Chapter 32

After dinner, Sam joined her sisters on the porch to share a cigarette. She leaned in to block the air as Tracy lit up while Angela flanked her other side. Each of them took a long drag before passing it on.

“Oh, I needed that,” Tracy, who at forty was the oldest, said as she exhaled a steady stream of smoke. She shared Sam’s height but had held on to ten extra pounds after each of her three children.

Angela, at thirty-six, had bounced right back to her svelte shape after giving birth to her son Jack five years earlier.

The door swung open, and Angela stashed the cigarette behind her back.

“Mom, Jack is walking back and forth in front of the TV and won’t stop,” whined fifteen-year-old Brooke, brimming with indignation. Her long dark hair, bright blue eyes and porcelain skin gave her a delicate beauty that was a source of great consternation to her parents as the boys began to take an avid interest in her.

“Sorry,” Angela said. “I’ll get him.”

Tracy stopped her sister and said to her daughter, “Turn off the TV and spend some time with your cousin. All he wants is your attention.”

In a huff, Brooke stomped back inside.

“Sorry about that,” Angela said. “He loves being with the kids.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tracy said. “They watch enough TV at home. They don’t need to do it here, too.”

The door opened again, and this time Sam stashed the cigarette behind her back when she saw it was Nick.

“I was wondering where you all had disappeared to, and your father suggested I check the front porch where I’d find the three of you sharing a cigarette that you think no one knows about. I said, ‘What do you mean, Skip? Samantha doesn’t smoke.’”

Behind her back, Sam transferred the cigarette to Angela in a move they had perfected over the years. She smiled at Nick. “Of course I don’t smoke. Did you need me?”

“I was going to ask if you’d mind if we go to my place tonight.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll be in shortly, and we can take off.”

“Okay.”

The moment the door closed behind him, Angela took a drag off the dwindling cigarette. “Mmm. Hubba hubba.”

Her sisters stared at her.

“Did you seriously just say ‘hubba hubba’?” Tracy asked.

“Well, come on. He’s yummy. And did he call you Samantha?”

Sam shrugged as her cheeks heated with embarrassment. “He likes to call me that.”

“You must really dig him to put up with that,” Ang said. “How’s the sex?”

“Angela!” Tracy said.

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t want to know, too.”

They waited expectantly for Sam.

“It’s…you know…amazing.”