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half-piece of French toast. “The best time of my life was when we moved in here,” she said reminiscently. “Well, except for when my children were born, of course.”
    “And you still look ten years younger,” Paul declared and raised his juice glass in a toast. “To old friends,” he said, “and new beginnings.”
    “To your grand adventure,” added Cici as she raised her glass.
    Glasses clinked and then Paul noticed the time. He and Derrick finished their breakfasts hurriedly and hugged both cooks before they left, promising to return in plenty of time for the traditional New Year’s feast of black-eyed peas and roast pork loin. The ladies sat at the table for a while after they were gone, nibbling at leftovers and sipping coffee, talking about how much fun it was going to be to have their friends around more often and debating just how easily the sophisticated gentlemen from Baltimore would adjust to life in rural Virginia.
    Then Cici said, “You know something? I envy them.”
    “Me, too,” said Lindsay with a sigh. “That house sounds gorgeous.”
    “Our house is gorgeous,” Bridget objected.
    “Except for the roof,” Lindsay said.
    “We’ll fix the roof. We always fix things.”
    “It’s not that,” Cici said thoughtfully, sipping her coffee. “I mean, look at them. Look at Lori. Look what they have planned for the year. Lori’s getting married. Paul and Derrick are building a house. And what are we doing?”
    “Fixing the roof?” suggested Lindsay.
    Cici gave her an impatient look. “Growing tomatoes. Reading a book. Making soap.”
    “Those are good things,” Bridget said defensively. “Those are the kinds of things we moved here to do.”
    Lindsay glanced at Bridget with a wry smile. “But she’s right. Not very adventurous.”
    “Well, what do you want to do? Raft the Amazon?”
    “I just don’t want to sit around and watch other people starting brand new lives while I’m looking back on mine,” Cici said. “That’s not why we moved here.” She drew in a determined breath and pushed back from the table with both hands. “This year,” she declared, “I want to do something important, too. Something big. Something ambitious.”
    A slow consternation crept into the faces of her two friends. “Like what?” asked Lindsay cautiously.
    Bridget added, “I was only kidding about the Amazon, you know.”
    Cici frowned with a sharp mixture of impatience and uncertainty as she gathered up the dishes nearest her and took them to the sink. “I don’t know. Something.”
    Bridget said, “Making soap is something.”
    “Something significant.”
    Ida Mae took the dishes from Cici and plopped them into a sink full of soapy water. They had a dishwasher, but Ida Mae refused to use it. “Y’all need to tend to your roof,” she advised, “and leave the adventuring to the young folks.”
    “Paul and Derrick are the same age we are,” Cici pointed out. “Adventures come in all shapes and sizes.”
    Lindsay took the bowl of leftover fruit salad to the work island, where she transferred it to a plastic storage container. “Maybe we could take a trip,” she suggested.
    Bridget carried the rest of the dishes to the sink. “Who would take care of the animals?”
    “We don’t need a trip,” Cici said. “We need a plan.”
    “We’ve got a wedding to plan,” Bridget pointed out. “And two graduations, and a roof to repair, and a kid to get off to college. Not to mention a garden to plant and fruit trees to prune and berry bushes to net and a flock of sheep, a goat, a dog, a deer, and chickens to take care of. Isn’t that enough? And,” she added, almost under her breath, “I’m still going to learn how to make goat’s milk soap.”
    The book Paul and Derrick had given them lay on the counter where Cici left it when she brought the last of the champagne glasses to the dishwasher the night before. She ran her hand over the cover absently, then thumbed a few