it the ‘special hug’? Isn’t that what you used to tell me? Married people have a special hug?” She fell back in her seat, shaking with laughter, and I found myself giggling along with her.
“Speaking of special hugs,” Gigi said. “I have a little announcement of my own.”
All the laughter abruptly halted as we turned as one toward Gigi. I didn’t dare guess where she was headed with this, but my instincts told me it would be something I could not un-hear. Everyone else seemed to be staring at her with the same concern. Gigi was not one to use caution when speaking.
She took a loud slurp from her martini before continuing. “As you know, my dear third husband, Bert, left us a while back, may he rest in peace, along with Conroy, and of course Harlan’s wonderful father.” Gigi made a hasty sign of the cross to send off a blessing to each of her three dead spouses. “But woman cannot live on bread and gin alone, and so I’ve taken a lover.”
Awkward silence was followed by the sound of my father slapping a hand to his forehead. “Good Lord, Mother,” he groaned. Ryan made a tight sort of gurgling sound before taking a hefty drink of his beer, and I exchanged a long stare with my sister.
“What? It’s a healthy thing to do. I’m vibrant. This baby got back.” She patted the tight curls of her gray hair and took another sip from her glass.
“You go, Gigi!” Chloe cheered.
“I’m not so sure it’s healthy for any of us to have to hear about it, though,” I said, wishing I could rewind time about sixty seconds so I could have gotten myself a stronger drink. It was bad enough to feel jealous of my sister’s romance. Now I had to be jealous of my own grandmother?
“Why not discuss it? Aren’t we all modern women?” Gigi was seemingly undeterred by our collective unrest.
“I’m not.” My father held up his hand. “I’m not a woman, and I’m not modern, and I don’t need to know about any of this. What you do in your . . .” He cleared his throat. “In your private time is your own business, and it is not necessary to keep us informed. Ever again.”
Ryan nodded vigorously. “I’m with the chief on this. I learned to mind my own business when my dad started doing the ‘special hug’ with someone half his age. Oh . . . sorry, Chief.”
My father closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, because the “hug-ee” in question was my youngest sister, Lilly. She and Ryan’s widowed father had fallen head over heels in love last summer and were now traveling the world together. And hugging—a detail my father tried very hard to forget.
“Well, I had no idea you two were such prudes,” Gigi scoffed. “Why is it, do you suppose, that men simply cannot handle a woman being in charge of her own sexuality?”
“Gigi,” Emily said, “although I don’t disagree with your point, maybe we could have this conversation another time. It’s sort of a complicated subject, and I’m starving.”
“Oh, all right, fine. I’ll feed you puritans your dinner, but first I need to tell you the rest. My lover and I have decided to move in together. I’m not ready to get married again, but we want to give things a trial run, so Emily, you and Chloe may continue to live here in my house, and I’ll be moving in with Gus.”
“Gus?” Harlan’s voice exploded like a grenade. “Gus Mahoney?”
Gigi took a prim little sip of her martini before answering. “Yes, Gus Mahoney. You all wanted the Callaghan-Mahoney feud to end, and so it has. Gus and I have been secretly dating for a few weeks now, and he’s really quite charming. So unexpected, considering he’s got those awful sisters, but it turns out he doesn’t like them any more than I do. I never knew.”
April, May, and especially June Mahoney had made it their mission to annoy Gigi all throughout her life, and Gigi gave them back as good as she got. The fragile truce that had been engineered last summer was sure to collapse under the weight of this new development.
“Do the Mahoney sisters know anything about this?” Emily asked, her voice falling to a strangled whisper.
“Gus is telling them this weekend, and it’s not as if they’ll have anything to say about it. It’s not their business.”
“It’s going to become everybody’s business, Gigi,”