“I knew I loved that woman.”
She did, too, remembering the first time she’d learned this—at a mixer after pledging Tri-Delt, when Jo Ellen evaporated and Maggie found her on the back stairs of the Sigma Chi fraternity house, barefoot, refereeing a card game she was also somehow winning.
It would be one of many such nights.
“It’s my role in this friendship,” she told Brick, rising. “Kind of like air traffic control at every party.”
“You want help looking?”
“No, just tell me where the trouble is.”
He lifted a brow and looked at the bar. “Charlene’s on break. Go toward the ladies’ room, pass it, and open a door markedEmployees Onlynear the back. Char usually takes a cigarette break outside, but obviously not tonight.”
“Be right back.”
“Another wine?” he asked.
She considered it, then nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”
Brick lifted his barely touched bourbon in salute. “Godspeed.”
Maggie found the door past the restrooms and inched it open, getting a whiff of cardboard and lemon cleaner and, underneath that, something sweet, sour, and bitter all at the same time.
She knew that smell, like a hazy memory, like an old song, like a…
She wouldn’t!
Maggie pulled the door fully open and stopped in the doorway just as Jo Ellen, sitting on an overturned milk crate, whipped her hand behind her back, her eyes wide, her lips sealed, looking as guilty as Nolie the time Maggie caught her with five Oreos an hour before dinner.
Next to her, Charlene leaned against a shelf of ketchup with the serene expression of a person who had ridden out a great many storms and intended to enjoy this one.
“What are you doing?” Maggie demanded with her Nolie-and-the-Oreos voice.
Jo kept her mouth shut tight.
“What’s behind your back?”
Still shut, but she squirmed. Charlene gave a soft snort.
“Are you smoking marijuana?” Maggie asked, breathing the unthinkable question.
Unable to hold her mouth closed any longer, Jo Ellen parted her lips and let out a puff of smoke.
“No,” she croaked. At Maggie’s look, she squirmed again, and brought her hand out…with a small burning stick in it. “Maybe.”
And then Jo and Charlene shared a look and a laugh like they were in the front row at a comedy club. Jo turned to Maggie with enormous, guilty, delighted eyes as she held up the joint.
“It’s like old times, Mags. Remember in college, right before we met Roger and Artie, and we?—”
Maggie swiped her hand, forcing her to stop. “Jo Ellen, you are seventy-eight years old.”
“I am aware of my age, Mags, I was at all of the birthdays.” She looked at Charlene. “Many more than you’ve had.”
“Twice as many,” Charlene confirmed.
Jo Ellen stuck her tongue out at her, and they both melted into giggles.
“You are agrandmother.” Maggie scowled at her.
