Chapter Twenty-six
Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:
Is it possible to be in love with the shape of someone? I think so.
“You look like a magic lantern,” Deidre says.
“A magic lantern?”
“The Victorian version of a View-Master.” She holds her hands up to her face as if they are binoculars. “Pictures on slides held in front of a bright light. You look all lit up inside.”
“I do?”
I look at Hayley.
“You do.”
Deidre drops her overnight bag beside the door and presses her cold palm to my forehead. She has arrived for the sleepover wearing a pair of flannel pajamas patterned with dancing sock monkeys and a long, chunky orange scarf wound tight around her neck. Her pajama top is unbuttoned, revealing a T-shirt with the quote, The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.
“You do feel a trifle heated,” she says.
“You were just outside,” I say, laughing. “Your hands are as frozen as one of Queen Elsa’s spells. Of course, my forehead feels heated.”
“Hmm.” She removes her hand from my forehead. “It’s monkeys outside. Still, I hope you haven’t caught a virus. William said a nasty stomach bug was going around.”
“I am fine.”
“Do you feel like you want to chunder?”
I look at Hayley, and she mouths the word vomit.
“My stomach is fine, thank you.”
“What do you think, Hayley?” Deidre looks at Hayley, her eyebrows knit together in concern. “Does Emma Lee look a trifle peaky?”
“Glowing? Yes. Peaky? No.”
“Do you feel light headed?” Deidre asks me.
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to pop over to William’s cottage and ask him to come around?”
“Absolutely not! That would mean he would have to venture beyond his hermetically sealed walls.”
“Just to ease our minds?”
“My mind is at ease.”
“You are sure?”
“Quite.”
“Well, then,” she says, grinning. “If you are quite sure you are well, there can be only one reason for your glowing complexion and countenance.”
“GlamGlow Flashmud Brightening Treatment?”
“No.”
“Anastasia illuminating powder in Rose Gold?”
“Be serious!”
“I am serious,” I say, winking at Hayley. “Never underestimate the power of a good illuminating powder, darlin’. Applied correctly, it makes a face appear as if it is lit from within.”
“You are in love.”
“What?”
“Barring illness, the first flush of love is the only thing I know capable of creating such a glow.” Deidre grins. “When Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were courting, Albert said she stirred passions in him that burned brightly and filled his soul. You, Emma Lee, are burning brightly.”
“Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink?”
I walk to the kitchen. The girls follow me. I open the refrigerator and begin grabbing bottles of water and soda.
“Ice tea? Orange juice? Coke?”
“Who is he, Emma Lee?” Deidre persists.
“I have wine.” I toss the bottles of water back in the refrigerator and grab the bottle of rosé I picked up in Stowe-on-the-Wold. “How about it? Do either of you fancy a nice glass of rosé?”
Deidre and Hayley look at each other, smiling.
“Emma Lee has fallen in love,” Hayley sings, moving her hips as if she is trying to keep an invisible hula hoop from falling to her feet. “L-O-V-E. Love. Hang on, things might get a wee bit bumpy, before it’s time for the rumpy-pumpy.”
She thrusts her hips at the last word.
“Sweet Jesus!” I say, holding my hand up to block the image of Hayley’s gyrating hips. “Weren’t you going to make margaritas? You brought juicy-juicy mangoes from your greenhouse so you could make us margaritas. Get crackalackin’, girl!”
Hayley peels and dices the mangoes before dumping them in the blender with fresh lime juice, orange juice, ice, and tequila. A lot of tequila. She pours the concoction into glasses rimmed with lime and sugar and we sit around the kitchen table, getting drunk off the margarita fumes and munching on some of the goodies I purchased at the cheese and chocolate festival, chatting like old friends.
We finish the first pitcher of margaritas—having shared our feelings about the serious (gun violence), the ridiculous (Meghan Markle saying she didn’t know about the Royal Family before meeting Prince Harry), and the hilarious (the #DistractedBoyfriend memes on Twitter). Hayley makes a second pitcher and we move into the living room.
