Page 5 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

CHAPTER 3

AMY

Amy still wasn’t sure what had possessed her to agree to catering the Chateman High reunion; it was panning out pretty much as terribly as she had imagined it would. Well, in all honesty, she did know what had tempted her. It was money and the ability to put this as a “corporate event” on her credentials, which was only a slight tweak of the truth. So she’d agreed, planned the menu, and spent hours and hours slaving over the prep work, packed it all into her catering van, which she’d desperately needed but could barely afford the repayments on, and had driven to the high school that she’d sworn never to set foot in again.

Great plan, Amy. Not nerve-racking at all, Amy. With how sick with stress she was feeling, Amy had now learned the valuable lesson that she would rather be destitute than ever take on a job like this again.

Walking into the school gymnasium to start setting up was like walking into a time warp on a science fiction movie with no budget. Everything still looked exactly the same, maybe a little shabbier, the teachers included. A few more stains on the ceiling, a few more gray hairs around the temple. But even Mr. Kristofferson was still wearing the same plaid shirt that had been an eyesore ten years ago, and it had only gotten worse with age.

Amy tried to focus on the work she was here to do and not the feeling of being fifteen again all of a sudden. Tonight would be a continuous cycle of setting up a course of finger food on tables in the gym, heading back to the nearby cafeteria where she would put the finishing touches on the next course, carry it out and start again. Amy was fitter than most people — she went jogging every morning that she could — but she was still glad that she’d worn her combat boots over something less practical. The last thing she needed after this whole circus was blisters and a sprained ankle.

Still, naively maybe, she’d started to hope that it would actually turn out to be a good night. It would be interesting to see what everyone was up to these days, what had changed, and who had ended up doing what. And even though she wouldn’t have admitted it under threat of torture, as dusk fell and outdated music started playing over the sound system, Amy felt excitement growing within her. She was setting up the food on the tables now that people were walking in, her churro cake pops and tiny, bite-sized tacos. She wanted to see what had happened in everyone else’s lives, but she was excited to share what she had been up to as well. She’d talk about her catering, how it was a twist on Mexican cuisine, a nod to her Mexican mom who had taught her how to make tamales growing up, and a nod to being left to her own devices for most of the time and experimenting in the kitchen with the recipes she’d been handed down. Amy, over the course of the afternoon, in a fit of desperate optimism, had grown excited to share her own story.

Unfortunately, her hopes for a, dare she say, fun evening sank like a lead balloon pretty soon after that.

Amy was restricted to the catering tables for most of her time in the gym, removing empty trays, seeing what had been eaten, ducking out to the cafeteria to get the next course. It wouldn’t be for another hour or so before everything had been served and she could ditch her post and proactively mingle, and in that time, not one person approached her to talk — not one. Neither student nor teacher. They would approach the tables, ooh and aah over the food, maybe glance in her direction for a brief second and then wander back into the main crowd. If Amy said hello, even if she mentioned awkwardly who she was in a remember me sort of tone, the most she got in response was “Oh… hi.” The only person who gave her the time of day was Lily Espinoza, who thanked her profusely for accommodating her food allergies before getting distracted and drifting off with her old friends.

So here Amy was, twenty-nine years old and standing at the edge of the high school gym, watching the party carry on around her like she’d never left. What a wonderful night. Just great.

At the very least, it gave her the opportunity to observe from the sidelines, and she imagined herself as a sort of documentary maker watching all of it go past her. Seriously, had none of these people experienced any personal growth over the last decade whatsoever? There was Tommy Falcon, who’d been head of the football team and had shown up in his old school jersey, which was now too tight for him around the middle, talking about his glory days on the field but neglecting to mention anything at all about his current activities. Mike Ling hadn’t changed a bit and, from what Amy could hear, was a dog groomer, specializing in schnauzers.

