“Don’t call her that.”
Tessa waved her spoon in the air again. “What do you want me to call her? Slut?”
“Nothing,” Sara told her, and meant it. “Don’t call her anything.”
“Oh, I think she deserves a few choice words.”
“Jeffrey’s the one who cheated. She just took advantage of a good opportunity.”
“You know,” Tessa began. “I took advantage of plenty of good opportunities in my time, but I never chased after a married one.”
Sara closed her eyes, willing her sister to stop. She did not want to have this conversation.
Tessa added, “Marla told Penny Brock she’s put on weight.”
“What were you doing talking to Penny Brock?”
“Stopped-up drain in their kitchen,” Tessa said, smacking her mouth around her spoon. Tessa had quit working full-time with their father in the family plumbing business when her swollen belly made it impossible to navigate crawl spaces, but she was still capable of taking a plunger to a drain.
Tessa said, “According to Penny, she’s big as a house.”
Despite her better intentions, Sara could not help but feel a moment of triumph, followed by a wave of guilt that she could take pleasure in another woman’s widening hips. And ass. The sign girl was already a little too full in the flank for her own good.
Tessa said, “I see you smiling.”
Sara was; her cheeks hurt from the strain of keeping her mouth closed. “This is horrible.”
“Since when?”
“Since . . .” Sara let her voice trail off. “Since it makes me feel like an absolute idiot.”
“Well, you am what you am, as Popeye would say.” Tessa made a great show of scraping her plastic spoon around the cardboard cup as she wiped it clean. She sighed heavily, as if her day had just taken a turn for the worse. “Can I have the rest of yours?”
“No.”
“I’m pregnant!” Tessa squeaked.
“That’s not my fault.”
Tessa went back to scraping her cup. To add to the annoyance, she started scratching the bottom of her foot on the dashboard’s burled wood inlay.
A full minute passed before Sara felt an older sister’s guilt hit her like a sledgehammer. She tried to fight it by eating more ice cream, but it stuck in her throat.
“Here, you big baby.” Sara handed over her cup.
“Thank you,” Tessa answered sweetly. “Maybe we can get some more for later?” she suggested. “Only, can you go back in and get it? I don’t want them to think I’m a pig, and”—she smiled sweetly, batting her eyelids—“I might have ticked off the kid behind the counter.”
“I can’t imagine how.”
Tessa blinked innocently. “Some people are just sensitive.”
Sara opened the door, glad for a reason to get out of the car. She was three feet away when Tessa rolled down the window.