“So, who is it?” Deidre asks, looking at me over the rim of her sugar-rimmed glass. “Anyone we know?”
“No.”
“Ah-ha!” Hayley cries, snapping her fingers. “You admit it! You are in love, just not with anyone we know. Does he live in Charleston?”
“Hang on!” Deidre says, pulling her iPhone out of the pocket sewn into the front of her pajama top. “Didn’t you become friends with Knightley Nickerson on Facebook recently?”
“So?”
“So,” Hayley says, waggling her eyebrows. “Is he your lover man? Your Mr. Rumpy-Pumpy?”
“Ew!” I wrinkle my nose. “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it is offensive.”
Hayley laughs. “What? The suggestion that Knightley Nickerson might be your lover?”
“No. That phrase: rumpy-pumpy.”
“It is a British phrase,” she says, hooting with laughter. “It means—”
“I know what it means!”
It feels good to be here, in this moment, drinking mango margaritas and laughing with my new girls. Meeting people and making new friends has never been difficult for me—Daddy used to say I could work a room like a Kennedy on the campaign trail—but I would be a bald-faced liar if I said I didn’t fret about finding a group of girls in England that were as supportive and fun-loving as my KKG sorority sisters. Lexi, Maddie, Savannah, Kristen, Bertie—they are the OG, the Original Girls. In the words of the immortal Queen B, they are irreplaceable.
“He winky faced you,” Deidre cries.
“What?”
“Knightley,” she says. “He winky faced you.”
My cheeks flush with guilty heat. It might be Hayley’s eyeball-crossing mango marg, but for a minute I think winky face is British slang for . . . you know . . . doing the dirty, the rumpy-pumpy, or, as Tara would say, bumping uglies.
“I swear, he did not winky face me, y’all!”
Lawd, forgive me for lying to my NG (New Girls). I know the sister code requires complete honesty and candor about a few things, like weight gain, haircuts, and hookups with new boys. I swear, I am not trying to act shady. What happened with Knightley, what I am feeling about him, feels different.
Deidre holds up her iPhone, so we can see the screen.
“There, you see? Knightley said he had bourbon balls for lunch and then he put a winky face.”
“OK.” I sigh and drop my chin on my chest. “You got me. It’s true.”
Hayley and Deidre exchange looks.
“What’s true?” Hayley asks.
“Knightley—” I sigh again.
“Yes?” Hayley squeals.
Deidre sits up so fast, her margarita splashes out of her glass and onto her scarf. Why she is still wearing her scarf, I do not know.
“Knightley—”
“What about Knightley?”
“He—winky faced me.”
Hayley bursts out laughing.
“Cheeky cow,” Deidre says.
“What?” I look at her all innocent-like. “He winky faced me hard.”
Hayley keeps laughing. Deidre snorts and sticks the end of her scarf into her mouth, sucking the margarita out of the fuzzy orange fabric. I think Deidre might be a little bit tipsy. She is sucking a fuzzy orange scarf, y’all. No judgment here—but acrylic yarn can’t taste good even if it is soaked in tequila.
“Knightley is too old for Emma Lee, anyway”—Hayley leans back in her chair and pushes her bare feet toward the fireplace, wiggling her toes against the warmth—“and he dated Annalise, which is highly suspicious. I am suspicious of any man who willingly dates my half sister. That’s it! Knightley must have had a mini stroke—his advanced age puts him in the higher-risk category.”
Thirty is not that old.
Deidre pulls her scarf out of her mouth and looks at me, squinting. “He is old, isn’t he? Even if he is dead gorgeous.”
“What about you, Hayley?” I change the subject. “There must be someone you fancy?”
Her cheeks turn bright pink and she turns her head so her long, curly bangs hide half her face.
“There is someone!” I say. “Tell us.”
“Tell us!” Deidre encourages. “I promise we will not tell a soul. Will we, Emma Lee?”
