“Of course I’ll call. That’s my job. But not until we’re down the mountain. I’ll drop you both at home. I know you have a dinner tonight and you probably want to rest, Mrs. Blakeman. A little jet lag may be setting in. I’ll head back to the office and get to work on alternatives before I call Penny. Everything will work out,” Madison concluded, giving herself the pep talk that Alexa often used with clients.

Everything will work out.

Abigail sat in the back of the car, eating her oatmeal chocolate chip cookie from the box lunch and saying nothing. These two accomplished women seemed afraid of Penny, she thought. And it made her smile. That and the fact that she had secured a rehearsal dinner spot with ease. She felt a tiny bit smug. And exhausted.

*  *  *

“And here she is!” Ming announced as Sarah finally arrived home nearly a full day after her Not a Date began, in a new set of UCSB shorts and a matching tee, fresh sweatshirt wrapped around her waist. She held a Trader Joe’s paper bag in her hand, presumably holding the raspberry dress and the shawl inside. Ming and Abigail lay out by the pool. Abigail recovering from the venue site visits and Ming doing the New York Times crossword puzzle and filling her houseguest in on the local gossip like the dress code policy change at the clubhouse allowing denim on the property during the day (“And so begins the decline . . .”). Sarah’s arrival signaled a change in tone and beverages, and Ming wanted all the details in the hour they had before Alexa arrived to take them to dinner. “Don’t say a thing. I want all the details. But for that we need gin and tonics. I’ll text Mariah.”

Mariah was the weekend housekeeper, and she arrived in moments with three cocktails with plenty of ice, and lime from the backyard tree, on a silver tray. By that time, Sarah had flopped down on a lounge chair, looking to her mother like the cat who ate the canary. Or whatever the vegan version of that expression might be.

“Tell us everything,” Ming encouraged, handing Sarah a glass.

“That was the best twenty-four hours of my life,” she said without hesitation, and then became self-conscious that her mother was there. Texting her saucy details to declare her independence was one thing, but describing them in person was another, so she pivoted. “Except the time UConn made it to the field hockey final four and we beat Princeton in overtime. That was a great day, too.”

But a breathless Ming, who was asking all the questions that Abigail would never dream of asking her children, was determined to get the details out of Sarah, who had been completely wrong about the Not a Date bit. “Start from the beginning. What did he smell like?”

“Ming!” the Blakeman women said at the same time.