Random Acts of Kindness Read Free Page A

cut her long, long hair before she’d had the need to know anything about social services.
    “You’re all cheekbones now,” the woman said. “It looks wonderful! But I imagine that when it happened, legions of your ex-boyfriends spontaneously woke up wailing and gnashing their teeth.”
    Then the bohemian laughed, and the sound of that deep-throated amusement burrowed into Nicole’s brain, unearthing a memory of a hot June day under pine trees, washing the sap off cars to raise money for something, something, something. The softball team? Or was it the hiking trail restoration project that Claire Petrenko ran—
    Claire.
    Nicole blinked. The woman’s features wavered and morphed as if she’d been looking at her through rainwater glass, but now those features grew as sharp as the photos Claire’s sisters frequently posted on her cancer blog.
    Claire winked. “Go Pine Lake Beavers.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
    “How long has it been?”
    Nicole’s mind raced. The last time she’d seen Claire in the flesh was nine or ten years ago on vacation in their Adirondack hometown of Pine Lake, clear across the country, when Claire had made a quick stop there before flying to Thailand. The last she’d heard of Claire was on the cancer blog Claire’s sisters kept for her. Lately Nicole had been skimming that, wincing at Claire’s sisters’ relentlessly upbeat posts. The only thing she remembered amid the myriad medical details was that Claire had come out of the mastectomy with flying colors.
    When was that? Six, eight weeks ago?
    Then Nicole realized she was standing openmouthed while a high school friend stood on the porch bouncing on the ball of her toes. So Nicole opened her arms. Claire threw herself at her, squealing, and Nicole rocked in her embrace while Claire’s laughter bubbled over.
    “You’re so skinny.” Claire pulled out of the embrace and held her at arm’s length. “Both you and Jenna. Don’t you guys eat Cheez Doodles?”
    Nicole glanced at the other woman. Seeing Claire was a shock, but having Jenna standing in her shadow was just bizarre. The two of them could have time-traveled as a set from twenty years ago. Jenna had always been Claire’s particular pet, an odd little bird limping along in her wake.
    “Hey, Jenna.” Nicole leaned over for a quick hug, but it was like wrapping her arms around a plastic mannequin. Or her eldest son. “What an adorable dog.”
    “He’s a rescue mutt. He’s ugly as sin.” Jenna tightened her grip as the dog shuddered. “Do you always open your door with a weapon?”
    Nicole glanced at the screwdriver still gripped in her hand. “You caught me in the middle of a home repair.”
    “Just tell me it’s not the toilet.” Claire threw a thumb toward Jenna. “Kiddo here has a bladder of iron, but not me. I haven’t peed since we left Sacramento.”
    “There’s a powder room right down the hall.”
    Nicole felt her smile tighten as she stepped back to let them in. She hadn’t welcomed visitors for a long time, and unexpected ones put her on guard. She reminded herself that Jenna and Claire weren’t the kind of unexpected guests she had to worry about. At least, she didn’t think so, as her mind stumbled to come up with even one plausible reason why they’d suddenly show up at her door.
    The thought crossed her mind that Claire and Jenna’s visit couldn’t possibly be unexpected. Jenna lived in Seattle, Claire somewhere in rural Oregon; now they were both here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And Nicole had been losing track of schedules these past few weeks, dropping balls in ways she’d never done before. Her sudden freedom of movement after living in a high-intensity-monitoring mode had left her feeling slack and disorganized. She’d checked her e-mai l just this morning but hadn’t seen anything from either one of them. She hadn’t received a text, either—and she would have known, because her cell phone never left her pocket.
    The