LAVONNE PICKED EADIE UP AT THE AIRPORT ON WEDNESDAY evening and they stopped just south of Atlanta for dinner. Eadie seemed restless and quiet, like she had something on her mind but didn't want to talk about it. Lavonne had known her long enough to know that it was no good pushing her; Eadie would talk when she was ready.

They went to bed early, and when Lavonne got home from work the next day, Eadie was standing in the kitchen holding a metal cocktail shaker. Something that smelled wonderful bubbled in the pot on the stove behind her.

“What are you making?” Lavonne said, lifting the lid.

“Jambalaya. I learned to make it in New Orleans. It's all I know how to cook.” Eadie looked better than she had the night before, more rested and less somber. She was wearing a pair of corduroy jeans and a V-necked sweater that showed off her good figure to full advantage. Her feet were bare.

Lavonne said, “How come you're addicted to Mondo Logs and you still look like that?”

Eadie grinned. “Look who's talking,” she said. “Sit your skinny ass down at the bar and I'll pour you a drink.”

Lavonne sat down. “What are we having?”

Eadie flourished the shaker like a Japanese hibachi chef wielding a Hiromoto knife. “Pomegranate martinis.” She took two frosted martini glasses out of the freezer and sat them on the counter in front of Lavonne, filling each with the pale-pink liquid. “Cheers,” she said, handing a glass to Lavonne.

“Damn, that's good,” Lavonne said, sipping. “Where'd you get the shaker?”

“I brought it from home.”

“What does that say about you, Eadie, that you travel with your own martini shaker?”

Eadie sipped her drink. “It says I like the ritual of cocktail hour. I like everything about it, the funny little glasses, the gleaming metal shaker, the routine of drinking at the same time every day. Cocktail hour is a holdover from our parents' generation. Why did we ever give it up?”

“Our generation had drugs. We didn't need martinis.”

“True.” Eadie put her drink down and went over to the pot to stir the jambalaya. “I called Nita. She's coming over for dinner. She made me promise this wasn't some crazy ploy to give her a bachelorette party, but I told her it was just you and me.”

“And she agreed to come? Silly girl. Quick, let's call some strippers.”

Eadie put the lid on the pot and turned around. “She sounds like she needs a night out. Don't you two see much of each other anymore?” She leaned against the stove with one arm draped across her stomach and the other one holding her drink.

“Not really.” Lavonne sipped her martini. “I hate to say it, on account of you getting a big head and all, but it's not the same since you left town.”

Eadie colored slightly. She smiled. “Well, we'll have to make up for lost time,” she said.

The timer went off and Eadie took the rice off the heat and stuck a loaf of French bread into the oven. Lavonne watched her work, feeling lazy and relaxed. The vodka had gone straight to her brain and she had a nice buzz going. “Are you sure you don't need any help?” she said to Eadie.

“Nope.” Eadie took the top off the shaker and poured them both another drink. The buzzing in Lavonne's head got louder. “Oh hell, that's my cell phone,” Eadie said, putting the shaker down. “It's probably Trevor. I'll be right back.” She rushed out of the room and Lavonne could hear her a minute later in Louise's room. “Are you going to call me every hour?” she said, and Lavonne got up to turn on the radio so she wouldn't have to hear the whole conversation. The house was small and the ceilings were high so sound carried.

Winston came through the door wagging his tail slowly and Lavonne leaned down to scratch his ears. “So there you are, you lazy good for nothing,” she said fondly. He whined and grinned up at her and she went to the door to let him out. Eadie was still on the phone and Lavonne sat back down at the counter to wait. It was true what she had said about Nita; they rarely saw each other these days. You would think, in a town as small as Ithaca, that they might run into each other occasionally, but both had busy and very different lives. They had once been neighbors who saw each other practically every day, but even then it had been Eadie who had brought them all together. She was the glue that had kept their friendship intact.

Lavonne lifted the metal shaker and poured herself another drink. On the radio, Van Morrison sang his ode to brown-eyed girls. Lavonne sipped her drink and thought about all the years she had known Eadie Boone. Twenty years. Their friendship had lasted longer than most marriages, almost as long as her ill-fated marriage to Leonard Zibolsky.

