mine are okay,” Eleanor said, folding herself into a straight-back chair beside the big-screen TV in the den, watching four girls prep for a night on the town.
Caroline surveyed her and raised her own awesomely sculpted eyebrows. “If you say so.”
“Do you think I need some reshaping?”
“Uh, yeah.” Caroline smiled before angling in on Blakely like a deranged scientist.
“Owww,” Blakely said, jerking away.
“Don’t be a baby.”
A redhead who Eleanor couldn’t remember the name of said, “Yeah, stop being such a baby.”
“Screw you,” Blakely said, jutting her face at Caroline. “I’m not the one who cried when Margaret Ann got engaged.”
“You’re such a bitch, Blakely,” the other blonde in the group said. Eleanor was certain her name was Reese because she reminded her of the actress who shared the same name.
“You know it,” Blakely said with a laugh. “Oh, and check it out. Across from my mom’s store is this nightclub, and the guy who owns it is on frickin’ fire.”
“Ooh,” Reese said, looking away from the compact mirror and grabbing a sandwich and another swig of some obnoxious energy drink. “Do tell.”
Eleanor’s heart dropped into her still-chipped toenails. Blakely talked about Dez as if he was a decadent chocolate.
Okay, he kinda was.
She eyed her bare feet and then the metallic nail polish sitting on the table next to the sandwiches.
“He’s so hot—looks like the Rock. Swear to God.”
“Oh, my God. I would so do the Rock,” the redheaded girl said.
“You’d so do half the Sigma Nu frat house, Darcy,” Blakely said, clearly trying not to cringe as Caroline plucked away. “But this guy, Dez, is like honey. He’s, like, part Creole, part white and full-on yummy. That whole ethnic thing is so hot.”
Eleanor wondered how many times the girls could fit hot into their description of Dez. It could be a drinking game. A shot every time they said hot.
“So you gonna go after this hot guy?” Reese asked.
Blakely shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s kinda older.”
“Yes, too old for you,” Eleanor chimed in, relinquishing her role of gargoyle in the corner. She couldn’t handle much more of the Dez talk, not after watching her daughter make an idiot out of herself at the gallery.
“Mom, he’s not that old. I’m in college, in case you didn’t get the memo.”
The other girls cast looks at one another, nodding their heads as if being in college made it okay to do whatever one wished.
“How old is old, Blake?” Reese asked.
“Like maybe thirty or something. But he’s seriously hot. I mean—”
“Smoking,” Darcy finished for her.
“And y’all haven’t even heard the best part,” Blakely said, smoothing a finger over her eyebrows because Caroline had moved on to lip liner. “He’s a musician.”
Darcy squealed. “He’s in a band?”
“Not a band. He’s a jazz pianist.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Eleanor said, rising and pointing a finger at her daughter. “You stay away from Dez Batiste. He’s too old for you and too experienced. Stick with frat boys.”
Blakely rolled her eyes. “Frat boys? Please.”
“Davey Weiss thinks you’re the cat’s meow, Blakely, and his daddy owns a shipping company,” said Reese.
“So?” Blakely’s gaze caught Eleanor’s, and she saw in their depths rebellion, which Blakely had never shown before. Where was her sweet girl who made bracelets from parachute cord and sang in the school choir? “You didn’t stick with frat boys, Mom. You were my age and daddy was Dez’s age.”
Eleanor felt as though she’d been hit in the face with a wet towel.
Dear Lord. Blakely was right. She’d been nineteen the day she’d met Skeeter Theriot at the Blind Gator bar in Midtown. Sipping on a beer, wearing ripped jeans and a white shirt that had embroidered little mirrors on it, Eleanor had had big dreams of being a historian and little protection against the charming assault launched by one of the city’s favored sons. Skeeter had been wealthy, smooth and entitled. Eleanor had been easy pickings.
Her fate had been sealed, and she’d found herself wedded and painting a nursery while trying to finish up her degree in history at Tulane. She’d been twenty years old when she’d delivered Blakely. Twenty-three when she finally got her degree. Twenty-seven when she opened the Queen’s Box, her little hobby that she managed to grow into a business. At thirty-two she’d sat through Hurricane Katrina. At thirty-four she’d found out her husband was dead at the hand of a mistress she’d never known existed. And now at thirty-nine, she stood looking at her daughter on the precipice of adulthood.
Yeah, age was only a