Then that titter changed as they watched Ada cut miniscule slivers and put them on the paper plates with the big blue teddy bear on them.

There you go.

That was Ada.


She told me how many people were coming so I made a fourteen inch, four layer cake, plenty for everyone to have a nice, thick slice. But Ada was cutting slivers so she could have half a cake as leftovers for her and Vic.

I sighed, wondering what the heck I was doing there at all since three years ago when Ada met Vic and, because she was thirty-six and her biological clock was ticking so loud the personnel at NORAD were tracking it, she immediately dedicated herself to the sacred quest of making him her fiancé then her husband and now the man who was the father of her unborn child, Ada pretty much checked out of my life. She called me to make the cake for her engagement party then for her bridal shower, her wedding and now this. Only two of those cakes she paid me for and she asked for (and stupid me, I gave her) a discount on both. I’d only seen her on those occasions and all of them required me bringing a present. Other than that, Ada was all about sculpting (with chisel and hammer if she had to) Vic into the perfect suburban husband, wedding planning, house hunting, house decorating and baby making. She didn’t have time to be a friend unless it was to call on all of us to buy her presents and celebrate milestones of her life.

I didn’t even think she sent me a Christmas card last year.

And I had my own milestone to think about, I didn’t need to be here.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a milestone. But whatever it was it was a big, huge stinking deal because no way that scene with Brock “Slim” Lucas in my kitchen was not a big, huge stinking deal.

I knew it.

I started thinking about how and when I could get out of there while handing around plates with slivers of cake and baby blue plastic forks on them but when I gave one to the woman sitting beside me and she muttered an annoyed, “Muthafucka.”

As it would, this surprised me so I looked at her to see her staring down at her nearly transparent slice of cake and I was right, she appeared annoyed.

I didn’t know her but had met her that day. Her name was Elvira, mocha skin, hair in stylish crop with blonde highlights at the long bangs, fabulous tangerine top that showed even more fabulous cleavage, skintight skirt that showed this baby had back and she would have been shorter than me if she wasn’t wearing four inch, killer, stiletto-heeled sandals. She came to the party with a cadre of beauties, all of whom I’d met in passing before at Ada’s milestone “celebrate me” celebrations, a knockout blonde named Gwen, a tall, svelte, modelesque blonde named Tracy and another modelesque, tall, svelte African American named Camille.

But I’d never met Elvira.

“How do you know Ada?” I asked and her eyes came to me.

“Don’t know the bitch and don’t wanna know a bitch who puts out bowls of peanuts, no honey roast, no salt, just motherfuckin’ peanuts with the motherfuckin’ skins still on them and some corn chips for a party and then she gives me a sliver of cake. Shit. What? Crazy,”

she replied and I stared at her mainly because her answer was crazy. Honest, but crazy.

Then I asked, “You crashed a baby shower?”

“No. Got dragged here by Beanpole,” she jerked her head at the tall, svelte, modelesque Tracy. “She didn’t wanna come alone. Gwen and Cam didn’t wanna come at all. I’m seein’

now why. Trace has got a heart of gold but no capacity to get it when people walk all over her, even when they’re doin’ it in high heels. She talked us into it with promises of employee discounts at her store. She works at Neiman’s.”

“Mm hmm,” I mumbled, thinking that would do it. There was a time in my life when I’d go to a really bad baby shower with the promise of an employee discount at Neiman’s. That time was over, though. As I had done frequently through the years, starting at around age six, I’d entered a new phase in my life. This one was one where Christian Louboutin didn’t factor but Harley Davidson did.

As I was thinking this, she suddenly and bizarrely announced, “Done with this shit. Let’s have cocktails.”

Then before I could open my mouth, she shot up to standing, grabbed her enormous purse that clunked and clinked when she did, hefted it up on her shoulder, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the couch.

Then she declared loudly, “Smoke break!” and everyone’s eyes came to us, some of them shocked seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death. But most of the eyes were envious and probably not because they smoked, probably because they, like me and obviously Elvira, wanted to escape.

“Smoke break?” Ada asked, her face twisted in revulsion.

“Yeah, back deck okay?” Elvira asked but didn’t wait for an answer. She started tugging me to the sliding glass doors at the back of Ada’s picture perfect suburban home while jerking her chin at her posse.