In the back bedroom, Eadie shouted, “Don't be such an asshole, Trevor.”

Lavonne had met Eadie and Trevor Boone soon after she and Leonard moved to Ithaca from Cleveland. It was at a party at the Boone mansion, and Eadie was standing on a table singing the Georgia fight song. Trevor was trying to convince her to climb down, but he was laughing, too, and looking at Eadie like she was the only girl in the world for him. They were two of the best-looking people Lavonne had ever seen.

Eadie lost no time introducing herself. “Hey,” she said. “Don't drink that shit.” She threw Lavonne's glass of Chablis over her shoulder and handed her a margarita.

Lavonne knew immediately that they would be friends.

Leonard tolerated the friendship for as long as he could, which turned out to be about three weeks. Lavonne had been a quiet, steady girl in high school and college who concentrated on keeping her grade point average as close to 4.0 as possible. But Eadie Boone changed all that. Under Eadie's tutelage Lavonne became the crazy, irresponsible girl she'd never dared to be before. They were like Catholic schoolgirls on a weekend binge. They went to endless parties, took Trevor's credit card and stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta, went on wild beach trips, and out to Bad Bob's to drink tequila and dance with peanut farmers and cowboys. It didn't take long for news of their exploits to reach Leonard.

“Y'all are going to ruin your reputations,” Leonard said one night at dinner. He'd only been in Ithaca a few weeks but already he used “y'all” like he'd used it all his life. Leonard had lost no time going native, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and practicing his Southern accent, wearing loafers without socks and madras plaid shorts to numerous parties.

“This isn't high school, Leonard.”

“But it is a small town. A small town I have to make a living in. What you and Eadie do reflects poorly on the firm.”

“You have to be kidding me.”

“No, Lavonne, I am not kidding you.” He was chubby and balding and when he got angry the bald spot on the back of his head glowed under the overhead lights. “You and Eadie seem to think you can run wild with no repercussions. You don't see Nita Broadwell acting that way. She doesn't jump naked into swimming pools or streak across the Wal-Mart parking lot.”

“That was Eadie. I never take my clothes off.”

“Nita Broadwell does everything Charles tells her to do.”

“Yeah, well, Nita needs to get a life. Charles is an asshole.”

Leonard looked offended. “He's my law partner,” he said, his bald spot pulsing. “And Nita Broadwell is a good Southern wife.”

She reached out and flicked his nose like she was killing a mosquito.

“Well, Leonard, if you wanted a good Southern wife, maybe you should have married one.”

She had been angry then, but Lavonne chuckled now, remembering. Leonard's new trophy wife, Christy, was Southern. She was from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, and called herself Creesty.

“What are you laughing at?” Eadie said, coming back into the kitchen.

“Nothing. Can you make up another shaker of those martinis?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” Eadie said. “Does a fifty-pound sack of flour make a big biscuit?”

By the time Nita showed up thirty minutes later, they had finished off their second shaker and were giggling about the time they sent a Stripagram to Worland Pendergrass's husband, Connelly, during the middle of a big dinner party.

“Nita!” Eadie said, when she saw her standing in the doorway. “Come over here, girl, and give me a hug.”

“Y'all aren't drinking are you?” Nita said, taking off her coat and laying it over the back of one of the chairs. She hugged Eadie and then Lavonne.

“Of course we're drinking,” Lavonne said. “Join us.” She patted the stool next to her and Nita sat down at the counter. Eadie stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray and got up to make some more drinks.

“Where'd you get the cigarettes?”

Lavonne blew a couple of smoke rings at the ceiling. “Ashley's room. We found them in the bottom drawer of her dresser next to a box of diet pills that she also told me she didn't use.”

Nita giggled. “Y'all are terrible,” she said.

Eadie danced around the kitchen, shaking her hips to the rhythm of the cocktail shaker like a hyperactive Carmen Miranda, like Charo on speed. She opened the freezer and took out three freshly chilled glasses and poured martinis all around.

“This'll put hair on your chest,” Eadie said.

