Page 31 of Dear Ripley

“Not the kind of business she’s talking about, Ripley,” Morgan replied, rolling her eyes. As if my tone didn’t make it abundantly clear that I knew that and simply didn’t want them to be in any kind of business together.

Harlow smiled at me. “And Ripley, enjoy. Maybe don’t send carnations when you reply this time.”

“Irrelevant, since I won’t be reading or replying.”

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

And she stalked out of the store like some film noir femme fatale.

Chapter 11

Alicia

It had been a long time since I’d been at the grocery store, crossing things off my parents’ list, and shopping for more people than just me. Even with Gabe around, we’d never shopped together. Nor had I shopped for myself with him in mind. If he was over for dinner, that was fine, but I wasn’t shopping for the two of us. Just another way we’d kept our lives separate. I honestly wasn’t sure it constituted a relationship.

There was something nice about doing it now, though.

I wandered down the pasta aisle, looking for the three types of pasta they wanted. The place was bigger than the one I got my groceries in. I’d almost forgotten the sheer amount of products there were in full-size grocery stores.

“Morgan, can’t I just go home?” Ripley’s voice was painfully familiar from the next aisle over, and it felt like being doused in ice-cold water.

We couldn’t run into each other here. She’d made it abundantly clear she wanted nothing to do with me.

“No.” Morgan sounded the same as ever, both in tone and attitude. It was oddly comforting. “You need to have groceries, and you’re running out of the good snacks.”

“Only because you keep eating them.”

“Well, yeah. That’s what snacks are for. But let’s not pretend you haven’t been eating them too.”

“I’m not the one complaining about them running out,” Ripley replied in that exasperated way she had when she loved the person frustrating her. It was familiar, but much more terrifying than hearing that Morgan was still the same as ever. “Maybe start bringing your own snacks over if you’re going to complain like this.”

Morgan laughed. “I come over to your placespecificallyto eat your snacks.”

“Gee. Silly me, thinking you were coming over to see me.”

“I am. To see which snacks you got me.”

I stifled a laugh. Even with the panic of Ripley seeing me here, and how mortifying it would be for her to find me listening to her conversation, I couldn’t help but feel the warm spark I’d always felt when she and Morgan argued like that. More than once, people had joked that they argued like an old married couple. Every time, Morgan reacted as if the very concept of her and Ripley together was repulsive.

In private, she’d admitted to me that she could do a lot worse than someone like Ripley, but that Ripley was so familiar and familial to her that she needed to react in outrage so people would stop bringing the idea up.

Of course, that was also when Ripley and I were together, and Morgan definitely thought it was disrespectful of people to imply Ripley was married to someone else. For all the ways that Morgan liked to rile Ripley up, she was a fiercely loyal friend, and she’d always been very supportive of our marriage.

I didn’t want to think about what she thought of me nowadays.

“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Sylvester’s voice called from the next aisle.

Did everyone grocery shop at the same time in this town?

“Hello, Mrs. Sylvester,” Ripley and Morgan both said at the same time.

Morgan did a good job of seeming genuinely happy to see Mrs. Sylvester. I doubted she’d become a fan of the woman, but she knew how to put on a show.

Ripley was significantly less skilled at it.

She didn’t sound as horrified to see Mrs. Sylvester as I knew she was, but she definitely didn’t sound happy about it. I wondered how obvious it was to everyone else. Could all of the people who hadn’t spent years of their lives learning everything there was to know about Ripley hear the slight tension in her voice? Did they know how to read the slight adjustment in her posture that always accompanied that sound?

“So good to see you out and about, dear,” Mrs. Sylvester said, and I wondered whether one of them had been sick or injured lately.

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