“Let’s think about this a minute,” Elle said. “Our Bailey makes a good point.”

“Maybe not Elliott. But I bet someone like Griffin would really appreciate it,” Reggie piped in authoritatively. I hope I concealed the big grin I was wearing on the inside. How wrong these poor girls were.

“Totally,” Elle agreed. “Griffin would definitely be old-school. Elliott strikes me as a down-to-business person.”

“Are you saying that we don’t have to shop at all?” I asked.

“No way. You’re not getting out of our little shopping adventure that easily,” Elle admonished.

“Why don’t we go Sunday after I get out of church and hit Saks’s lingerie department first?” Reggie proposed.

When Sunday came and the elevator doors opened to the lingerie department at Saks, I froze. Almost the entire enormous floor was dedicated to women’s underthings. “Oh my Lord. This is like Lady World on steroids,” I said in amazement. My eyes tried to take it all in.

“Are you looking at the merchandise, or your vision thing?” Reggie deduced.

“Sorry. Occupational hazard,” I admitted. But my eyes had already landed on something definitely feminine.

“Let’s pick out something red. How about red, Bailey?” Elle suggested.

“No. I don’t like red. I don’t feel good in red,” I said, and Elle backed off.

But I was already walking toward the nightgown I had spied earlier. It was beautiful. It was long and silky and mint green. If you could touch something as inanimate as a nightgown lovingly, that is the way I touched it.

“I like this one,” I said.

“For my mother,” Elle exaggerated. “Not for you. You need something sexy.”

“I want something long and flowy. I want something feminine and romantic. Like this.” I pulled the nightgown off the rack in my size to get a better look.

“Did you hear that, Reggie? I think hell is freezing over, or is that our little Bailey growing into a woman?”

“I think it’s pretty,” Reggie said and hugged me. Then she slipped me a naughty black number.

Four hours later, I left Saks with enough bags and undergarments to get me through the next century. I was in complete shock at the price of what “barely nothing” and flimsy lace cost. Outside, I had agreed to take them to dinner for all their help. “Thank you, guys. You are the best friends ever.” Elle gave me a high five, and Reggie gave me a hug, the kind of absorbing hug a mother would give a child, so tight you couldn’t see where one person ended and the other began.

Chapter Eighteen

Two weeks later, a month before I was to go home, I received a call from Henry. Daddy was in the hospital after suffering a fall. He was disoriented. In addition to motor impairment on his left side, Daddy had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

“I’ll come home immediately. Who’s looking after little Hank and the restaurants?” I asked, although the answer seemed pretty clear to me.