Page 121 of Leave a Mark
Her grandmother stared hard at her. “Wren Marguerite Blanchard, I’m not talking about lots of people. I’m talking about you.”
Wren turned away. Mamaw Gigi was asking too much. She was asking Wren to ignore her fundamental self-knowledge. To redefine herself in terms that did not apply to her. It was a great lie, and Wren could not allow herself to live it.
Why had it come to this? Who had betrayed her first? Cherise or Lee? Wren stalked across the museum to the open ambulance exhibited there. As she approached, Wren found Rocky stretched out on the floor. No longer the medic, he clutched his heart and moaned. Shelby leaned against the front tire of the ambulance and laughed at him. Kids darted in and out of the vehicle with stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs.
Wren ignored the pretend patient and walked right up to Shelby. “Who put you up to this?”
Her laughter vanished as she read the anger in Wren’s eyes. “I — Cherise got in touch with us,” she stammered, her eyes darting past Wren’s shoulders in search of an ally. “But she said it was Lee’s idea.”
Wren narrowed her gaze. “What do you mean? What exactly was his idea?”
Shelby blinked rapidly, clearly unsure how to answer. “Coming here.”
“But why? What’s the point?”
Pulling in a deep breath, Shelby forced herself to relax a little. “I don’t know. Cherise just said it would help you.”
Wren felt her eyes go wide. “Help mewhat?”
At this, Shelby just smiled as though she’d passed some kind of test. “I don’t know. We didn’t ask, and she didn’t say.”
Wren frowned. “So you just came? Just like that?”
Shelby’s smile grew. “Of course we did, Wren. Whatever you need, you know we’re here for you.”
A warmth she wanted to ignore spread across Wren’s chest. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, shaking her head and backing away. Talking to Shelby wasn’t getting her anywhere, and Cherise clearly wasn’t going to shed more light on the situation. That left her with one option.
The bubble station.
There was no doubt that the bubble station was the most popular spot in the entire museum. Kids and parents crowded around the sudsy vats with bubble wands of all shapes and sizes. One dad blew a steady stream of bubbles over the heads of twin boys. One girl with a rectangular wand the size of a placemat tried to spin and loop a bubble around her and her mother.
And Lee Hawthorne stood in the middle of it all. Children formed a line to get to him and stand on a soapy pad in the middle of a ring. It was Lee’s job to manage a pulley that lifted the ring and encased a child in a giant bubble cylinder.
As Wren approached, two little girls stepped onto the pad.
“Okay, squeeze in tight,” Lee told them. “Hands and feet inside the circle.”
The little girls clung to each other, giggling. Clearly sisters, they had matching blue eyes and pale blonde hair. Lee started to raise the ring, and the younger child shrieked with glee. He moved slowly, and a bubble membrane appeared below the rising ring. Seeing it, the younger one jumped up and down, unable to handle the excitement, and, of course, the bubble popped.
“Sissy!” the older one scolded.
“Sorry, Livvy,” Sissy said.
“It’s okay,” Lee reassured Sissy, who now bit her lip. “Let’s try again.”
Lee began to pull down the rope that raised the bubble ring, and that’s when his eyes found Wren. An emotion she couldn’t name passed over his face. She didn’t know what it was, but it touched her all the way to her soul.
“We’re making a bubble room. Would you like to help?”
All eyes, young and old, turned to her. She didn’t want to be the center of attention, and she was about to retreat when Lee spoke again. “C’mon,” he said, waving her over. “You’re probably better at this than I am.”
She blinked at his words, searching for the layered meaning, but Wren found herself stepping forward and taking the pulley rope from him. He was so close she could feel the heat from his body, and to push this from her mind, she turned to the two girls.
“Ready?”
They both nodded, smiles unhinged. She pulled and watched the sheen of soap stretch just a few inches before it popped.
“Try again,” Lee said, keeping his eyes on the ring. “Slower this time.”
