Shelter by Lauren Gilley Page A

the opposite. They were not-so-slowly becoming a…couple. Yes, couple. The word put a lump in her throat, but it was true.
    “Alma.”
    There was a girl her own age carrying a shopping basket, standing in the aisle just a few feet away. Alma had already catalogued her visually – the voluminous waves of honey-blonde hair, the five-foot-nothing pixie frame and great rack – before recognition dawned. She stared at her best friend Caroline Tippins for a good five seconds before she realized that it was in fact Caroline.
    “Oh,” she said, startled. “Caro. Um,” she’d forgotten how to do this polite chit-chat thing apparently, “how are you?”
    It had always seemed a shame that Caroline wasn’t taller, because her face was model-perfect. Her blue eyes crinkled up at the corners as her expression became somewhat pained. “I’m good.”
    There was an awkward pause in which guilt settled over Alma like a lead weight. How are you? She hadn’t spoken to the girl in well over a year and that was the best she could come up with?
    “I’m really sorry about Sam,” Caroline offered. She sounded sincere, but her tone wasn’t just sad out of sympathy. She had no idea what was appropriate here, much the way Alma didn’t. “I was going to come to the funeral but I wasn’t sure…”
    “It’s okay.”
    “I sent flowers.”
    “You did?”
    “The white carnation wreath .” Caroline fiddled with the buttons on her work shirt. She wore crisp black pants, peep-toe pumps, and a white button-down. The last Alma had heard, she was struggling to graduate from college, but now she obviously had a job somewhere that required professional dress.
    “Those were pretty,” Alma lied , because she couldn’t remember any of the flowers from the funeral.
    It was pathetic and more than sad: they’d been thick as thieves, had told each other everything, spent the night at one another’s homes on an almost daily basis, had gone in to get tattoos together, and had chickened out together. They’d discussed first kisses and first lovers. Had woven friendship bracelets in fifth grade they hadn’t taken off until Caroline had lost hers at the beach their senior year of high school.
    And now here they stood without a damn thing to say to one another. Before, Caroline had wrinkled her nose and tried, in her own sweet way, to tell Alma that attaching herself permanently to Sam wasn’t the best of ideas. And Alma had cut her out of her life.
    “You’re working?” Alma asked stupidly.
    “Doing some consulting work for a marketing firm.” She shrugged. “How ‘bout you? You still with the publishing house?”
    “No, I’m…taking so me time off. I’m pregnant, so - ” Alma closed her mouth because nothing good was coming out of it.
    Caroline’s eyes flipped wide. “Really? Wow. That’s great.”
    “Yeah.”
    Her expression was full of comforts and curio sities, but all she said was, “Congratulations.”
    An older woman with a shopping cart brimming with crackers and canned soup pushed past the two of them in a huff, grumbling under her breath about people “flocking in aisles” and it shook Alma out of her regretful trance. She scooted her own cart out of the way and flashed Caroline a quick, tight smile after the other shopper had moved along. She remembered that the Ben & Jerry’s she’d bought for her and Carlos was melting. “Well, I, uh, guess I better get going. Ice cream.”
    “Oh, right.” Caroline nodded, shuffled her feet uncomfortable. “Well, good to see you.”
    They parted with half-waves and looks that wanted to say more, but finally Alma shoved her cart down the aisle at a near jog. She went all the way to the back of the store and into the bathroom, abandoning her cart and not caring if it wasn’t there when she came back out.
    In the mirror, her reflection stared back: thin, unkempt, hair frazzled and the circles under her eyes nearly black. She compared her sweatpants and man’s t-shirt to the