Chapter 46

LU

LU COULDN’T DRIVE Maggie home because the boys were asleep upstairs. She’d wanted Maggie to call her mother, but Maggie wanted to ride home on her bike. She said she’d be fine; her bike had headlights.

“No,” said Lu. “I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you ride your bike home. Not until you have some of my chocolate Heath bar ice cream and tell me what happened.”

It came out in fits and starts at first, and then, as Maggie spoke, she became more animated, or more indignant. Poor thing.

“Oh, Maggie,” said Lu. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you think— I mean, is it possible . . . ?”

“Yes?” said Lu encouragingly. “Do I think what?” She spooned more ice cream into Maggie’s bowl.

“Never mind,” said Maggie. “It’s stupid.”

“Nothing is stupid,” said Lu. “Nothing you can say right now, right at this minute, in this house, is stupid.”

“Do you think I have a broken heart?”

It was such an in-between age, Maggie’s age. Painful from the inside, of course, to Maggie, but really rather miraculous from the outside, like watching a caterpillar emerge from its chrysalis as a butterfly. While Maggie ate, Lu studied her. Her braces. The little bit of childhood pudge left in her cheeks. Her completely adorable T-shirts that were probably mass-produced in Nepal but that Maggie firmly believed were one-of-a-kind.

Lu tried to speak carefully. She considered Maggie’s question. “I don’t think you have a broken heart. But I understand why you’re asking. I do understand.”

She understood that while Maggie’s escapade at Mohegan Bluffs seemed humorous to Lu, to Maggie it was possibly the most important thing that had happened to her that summer.

“I feel like such an idiot,” said Maggie. “What should I do?”

“I think you should go home and you should talk to your mother.”

Maggie rolled her eyes.

“You know I adore you, and the boys adore you, you’re practically part of the family. But your mom knows you best. She should be the one talking to you about this. She would want to be the one talking to you about this.”

“I doubt it,” snorted Maggie. “All she wants to do is get mad at me. She’s looking for the slightest mistake so she can jump all over it.”

“I guarantee you that’s not what she’s doing.”

Maggie pushed her ice-cream bowl away and winced.

“Maggie?” Lu asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” said Maggie. “I just bumped my wrist.”

“Let me see it.” Lu frowned at Maggie’s outstretched arm. “Hang on a second,” she said. “Is it tender here?”

“Ouch!”

“What about here?”

“Yes. Ow. Super-tender.”

“I think this might be broken. I think we need to call your mom, Maggie.”

Chapter 47

JOY

FIRST I LOSE the only boyfriend I’ve had in ages, thought Joy. Then I lose Bridezilla’s wedding. And now I’m losing my daughter. She’d also lost the half of her dinner she hadn’t had time to finish.

Maggie’s bike was leaning against the side of Lu’s cottage. Joy stomped up the steps, being careful not to look over at Anthony’s. She stood outside the door for a moment, torn between rapping loudly to display her displeasure and knocking very, very softly because Lu’s little boys might be asleep. In the end she chose in favor of the boys, and when Lu opened the door, her cute little ponytail swinging, her snub nose snubbing, Joy wanted to shake her by the throat and growl, Give me back my daughter. Thankfully she’d had only a single cocktail at dinner—a Moscow mule. She hadn’t expected to be driving tonight; any other time she would have had another, but she was very conscious of the fact that Holly was paying, and she didn’t want to be greedy.