“I can’t get over the way the sky looks up here.” Charmaine wrapped her arms around herself and gazed at the stars. “Living in the city, you forget.”

“You’re going to have a bigger surprise this weekend than a sky full of pretty stars,” Krystal said smugly.

“Either spill your big secret or keep quiet about it,” Charmaine retorted. She turned to Annabelle and Molly. “Krystal keeps dropping hints about some big surprise she has planned. Do either of you know what it is?”

Annabelle and Molly shook their heads.

Krystal slipped her thumbs in the front pockets of her shorts and stuck out a set of still perky breasts. “I’ll just say this…Our Miss Charmaine might need a little therapy after I’m done with her. As for the rest of you…Just be prepared.”

“For what?” Janine approached with Sharon McDermitt and Phoebe, who’d pulled on a pink zippered hoodie with matching sweatpants and held a glass of chardonnay. Janine, with her prematurely gray pixie, artisan’s jewelry, and ankle-length block-print sundress, was coming off a bad year: the death of her mother, breast cancer, and a bad bout of writer’s block. The friendship of the book club meant everything to her. When she’d been sick, Annabelle and Charmaine had brought her meals and run errands, Phoebe had arranged for regular massages and called her daily, Krystal tended her garden, and Molly nagged her into starting to write again. Sharon McDermitt, the best listener in the group, had been her confidante. Next to Molly, Sharon was Phoebe’s best friend, and she headed the Stars’ charity foundation.

“Apparently Krystal has a secret,” Molly said, “which, as usual, she’ll reveal when she’s good and ready.”

While the rest of them speculated over what Krystal’s secret might be, Annabelle tried to figure out the best way to broach a perilous subject. Although she’d been lucky so far, she couldn’t count on her luck lasting forever, and when there was a lull in the conversation, she plunged in. “I might need a little help this weekend.”

She knew by their expectant expressions that they wanted her to explain why she’d shown up with Heath, but she wasn’t volunteering any more than she already had. She toyed with the yellow band of her Swatch daisy watch. “All of you know how much Perfect for You means to me. If I don’t make a success of this, it’ll basically prove my mother’s right about everything. And I really don’t want to be an accountant.”

“Kate puts too much pressure on you,” Sharon said, not for the first time.

Annabelle shot her a grateful smile. “Thanks to Molly, I had an interview with Heath. But the thing is, I needed to engage in a small act of subterfuge to get his name on my contract.”

“What kind of subterfuge?” Janine asked.

She took a deep breath and told them how she’d fixed him up with Gwen.

Molly gasped. “He’s going to kill you. I mean it, Annabelle. When he finds out you deceived him—and he will find out—he’ll go ballistic.”