Vivian headed down the steps toward the car, where Jimmy waited to open the door for her. Jules hurried after her. “That sort of attitude is precisely what I don’t need. How many times do I have to tell you? If a problem arises, you don’t wait for someone to fix it for you. You deal with it.”

“Deal with it? Wait.” Jules stopped dead on the last step and stared at her in utter disbelief. “Are you saying you want me to tell you when I’m upset with you?”

Because that couldn’t be right. No way. Vivian didn’t want to know when Jules was upset about the weather, much less anything important.

“I want never to have this discussion again.” Vivian looked impatiently at her. “That’s what I want. There’s no time for childishness.” Then she slid into the car.

Jules got in at the other door, welcoming the warmth and softness of the seats. It almost made up for her utter confusion. She’d just lost all the equanimity she’d managed to build up during dinner.

But she should have expected as much. Childishness? Easy for Vivian to say when everyone worked on the assumption that she’d fire them for expressing discontentment.

Jules glanced at Vivian, who was making a great show of looking in her handbag. Jimmy pulled away from the curb.

“Uh, sorry,” Jules said.

“Mm,” Vivian said without looking up.

“I’ll try and be more…direct.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And you won’t get mad at me?” Jules pressed because it seemed important to clear that up.

Vivian whisked a small mirror from her bag and peered into it. She prodded the skin beneath her eye. “The facialist wasn’t too bad.”

“Vivian—”

She snapped the mirror shut. “What did I just say?”

It was clearly a rhetorical question. Jules was too stunned to answer anyway, and they were silent for the rest of the ride home.

Well, mostly silent. As Jimmy pulled up to the curb, Vivian asked, “So how much of that Christmas pudding ended up on your hips?” She gave Jules an arch look.

Oh. A test as to how she could handle Vivian being a jerk? Jules lifted her chin and remembered how the red jumpsuit clung to her curves. “My hips, uh, look so good I can pretend I didn’t even hear you say that.”

Vivian lowered her eyes to half-mast and seemed bored.

“Oh, come on,” Jules protested. “That was okay, right? I’ve never tried to clap back at you before!” As if she had witty comebacks lined up to prove she could give as good as she got.

“Well,” Vivian sighed, “I guess you can’t be good at everything.”

Chapter 18

Chapter 18