Page 108 of Brides and Brothers
Chapter 43
Camille
Camille slid into a chairand inched it closer to the two-person table the greeter at the restaurant had led them to. Amy took the plastic-covered seat across from her. It had been a week since the Thanksgiving fiasco. By the time they’d fixedthe van and returned home the Saturday after the holiday, Aiden had returned to Los Angeles. SeeingAmy again brought back feelings of the night Aiden had left Camille at the cabin. She covered her depressing thoughts with a forced smile. “This is nice, having lunch together.”
“Agreed,” Amy said. “Thanks for treating me.”
Camille took the menu from the waiter and nodded her thanks before he left. She opened the trifold and stared at the unappetizing pictures. “I thought the best present I could give you for your birthday was a little time with your favorite person.”
Amy laughed. “You were so right.”
“Anything look good to you?” Camille had let Amy choose the restaurant, but Mexican was not going to make her tummy very happy.
“I’m going for a taco salad. What about you?”
“Uh, I think I’ll follow your lead. That doesn’t sound too spicy.” Camille glanced at the other options in case something different magically appeared. When it didn’t, she put the menu aside. She rested her elbows on the table and propped up her head on her fists. “How’s school been?”
“Busy, but I’m happy with the direction I’m headed.”
“Good,” Camille said. She had never been as driven or passionate about her degree as Amy was. She’d always seen it as a means to an end. “What do you need to do next?”
“I want to get into the bachelor of nursing program. There’s a lot more job variety if I go this route, but it’s intimidating, not to mention competitive.”
Camille watched her sister talk. Amy had everything going for her. She was smart, cute, motivated, secure with herself, and even had a guy lined up to marry her when he returned home from his deployment. An imaginary cloud rolled over Camille’s head, and suddenly, it was raining. Her eyes watered, and she looked sideways to pretend she was looking at a colorful painting of a Mexican folk dancer. She blinked away her tears and forced herself to pay attention to what Amy was saying.
“It’ll be fun to have Mom here. She’ll love campus. She won’t be able to ignore how different the atmosphere here is compared with the typical college campus.”
Camille scrunched her brow. Her mother was coming to Cherish? Sudden thoughts of Aiden had caused her to miss the change of subject. Her mother had never come to Cherish, and the idea was a little hard for Camille to wrap her brain around. “When does this happen?”
“Parent week is the second week of December.”
“That’s soon,” Camille said, feeling a note of dread. “How can she get away this time of year?” She could have planned her wedding in December after all. Everything could have been different. She and Aiden could have dated longer.
“She hired a seasoned caterer so she could expand her business and have more flexibility with her schedule, and she had a gig cancel.”
The waiter approached and took their orders. As soon as he was gone, Amy picked up where she had left off. “I thought Mom should stay with you, but I wanted to check to see if it would be all right.”
Camille would grow another arm before her mom would consent to stay with her. They hadn’t spent very much time under the same roof in the last six years. “We do have an extra room, but don’t make her feel like she has to stay with us. She doesn’t like feeling boxed in.”
Amy agreed. “She can always say no if she doesn’t feel comfortable.”
Camille raised an eyebrow. “I already know she won’t feel comfortable. You’d have to bribe her to stay with me.”
Amy pulled and pushed her straw up and down in her soda. “I have never understood the animosity between you guys. She asks about you all the time, but when I suggest she call you, she changes the subject.”
“That’s nice of her to ask about me.” Camille was more than a little surprised. Sometimes she felt like her mother had disowned her and would prefer to pretend she didn’t exist. But what had come between them was not something she wanted to regurgitate over a nice meal, particularly on her sister’s birthday.
Amy must’ve taken the hint. “Have you heard anything new from Grant?”
Camille shook her head. “I’ve taken to sending him pictures of different things instead of writing to him. It’s hard to strike up a relationship with someone you’re newly related to who lives overseas. We got a letter this week that was addressed to the family. He said his buddy is pretty homesick for his girlfriend, and Grant is doing his best to keep him distracted and focused.”
Amy frowned. “That’s the update I got too. It makes me feel guilty. I told him to stop writing and then had Aiden try to undo the damage. I’m causing more problems than I was when we were writing harmless love letters to each other.”
Camille was taken back. “You asked Aiden to undo the damage?”
Amy crunched on a salty tortilla chip. “Yeah, Aiden tried to be this big peacemaker after he heard I talked all the roomies into going on a boy strike. First, he assuaged my self-inflicted pain by offering to write Grant and explain. Then he concocted his crazy Thanksgiving-or-bust date. It was a shockingly stellar idea. I can’t believe it worked.”
Camille swallowed and replied softly, “Yeah, it did work, didn’t it?”
