“No.” I shook my head, taking her hand. “I—I didn’t mean it that way. I just…”
“I know,” she said. “Both of them. I haven’t talked to Mitch since that night at the bar. I left Mick not long after. We’ve been separated.”
“The kids?”
“My parents have them for the summer. Can I stay with you for a while?”
“You don’t even have to ask. H-he didn’t ask you to come here, did he?”
I took one of her bags. She took another. We rolled toward the house, bumping and swerving over mounds of mud and dried leaves.
“Who? Brando? God no! I’m doing this for me. I need this, Scarlett. Like I’ve never needed anything else before.”
“I understand.” I sighed, looking at the house. “More than you know.”
We both stopped when we approached the front door. We both looked up at the towering villa.
“Wow,Sandy,” she said. “When you go, you go big.”
“How did you find me?”
“Maggie Beautiful. She said you could use an extra pair of hands.”
I wrapped my arm around her neck, pulling her closer.
“I just have one question,” she said, her smile trembling. “When do I get a pair of those boots? I’m ready to get to work.”
* * *
And then there were three.
The three of us settled into an easy routine. We were up before dawn, though I doubted “up” was any way to describe Maggie Beautiful before she had her morning espresso, and we went to sleep well past midnight. In the evenings we usually settled down with popcorn and wine and let late-night TV or radio take us into the next day.
The day before Brando was due, Violet started to get antsy.
She threw her paintbrush into the bucket. Her face was spotted with golden flecks, almost the same color as her hair. “We need todosomething!”
Maggie Beautiful hummed while she kept the romance novel she was reading almost up to her nose. I put my own paintbrush down.
“How about a movie?” I asked.
“You aresoboring!”
“Me?”
“Yes, YOU.” She picked up the brush and flung paint at me.
It seemed that Violet felt single and ready to mingle.
“We could always have Maggie Beautiful take us for a ride in the Ferrari.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
Violet looked at Maggie Beautiful and her face paled.Been there, done that,it said.
“There’s a wine tour—”
“Scarlett! We are inItalia! We need to go out and dance with a few Romeos!”
“No.” I shook my head. “I do enough of that.” And I didn’t like the idea of going out without Brando. I always seemed to find trouble without him in those places.