The biggest surprise, though, was hearing multiple conversations revolving around Kai; how he’d gotten stupidly rich since leaving school, how he was in the tabloids all the time, apparently he was dating a model, like a real one, and did you see how good-looking he’d gotten? A real ugly duckling turned white swan. It took all of Amy’s self-control to keep her mouth shut when she overheard those conversations. These people had never given Kai the time of day. It was only now that he was rich and good-looking that any of them were even remotely interested. She was living, breathing proof that you’d still be considered irrelevant without money or power.

Not that Amy thought Kai was good-looking… Well, objectively speaking he was, sure. But she wasn’t attracted to him, not now, not ever. If she kept telling herself that lie, sometimes she ended up half believing it…

“I have a question.”

Amy would really have to see a therapist or something to diagnose if she had actual PTSD after this, because hearing that particular voice had her teeth clenching so hard she could have broken a molar.

She turned around and there they were, the “royal court” as she and Kai had dubbed them in school. It appeared that the ringleaders of Amy’s misery that evening were going to be the same three girls who had made her school days a living hell, so it was a particularly bizarre version of nostalgia and not one that she was keen to ever experience again, thank you very much.

Kirsty hadn’t changed all that much, dressed in a tight bodycon dress and heels, long hair curled away from her face with not a wrinkle or blemish in sight. She, unfortunately, looked fantastic. Shelley and Jade were mirror images of each other as always, wearing the same sort of dress as their leader but with much more sensible shoes. Honestly, though, Amy didn’t expect either of them to speak, because as usual it was Kirsty taking center stage, looking at Amy expectantly with feigned innocence.

“Yes?” Amy sighed, unable to find the willpower within her to sound remotely professional. Or nice for that matter. Bored was the absolute best that she could manage.

“I have allergies,” Kirsty said, her voice pitched high with that fake innocence, and it made Amy’s skin crawl. “So what’s here that I can actually eat?”

She waved a finger at the table with distaste, clearly not wanting to eat anything at all.

Unbelievable. Well, actually, not at all unbelievable. Amy would hazard a guess that Kirsty did not in fact have any allergies at all.

“That depends,” Amy said, voice flat. “What are you allergic to?”

Amy knew that Kirsty was full of it when it took her a full three seconds to come up with an answer.

“Fish,” she announced firmly.

“You’re in luck,” Amy said brightly. “Lily Espinoza put down on her RSVP an anaphylaxis to all nuts and seafood, so I made sure to cut all of it from tonight’s menu. Bon appétit.”

Kirsty stumbled at that, peeking over her shoulder to where Lily was talking with their old Spanish teacher with a drink in one hand and one of Amy’s hors d’oeuvres in the other, a visible bite taken out of it and real-time evidence that she wasn’t swelling up and dying. Amy had made every effort to make sure that poor Lily wouldn’t have to worry about what she was eating tonight. She’d even talked to her directly on the phone at least twice to go over any concerns. It was one of the reasons Amy hadn’t been able to bail once taking on the job; another caterer might not be so accommodating. So Kirsty didn’t have a leg to stand on with her own “allergy” that Amy was sure had only reared its head for this particular occasion.

“I must have missed that part of the form,” Kirsty said pertly.

Yeah, it’s a shame that you never figured out how to read, Amy thought but didn’t say out loud. Then she turned around and left, heading back to the kitchen to start on the next round of food that needed to come out.

She returned with more platters of bite-sized tacos, which were vanishing in record time. Amy tried to focus on the positives. At the very least, everybody liked the food and Lily hadn’t needed to use an EpiPen. Two silver linings, and that was better than none.

“Don’t you have staff to help you?” Kirsty sneered, appearing at the food tables like a vampire appearing out of the mists, and Amy had to stop herself from jumping. She was alone for once. Jade and Shelley were on the dance floor trying to have the photographer take as many photos of them as possible. Why was she here tormenting her? Had this woman not developed any other hobbies in the last decade? How was this still fun for her?

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