“Cross my heart”—I draw an X over my heart with my finger—“hope to die.”
“John Barrington asked me out.”
John Barrington. The Cream of Wheat farmer in the rumpled-dad pants? Oh, really, Hayley, you can do much, much better than a discount Michael Fassbender in dirty work boots. Sorry-not sorry.
“It is about time!” Deidre says, leaning back and putting her slippered feet on the ottoman. “John has fancied you for a long time.”
“He has?” Hayley says, flipping back her hair.
“Remember when we were kids? He used to follow you around the village to make sure Pippa Potts and her mates didn’t take the piss out of you because of... you know.”
Not helping, Deidre. So not helping.
“Pippa Potts! What a cow.”
“Who is Pippa Potts?” I ask.
“A nasty cow,” Hayley says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Her parents made a fortune selling cloth baby nappies over the internet. They are bloody rich, is what they are. Driving around in their fancy cars, putting on airs and graces. Pippa believes she is princess of Northam and she treats everyone in it as if they are her vassals.”
“She was a nasty cow”—Deidre looks at Hayley and smiles sympathetically—“but for some reason, she was a massively heinous cow to you. I never understood it.”
“Maybe she fancied John Barrington,” I suggest.
“No, I think there is another reason,” Hayley says, taking a big drink of her confession juice. “I think my mum had an affair with her dad before I was born—nine months before.”
Deidre whistles and lets her feet fall off the ottoman.
“That would certainly explain many things,” Deidre says. “Like why she was such a nasty cow and why you both have curly blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes.”
“I am sorry Pippa Potts was so mean to you,” I say, reaching over and squeezing Hayley’s hand. “It sounds as if she was hurting something fierce and wanted to dump some of that hurt on you, even though you had nothing to do with your momma sleeping with her daddy.”
“Hear! Hear!” Deidre says, raising her empty margarita glass. “Forget Pippa the Cow. Where did John say he wanted to take you on your first date?”
“The Three Counties Agricultural Show,” Hayley says.
“Blimey!” Deidre whistles. “That is a tempting offer. What did you say?”
“I told him I would think about it,” she says, laughing. “John is a lovely man, but sometimes he can be a bit of a one-trick pony. Farming. Farming. Farming. Don’t get me wrong, I love farming, but I fancy a bit of adventure every now and again.”
“Speaking of adventure,” I say, smiling. “Did you know Brandon Nickerson climbed Mont Blanc last year?”
“Brandon Nickerson is fit,” Deidre sighs. “Isn’t he?”
“Yes, please,” Hayley says, grinning. “Brandon is quite fit.”
“You would go out with Brandon Nickerson?” I say.
“Sure! I will go out with Brandon Nickerson and Prince Harry, right after he gives Meghan Markle the heave-ho for saying she didn’t know about the Royal Family.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I.” She laughs.
“I have a great idea,” I say.
I tell them about my nondate date with Johnny Amor and ask them if they would like to go with me to London to meet him and hear him perform at the swanky speakeasy club in Fitzrovia.
“A shpeakeasy?” Deidre is slurring her words. She closes her eyes and leans her head against the back of the velvet sofa. “I want to go to a shpeakeasy and meet a fit singer named Johnny Amor.”
“Who said he was fit?” I ask.
“With a name like Johnny bloody Amor, he hash to be fit.”
“Bingley found his Instagram feed and he is superfit,” I say. “He is fit and funny and terribly clever. In fact, I was hoping to play matchmaker with him.”
“Ooo!” Deidre doesn’t open her eyes. “Who do you want to match him with?”
“You.”
“Yippee.” She tries to clap her hands but misses. “Deidre Waites and Johnny Amor. It hash a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? If we get married, I will be Deidre Waites Amore.”
For some reason, this strikes her as funny. She starts giggling. Her giggling turns into a fit of laughter that revives her. She sits up, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m Hank Marvin.” She stands and wanders into the kitchen. “Do you mind if I make a cheese and pickle sammie?”
