Martha was Elvira’s height, which was to say five foot four. She was also now taller than me, for I was wearing a pair of flip-flops with a black base and glittery silver on the straps and she was wearing a pair of platform pumps with a six-inch heel and two-inch platform. She was rounded just right, and had curly dark brown hair that looked fabulous against her pale skin and bright blue eyes.

She also knew me better than anyone in this world (or, at least, the parts I let her know). She was always late. She was always in a tizzy. Her life was always filled with drama. But I loved her and she loved me, always and forever, no matter what. I’d been through the thick and the thin with her, all of it, and there was a lot of it, riding her killer waves, holding her hand the whole time. She was grateful for it and didn’t have a problem with letting that show.

That said, although she could be immensely gentle, insightful, and thoughtful, that didn’t mean when she had something to say, even if that something might be uncomfortable, she didn’t say it.

Which I was getting the sense she was gearing up to do now.

So I asked a fake innocent, “What?”

“What?” she asked back, not buying my fake innocent for a second and I knew this when her eyebrows shot up and she kept speaking. “Girl, I walked into your house and you had a face… a face…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what was up with your face and you still got that face.”

Then, as if I didn’t know what a face was, she lifted a finger and jabbed it toward mine, going on as she dropped it.

“All I know is, three months you’ve been hell on wheels, no one could keep up with you, and now you look all foggy, like you’re living in a dream world.”

Damn.

I really needed to remember that even as Martha lived out her ever-present drama, that didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

“Sure you do,” Elvira stated, dumping ice into her cocktail shaker.

“Uh…” I mumbled to Elvira, a little surprised since I’d met her an hour before and she couldn’t know anything about me, especially not about this.

“I got the gift,” Elvira informed me, answering my unasked question. “Can read people’s faces.” She topped the cocktail shaker and started shaking. “And yours is sayin’ you know exactly what your homegirl is talkin’ about.”

Oh crap.

I felt all eyes on me but it was Martha who spoke next.

“All right, Tess, I backed off because you know I did not like that Jake. But that look on your face, I’m done backing off.”

Oh crap.