“Nectar of the gods,” Lavonne said.

“Is something burning?” Nita asked, sniffing.

Eadie looked at Lavonne. “Oh shit,” she said. “The bread.” She threw on a couple of mitts and flung open the oven door. A thick cloud of black smoke rolled out and Eadie reached in and retrieved the loaf of bread that now looked like a long narrow charcoal briquette. She carried it out onto the back deck, smoke billowing in her wake, and set the baking sheet down on the railing. Lavonne followed her out. They both stood looking down at the black lump of burned bread.

“Oops,” Eadie said.

“Martha Stewart you're not,” Lavonne said.

“That's the problem with martinis. You lose track of time. It's like being caught in a time werp.”

“Did you just say a time werp? Have another martini, Eadie.”

Eadie put her arm around Lavonne's shoulder. She pointed at the brick of burned bread. “Who's hungry?” she said.

Nita stood in the doorway and watched them laugh. She hoped it wouldn't take long for the martini to work its magic. She hoped it wouldn't take long to feel whatever it was they were feeling.

Eadie put her other arm around Nita and they went back into the house. Lavonne and Nita sat down at the counter. “I haven't laughed that hard in a long time,” Lavonne said. “I think I might have pulled something.”

Eadie took some bowls down from the cupboard. “Who wants jambalaya?” she said.

Later, after they had finished eating, Nita got up to stack the bowls and silverware in the dishwasher.

“Leave it, Nita,” Lavonne said, lighting up another cigarette. “We'll clean up in the morning.”

“Pass me one of those cancer sticks,” Eadie said.

Nita sat back down at the bar. She was working on her third martini now and she was feeling relaxed and happy. She giggled. “I definitely won't be driving home tonight. I'll have to call Jimmy Lee to come get me,” she said.

“Just spend the night here,” Lavonne said.

“Yeah,” Eadie said. “Let's have a slumber party.”

Jimmy Lee wouldn't like that one little bit. He wouldn't tell her no, but he wouldn't be very happy about it, either. “I've got class in the morning,” Nita said. “I shouldn't even be staying up this late when I have to get up at seven o'clock.”

“Oh come on, Nita, live a little.”

“Yeah,” Eadie said. “It's bad luck for the groom to see you before the wedding.”

Nita didn't like to think about this. She didn't like to hear bad luck and wedding spoken in the same sentence. She was jittery enough as it was. She sipped her drink and said to Lavonne, hoping to change the subject, “Were you able to find those little sweet peppers we talked about?”

“Don't change the subject,” Lavonne said.

“What are you studying at school?” Eadie said. “What are you hoping to be when you grow up?”

“I'm not sure yet. I'm trying to decide whether to major in women's studies or elementary ed.”

“I can see you as a teacher,” Eadie said. “You're always so patient. I'd rather poke sticks in my eyes than work with a bunch of kids all day, but you'd be good at it.”

“Is that meant to be a compliment or an insult?” Lavonne said.

“I like kids,” Nita said. “I volunteer at the school every chance I get. I substitute teach when I can.”

“What was the name of that little girl you practically adopted back when your kids were small?”

“Angel,” Nita said. “Angel Phipps.”

“Hey, I remember Angel,” Eadie said. “She kind of reminded me of myself at that age. She's the one you bought clothes and books and toys for. The one you had over for dinner all the time.”

Lavonne said, “The one who let the air out of Charles's tires. The one who played street hockey with his golf clubs and put rocks in his shoes.”

Eadie grinned. “She didn't much like him, did she?”

“She was a sweet child,” Nita said.

“Hell, Nita, you'd say that about little Charlie Manson. You'd think little Jackie the Ripper was precious. You think everyone is sweet.”

Nita colored slightly and shook her head. “No I don't,” she said.

Lavonne said, “Little Jackie the Ripper?”

Eadie smiled lazily and twirled her hair around one finger. “How're your kids doing?” she said to Nita.

“They're fine,” Nita said. “Logan just got his license and he drives Whitney to school for me every morning. He likes public school so much better than he ever liked Barron Hall. He seems a lot more comfortable there.” She looked apologetically at Lavonne, whose daughter had graduated early from Barron Hall and gone off to college just a few weeks ago.

