Season of Sisters (16 page)

"Gardening," Holly replied, her tone as dry as the soil caked on the bottom of her shoes. She tossed a pair of work gloves toward Maggie. "Don't fret. It's a dead hill. But if you're worried, you can start at the other end. I doubt you'll find anything there except for grubs, maybe a few slugs."

"Slugs!" Maggie wrinkled her nose and stepped back onto the front sidewalk. "I don't do slugs."

After a moment's pause, she added, "Not since Christmas, anyway."

Holly let out a snort of laughter. Grace's lips twitched at the corners as she gently freed a plant from its plastic tray. "Our next-door neighbor is a single lady. She wears a tee shirt when she mows her lawn that says 'Grow your own dope.'"

She waited until both Maggie and Holly expectantly met her gaze, then finished, " 'Plant a man.' "

Maggie chuckled while Holly grinned and said, "A male-bashing joke from you, Grace? I'm shocked. What would Ben say?"

"He'd probably repeat one of the blonde jokes the guys tell at his work." Grace handed them each a garden trowel. "Start digging."

"Blonde jokes are so yesterday." Maggie gave her honey-colored hair a dramatic fling, then scanned the ground for bugs, worms, or any other nasties. Gingerly, she knelt and eased the tip of the trowel into the earth. When nothing wiggled, scurried, or oozed out, she dug deeper.

She hadn't dirtied her hands with earth in ages, and to her surprise, she found the task to be rather pleasant. The early evening air was balmy, the birds were singing, and someone in the neighborhood was grilling steak. She closed her eyes and lifted her nose into the heavy, rich scent. "Forget pizza. Let's go eat with them."

Holly sighed wistfully. "That's Mark Wilson. Sunday he smoked a brisket, and it was all I could do not to go knocking at his door like a beggar. And his wife bakes the absolute best brownies. I keep asking them to adopt me."

Grace nodded sagely. "A moist but chewy brownie is worth its weight in gold."

"Add pecans and I say it's gem quality," Maggie said.

With the first flat of flowers in the ground, Maggie stood and stretched. The sky above her was a bright, brilliant blue, empty and unending but for yellow thunderheads building off to the west. She shut her eyes, lifted her face to the sun, and drank in the warmth, searching for the peace Grace appeared to find in a Monday evening spent planting purple petunias with friends.

Instead, she thought of Mike, pictured him on the deck of his boat rubbing teak oil on a railing. Or suntan oil on his big-boobed bimbo. "I can almost smell the coconuts."

Holly rolled back on her heels, tipped up the bill of her baseball cap, and gave Maggie a curious look. "Coconut in brownies? Yew. Not for me."

She shook her head. She didn't want to explain. She didn't want to think about Mike, much less talk about him. "Suntan oil. I'm hungry. Why don't we call in the pizza now."

"Do you want to talk about your husband, Maggie?" Grace asked, her gaze knowing.

"Well, spit. Is everyone around here clairvoyant or am I that obvious?"

"You're that obvious." Holly drew back her arm, then stabbed her trowel into the ground. Standing, she stripped off her gloves saying, "You don't go five minutes without touching that shiner of yours and getting a sappy look on your face."

Maggie stopped herself, barely, from reaching up to press her black eye yet again. For some reason, she found the pain of the bruise strangely reassuring. "He called me today and asked how I was doing."

Holly led the way into the house, glancing back over her shoulder. "What did you tell him?"

"I didn't talk to him. I let the machine pick up."

"Why?"

Maggie shrugged. She didn't have an answer. She didn't know why she did anything these days. Or, to be more exact, why she
didn't
do much of anything these days.

She'd been bad enough during the months before Mike left her, but since then... well... some days she never got out of bed. The clouds hanging in her personal sky were dark, deep blue and purple, like her eye.

According to Mike, a couple doctors, and the National Mental Health Association website, Maggie was clinically depressed. She had a Zoloft prescription and a therapist, and she'd made an honest, though brief, effort with both. Neither seemed to make much difference. Actually, from her point of view, planning Grace's party had proved more beneficial than anything.

Which reminded her. "Did you check with Ben, Grace? Will you be free to shop florists on Saturday?"

