“Oh, I’m sorry.” He waited a beat. “You sure you’re okay, Mom? You sound kind of weird.”
She did? “I sound perfectly normal for a woman in the bathroom at a diver bar.” There, that sounded like Maggie.
“A diver bar?” he asked.
Dang it. “You know what I mean. A biker…dive bar.”
“Is everyone there a biker?” he asked.
“No, no. They’re just people.”
“Really nice people!” Jo Ellen added, getting closer and earning another glare.
“Is that Jo Ellen?” he asked. “She’s in the bathroom with you?”
Oh, dear. “Yes. We’re…just…having a private moment together.”
Jo’s eyes went to saucer size. “That sounds weird,” she mouthed.
“That sounds weird,” Maggie repeated into the phone, for reasons she would never understand but surely could blameMary Jane. Jo Ellen started laughing so hard her eyes watered. “Do you mind?” Maggie asked, trying to stay serious.
Eli was quiet for a minute. “Are you…drinking?”
“Eli, what kind of accusation is that? I had a wine. Barely. Nothing else.”
Jo Ellen had the audacity to mime sucking in a joint.
“Well, as long as you’re having fun.”
“We are,” Maggie said. “I mean, not too much. You know me. I don’t like fun.”
Jo was literally doubled over, which only made this whole painful exchange worse.
Eli laughed softly. “Apparently, sometimes you do,” he said. “Tonight, for example.”
“How’s everyone at the safe house?” she asked, certain she sounded like any interested, caring mother and not one who was in a food storage closetdoing pot.
“Safe and sound. All is well here. Storm is definitely landing east, so we’ll have some damage, but I’m feeling optimistic.”
“Good, good. That’s good.” She looked up at Jo Ellen, who was holding a ketchup bottle and miming eating with one hand while she mouthed the words, “French fries,please!”
Maggie closed her eyes. “We’ll call you later or even tomorrow morning, honey,” she said quickly. “Jo Ellen needs something, so I better go. Thank you for calling. Be safe. Bye!”
She hung up without waiting for his response, blowing out a breath she may have been holding the whole conversation.
And then they both just laughed again, hard enough that their shoulders shook.
“Okay, okay,” Maggie said, standing up a little unsteadily. “We should go back there.”
“To Brick,” Jo Ellen said.
“To…the bar. To french fries, remember?”
Jo Ellen inched closer. “He likes you, Mags. He likes you a great deal. Charlene told me. She says he’s talked about you constantly and the whole ‘let’s be friends’ thing is just to soften you up for something else.”
It was? Maggie curled her lip. “I don’t want anything else.”
“Why not?” Jo Ellen pressed. “There’s no law that says you can’t kiss a man when you’re seventy-eight.”
