Second Chance Friends

The Accidental Book Club

“Will have you laughing and crying at the same time.”

—Fresh Fiction

“The still-evolving relationships between the various women are touching. . . . Scott has drawn an affecting tale of family, love, and forgiveness.”

—BookNAround

“An entertaining read, and book clubs will enjoy the characters and the story.”

—Drey's Library

“Establishes Jennifer Scott as a powerful voice in women's fiction.”

—Silver's Reviews

“Another nice read from Jennifer Scott. The characters were engaging and lively, and the issues that Jean was going through with grieving for her husband were heartbreaking and real.”

—Luxury Reading

The Sister Season

“Emotionally honest and psychologically astute,
The Sister Season
is ultimately an uplifting story about the pull of the past, the need for forgiveness, and the redemptive power of familial love.”

—Liza Gyllenhaal, author of
Bleeding Heart

 

 

“
The Sister Season
is a powerful, honest look at the harm that ripples out from every unkindness, and the strength inherent in the sisterly bond.”

—Heidi Jon Schmidt, author of
The Harbormaster's Daughter

“A fantastic story about the (often dysfunctional) ties of family.”

—Examiner.com

“Scott did a great job with these characters . . . illustrating the way sister dynamics can be so complicated.”

—Book Addiction

“Carefully crafted, with pivotal moments carefully placed in a solid plot that moves.”

—The Best Reviews

Praise for the YA Novels of Jennifer Scott Writing as Jennifer Brown

“A compulsive read.”

—Gail Giles, author of
Right Behind You
and
What Happened to Cass McBride?

“Authentic and relevant . . . one to top the charts.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“The book's power—and its value—comes from the honest portrayal of characters.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“A nuanced novel. . . . Brown creates multifaceted characters as well as realistic, insightful descriptions.”

—
Booklist

“
Thousand Words
is a powerful, timely, and compulsively readable story. . . . This is an excellent choice for book discussions and a must purchase for all libraries.”

—
VOYA
(starred review)

The Sister Season

The Accidental Book Club

Books by Jennifer Scott writing as Jennifer Brown

Hate List

Bitter End

Perfect Escape

Thousand Words

Torn
Away

NAL Accent

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Jennifer Brown, 2015

Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2015

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRA
DA

LIBRARY OF CONGRE
SS CATALOGING-IN-PUB
LICATION DATA:

Scott, Jennifer, 1972–

Second chance friends / Jennifer Scott.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-698-18414-5

1. Female friendship—Fiction. 2. Life change events—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. 4. Chick lit. I. Title.

PS3619.C66555S43 2015

813'.6—dc23 2014047035

PUBLI
SHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Scott, always

I've always been fascinated by the way the universe brings people into our lives. And when it comes to writing books, I am both fascinated and grateful for the people who've been brought into mine.

Thank you to Cori Deyoe for always trusting my vision and turning an open ear to my voice, and for never telling me not to pursue an idea. Thank you to everyone at 3 Seas Literary Agency for your unending support and for making me feel like a welcome family member. Huge thanks to Sandy Harding for loving the story and helping me make it the best it could possibly be. I'm overjoyed to add you to my “friend” list. Thank you to everyone at NAL for all you do to help bring my books to life—from reading to editing to sales to cover design, you are all awesome!

Thank you to the kid crew—Paige, Weston, and Rand—for your continued patience and love. And, Scott, you are my best friend for a lifetime. I love you all.

Finally, I want to thank you, my readers, for reading and sharing my books, and for e-mailing me with kudos, encouragement, questions, and story ideas. You are the best!

T
he breakfast rush at the Tea Rose Diner typically began at around 6:20 a.m., when the early risers came in for bagels and cream cheese to go, or English muffins and jam to go. And rivers of coffee, strong, to go. Then came the elderly, up before dawn and looking for a little social time, and the blue-collar guys—a legion of workers in flannel and steel-toed boots, toting scuffed plastic gas station mugs as big as their heads, hoping for refills after their hash browns and sausage links, requests that Annie, the owner of the Tea Rose, always obliged. It took most of a whole pot to fill up those monsters, but what Annie lost in coffee, she more than made up for in customer loyalty. Being the only traditional diner in sleepy suburban Caldwell, Missouri, had its advantages.

Sometimes the early risers were the white-collar guys, shirts starched and cologne heavy, spoons balanced over their pinkie rings as they dipped into bowls of oatmeal with raisins and read their newspapers or their laptops or their smartphones, always so busy, busy.

Often, due to the Tea Rose's location, which just happened to sit at an intersection less than half a mile away from Caldwell High, the early risers were teenagers, stopping in for cinnamon rolls on their way to school, their parents waiting in the parking lot, checking their watches impatiently behind the wheels of their still-running cars.

Rush almost always ended at 8:47 a.m., precisely thirteen minutes before the first school bell rang, and then the diner would be ghost-town dead until dinnertime. Such was the rhythm of the suburbs.

But on September 2, the rush ended early. Probably because it was the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Probably because the kids had other things to do, such as wake up late and tie themselves into bikini tops that would get peeled off during pontoon parties later in the day as their wearers gave the official sayonara to summer. Probably because the Friday before the first day off of the school year just didn't include early rising and cinnamon rolls.