I frown at Hayley and she tells me Hank Marvin is cockney slang for starving and sammie is sandwich.
“Help yourself,” I say, even though I think she will regret mixing her mango margarita with a cheese and pickle sammie. “The pickles are in the fridge.”
“Anyone else want a sammie?”
“No, ma’am.”
“No, thank you,” Hayley says.
“Hayley,” I say, “why don’t I invite Brandon to join us?”
“It is your knees up.”
“Knees up?”
“Party.”
“What do you say, should I invite Brandon Nickerson to my knees up?”
“Are you playing matchmaker again?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely.” I grin. “You are both hard workers who crave adventure. What do you say, fancy giving Brandon a go?”
“Fine.” She sighs.
Deidre returns with a plate of pickle and cheese sandwiches on crusty bread sprinkled with Cornish sea salt. We munch the sammies and take turns doing each other’s makeup. I spray Morrocanoil Mist on Hayley’s wild curls and give her a full face, smoky eyes, red lips, and dramatic lashes. She looks glam. Deidre gives me thick baby doll eyelashes and bright pink, Betty Boop lips. Hayley gives Deidre an eighties makeover, with frosted blue eye shadow.
“Let’s snap selfies,” I say, grabbing my iPhone.
“I look dreadful in selfies,” Deidre says.
“Not if we take one together,” I say, holding the camera high in the air and tilting it so we are all in the frame. “It has been scientifically proven that individual faces appear more attractive when presented in a group. It’s called the cheerleader effect.”
Deidre and Hayley move in close and I snap a dozen photos.
“This has been mad fun,” Hayley says, flopping back on the couch. “Is this what it was like when you lived in your sorority?”
“Yes”—I flop on the couch beside her—“when we weren’t going to classes, cramming for exams, or holding fund-raisers for our philanthropic causes.”
“I think I would like to live in a sorority,” Deidre says, squeezing in between us. “It sounds loads more fun than living with my mum. She treats me like I am still in nappies.”
“My grands are the same way,” Hayley says.
“I have a great idea!” I say, sitting up. “Why don’t you both move in with me?”
“Are you serious?” Hayley says, sitting up. “Dead serious?”
“Why not? I have four bedrooms and a teensy-tiny fear of coming home to a dark house and being stabbed with a knitting needle by a psychopath hiding in a cupboard.”
“What? How many margaritas did you drink?”
“Just kidding.” I laugh, even though I am not kidding.
“How much would you want in rent?”
I wave my hand, dismissing her words.
“You have to let me pay something.”
“Truth, y’all?” I look at both of my friends. “Normally, I would refuse your rent money, but I sold a piece of my momma’s jewelry just so I would have the money to pay the estate taxes for this place. Until my matchmaking business takes off, I need to economize. Trust me, the word economize was not in my vocabulary until I moved here.”
“So,” Hayley says. “We would be helping you by moving in?”
“Yes,” I say, my cheeks flushing with heat. “That’s not why I asked you, though.”
“I believe you, Emma Lee,” Hayley says. “When can I move in? Would next week be too soon?”
“Next week would be great!”
“What about you, Deidre?” Hayley asks, nudging Deidre.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s your mum, isn’t it?” Hayley says. “You are afraid she wouldn’t be able to manage on her own.”
“Her eyesight isn’t as bad as she pretends,” Deidre says, her voice low, as if it is the first time she has ever spoken the words aloud. “She was gutted after my dad passed, stayed in her pajamas all day, staring at the telly. People were sympathetic for the first year or two, but she kept on with the grief, feeding it like a flame she didn’t want to extinguish. I finally told her she was driving everyone away with her constant whinging and wailing. The next day, she said she thought she was going blind, that her vision was narrow and dark.”
Deidre is quiet for a long time, and I sneak a peek out of the corner of my eye to make sure she hasn’t fallen asleep, but she is just deep in thought.
“Mum will be fine.”
“Does that mean you are moving into Wood House?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely!”