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stressful. I remember Vivi, reading every book out there then shouting, “ I have no idea what this is even talking about!” Then she’d throw the book down on the table in anxiety-filled huff. Now I knew just how she felt.
    Suddenly the back door flung wide open and Bonita appeared. “Hey ladies! Y’all hungry for lunch? We got it ready to go and I saw your car up here Blake? How’s my little mama?” She stretched across the table to give me a big Bonita hug.
    “She’s a nervous wreck,” Vivi answered for me. “But I just got Tallulah back to sleep and I’m starved.”
    “Good. Arthur wants to bring it up himself. Says he hadn’t seen his Blake in far too long and so he’ll be up here in a jiffy,” she said with a smile. She turned her ample hips with a grin and headed back into the cold.
    Arthur was wonderful and his new BBQ business was fixin’ to franchise all over town. The Moonwinx was a dream of his and he dove right in, with Bonita Baldwin by his side. Arthur was older, in his middle 50s and of African American descent. He had always been the gardener but at Christmastime, Vivi discovered he was her blood cousin and the real owner of the plantation. He deeded it back to Vivi for Christmas but she gave him back all the property for his business. So now, they were pretty much co-owners of the entire property.
    Arthur was Vivi’s only family and she was his too. They had always been each other’s. Vivi’s dad had died and her mother spent much of Vivi’s young life in and out of institutions. She was very sickly all of Vivi’s life. I have always been Vivi’s sister—well since she and I decided we would be sisters from the first day we met in third grade at St. Catherine’s Catholic School. And in eighth grade we created The Sassy Belles with our other good friend, Rhonda Cartwright. But she moved away that summer. Vivi and I are still Sassy Belles to the inth degree.
    Bonita is a plus-sized African American doll, and we just loved her from the get-go. We made her a Sassy Belle right away when she and Arthur got serious. She was still the assistant homicide investigator and worked full-time with Sonny but I knew in my heart she was madly in love with Arthur and I told Sonny she’d quit before we knew it to help Arthur build that business if he needed her.
    “My, heavens above! Let me see that!” I shouted, grabbing her hand and bringing it under my face.
    “When did this happen?”
    “Yeah, when were you gonna tell me ?” Vivi looked hurt and left out. Arthur was her only family and she felt entitled to be the first to know.
    “It just happened last night. We were gonna tell y’all tonight. Arthur was so cute. I just love that man like nobody’s business,” Bonita gleamed.
    “Well, honey I am so happy for y’all! Vivi jumped up and threw her arms around Bonita’s neck.
    “Thank y’all, I am totally over the moon!” Bonita had a permanent grin stretched across her beautiful face. “I said yes, in case you couldn’t tell.” She threw her head back and laughed a deep rolling laugh as she waved her hand around like a movie star.
    She and Arthur were great together. And their BBQ was quickly becoming legendary. Especially on game days and cold Saturdays. People were lining up all the way down the plantation drive to get those succulent ribs and heavenly peach cobbler.
    Bonita stuck her head back in the door, “Blake, Sonny got some news today and he just called my cell. He’s been trying to reach you all morning.”
    “Damn, I guess I left my cell in the car.”
    “I’ll go get it. You need to just stay put,” Vivi said. “Watch Tallulah for me.”
    “What’s going on?” I asked Bonita.
    “You’ll never guess where that old man had been. You know that one Sonny’s been investigating that was found dead at the wheel of his car the other night?”
    “Yeah, where?”
    “Seems like he had been playing strip poker with a hooker out at the trailer park.”
    “The trailer