Read Secrets Everybody Knows for Free Online Page B

expect from her? Yesterday she’d only managed a few phone calls.
    “Good morning, hon. How are you doing today?” Judy asked.
    Elaine decided it wasn’t a personal question and discarded the first answer she came up with. “I’m fine. How are you doing?”
    “Real good. Real good. You here to meet the others?”
    “If you mean Lily, yes.”
    “Oh, that’s right. Beth was taking this year off. You know, I saw her with Nonie and Jean and Nonie’s grandson just the other day. He’s a fine-looking young man. Did you know he was the one involved in that real estate corruption thing in Atlanta?”
    Judy kept talking, but Elaine stopped listening. She just didn’t have the patience to be that polite today. Before long, Judy was distracted by someone else walking through the door and Elaine escaped to the table Lily liked.
    Waiting there were Lily and George, both of them beaming. “Guess what!” Lily shrieked.
    “You’re getting married.” Elaine regretted the comment before Lily answered.
    “What? To George? No!” Lily laughed.
    George lost a couple of inches in height.
    “George fixed the steam tables.” Lily threw her arm over his shoulders. “He’s my personal hero.”
    George regained those inches.
    “That’s great, George,” Elaine said. One of these days Lily was going to find out about George’s not-so-secret crush and she was going to be mortified by the way she treated him. Elaine no longer cared to see it. The whole thing just seemed stupid. Lily’s unending search for the perfect man and George’s unrequited passion for her. All either one of them had to do was ask, and everything would resolve in a shower of rice or birdseed or whatever it was they threw at weddings these days.
    Elaine decided she needed to avoid the whole subject or she was going to tell them in very brutal terms that they were both being idiots. Instead, she addressed the topic of another stupid person in town. “I talked to Archie last night.” Talked? She had lectured him like he was one of her eighth graders for forty-five minutes. “He’s going to make sure everybody gets paid in a timely manner this year.” If it was possible to get a hangover from too much ice cream, she had one.
    “Great.” Lily scanned her list. “You were going to make some phone calls yesterday. How did you do?”
    Elaine took out her own list and worked through it. She couldn’t summon any enthusiasm, though. The whole festival felt like a pointless waste of energy. Maybe it was time to look into a new career. Teaching a bunch of kids who did their best to forget everything she said as soon as possible wasn’t what she wanted out of life. Right now she couldn’t think what she did want, but she hoped that would come later. Somewhere in the middle of the list, she ordered food. George’s phone rang once and he informed them that someone was looking at the buses. The food arrived and it was uncharacteristically bland. Elaine ate it because she couldn’t think of anything better to do while she listened to Lily rattle off a new to-do list. Beth wasn’t there to joke about being an executive assistant and George didn’t know the lines.
    She wanted to go home and crawl back in bed with Ben and Jerry.
    “Listen, as much fun as this has been, I should get going.” Elaine stood up. “I have a couple of errands to run before I tackle festival stuff.” More ice cream and alcohol of some sort. Wine always tasted like battery acid. She had to be picking the wrong stuff. Guinness was out. Just because she was feeling dark and bitter didn’t mean she wanted to drink dark and bitter. Her sister had loads of experience getting hammered. Kitty would be able to recommend something strong enough to forget how it tasted.
    “Ugh, me too.” Lily stood up. “I have to mow my lawn before I need to use a scythe.”
    “I can do that for you,” George offered.
    “No, I’m a home owner now. I have to learn to do these things myself.” Lily