All of a sudden intense heat envelops my body and I’m cooking, like I’m inside a stockpot set at a roaring boil.
Gwen knits her brows together, touches my cheek. “Are you okay? Your face is bright red.”
I take theGarden & Gun,the one from last night, and fan my face so hard I rip the cover. “I thought I had had my last hot flash, but that all changed when Lilith Whitmore reentered my life.” I lift my hair, trying to get the back of my neck. But it doesn’t help. So I dash over to the freezer and stick my head between two of the wire shelves.
I’ve been in there for what seems like two full minutes when Lilith finallydecides to return. She opens the freezer door wider. “Wilda, what are you doing in my freezer?”
“Trying to kill myself,” I mutter.
“Shut the door. It’s getting cold in here, girlfriend.”
Reluctantly, I drift back to my seat.
There are three gorgeous gift boxes in her arms, and she places one in front of each of us.
“What’s this for?” I ask, picking up my box.
Lilith gives a light shrug then smiles impishly. “Just a little happy.”
“Lilith. You didn’t need to do this,” Gwen says indignantly.
“Of course I did. It was the least I could do for all the hard work you girls are doing for Alpha Delt. My gosh. You’ve spent a hundred hours this week alone.”
I might not know what’s on the inside, but I certainly know from where it came. Gwen unties the white satin ribbon, then slowly lifts the lid of the finely crafted turquoise box.
Lilith puts her hand out to stop her. “Hang on, Gwen. I want y’all to open them together,” she says, excitedly. “You’re all getting the same thing.”
After Sallie and I untie our ribbons, we all lift our box lids at the same time to find sterling silver key rings with a signature Tiffany heart.Please Return to Tiffany & Co. New Yorkis on one side and each of our initials is engraved on the back, with our phone numbers underneath. I can hear the tape playing in all three of our heads: Oh. My. God. Oh. My. God.
“Lilith,”Gwen says, firmly. “You did way too much.”
“Oh my gosh, Lilith.” Sallie holds hers up by a finger. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. You girls deserve it.”
I have to say, I am no longer fooled by Lilith Whitmore. The woman is calculated in every single thing she does. So I force a smile and add a cryptic response. “You are something else, Lilith. Wow.”
“Uh-oh, look at the time,” she says. “It’s three minutes till seven. Don’t y’all need to upload the list?” There’s a bit of haughtiness in her tone.
“Well, crap.” Sallie hurries off her barstool. Then scampers out of the kitchen. “Thank you for reminding me,” we hear her say as she’s pounding up the stairs. “Do y’all trust me to hit send or do you want to look at it one more time?”
“Go for it. I’m tired of looking at it,” Gwen hollers, with a hand beside her mouth. Then she looks at me. “Upward and onward to Pref. It’ll be a loooong night.”
It will be a long night, all right. In fact, we should probably all move to Canada. Once Lilith finds out that Annie Laurie has been cut from Alpha Delt, her scream will cause a magnitude-ten earthquake and split the foundation of the Alpha Delta Beta House. We’ll all be enveloped into the bowels of the earth together.
THIRTY-EIGHT
WILDA
“Why is Annie Laurie Whitmore coming to Pref?” Lizzie asks the minute we step inside the chapter room at eleven o’clock. She and Selma James are seated next to each other staring at a laptop, which is on the table we’ve set up as a workstation.
“What are you talking about?” Sallie asks, setting her bag down on a chair.
“She’s on today’s schedule!” I can tell Lizzie is beside herself. Not only is she gnawing on her fingernails, there is sheer panic in her voice.
“Let me see that.” Sallie sits down next to her, turns the laptop her way. “Well, I’ll be darned. If her name isn’t right here I don’t know whose is.” Sallie looks up at me. “You saw the list we got from Sisterhood Select this morning. She wasn’t on it, right?”
I’m shaking my head.“No.”
