"Married four times?" Lance questioned. "You only gave three last names."
"Two of the husbands were brothers," Julia clarified.
"She never leaves her house unless she's on the warpath about something." Nina reached over and patted Julia's thigh. "But she's coming today."
Julia moaned, and Lance raised his eyebrows.
"And then," Nina stated with flair, "we have the Georgias—also known as Georgia Abernathy, Georgia Burke, and Evelyn Wesley, who was Miss Georgia in 1954. They all live in Ro-Ro's building and follow her around like little blue-haired disciples, especially Miss Georgia A. and Miss Georgia B. I think Miss Georgia '54 would like to lead her own gang, but as long as Ro-Ro's living there, no ex-beauty queen has got a prayer of forming any kind of splinter group."
"Sounds like 90210, the golden years," Lance joked.
"Exactly," Nina said, nodding her approval.
Lance began to wonder what he'd gotten himself into.
"Don't worry," Nina reassured him. "You'll do great!"
Julia cringed and sank a little deeper into the seat.
When they stopped for gas, Lance insisted on getting out and pumping. Nina insisted on letting him.
"He is the biggest problem my career has ever faced, and instead of leaving him in New York"—Julia gestured to where Lance stood beside the car—"I let him follow me home," she exclaimed, rolling her eyes skyward, finishing a five-minute monologue on "the Lance Situation." She looked to Nina for sympathy, but all she saw was her best friend's outstretched hand. "I'm not wearing the ring, or did you notice?"
"I did notice, and I'm proud," Julia said, and gave herself a mental slap for not being more sensitive. But it was hard not to grow immune to the drama of Nina's love life, especially after watching her marry and divorce the same man twice.
"Jason's totally moved out, and we've filed the papers. So . . ." There was a drum roll in her voice. "In eight weeks, I'll be a single gal!" she finished with a big ta-da.
Nina must have confused Julia's silence for self-pity because she said, "Come on, Jules, let's keep things in perspective here. You meet a hot guy. Great. Worse ways to spend a day. People think you've got feelings for the hot guy. Hardly a national crisis. Besides"—she stopped and gestured to Lance, who stood dutifully beside the car—"he pumps the gas. I don't even remember the last time I didn't have to pump my own gas."
Both women stared at him out the window.
When Lance took the squeegee and began to clean the windshield, Nina gripped the steering wheel and moaned, "Oh, have mercy."
"Which house is it again?" Nina asked as they pulled into a housing addition a half mile off the highway. Lance looked around and understood why she was confused. The subdivision was like a maze, each structure nearly identical to the one that stood beside it, all of them in the last stages of completion, each one reeking of decay as muddy, un-sodded yards oozed into piles of shingles and scrap lumber.
"What is going on here?" Lance asked.
"Contractor went bankrupt," Nina told him. "There are only three or four houses in the whole subdivision that are done. Everything else is in limbo. No one can finish them until the courts straighten it out."
"What a mess," he muttered.
"This is the road," Julia said, guiding Nina onto a snakelike lane that resembled every other road in the monster development. They eased their way through the half-finished carnage of dream homes until they made another twist and saw one house that had daffodils dotting the flowerbeds and an abandoned tricycle standing sentry in the yard. Orange and white helium-filled balloons were tied to the mailbox and drifted in the breeze, but there wasn't another car in sight.
"Good," Nina said as she pulled the VW up the slight incline of the garage slab and shifted into park. "We're early."
Chapter Nine
WAY #56: Always enjoy the party.
Whether it's the wedding of two old college friends or the -as. birthday of someone from work, your lack of a date should I never keep you from attending important celebrations. If people are really your friends, they'll invite you to such events because they want you to be there. So go; kick up your heels and have a great time.
—from 707 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
Here are some things the world should be spared, and the sight of a tax attorney in a Hello Kitty party hat is one of them, Julia thought as she stood in the doorway of her sister's house and examined her brother-in-law, Steve. Then she recognized the strange feeling in her stomach: relief. Maybe she was simply glad that Steve had placed his family over his firm for at least a few hours that weekend, but deep down, Julia realized the feeling was probably due to the fact that of all the people she could count on not to notice the
Lance debacle and not to care, her brother-in-law was at the top of the list.
"Julia, welcome back," Steve said, as if ushering her inside his office.