September 2 was a slow morning. Only three customers were at the Tea Rose at 8:38 a.m.

A woman in a back booth, small, wearing an EMT uniform, just finishing up a plate so huge the cook wondered aloud where she was putting all that food.

A woman at a table by the door, mid-forties, listening
intently to a long-winded caller on her cell phone, her free hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, which she had mentioned while ordering that she desperately needed, but had not yet touched.

And a young woman seated at the counter, effortless and beautiful, wrapped in a wrinkled long-sleeved button-down, even though it was already north of eighty degrees outside, with the promise to get hotter. She looked nervous, as if she was awaiting someone she didn't want to meet. Or maybe as if she wanted to be anywhere but at the Tea Rose, yet had nowhere else to go. She fitfully shoveled bites of Boston cream pie into her mouth.

It was so slow, Annie had plenty of time to do a walk-in inventory and write up her produce order a full day early. Slow enough that the one waitress could duck out for a smoke break, sitting next to the cook on empty crates just outside the back door.

Forget slow—it was downright dead at the Tea Rose at 8:38 a.m. on September 2. Dead as it had been in a long time.

•   •   •

It was beautiful outside. September beautiful. Was there really anything more perfect than September in the glorious Midwest? Tina Shore didn't think so. Especially when the September day in question also happened to be a Friday and the start of a long weekend. She should have been anxious about all these darned days off the school district gave their students—she and her husband were hardly Rockefellers. No work meant no pay, and after a whole
summer with no pay, they were starting to feel the squeeze. Lester sure seemed to be concerned.
No paycheck for three months
and already a day off,
he'd railed when she'd reminded him that Labor Day was coming up.
We'll starve to death with all these holidays!

But the holidays were so worth it to Tina. She had come back to work in August rested, sun-kissed, and skinny, just like she'd been when she and Lester had first met. She was convinced that moving to Missouri and taking the job driving the elementary school bus had been her best decision ever. If only Lester could relax about the money, like she did. Although she was willing to bet that as soon as he got his hands wrapped around a beer bottle on Monday afternoon, he'd become a fan of Labor Day real quick. She hoped to talk him into taking a quick camping trip up to Smithville. Nothing better than cold beer around a warm campfire in September, the noise and hustle of Kansas City shut out by twenty miles of sleepy small towns and trees. Nothing better at all.

Just one more day. Half a day, really. She'd already picked up everyone. She just needed to get them to the elementary school, and then she would be one afternoon route away from working on that campfire.

The kid at the last stop had forgotten something and darted back inside his house just as she'd pulled up. He'd taken his time, even though she honked and yelled out the window that she was going to have to leave him if he didn't come quickly. She hated leaving behind a child, though. She always felt guilty when she had to do it. It was her job to
get them to school just as much as it was theirs; at least that was the way she saw it. So, threats aside, she'd waited for him as the minutes ticked by. And now she was the late one. Late, but making up time on this beautiful September day.

Traffic was busy for Caldwell, and the kids were acting crazy. They felt anticipation, too. Only in school two weeks, and already they were salivating for a day off. Practically bouncing off the bus walls. Yelling, some of them singing, switching seats. It was as if they'd never ridden a bus before, as if they'd forgotten all the rules. She tried to ignore it, to give them a break. She tried to zone out on the beautiful weather, imagine herself sitting in a lawn chair with a fishing pole and a diet margarita with a colored straw, but the kids just got louder and louder.

Some kids had opened windows. The wind screaming in only added to the noise. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something in her side mirror—a book flying through one of the windows and onto the street. She heard a
“Give it back!”
and then saw a fistful of pencils bounce on the pavement after the book. And then came laughter.

“Hey!” Tina shouted, her foot instinctively letting up on the gas. She flicked a glance at the clock on her dashboard—shit, they were really behind now—and pressed back into it. “Cut it out!” The kids at least had the decency to look caught. They stilled, big-eyed. Some of the girls used their hands to cover their giggles. “You can't be throwing things out the window! Y'all know that!” she said, gazing at them in the mirror, trying to catch the eyes of the kids she guessed were the most likely culprits. “It's
Friday! You don't want to end up at the bus barn on a Friday.”

Several of the kids scoffed. The bus barn hadn't been a threat since Tina herself was a kid. Seemed nobody was afraid of authority anymore. And maybe they didn't even call it that here in Missouri. Maybe they called it the
garage
or something else a little more official sounding. For all she knew, that was the case. She hadn't been here long enough to learn much of anyth—

Tina turned her eyes back to the windshield and gasped, panic slamming into her. She'd misjudged where she was on the road, had thought she was much farther back than this. The stoplight ahead was red. There was a line of cars waiting. And she was going way too fast to stop in time.

The little girl in the seat right behind her shrieked—she heard that much as she stomped on the brake, pressing down as hard as she could, the bus jerking right and veering into the turn-only lane. But then she heard nothing but the hollow moan of tires trying to grip pavement and the shuddering of the bus around her.