"Yes." Talk turned to the anniversary party. As Maggie and Grace debated the wording of the invitations, Holly called in the pizza, then excused herself to wash up.

The older two women watched her leave, then after hearing a door close, Maggie observed, "That girl is downright allergic to anything that even hints at weddings, isn't she? We're a pair. She needs an antihistamine and I need an antidepressant."

"I need an anti-weary pill," Grace said with a sigh, leaning back in her chair. "All of a sudden I feel like I'm slogging my way through marshmallow cream. My get-up-and-go has got up and gone."

"I don't have any uppers, but I do have chocolate." Maggie gestured toward her purse. "Want to spoil your supper with a candy bar?"

Grace started to shake her head, then paused. "You know what? I think I'll take you up on that. I've learned not to wait for the things I want."

Maggie fished the Hershey bar from her purse and handed it over. "You seldom mention your illness. I'll be honest, Grace. I haven't quite known what to do or say to you about it, so basically, I haven't done or said anything. That's a ridiculous way to behave. So please, help me out here. Tell me how I can help you the most."

Grace reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "Maggie, I have a loving family and a circle of dear, dear friends who are always happy to run errands for me, drive me to the hospital, cook for me, and pray for me. I love them dearly, and their support is precious beyond words."

"What I haven't had, up until now, anyway," she continued, flashing a shy smile, "is a friend like you. A friend who lets me be normal, who gives me the opportunity to be connected to the world in ways that have nothing to do with cancer. Because my life has revolved around my disease for so long now, my family and friends see me as a cancer patient first, a woman second. You don't. That's so refreshing. It's such a gift you give to me."

"That's sort of embarrassing since I didn't have a clue I was doing anything."

"That doesn't lessen the value of what you've given."

Maggie considered the point for a moment, then smiled as satisfaction rolled through her. "That's nice. Thank you."

"You're very welcome."

"I have to tell you though, Grace, you've done me a similar good turn. Helping to plan your anniversary party perks me right up." She gingerly touched her eye. "And now I actually have some color to my life."

"I feel bad about that."

"Why? You weren't the one who hit me. Besides, it was worth a little black eye to see my husband wallowing in guilt. Even though I think the elbow that clipped me might have been Justin's."

Noting Grace's sympathetic expression, Maggie knew a twinge of discomfort. "I sound bitter, don't I? I don't like that. I don't want to do that. It's so cliché and I've always taken pride in being an individual. It's just that the thought of his having a bimbo makes me crazy."

"Are you certain that gal was his bimbo?" Holly asked as she strode into the kitchen, bringing the fragrance of vanilla skin lotion along with her. "I hear he denied it."

"Of course he denied it. He's a man. Men always try to lie their way out of trouble." She frowned down at the smudges of dirt on her jeans. Bitter honesty made her add, "The worst part of it is, I'm not blameless in the matter. I wasn't being a good wife to him."

"Don't," Grace snapped, as forceful as Maggie had ever heard her sound. "There is never any excuse for faithlessness."

Whoa.
Maggie's brows arched. Had she pushed a button, or what?

The arrival of the pizza forestalled any inquiries Maggie might have made into the subject. Following a brief debate over whether to use paper or pottery, Grace set the table with pretty plates that matched the sunflower pattern on the glasses they'd been using. Holly directed Maggie to the napkins while she topped off their tea, then put a vase filled with a trio of purple irises in the center of the table.

As they took their seats, Maggie couldn't help but compare this meal with the last time she'd had pizza. John, her second eldest boy, had invited the entire family for supper to celebrate landing a new job. He'd set the pizzas on the coffee table in front of the hockey game on his wide screen TV and passed around paper towels to serve as plates. Not a one of the men in her family had seen anything wrong in it.

That had been the last time her whole family had gotten together. That was the last time she remembered truly having fun.

She took a bite of pizza and as the taste of pepperoni exploded in her mouth, Holly dropped a conversational bomb. "I think I'm going to move to Louisiana in August."

Grace swallowed the wrong way and had to take a sip of tea to quiet her cough. Maggie stared at Holly in amazement. "What?"

