Read Ladies' Night for Free Online

suddenly returning to her normal, logical self. “I guess it got kind of hot in that garage, while she was…”
    “Giving him a blow job?” Rochelle said helpfully.
    “Yeah. In the front seat of the Audi.”
    “I also can’t believe Ben just let you drive it into the pool,” Rochelle said. “How exactly did that happen?”
    “I can’t discuss that right now,” Grace said, staring moodily into her iced tea glass. “It makes my head hurt.”
    Rochelle reached behind the bar for the industrial-sized bottle of ibuprofen she kept there, shook two into her hand, and handed them to her daughter.
    “Thanks,” Grace said, swallowing the pills. “Have you got any food around here? I’ve always heard that heartbreak kills your appetite, but I haven’t eaten in twelve hours, and, I swear, I could gnaw my arm off right now.”
    Rochelle pushed one of the plastic laminated menus across the bar.
    Grace looked down at the Sandbox menu, which, as far as she knew, hadn’t changed in at least fifteen years. “Buffalo wings. Stuffed potato skins. Stuffed potato skins with Buffalo-wing sauce. Onion rings. Fried oysters. Fried shrimp.” She looked up at her mother. “Seriously? How are you still alive, eating this stuff all this time?”
    “I don’t eat this crap,” Rochelle said, nonplussed. “You kidding me? I’d be big as a damned house.”
    She allowed herself a satisfying glance in the mirror over the back bar. At fifty-nine, Rochelle was proud of her still-trim figure. She took good care of herself, slathered herself with sunscreen before taking her two-mile walk along Bradenton Beach every morning, colored her hair a soft brown at home, and allowed herself a single glass of heart-healthy red wine or the occasional beer most evenings. She’d quit her pack-a-day smoking when Grace was still a baby, and her doctor said she had the bone density of an eighteen-year-old.
    “I microwave myself a nice Lean Cuisine for dinner, usually. And for breakfast, I juice.”
    “You juice? As a verb?”
    “Don’t get snotty with me,” Rochelle said. She nodded at the oversized Oster blender on the back bar. “Felipe, this real nice Mexican guy, comes in here with his soccer team on Sundays, his mom runs a produce stand at the Red Barn, and he brings me all kinds of fresh produce. Spinach, kale, chayote, strawberries, pineapples, mangoes. Herbs, too. I like mint and ginger. I put it in with everything.”
    “That doesn’t sound too bad, actually,” Grace admitted. “You got anything like that you could fix up for me? Not kale,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “But any of that other stuff?”
    “Sorry,” Rochelle said. “I used up the last of the fresh stuff this morning. I could maybe make you a sandwich. Would a BLT offend your delicate sensibilities?”
    “That’d be great,” Grace said, resting her cheek against the bar and folding her arms over her head. Her shoulders heaved, and she let out a muffled sob. It was the first time Rochelle had seen her cry since she was a teenager, and it wrenched her heart just as it had back then.
    Rochelle hesitated, but then reached over and smoothed her daughter’s mussed hair. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll fix this. We’ll figure it out.”
    Grace raised her head and looked at Rochelle, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Fix it? That’s exactly what Ben said, ‘we can fix this.’ And then he admitted it wasn’t the first time. How do we figure this out, Mom? I loved him. I thought he loved me. But it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. What do I do now?”
    Rochelle handed her a paper towel. “Blow your nose. Dry your tears. Eat something. And then we’ll call your Uncle Dennis and take the bastard to the cleaners.”
    “Uncle Dennis is a real estate lawyer,” Grace said, sniffling. “He doesn’t do divorces.”
    “No, but he’s been divorced twice himself, so he’ll know who we should call, and who we should avoid.”
    Grace took a gulp of tea. “I’m