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answer your cell phone?”
    “Honey baby! I was getting my nails done! I can’t be fooling around in my purse with wet nails!”
    “Aunt Mimi! Momma has some news!”
    “Did you get the job?”
    I nodded my head and Mimi started whooping and hugging my neck and then Lindsey’s.
    “This is the best, best news! I swear! Oh, y’all! I am so thrilled!”
    “Me too!”
    Lindsey stood on the sidelines, shaking her head.
    We carried on for a few more minutes and then we heard the front door open and close—very quietly. Gracie appeared in the kitchen, sunburned and wobbling. She was reeking of beer. There was a hickey on her neck the size of a prune.
    “Waddup?” she said.
    I was mortified and for my sister to see her behave this way was almost unspeakable. No one said a word. We simply stared at her. She must have decided she was too trashed to pass for sober because she turned to leave the room, holding on to the door for support.
    “I gotta go to ma room,” she said, “I’m grounded.”
    “This is one reason why we’re moving back here,” I said to no one in particular.
    “You need a hand with this one,” Mimi said. “She’s as drunk as a coot!”
    In the distance, as my young hellion ascended the stairs, we heard her lilting call in the music of the debauched. “Ah maight beeee shit-faaaaced, but Ah suuuure had fuuuun!”
    “I’ll make a lady out of her if it’s the last thing I ever do,” I said.
    “Good luck,” said Lindsey.
    “It might just be the last thing you ever do!” Mimi said.
    “Watch me,” I said with supreme confidence, seriously doubting that I could do a thing except to frustrate the hell out of myself. “The hopeless battle will begin as soon as she sobers up.”
    “Two are stronger than one,” Mimi said, “I’ll help.”
    Three hours passed and no word from my lovely younger daughter. No word, but plenty of snoring. Her snorts and grunts could be heard all over the hallway upstairs. Supper was ready and it was time for her to rise and join the living. Mimi and I passed each other on the steps.
    “Want me to get her up?” she said. “She’s been sawing logs forever!”
    “Yeah, I guess we have to,” I said. “Let’s go in there together.”
    We opened the door and there was my Gracie, curled up in a ball under the sheet. Her breathing was soft and even. Part of me wanted to wake her tenderly and another part of me wanted to pull her hair out by the roots. I still had to get us all packed for tomorrow’s trip and she had yet to learn about our plans.
    “She looks so innocent,” Mimi said, “like an angel.”
    “ Angel my big fat foot,” I said. “That’s Fred Breland’s child, not mine.”
    “Humph to that!” Mimi leaned over her and shook her shoulder. “Gracie? Gracie? Sugar, it’s time to get up. Come on, now. Let’s go.”
    Gracie groaned and rolled over, blinking her eyes and yawning. “Lemme sleep a little longer, ’kay? Close the door!”
    “No way, honey, you’ve got to get up now,” Mimi said. “Supper’s ready.”
    “Not hungry,” she said and rolled over again.
    There was no reason for Mimi to be so nice to her. My temper zoomed to boiling. I threw back the sheet and pulled her feet to the floor. “Get up and go wash your face,” I said, “we’ve had enough drama from you. You come home trashy drunk and with a hickey on your neck? You will not embarrass me in front of my sister for one more minute! Move it!”
    It would have seemed that the theater department should have closed for the day but as soon as we were gathered around the table (that would be champagne for three, thank you), the news of my job and our move became the topic of heated conversation.
    “Well, you can move down here if you want to,” Gracie said, “but I’m not living around a bunch of rednecks.”
    “Thank you, Gracie,” Mimi said.
    “I don’t mean you , Aunt Mimi. You know that. Look, I love my life in New Jersey and I can live with Daddy. He said