Lavonne shrugged. “Hey, private school isn't for everyone,” she said.

“How about Whitney?”

Nita frowned, looking down at the pale-pink liquid in the bottom of her glass. “I'm not sure if Whitney is happier or not. Nothing much seems to please her these days.”

“Don't worry about that,” Lavonne said. “She's an adolescent girl. It's her job to be surly and ungrateful. Trust me, I know. I've raised two daughters.”

“I was terrible to my mother,” Eadie said, finishing off her drink.

“Really?” Nita said, feeling hopeful. She had always felt it was her duty to make her children happy, it was one of the primary reasons she had left Charles, and Whitney's morose behavior left her with a sense of her own failure as a parent. She and her own mother, Loretta, had always been close. Nita could not remember ever fighting with Loretta the way Whitney fought with her.

“Lavonne says you're writing a paper that might get published.”

Nita smiled shyly, happy to talk about something besides her daughter. “It's for my Women's Roles in the Post-Depression America class. I've been interviewing women who worked as domestic servants in the South prior to the civil rights movement. My professor thinks it might be good enough for publication.”

Eadie put her arm around Nita. “I'm so proud of you,” she said. “See how everything's worked out for the best? A year and a half ago you were still married to that asshole, Charles Broadwell, and now you've taken control of your life and gone back to school and you're getting ready to marry the man of your dreams.” She got up and poured another round of drinks. Nita wished she could feel as optimistic as Eadie did. She didn't tell them how the women's sad stories had affected her in a way that went deeper than the usual relationship between an interviewer and interviewee.

“What did you decide to do about your honeymoon?” Lavonne asked.

Nita shook her head. “We're not taking one. At least not now. I've got school and there's no one to leave the children with, so I think we're going to take one in the summer, when the kids are on vacation with Charles.” She sipped her drink and then put it back down. “Not everyone takes a honeymoon. It doesn't mean anything. Virginia didn't take one.”

Eadie rolled her eyes. “Hey, I'm having a good time here,” she said. “Let's try not to spoil my buzz by talking about Virginia.” She looked steadily at Nita. Nita pretended to find something floating in her glass. Eadie said, “Please don't tell me you still talk to that old witch.”

Nita tapped the edge of her glass nervously. She didn't tell them how she'd gotten a call yesterday about a woman named Leota Quarles, who had supposedly worked for Virginia's family back when Virginia was a girl. Nita was still trying to figure out whether or not to take the interview. “I ran into her in the grocery store,” she said, waving her hand vaguely.

“Well that was a special bit of bad luck for you,” Lavonne said. “But remember, you don't owe her anything. She's your ex-mother-in-law.”

“That's right,” Eadie said. “Count your blessings.”

“And Jimmy Lee's mother is dead so you won't have a new mother-inlaw.”

“There you go,” Eadie said. “Count another blessing.”

“Not everybody has bad mothers-in-law,” Nita said. She looked at the calendar above the phone. She cleared her throat. “Sometimes people change,” she said in a small defiant voice.

Eadie and Lavonne looked at each other. The clock ticked steadily on the wall. A delivery truck rumbled down the street, its headlights casting geometric shadows against Lavonne's plantation shutters. “Is there something you want to tell us, Nita?” Eadie said, looking at her curiously.

Nita cleared her throat again. “How's Trevor?” she said.

Eadie glanced at Lavonne and then back at Nita. “He's fine. He said to give you a big hug and tell you congratulations.”

“He's so sweet.” A delicate blue vein threaded its way up Nita's temple. She touched it lightly with her fingers and then dropped her hand back down on the counter. “I'm just so proud of him, about the book and all. I can't wait to read it.”

A muscle moved in Eadie's cheek. “Let me guess,” she said flatly. “You invited Virginia to the wedding.”

Nita flushed and pushed her hair out of her face. “Look, y'all, she's the children's grandmother,” she said stubbornly. She fanned her fingers out and flattened them on the counter on either side of her glass. “I believe in forgiveness and redemption. I believe in giving people a second chance. Virginia's not the same person she was when I was married to Charles.”

