“Hey!” Brooke said, sliding into a little wooden chair next to Heather. “I didn’t even see you here. How are you?”

Heather smiled. “I’m good! Thrilled it’s the weekend, I’ll tell you that much. Can you believe we only have two more weeks of school before being off for three months?”

“I know,” Brooke said, and decided not to mention that she would still be working full-time at the hospital.

Heather remembered anyway. “Yeah, I’ll be doing a lot of private tutoring this summer, but at least I can determine those hours. I don’t know if it was the horrible winter or I’m just getting burned out, but I can’t wait.”

“I hear you,” Brooke said, feeling a little bit awkward that they didn’t really have much else to talk about.

Heather seemed to read her mind. “It’s weird to see each other outside school, isn’t it?”

“It is! I am constantly paranoid I’m going to run into some of the girls on the street or in a restaurant. Remember what it was like when we were kids and you’d run into your teacher at the mall, and there was this stunning realization that they had a life outside your classroom?”

Heather laughed. “It’s so true. Luckily we don’t tend to travel in the same circles.”

Brooke sighed. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” And then: “I had a really productive meeting with Kaylie at the end of last week. I still don’t feel comfortable allowing her to lose any weight, but I agreed that we could start her on a food journal to see where she could be eating healthier, more wholesome foods. She seemed pleased with that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I think we both know that weight isn’t her problem; it’s the very understandable feeling of not fitting in with classmates who are from another socioeconomic universe. We see it frequently with the scholarship students, unfortunately, but they almost always find their niche.”

Brooke disagreed to an extent—she’d worked with a fair number of teenage girls at this point, and in her opinion Kaylie was overly preoccupied with her weight—but she didn’t want to start that conversation now. Instead, she smiled and said, “Look at us, talking about work on a Saturday. Shame on us!”

Heather sipped her coffee. “I know, it’s all I can think about. I’m actually thinking of switching back to the lower schools in the next year or two. Just a better fit for me. What about you? Any thoughts on how long you’ll stay?”

Brooke searched Heather’s face for any sign that she was indirectly asking about Julian. Was the girl somehow implying that Brooke could quit now that Julian was making money as a musician? Had Brooke ever told her that was why she had accepted the job in the first place? She decided she was being way too paranoid, that if she didn’t talk about Julian in a regular, normal way, how could she expect anyone else to?

“I don’t know, actually. Things are, uh, kind of up in the air right now.”

Heather looked at her sympathetically but was kind enough not to press. Brooke realized this was the very first time in three or four weeks that someone—anyone—had not immediately asked about Julian. She was grateful to Heather and eager to steer the conversation back to something less awkward. She glanced around, her mind searching for something to say, and then settled on, “So what are you up to today?” She quickly took a bite of her biscotti so she wouldn’t have to talk for a few more seconds.

“Not much, really. My boyfriend’s away with his family this weekend, so I’m on my own. Just hanging out, I guess.”

“Nice. Love those weekends,” Brooke lied. She managed to keep herself from announcing that she was quickly becoming the resident expert on how to best spend a weekend when your significant other is somewhere else. “What are you reading?”

“Oh, this?” Heather said, motioning toward the facedown magazine near her elbow without picking it up. “It’s nothing. Some dumb gossip rag. Nothing interesting.”

Brooke knew immediately it was that issue of Last Night. She wondered if Heather knew she was two weeks behind the ball.

“Ahh,” she said with forced cheer that she knew didn’t sound remotely believable. “The infamous photo.”

Heather clasped her hands together and stared down at her lap as though she’d just been caught in some horrible lie. She opened her mouth to say something, reconsidered, and then said, “Yeah, it’s kind of a weird picture.”

“Weird? What do you mean?”

“Oh, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Julian looks great!”

“No, I know what you mean. There is something off about it.” Brooke wasn’t sure why she was grilling this girl she barely knew, but it suddenly felt crucially important to know what Heather thought.

“It’s not that. I think it was just taken in a weird split second when he’s, like, gazing at her in that way.”

So that was it. Other people had made similar comments. Words like “enraptured” and “worshipful” had been thrown around. Which was all utterly ridiculous.

“Yeah, my husband thinks Layla Lawson is hot. Which makes him exactly like one hundred percent of other red-blooded American men.” Brooke laughed, trying her best to sound casual.

“Totally!” Heather nodded in overenthusiastic agreement. “I bet it’s just great for his career in terms of raising his profile.”

Brooke smiled. “You could definitely say that. In one single night, that picture changed, well, everything.”

Heather seemed sobered by this admission. She looked up at Brooke and said, “I know it’s all so exciting, but I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been for you. I bet it’s all anyone can talk about. Every second of every day must be all about Julian.”

Brooke was caught off guard. No one—not Randy, or her parents, or even Nola—had assumed that Julian’s newfound fame was anything but absolutely wonderful. She looked at Heather gratefully. “Yeah, but I’m sure it’ll all blow over. Slow couple news weeks, you know? We’ll be onto the next thing soon enough.”

“You have to be ruthless about your privacy. My friend from college, Amber? One day she’s getting married in a proper church wedding to her high school sweetheart, and less than a year later her brand-new husband wins American Idol. Talk about total and complete upheaval.”