I had no choice but to go but I did manage to bug my eyes out at Martha as I went; my nonverbal invitation for her to get her ass up and follow. I’d known Martha since we were in fifth grade. I moved out to Denver to be with Martha. Before marrying Damian, I lived with Martha. After leaving Damian I again lived with Martha. Therefore Martha read my nonverbal invitation and got her ass up.

“Ice,” I heard Elvira order, Tracy nodded and peeled off as Elvira tugged me out the door.

Then she let my hand go and sashayed to the picture perfect lawn furniture on the deck, folded then shoved my slice of cake in her mouth all in one go (though, it was so small, this wasn’t hard). Then she dropped the plate to the table, plonked down her massive purse which again clinked and clunked and, as I watched in unconcealed astonishment, she started unearthing the ingredients for cosmopolitans (including stainless steel cocktail shaker) from her purse as Martha, Gwen, Camille and I rounded the table.

“Ohmigod, I’m so gonna kill Tracy for this. I didn’t like Ada even before that bitch hooked up with Vic. But this party is so bad, if ex-prisoners of war attended it, they’d reminisce nostalgically about the days shit was shoved up their fingernails,” Camille muttered.

“Have you seen Vic?” Gwen asked Camille and got a head shake to her question so she continued, “Shadow of his former self. He used to live and breathe Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies and his vintage Chevy Chevelle. Now he’s wearing button-downs instead of Elway jerseys and driving a minivan and Ada hasn’t even popped that kid out yet.”

“Poor Vic,” Martha muttered.

“Poor Vic, my ass,” Elvira stated while pouring vodka in her shaker. “Needs to man up, take charge of his woman.” Her eyes sliced through Camille and Gwen and she proclaimed,

“You bitches know what I’m sayin’.”

Both “bitches” nodded in a way I found interesting since they clearly did know what she was saying and I did not and wanted to know more but before I could ask I heard the sliding glass door open. I twisted to look as it closed and saw the gorgeous, glamorous Tracy carrying two big glasses filled with ice strutting out like she was on a catwalk and not on a picture perfect back deck.

“Okay, just gotta say, I’m glad we’re out here because I wanna know what the frig is up with you.” I heard Martha say and I looked to her to see she was looking at me and therefore talking to me.

This was probably not good.


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, 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 and 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 dreamworld.”

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.

At this point Martha looked to the beauty parade of women around the table and shared,

“She got hooked up with this guy… hot and when I say hot I mean,” she licked her finger then sliced it through the air making a sizzle noise and went on, “smokin’ hot. But bad news.”

It was safe to say I didn’t want to talk about this at all but it was safer to say that I didn’t want to talk about this drinking clandestine cosmos on Ada’s picture perfect back deck with a bunch of women I didn’t know during a very badly hosted baby shower I didn’t want to be at but instead I wanted to be home preparing for nine o’clock when Brock would be back and we would be talking.

Therefore, I started, “Martha –”

“No, girl,” Martha cut me off, lifting a hand in my face to which Elvira muttered, “Oh shit, this is serious. She’s givin’ the hand.”

Martha continued, dropping her hand and looking back at the bevy of beauties. “This guy had it all, the walk, the voice, the hair, the ass, kid you not, I’d sell my soul just to run my fingers along his forearms,” she leaned in and semi-whispered, “he’s got these veins that pop out on his hands and forearms, freaking delicious. ”

Oh jeez.

Totally paid attention.

“Mm hmm, I hear you,” Elvira and Tracy muttered in unison, their eyes rapt on Martha’s face as were Gwen’s but Camille was looking at me.

Martha went on. “But did he take her to his pad? No. Did she know where he worked? No.

Did she meet any of his friends? No. Family? Unh-unh. Always her place or some dive.

Never a nice meal. Never got dressed up and took my girl on the town. He met her friends.

He showed up at her bakery. But for all she knows, he’s a lone wolf livin’ off his family’s inheritance and, from what I could tell, it wasn’t a generous one. If he called, she answered.

She couldn’t and he left a message, she called straight back. He wanted to meet, she asked where and what time and then she was there.”

“Oh boy,” Gwen muttered, clearly disappointed I’d let down our side.

“You got that right. Oh boy, ” Martha agreed . “Did she listen to me when I told her to play it cool? No. Did she listen to me when I said in four months you should see your man’s pad, at the very least meet a friend, just one? No. I get it. She was into this dude. Hell, Melissa Etheridge would be into this dude. He’s the walking, talking, breathing definition of a dude you… would… be… into. But a girl’s gotta play it cool and not put herself out there.”