need a change or something.” I jumped up off the floor and went over to her very over-stuffed closet.

“You’ve got tons of great things in here, you just need a fresh perspective.” I tugged the outfit out of her grasp and shooed her over to a chair. When I opened her closet door, I knew exactly what her problem was. She had everything already matched … a lot of her outfits had purses hanging from them to go the extra-matching-mile. I grimaced. She had nice stuff and I always knew she was a little bit of a perfectionist, but her closet was over the top. It screamed to be torn apart and everything jammed back in at random. Jen had issues with being random and spontaneous. She liked order, but sometimes chaos is exactly what the doctor ordered. I jerked out several outfits from the closet and unmatched them before tossing leftovers onto the bed.

“Wait. What are you doing? Those are already complete outfits.” Jen snatched a blouse out of the air before it hit the bed. I ignored her. “Why are you mismatching everything?” Jen waved the shirt at me. I put a hand on my hip to scowl over at her.

“Jennifer Collins, you need to live a little and the first step is to understand that wearing flowered panties under a striped dress is perfectly acceptable. Freeing, even.” I tossed a striped dress into the
try on
pile and tried to keep from smiling as Jen bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet to keep from snatching her clothes out of my hand and reorganizing them all.

When she stood in front of the mirror after several outfits had been tried on and discarded, she scrunched up her nose and I sighed. She looked amazing.

“It’s going to kill me to say this … but, I love it!” She let out a squee and hugged me tightly. She turned around to admire herself in the mirror. She wore a pink, jean skirt paired with a flowing, floral, cap-sleeved top. Over that she had on a cream colored corduroy vest. All three pieces were from different outfits in her closet, but the different textured pieces together looked trendy and yet still
Jen
. I glanced down at my watch. It was an hour before the guys would be picking us up. Time for me to get ready.

My outfit took a lot less time. My favorite blue jeans, an embroidered, cream colored boho blouse and my brown boots and I was ready for some country dancing and good, old fashioned, country food.