Midnight Promises

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“Would you like me to stay and have a talk with Selena myself?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll handle it. There’s no need for you to witness the tantrum she’s likely to throw when I tell her she’s grounded for the next month.”

Elliott was startled by the severity of the punishment his sister intended. “A month?”

She shrugged. “Anything less is just an inconvenience. Believe me, a month is the only thing that gets her attention.”

“Maybe what she needs more than punishment is reassurance that her parents are going to work harder to get along,” Elliott suggested.

Adelia gave him a sad look. “I try not to make promises I’m not sure I can keep,” she said as she walked him to the door.

Elliott wanted to stay, wanted to wipe the sorrow from his sister’s eyes, but he wasn’t the one who had the power to do that. And it was increasingly apparent that the man who held that power didn’t care.

* * *

“Is Frances going to be looking after Daisy and Mack tomorrow night by any chance?” Dana Sue asked Karen on Monday.

Karen regarded her boss with surprise. “I hadn’t planned on it. I’m off tomorrow, remember? I’ll be home with the kids.”

“Let me rephrase,” Dana Sue said, sounding more like Helen, when she was cross-examining a reluctant witness. “Can Frances take care of the kids tomorrow night?”

Puzzled, Karen shrugged. “I’d have to check with her, but probably. What’s this about? Do you need me to work after all?”

“Nope. The guys—except for Erik, who’ll be in charge here—are all getting together for basketball and more talk about the gym, so the wives decided we deserve to have a margarita night. It’s been ages since we’ve had one. We want you to come.”

“I thought margarita nights were some sort of sacred ritual for the Sweet Magnolias,” Karen said. She’d certainly never before been invited.

“And we think you should officially be one of us,” Dana Sue said with a grin. “If Elliott’s going to be in business with some of us and our husbands, then you should be included when the girls get together.”

“Really?” Karen said, surprised by the hint of wistfulness that had crept into her voice. She’d always wondered about those mysterious nights Dana Sue, Maddie, Helen and their friends spent together. She’d never given two figs about the margaritas, but the strong bond of their friendship was something she’d desperately envied. She’d been on the receiving end of that support system from time to time and understood its value.

“Really,” Dana Sue assured her. “And before you get all weird and panicky, there are no secret rites or oaths, other than what happens at margarita nights stays at margarita nights.”

Karen grinned. “I can do that.”

“Then tomorrow night at seven at my place.”

“What can I bring?”

“Not a thing. I fix the guacamole. Helen makes the margaritas, and since they feel that we now need more food to sop up any alcohol, Maddie, Jeanette, Annie, Raylene and Sarah take turns bringing other food. Believe me, Maddie will see that you’re assigned your turn. She’s going to be thrilled about putting another chef into the rotation. Aside from me, Raylene’s the only one with any real creativity in the kitchen.”

Karen thought of the progress Raylene had made in overcoming her agoraphobia. There’d been a time not that long ago when all margarita nights had to be held at her house to accommodate her terror of leaving the safety of her own home.

“Raylene’s really better now, isn’t she?” she asked Dana Sue. “It’s hard to believe she’s the same person. I see her at her dress shop and out with Carter and his sisters all the time now.”

Dana Sue smiled. “Just one of the many miracles we’ve been blessed by in this town.”

Karen started back to work on the salads for the day’s lunch, but eventually curiosity got the better of her. She glanced over at Dana Sue. “Why now, Dana Sue? Is it just because you don’t want me to feel left out?”

Dana Sue, who could always be counted on for candor, said honestly, “That’s part of it, no question about it. But for a long time, your life was so complicated with Helen keeping your kids so you wouldn’t lose them and your future working here so insecure, we didn’t think it was a good idea to blur the boundaries any more.” She smiled. “Just like Raylene, you’re not the same person you were a few years ago. We all like you. We always have. Now, though, I think it’s more as if we’re all meeting on level ground.”

“As equals,” Karen suggested.

Dana Sue laughed. “That’s sounds so incredibly stuffy and narrow-minded of us, but in a way, yes. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings.”

Karen shook her head. “Actually, to the contrary, it makes me proud to know how far I’ve come in getting my life together. I was a mess a few years ago. And even without me being an official Sweet Magnolia, you all helped me. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

“And now we’ll get to find out if you can hold your tequila any better than the rest of us,” Dana Sue said.

Karen thought of how little she drank, because she didn’t like the lack of control that came with alcohol or the wasted expense of buying it. “Something tells me I’m going to be no competition on that front. I’m a weakling in the margarita department. Will that be a problem?”

“Nope,” Dana Sue assured her. “It’ll just leave more for us. But if you turn down my killer guacamole, we just might have to reconsider.”

“Now that will never happen,” Karen said, laughing. She hadn’t been married to Elliott all this time without learning how to handle plenty of spice.

6

Frances was delighted to be spending the evening with Daisy and Mack. For one thing it was much less stressful than evading questions from Flo and Liz about whether or not she’d made an appointment with her doctor. They were getting tiresome.

Even though she was where she wanted to be—away from the prying eyes of her friends—she was grateful that Daisy and Mack had plenty of homework to keep them occupied. For some reason trying to keep up appearances these days was exhausting. She was relieved to be able to simply sit and glance through the magazines she’d brought along or to watch TV.

She was startled when she glanced up and found Mack standing in front of her, his expression a mix of dismay and embarrassment. She’d seen that look often enough in her classrooms over the years to have a pretty good idea this was about homework troubles.

“Is everything okay, Mack?”

He shrugged.

Frances had to hide a smile. Even at seven, kids had a lot of pride. “How’s your homework going?” she prodded. “All finished?”

He shook his head, his cheeks turning even pinker. “I don’t get my math problems.” He gave her a pleading look. “Could you help me? Subtracting’s hard.”

Though she was pleased to be asked, she wondered if she’d be any help. “I can certainly try,” she said. “And if I can’t, I imagine Jenny can.”

His expression turned puzzled. “Jenny? Who’s that?”

Frances blinked, then shook her head and gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Did I say Jenny? I meant Daisy. Jenny’s my granddaughter. She lives in Charleston.” Jenny had been named for her mother, Frances’s daughter, Jennifer.

Mack’s face lit up. “I remember her. She used to come to visit. Sometimes she even spent the weekend.”

“She did,” Frances confirmed. “What a wonderful memory you have!” At the moment, she envied him.

“She was bigger than Daisy, though,” he said, looking perplexed again. “How old is she?”

Frances felt as if she were slogging through mental mush as she tried to recall. “She must be fifteen now.” Or was she older? Had Jenny gone off to college? Or was that Marilou? And why couldn’t she keep them straight? There were three girls, she remembered that much. Jennifer had so hoped for a boy that last pregnancy, but there’d been another girl. On the teacher salaries she and her husband earned, they’d decided a fourth child simply wasn’t in the cards.

Darn! If she could remember all that, why couldn’t she keep the names and ages straight?

The answer, of course, was obvious. This was another of those troubling mental glitches. It was a good thing Flo and Liz weren’t around to witness it. Their pleas that she make that doctor appointment would become even more strident.

“Sit beside me and show me those math problems,” she said, rather than dwelling on her earlier slip.

Finally confident that he wasn’t going to be judged, Mack eagerly crawled up on the sofa beside her and showed her his paper. Thankfully, the problems were fairly basic subtraction, something she hadn’t forgotten.