The Reluctant Heiress (A Christian Romance Novel)

Chapter 27 : Rachelling

Sunday night, after their shift, still in their aprons, Shelly and Rachelle found themselves on the same restaurant as the previous week. At the Old Town Grill. This time, baring more of each other.

After ordering their usual, they both settled down comfortably in their spots. Right at the very corner. A low country music was playing and the crowd was already starting to thin out.

"I could not believe it's only been a week since the first time we came here," Rachelle said shaking her head. "So much had happened".

"Me neither," Shelly agreed. "Seemed like a year!"

They laughed together.

"I learned so much more the past week than the past months I've been a CEO, and more than what I would have learned just sitting on a seminar about leadership," Shelly revealed.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Diva agreed. "That's the same thing that happened to me the first time I took the bait. I got hooked!"

"I want to ask you something but I don't know how to say it without it sounding so off," Shelly said.

"Just go, shoot," Rachelle replied.

"Well, if you say so. Ok, you know I've got so much at stake here that's why I gambled on this 'rachelling' thing. How about you? What is at stake for you here that you had to do this big thing? Am I talking to a board member here that I should know about?"

Rachelle laughed out loud! "You're hilarious!"

"No, seriously, I want to understand," she protested.

"So what's at stake for you here is your company, your legacy," Rachelle started. "Yes, very big. For me, it's my life."

Shelly didn't know how to respond. "Are you kidding me?" was what came out of her mouth first.

"We may have different concerns, but they are both big in our own perspectives," she said. "My life was going nowhere. I was so stressed at work, but that's really not the case. I can handle that. The real deal was...I didn't have friends. Real friends."

"You said you have a lot of friends in Atlanta," Shelly questioned.

"Yeah, we say those stuff the first time we meet people," she replied. "But really, it is partly true. But when we moved here to Smyrna when I was in high school, my friends thought it was ridiculous! That I had gone bonkers!"

"I don't want to sound naive, but why would they think it that way?"

"C'mon, you know. Atlantans think Symrna is living in the boonies. And Smyrnans didn't think I fit in here because they think I'm snooty coz I'm from Atlanta."

"You've got terrible friends! Your location does not define who you are," Shelly protested.

"Well, when you're in high school, it does. We got this big beautiful house here, but whenever I'd invite my snooty friends here, they don't want to come."

"Shame on them! Smyrna is beautiful!"

"So I said, 'Forget them. I'll make friends here.' And so I tried, tried hard in my new school. But I felt like I had a disease that they did not want to get close to me," Rachelle continued her story.

"Do what now?" she asked, not believing what she was telling her.

"They don't want to interact with me!"

"But why? You are pretty, you are confident and you are so put-toge-t-h-e-r..."

It suddenly hit her. She's so put together, she seemed perfect and they... envy her! These girls didn't want to mingle with her because she's from Atlanta, and Smyrnans think these Atlantans are really snooty even if they are already being very inviting. But in fact, these Smyrnans were actually the ones being snooty about it all!