on a Friday night?” Dana Sue asked incredulously. “Haven’t you heard? I run a very successful restaurant. We’re packed at that hour.”
“And my husband, your outstanding sous-chef, is perfectly capable of handling the last couple of hours on his own and closing up,” Helen reminded her. “When was the last time we all cut loose?”
“It’s been a while,” Dana Sue conceded. She paused, then asked, “Have you spoken to Maddie?”
There was a cautious note in Dana Sue’s voice Helen couldn’t quite read. “Not yet, why?”
“She might be avoiding me.”
Helen drew a blank. “Why? Did you two have words about something?” Over the years, there had been spats among the three of them, but they’d been healed almost before they’d begun.
“Ty and Annie,” Dana Sue said succinctly. “It all hit the wall today. Annie found out that Ty’s home. Erik saw her right after she found out, and he says she’s livid because none of us warned her. I called the spa earlier, and Elliott told me she called and took the day off. Now I can’t find her.”
Helen muttered an expletive she rarely used. “Ty and Annie’s issues have nothing to do with you and Maddie,” she said. Then amended, “Well, of course they do, because they’re your kids, but didn’t you resolve years ago to let them work out their own problems?”
“It’s harder to stick to that now that they so obviously have big-time issues,” Dana Sue said. “Ty came back here with a little boy, for goodness’ sake! How’s that for rubbing it in my daughter’s face that he cheated on her?”
“It stinks,” Helen agreed. “And if you want to torture Ty, I’ll help, but please, please don’t let it come between you and Maddie. You two are my best friends in the world. I don’t want to have to start tiptoeing around or seeing you separately because the two of you aren’t speaking.”
“Look, I know this isn’t Maddie’s fault,” Dana Sue acknowledged, then added with real heat in her voice, “but how are we supposed to pretend that her son didn’t rip out my daughter’s heart? Am I supposed to ignore that?”
“Don’t you think Maddie’s as upset about that as you are?” Helen suggested. “She loves Annie, too.” She thought about it for a minute, then said, “How about this? We’ll just declare the topic off limits. Or else I’ll negotiate a truce. I’m very good at negotiating things, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Dana Sue laughed at last, cutting through the tension. “As if you’d let us forget.”
Helen seized on the tiny opening. “Come on, sweetie, don’t say no. I want you there. It won’t be a celebration without you.”
“Okay, fine, but if things get tense, I’ll leave.”
“Let’s just cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ll see you at eight,” Helen said, determined to make sure her friends made peace before the night was out.
“I’ll bring the food,” Dana Sue said. “I’ll make a fresh batch of guacamole and steal some appetizers from the freezer here.”
“Can’t have margaritas without that killer guacamole,” Helen agreed.
After she’d disconnected the call, she dialed Maddie and repeated the invitation. When Maddie hesitated, Helen jumped in. “Dana Sue’s coming. The subject of Ty and Annie is off limits. We’re only going to talk about me.”
Like Dana Sue, Maddie laughed. “Not much new about that. Okay. I’m not convinced you can keep us from veering off onto the subject of our children, but I don’t want to miss out on watching you try. Should I tell Jeanette?”
“Absolutely,” Helen said. Jeanette, who was in charge of the day spa services at their business, had become an honorary Sweet Magnolia. Though she’d only been around for a few years now, she was definitely one of their own. “If you’ll invite her and maybe pick up some chips and cut veggies for Dana Sue’s guacamole, that’ll give me time to buy the biggest bottle of tequila at the liquor store and to spend time with my daughter before she goes to bed.”
“By the way, what are we celebrating?” Maddie asked.
“I took Henry Porter to the cleaners in court today, pun intended.” Porter ran a chain of dry cleaners in the region. He’d hoped to leave his wife of thirty years with next to nothing, even though she’d worked right alongside him building that chain from one little neighborhood shop to the dozen outlets they had now. Helen had seen it differently, as had the judge, especially after the testimony of the Porter children about how involved their mother had been in the business.
“Good for you,” Maddie said. “I hate men who minimize their wives’ contributions to their success.”
Maddie knew more than some about that, since she’d had just such a husband before divorcing physician Bill Townsend and winding up with the high school baseball coach, Cal Maddox, who was ten years younger. In Helen’s opinion, that particular revenge had been especially sweet.
“Well, we can toast to all the women who’ve been mistreated like that and emerged victorious,” Helen said.
“Sounds like fun to me,” Maddie said, then hesitated. “Helen, how did Dana Sue sound really? Is she very upset that Ty’s back? I know it’s awkward, and I feel awful for Annie, but I’m so happy to have him and Trevor here for a while.”
“I know you are, and I don’t think Dana Sue begrudges you this time with them. It’s just hard for her to see Annie so upset.”
Maddie sighed. “You should probably know that Annie didn’t show up for work today.”
“So I heard,” Helen admitted.
“Elliott said she’d just found out about Ty,” Maddie continued, her tone sympathetic. “She read it in the paper, of all things. I probably should have told her myself, but I thought Dana Sue would. This is so damn complicated. I have no idea what my son was thinking.”
“I doubt thinking was involved in this mess,” Helen said dryly. “If you want my advice, you need to enjoy having Ty around and stay out of his relationship with Annie. They’re adults now. And in case you’re wondering, I said pretty much the same thing to Dana Sue.”
“It’s just that I was so sure…” Maddie’s voice trailed off.
“They were so sweet together, I think we all thought they’d be together forever,” Helen admitted. “But it was never up to us.”
“I know. See you tonight.”
Helen hung up, relieved that her desire to celebrate her courtroom victory might give Maddie and Dana Sue the chance they needed to meet on neutral turf. For the first time in several years—since Sarah Beth’s birth, in fact—she felt like her old self again…in control and on top.
Helen’s feeling of euphoria lasted for just under two hours. She’d barely walked in the door and set down the tequila and other supplies she’d bought for tonight’s gathering, when a hospital in Florida called to let her know that her mother had been admitted with a broken hip. Clutching the phone, Helen sat down hard.
“She