"I mentioned that Justin came by last night. He pressed me about marriage again and I told him I'd decided to pursue my Ph.D. I've been accepted at Tulane. I'll be leaving town right after Grace's party."

"Well." Maggie sat back in her seat. "When did this all happen?"

"At the same time the words went tripping off my tongue."

"You lied to him?" Grace asked.

"Yes and no. I applied to a number of programs last year before he and I started seeing each other, and continued the process mainly out of curiosity to see where I'd be accepted. But I realized after I said it that leaving here might be the best solution for both of us." She picked a pepperoni circle off her pizza slice. "After Maggie's encounter with Mike at the festival, I'm a basket case. You know, Justin very well could have been there, too. Everywhere I go, I worry I'll run into him. Every time I open the newspaper, I brace myself to see his photograph at some hospital fund-raiser or read his name in the society column. It's hard."

Maggie couldn't argue with her. After all, Holly might well have walked right past Justin at the festival, and Maggie was haunted by the same fears of unexpected meetings with Mike. In some ways, she'd be glad when he finally shipped his boat to the coast. Then she'd quit worrying about having a starring role in
Parking Garage Incident: The Sequel.

Grace sipped her tea. "Do you
want
to pursue your doctorate, Holly?"

She sighed. "I love my job. Bonham Middle is a great place to teach." After swallowing another bite of pizza, she added, "My dad will have a fit."

Her non-answer had certainly answered the question for Maggie. "Sugar, don't take this wrong, but I'm not so certain this would be a good move for you. I don't believe it's ever a good idea to run from life, especially if a man somehow figures into the mix. Seems to me like that's just what you'd be doing."

Holly licked tomato sauce off her fingers. "You're one to talk. Excuse me, but aren't you the woman who admitted to staying in bed for two days last week?"

"That's why I feel free to advise you in this case. Although, come to think of it, I'd feel free to advise you in any case. I'm always free with advice."

Smiling, Grace said, "Yes, we noticed that about you."

"The question is, do you hear me?" Maggie reached across the table and took Holly's hand. "Sugar, what's really keeping you from marrying that adorable man?"

Holly got that deer-in-the-headlights look as she fiddled with her napkin. "I told you."

"You told us bits and pieces. Not enough to truly understand."

Holly rose from the table and paced her kitchen. "Maybe you don't need to understand. Maybe if you were the friends you claim to be, you wouldn't pester me about it."

"Maybe in order to be the true friends you deserve, we should encourage you to face difficult questions. Holly, I agree with Maggie. This idea of moving... it's one thing to move forward, another thing to run away."

"I'm not running away from Justin."

"You're running away from life."

Holly's chin went up, but quivered slightly. "That's not true. Life is running away from me."

"Oh, sugar." Maggie spied the tears in Holly's eyes, heard the desperation in her tone, and decided they'd probably pushed hard enough for now. "Just mull it over a bit before you make a final decision. Something as big as this deserves careful thought and consideration."

Hoping to lighten the mood, she gave her hair a toss. "Besides, personally, I'll be in big trouble if you go. I need you to be my dating consultant."

"Your what?" Holly's mouth gaped.

"My dating consultant. I have my first date next Saturday. It's been years since I've dated, and I let my Cosmopolitan subscription lapse years ago. I need someone to catch me up on the dos and don'ts of dating in the new millennium."

Grace shook her head. "You're not really going through with this."

"Sure I am. He's a nice man and I've known him for years."

"Who?" Holly sank into her seat. "Who is he?"

"His name is Max McNab. He cleans my pool."

"Oh, God." Holly sank back against her seat. "She has a date with the pool boy."

"He's not a boy," Maggie testily replied. "He's definitely a man—a responsible man who owns his own business, I'll have you know. For the record, I don't see what's wrong with a woman dating a younger man. Men do it all the time. My husband is doing it."

"How much younger is Mr. McNab?" Grace inquired.

Not quite meeting her friend's gaze, Maggie shrugged. "I don't know. Ten years, maybe twelve."

Holly buried her face in her hands. "If she says one word about the length of his hose I'm going to die."

"Oh, stop it. I'm not going to have sex with the man. I'm going rock climbing with him."

"What?" Holly and Grace asked simultaneously.