Deconstructed(99)

“I think so.” I moved toward the outer door and out into the warmth of the late-spring day. The sunlight was blinding, and it was as if the valet knew I would need my car ASAP. He brought it around immediately, and I collapsed into the passenger’s seat, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. I felt Ruby slide into the driver’s side.

“You good?” she asked again.

“I am. Stop asking and don’t hit any potholes.” I pulled my sunglasses from my clutch and strapped myself inside my grandmother’s sports car. I withdrew a twenty-dollar bill because I knew how cheap most of those people inside truly were and waved it at the valet as Ruby pulled away.

The kid yelled, “Thanks!”

Ruby pulled out to the right, inching down Fairfield with its shady oak canopy and fading azaleas. A man walked his Jack Russell. Another delivered mail. Another block found three children playing soccer in the front yard. All normal, everyday things going on as if my husband hadn’t just been arrested in front of two hundred people and I hadn’t just yelled at him as they’d dragged him away. Weird.

After a few minutes, Ruby asked, “Where do you want to go?” We were getting close to the turn for Printemps.

“Can you take me to my mother?” I hadn’t even realized I wanted to go there. I had thought to gather my Blue Moon Sting posse, but at that moment, I couldn’t do a beer and the Bullpen. I just wanted my mother, even though she would be appalled and might actually lecture me for showing my butt in front of all of Shreveport. Still, the need for your mother—even one who could be a pain in the butt like mine—was something that never went away.

“Sure. Where is she?”

“Good question.” I withdrew my phone, which had blown up in the last minute or so. I ignored my cousin and several of my PTA friends, who had sent inquisitory “You okay?” sorts of texts. And sure enough, someone had tagged me in a video. The whole world was about to see Scott get arrested. I hoped they’d gotten a good angle on me. Some angles gave me a double chin.

But then it struck me.

Julia Kate.

I hadn’t really thought about my daughter watching the video. It would be all over social media. I had been so wrapped up in gleeful retribution that I hadn’t stopped to consider how this would wound Julia Kate. How had I not thought about this? Shit.

I dialed my mother’s phone.

“Cricket! What in the world is going on?” my mother asked.

“So you know?”

“I do, and I’m incensed. I cannot believe that man. Where are you? Should I come get you?”

“No. Ruby is bringing me to your house. Mom, can you go get JK? Like ASAP. You’re closer to her school. I’ll call the office and tell them you’re coming. I pray she hasn’t seen this. She’ll be devastated.”

“She’s going to be devastated anyway. I’ll get her. You come here.” She hung up.

Twenty minutes later, my mother was handing me a martini and a tissue as the tears streamed down my cheeks. She wrapped an arm about my waist, nudged her yipping dogs with her Roger Vivier chunky heel, and told Ruby to pour herself a drink. Julia Kate sat like a zombie on the sofa, tears leaking from her eyes.

My mother led me to the sofa, where she wrapped an arm around each of us. Then I cried until I was a limp dishrag while Marguerite stroked my back, telling me how brave I had been. When I finally blew my nose and sat up, my mother said, “I think we girls need a little trip this summer. What do you think? Maybe somewhere tropical. Julia Kate?”

“Can I skip summer camp?” my daughter asked in a small voice.

“Yeah,” I rasped, feeling guilty as hell that I had not put her first in all this. What kind of mother was I? A terrible one. One too focused on hurting Scott to see the damage I had wrought. My heart clenched, and I looked at my mother, needing her to give me the strength I seemed to have lost.

She seemed to know what I needed because she gave me a game smile, chucked me under the chin, and said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know when you’ll have to toss them and go to the Four Seasons.”

“Well, it does change in the blink of an eye,” I said, unable to stop my lips from twitching.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. You have to keep pedaling,” Ruby quipped from the chair across from us.

“Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long,” I continued.

“Y’all are weird,” Julia Kate said.

We all smiled a little, and I knew at that moment, everything would, indeed, be okay.





EPILOGUE


RUBY

A month later

“If you need someone to help you, I am happy to volunteer. I could always take a private investigator class. Since I’m nearly divorced, I have lots of time now,” Cricket said to Juke as she sipped her beer out of a bottle at the table where she’d tricked Scott into signing the bank form.

I suspected that she didn’t really love beer. But Griffin always ordered her one as some sort of challenge. This one was a dark beer, so every time she took a sip, she made a face.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to take on a partner. Besides, aren’t you two busy with the whole dress-line-launch thing and all?” Juke said, looking far healthier than he had in a while. He’d started going to AA and working out. Jimbo told me he had even talked Juke into doing some dating sites. The thought of those two swiping right was disturbing, but I didn’t have to worry about it, did I?