Yardley loved the excitement on Kris’s face. “She hasn’t had the chance. What a relief, huh?”
“It is. I’m all about doing everything by the book now, let me tell you. Look, here’s your girl with our host and George Clooney.”
Gramercy had tried very diligently to get Kris to stop calling him that, but she remained undeterred.
Atlas handed Yardley a glass filled with the pink lemonade Marla had made. “Too much party?”
“Maybe. I could rally, though. Don’t count me out.” Gramercy had just been embraced from behind by Lucas—rough-edged where Gramercy was polished, smiley where he was reserved, exuberant where he was watchful. But they looked at each other the very same way.
Her KC, who had been lifting with Lucas lately, and shared with him a sense of humor and inability to keep from calling a pig a pig, had nonetheless cultivated her deepest new connection with Gramercy.He’s always so glad when I’m confident I can do something, she’d told Yardley.Reminds me I’m allowed to be confident.
Marla walked over, her long legs navigating the lawn in four-inch heeled sandals like she’d been born to it—which, just like Yardley, she had been. Her bright silk romper swished against her deep brown, perfect skin without wrinkling, shifting, or revealing even a quarter inch of bra strap. When she arrived at Atlas’s side, a familiar hush came over all of them, stupefied by Marla’s terrifying beauty. She straightened the fall of Atlas’s crochet sweater, kissing them on the cheek in a way that made Yardley blush.
“Come with me.” She pointed at Yardley with a perfect garnet fingernail. “Excuse us.”
Yardley heaved herself from the Adirondack while looking around at her friends for a hint that might explain Marla’s command, but they gave her nothing. Spies, all of them.
“Is your handbag in the guest room with your cardigan?” Marla’s soft south Georgia accent floated behind her in the night air.
“It is.”
“But you only brought that itty-bitty clutch.” They’d entered the house now, and Marla closed the doors behind them. The noise from the party faded.
“I left my tote in the car.”
“Well, go on and get it.” Marla made a shooing motion with her hand.
Yardley, very confused, retrieved the straw tote she’d brought with her in case she needed anything for the long day and hustled back into the house. Marla led her to her master bathroom. It was as scrupulously clean as an operating room, but with trays of mysterious potions instead of instruments. Marla opened the tote and pulled out Yardley’s brush, her little makeup kit, and a second, spare cardigan with rhinestones on it that Yardley had thrown in the bag just in case she and KC went somewhere fancy for brunch.
“Sit here.” Marla pulled out a vanity stool. “Can I fix your hair?”
“Yes.” Yardley sat obediently. “But why?”
Marla took out a barrette that had slumped to the side and started brushing. Yardley closed her eyes at how good it felt. Marla’s strokes with the brush were as firm and no-nonsense as hermama’s. “Because your girl’s got a ring in her pocket, and you and I understand that these kinds of things cannot be a surprise. A woman needs some notice so you can focus on what’s said to you instead of why you didn’t get your nails done.”
Marla picked up the weight of Yardley’s hair and brushed up her nape.
“Oh, good lord.” Yardley’s chest felt tight. She stacked her hands over her heart and took a deep breath.
She’d known this would happen at some point. KC had not been even a little bit subtle. She’d left tabs open on the computer and even one magazine ad flipped so Yardley couldn’t help but see it on the coffee table as a way to jump-start a conversation about what kind of ring Yardley would feel was suitable (a big one, mainly to make KC laugh, but there was a girlish corner of her heart that did shine with pure avarice), what kinds of proposals she approved of (no dancing, no Jumbotron, no strangers present), and whether it would be necessary for KC to speak to Yardley’s father first (yes).
It turned out, however, there was a Grand Canyon of a difference between knowing it would happen sometime and knowing it would happen as soon as Marla finished making her presentable.
Yardley focused on her breathing.
“That’s right, you pray.” Marla opened a drawer, pulled out a parting comb, and deftly sectioned Yardley’s hair. “You have an orange stick in your makeup bag. Work your cuticles while I finish with your hair.”
Yardley nodded and got out her Tony manicure kit to freshen her nails, which, thank god, she’d just had done. She reviewed every single phone call she’d had with her nan lately, scrutinizing them for clues, because sheknewNan would know it was happeningtonight. No doubt Yardley would receive a call from Nan first thing tomorrow morning to get the details.
She finished with her nails and studied herself in the mirror. Marla had put her hair into a half-up, half-down style accomplished with artful, careless-looking braids that actually had about a dozen hairpins holding them in their bohemian configuration.
“Here you go.” Marla handed her a makeup wipe, which Yardley dutifully used to clean her face. Just when she’d lifted away the last shadow of mascara, she started to cry.
“Oh, no,” Yardley choked. The tears weren’t delicate little drops of tears. They were rivers that were swelling her eyelids and snotting her nose, blotching her face in great big red cabbage roses of emotion.
Marla pulled out another vanity stool and sat to face her, handing her a tissue that Yardley immediately needed for a long, embarrassing nose blow. “Tell me,” she said.
Yardley looked at Marla’s perfect, angelic eyelashes and the shining swoop of her cheekbones. When she opened her mouth, she just sobbed again.