And then she heard nothing at all.

•   •   •

Every stoplight seemed interminably long to Michael and Maddie Routh. They were nervous, jittery, but it was an excited kind of nervous. They couldn't talk to each other. When they tried, all that came out were giggles, so they pumped up the radio volume and sat with their feet and thumbs keeping time to the beat. They were adorably
matchy—faded jeans and Converse low-tops, his gray, hers pink—an accident they found themselves guilty of often. The stoplight seemed to go on forever.

They'd been trying ever since they got married. It had been so easy for all their friends. Most of them were already complaining about being up all night with newborns or choosing paint colors for their nurseries. Michael and Maddie had to sit through endless dinner parties that featured long name-choosing conversations, all the time Maddie pretending that seeing a friend rubbing a swollen belly didn't make her so jealous she could spit. They'd brought flowers to hospitals and tiny pink and blue rattles decorated with celebratory ribbons. They'd held wiggling little ones in their inexperienced hands, trying not to let every crinkle of diaper stab them in their hearts. It had been so depressing, and they'd begun to talk about possibilities: fertility specialists, procedures, even adoption if it came down to it.

But it hadn't come down to it. Maddie had the proof right there in her hand, her nails a pale pink that matched her shoes, and now it was just a matter of getting the test confirmed. How ironic, she'd thought, that this was
Labor
Day weekend. A good omen. If they ever got there, that was. They had a nine o'clock appointment, and this stoplight was really taking so long.

“Why are there so many stoplights in the world?” Maddie said, slouching down in her seat. “We're going to be late. You think we'll be late?”

Michael grinned. “You're already late. That's the good
news,” he said, and there came the giggles again. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“That's not what I—” But she never got to finish the sentence.

They never saw or heard the bus coming until it plowed into Michael's door.

Suddenly everything seemed to explode around them. Glass flew, and there was noise, so much noise, and Maddie felt a sensation of moving, of jostling and tumbling and flying, and there was no time even to scream. It felt like being grabbed and shaken, eyes unable to focus on anything, mind unable to grab sense of what was happening. And then there was the horrific sound of hissing and creaking and thunking as their car settled into place. And then the awful silence. Only they weren't in front of the stoplight anymore.

They were upside down. She could feel the seat belt digging into her shoulder, her hair sticking to one side of her face. She felt a tickle on her cheek and hastily swept at it. Her hand came away covered with blood, but she didn't know where it had come from. There was no pain, only shock and confusion and deep, deep fear.

“Michael,” she croaked, surprised to hear that her voice worked. She fumbled, trying to orient herself, and reached for him with the hand that still held the positive test stick.

She knew. Right away, she knew it was bad. Blood, there was so much blood, and his eyes were open, but he wasn't moving. His mouth worked, but he wasn't saying anything.

“Michael!” she croaked again, only louder this time,
and she shifted, grasping for the seat-belt buckle, but she couldn't move. The door had caved toward her and the buckle was wedged into a tiny space that her hand couldn't make sense of.

She looked around wildly. A school bus lay on its side about ten feet away, the back windows shattered, its front end rutted into the ground near the windows of a diner. As she watched, three people barreled through the diner door, racing toward the bus.

“No,” Maddie said, though she knew her voice wasn't loud enough. “Over here. Help us over here.”

She watched as one of the people—a tall, slender woman—climbed the bus and stuck her head and arms through a window. A few seconds later, she came out with a child who was crying, holding one arm up against her tiny side, but otherwise unharmed.

“Come over here,” Maddie said, louder this time. She felt throbbing begin to set in. Her head, her shoulder, one trapped leg. “We need help.”

The woman passed the child to two other women, who took her and sat her gingerly on the ground. She dipped back into the window and came out with another. That child was fine, too. Blood ran into Maddie's eyes.

“Help!” she cried, tears mingling with the blood. She felt panic rise as the woman extracted yet another child through the window, and one of the others managed to pull open the back emergency door to let more children stream out. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she said, breathing heavily. “Help us, please! Michael.” She turned toward him again. Reached
for him, but her arm was so tired now, so heavy. “Michael, please talk to me.”

He continued to stare at her, his face pale as she'd ever seen it. He blinked, but it was lazy and far away, and that was all it took to unleash the panic full force.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help us, please! Over here! Look over here!” She thrashed with every ounce of energy that she had, bumping around in the cramped and crumpled space. “Help us! Help!” And then as quickly as it had come, the energy drained from her and her screams turned to sobs. “Please help,” she said. “He's dying.”

She saw the woman who'd opened the bus door turn her head, and then say something to the other two, motioning toward Maddie's car. The one standing on the overturned bus slid off. Together, they rushed to the car, a younger woman coming to Maddie's side, and an older woman going to Michael's.

“Sir?” she heard the older woman repeating. “Sir? Can you hear me?”

The younger woman was a flurry of activity, reaching in and trying to get to the seat-belt buckle, asking Maddie questions, saying things to her, but it was as if the world had ended. Maddie could feel herself talking, screaming, crying, but on the inside she was only watching as the older woman held Michael's head in her hands, catching his blood as he drifted away from them.