No Substitute by Susan Diane Johnson

Author:Susan Diane Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: christian Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-61116-197-7
Publisher: Pelican Ventures Book Group
Published: 2012-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

9

“So, what’s the scoop?”

At the sound of Miki’s teasing voice, Amy looked up from her grade book. She took a sip of hot tea, orange spice, her favorite, before answering.

“There is no scoop.”

“A date on Friday and church last night?” Miki tapped her short, neatly kept, maroon nails on the lunchroom table. “Sounds like you’re in denial.”

“It wasn’t a date.”

Miki raised one finely tweezed eyebrow. “Oh? What would you call it then?”

“It was a—” Amy sighed. She couldn’t very well tell Miki the truth, thereby giving her a bad impression of Shayna. Nor could she admit to spying on one of her students. And she wouldn’t lie and call it a date when it wasn’t. “Just call it what you like,” she groused. “I’m beginning to regret ever having come back to this town.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” Miki pulled out the chair across from Amy and sat down, then reached out and touched Amy’s hand. “I’ve been without a friend for quite some time.”

“I know. Me, too.” Amy picked up a plastic spoon and swirled it in her tea. “But there are things that make it complicated.”

“Quentin.” Miki’s voice was soft and she nodded her head as soon as she spoke, as if she knew she wasn’t wrong.

Swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat, Amy nodded. Absently she watched the tiny whirlpool in her cup. Quentin. He complicated everything.

“I knew when I came back that I’d encounter him. I just didn’t know when, and I certainly thought I’d be more prepared.” She reached for a cube of sugar, plopped it in her cup, and watched it swirl until it dissolved. Then she laughed. “I’ll tell you what. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to church with you the first few times you asked me. I definitely wouldn’t have been prepared to walk in and see Quentin there.”

Why didn’t you tell me he went to the same church you kept inviting me to?

“It was bad enough,” she continued, “that I had a student who looked just like him, who turned out to be his daughter. Bad enough.” For the first time, Amy found herself sharing the details of Quentin’s and her plans to run away and how he’d broken her heart, and that she’d come back after graduation to see if they could work things out.

Miki sighed sympathetically. “I know it was hard for you when you came back after graduation to find that he and Karen had just left on a delayed honeymoon. I honestly didn’t realize at the time how brokenhearted you must have been. It didn’t even occur to me that you didn’t know he and Karen were married not long after you left town.”

“I never saw it coming. Somehow I held on to the thought that he really loved me, that not showing up that night was something that couldn’t be helped and that he’d wait for me.”

Miki furrowed her brow in a thoughtful manner. “You know, thinking back, it was kind of odd. They never dated.

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