“Really?” Eadie said, raising one eyebrow. “Was there an exorcism while I was away? Did someone call a priest while I was in New Orleans?”

Lavonne, who had sat quietly through all this, said, “Actually, Nita may have a point. Regardless of what Virginia may have done in the past, regardless of how underhanded, selfish, immoral, and unethical she may have been, Nita's forgiveness of her sets Nita on the path to psychological wholeness and redemption.”

“Is that the pomegranate martinis talking, Lavonne, or is that you?”

“Mix up another shaker and I'll let you know.”

“I shouldn't drink any more,” Nita said. “I should call Jimmy Lee to come get me. He'll be worried.”

“Forgiveness is overrated,” Eadie said. She lifted her drink, took a long pull, and then set the glass down carefully on the counter. “Revenge. Now there's a concept you can sink your teeth into, there's a concept you can build your whole damn life around.” She looked at Lavonne for confirmation.

“Put a scooch less pomegranate in this batch,” Lavonne said. “I like to taste my vodka.”

Eadie made up a new batch and poured another round of drinks. “I really should get going,” Nita said. “I've got a lot to do tomorrow.”

Eadie propped her chin on her hand. She waved her finger back and forth in front of Nita's nose. “Just say the word, Nita, and I'll call Virginia and uninvite her from the wedding.”

Lavonne sipped her drink. “You don't owe her a thing,” she said.

“I've thought about this and I think it's the right thing to do.” Nita frowned and shook her head. “It's like starting over, you know. Rebuilding fences.”

“Fences?” Eadie said. “Hell, you'll need to build a goddamn fortress if you're dealing with Virginia.”

“Build a siege engine,” Lavonne said.

“A trebuchet,” Eadie said. “Or better yet, an underground bunker.”

Nita giggled. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse to call Jimmy Lee. “Y'all are overacting,” she said. “Virginia's not that bad.”

VIRGINIA AWOKE ON FRIDAY MORNING TO FIND REDMON GONE. This was a rare occurrence; they normally breakfasted together, and she found herself wondering if he might have tired of her already. Far from depressing her, this thought gave her a little hopeful trembling sensation in the pit of her stomach. But when she went into the kitchen, she found a note beneath the sugar jar: “Queenie, had to go up to Atlanta. I'll bring you something nice. Love Red.” Virginia shuddered to think what “something nice” might be. The last gift he gave her had been a leopard-print push-up bra and matching thong, the kind of thing Jane might have worn if she was trying to coax Tarzan into a new zebra-skin sofa for the tree house.

Virginia poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Behind her the coffeepot gurgled and steamed. She sipped her coffee and tried not to think about last night. She supposed the slight tinge of self- loathing and nausea she was feeling was probably no different from what a Saigon brothel girl must feel every morning of her life. Her marriage to the Judge had been no different, although with him sex had been all about power; and with Redmon it was all about his admiration of her. She supposed, in some distant, remote, unexplored crevice of her heart, she felt flattered. It wasn't love, but it wasn't exactly disgust, either. At least, not entirely.

Bright sunlight fell through the long windows, and beyond the lawn a dark rim of trees rose against a slate blue sky. She glanced at the newspaper that Redmon had left open on the table. After a while, fortified by her second cup of coffee and unable to stop herself, she picked up the paper and opened it to the editorial page. It was a long-standing habit, one of which, although painful, Virginia had never been able to break herself. The woman's photograph, small and gray, hung from the upper-left corner of the editorial page. Her byline read “Grace Pearson, Staff Writer.” She seemed to gaze out at Virginia with the scornful, knowing expression of one who smells something foul, and knows it emanates from Virginia's direction. How anyone could name a six-foot, overeducated, liberal-minded Amazon Grace was beyond Virginia's comprehension.

Grace Pearson was a local girl whose parents had had the misfortune and short-sightedness to send to Wellesley. She had rewarded them by returning to her hometown to work as a political writer for the local newspaper, where she churned out truckloads of liberal propaganda. She and Virginia had been enemies for years.

