Mitzi headed down the short hall to her bedroom, left the door open, and raised her voice as she changed into a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants and a T-shirt. “I think he’s just grateful that I told the girls they could come to the shop for half a day through the summer.”

Paula was sitting in a rocking chair with a glass of iced sweet tea in her hands when Mitzi made it back to the living room. “My mama called, too, mainly to fuss at me because I didn’t sit with her in church. But I got the news about us having dinner with Graham, too. Wanda called her as soon as she could. What is it with old women and gossip? We’re not going to be like that, are we?”

“Hell, no!” Jody sat down in the middle of the floor. “We should make a pact to never get old or trust a man.”

“You’ve got a bed right there,” Mitzi asked. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

“I’m all sweaty and dirty. Don’t want to mess up the sheets.” Jody handed her the beer from the end table and patted the floor. “I’m glad we had dinner with Graham. It took the heat off me for a little while.”

Mitzi sat down and leaned back against a recliner. She took a long drink from the can and then set it on an end table. “Lyle marries someone else. I’ve been seeing Graham on the sly. What kind of drama can you add to that, Paula?”

Paula pushed her dark hair behind her ears. She’d wanted to tell them that she was pregnant for weeks, but the timing was never right. At first she didn’t want them to think she couldn’t hold up her part of the business, and then this past week, when she decided she absolutely had to say something, thinking about it had upset her stomach. Then Jody called with the news that Lyle had married his pregnant girlfriend, and she sure couldn’t say anything then. She and Mitzi needed to be there for Jody during that time, and that still wasn’t over. But was now the right time?

“She’s taking a long time to answer. Makes me wonder if she’s dreaming up some fake news to make us laugh,” Jody said.

“Like she’s going to try to convince us that she’s got a secret boyfriend, and she really isn’t going to book club once a month or taking off work an hour early to help her mother but she’s sneaking out to see him,” Mitzi giggled.

Jody joined her in what started off as a giggle but turned into infectious laughter, and then she got the hiccups. “Paula can’t keep a secret. She’s always told us everything. If she had a boyfriend, she would be smiling all the time.”