One of Pearson's earliest editorial targets had been Judge Broadwell. She had written an article about the strict sentencing of juveniles and African Americans that occurred in his courtroom. In the article she referred to him as “the Hanging Judge.” On reading this, he had gone into an apoplectic fit so severe Virginia had thought he was having a stroke. After that, he took to calling Pearson a femi-Nazi obstructionist and would read her editorials aloud every afternoon over cocktails and rant and rave like a lunatic.

After he died, Pearson took on his son. Charles had been named president of the Bar Association and was just beginning what he hoped would be a long and illustrious career that might end in the governor's mansion or, who knew, maybe even in the U.S. Senate. As president of the Bar Association, he had made it his mission to try and bridge the deep divide that existed between the local legal and medical professions. With that in mind, he had gone out to the Ithaca County Hospital to observe doctors in action, the idea being that direct observation of the daily life-and-death decisions made in the operating room might lead to more understanding on the part of the legal profession for their medical colleagues. The walk-a-mile-in-myshoes theory. Unfortunately for all concerned, Dr. Willis Guffey had ruined this opportunity for conciliation by choosing this very day to operate on the wrong knee of a young black athlete by the name of Dicie Meeks. This blunder was made worse by the arrogant Dr. Guffey, who, on being informed of his mistake at the first slice of the scalpel by the operating room nurse, quickly cursed her into horrified silence and continued cutting, bellowing from time to time, “Goddamn it! I don't see a thing wrong with this knee. Cartilage is fine. What in the hell is wrong with these people? Wasting my time like this! There's not a goddamn thing wrong with this knee!”

Charles did what he could to hush the matter up, using his position and considerable influence to ensure that no local lawyer agreed to take the Meeks case. But Meeks's parents went to Grace Pearson, and when the story broke, the scandal it caused reached all the way to the capital and beyond, thus forever squashing Charles Broadwell's plans for a political career.

Virginia shook out the paper and raised it to eye level. Despite her determination not to, she began to read. Pearson's column today was on the inequality of women in the workforce. The whole time she read, Virginia kept her top lip curled in a scornful grimace.

Having survived the treacheries of a man's world, Virginia had little compassion for the less determined members of her own sex. She had never had a close female friendship, she gave her money to preachers who preached against the independence of women, voted against legislation that promoted sexual equality, and was a staunch member of the Republican Party. Indeed, it was during her stint as president of the local Republican Women's Club that her secret dislike of Grace Pearson had flared into open warfare. Virginia believed that a lady should never disgrace herself by allowing her name in print, but angered by one of Pearson's columns, and emboldened by the example set by her own personal hero, Phyllis Schlafly, Virginia had responded in a quarter-page letter to the editor. She had refuted Pearson's liberal viewpoint with an argument no sane, feminine, well- bred Christian woman could possibly deny as truth. Rather than retiring from the field in shame, Grace Pearson had mounted her own counterattack, one that began with the bold-faced, italicized words, My Dear Madame President.

Realizing she could never win, Virginia had eventually tired of the game, refusing to respond openly to any of Pearson's jibes. Instead, during Bill Clinton's tumultuous years, she had taken to sending Pearson political cartoons that portrayed Clinton's relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones in a less than favorable light. Since George Bush ascended the throne, Pearson had reciprocated, sending Virginia political cartoons and pages from a calendar that parodied the president's speeches. The one she received last week had read, “We've got to make sure there is more affordable homes,” and the one yesterday read, “God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear.” Virginia saw nothing wrong with the last one. She thought it was rather sweet.

She closed the newspaper defiantly and rose and went over to the trash compactor to throw it away. In the overall scheme of things, Grace Pearson was just a minor irritation. Virginia had more important things to think about. Tomorrow was Nita's wedding day, and Virginia had to decide what she was going to wear and how she was going to conduct herself. She had a lot of plotting and planning to do if she was ever going to ferret out what Nita had done to Charles to make him agree to that ridiculous divorce settlement without so much as a whimper. Once she figured that out, then she'd know how to even the score.

With any luck, and a good deal of effort, she'd know the truth tomorrow.