VIRGINIA AWOKE THE FOLLOWING MORNING TO A DULL thumping headache and a vague persistent feeling of nausea. It was her first hangover and she found it to be unlike anything she had ever seen depicted on TV. For one thing, she didn't crave strange beverages concocted with Alka-Seltzer and raw egg yolks. For another, she could remember everything that had happened the day before with perfect clarity. She remembered the pre-Thanksgiving dinner down to its smallest detail; her own rambling confession; her guests' sly, amused expressions; the cold, steady eye of the camera lens; her son's stricken face as he fled her house, alone, like a man escaping a tsunami.

She rose groggily to her feet, finding that the headache seemed less pronounced when she stood. She looked down at her toes and frowned. It was only then that she realized she was naked. Redmon groaned and rolled over in bed, flinging one arm wide. Oh God, he appeared to be naked, too. He opened his eyes, blinked, and then sat up on one elbow, grinning at her.

“Damn, Queenie,” he said. “Who needs Viagra when we got Bloody Marys?”

Her ears got warm. It seemed there were some things she didn't re member after all. She decided this was probably a good thing. She swung around and headed for the bathroom, sidestepping Redmon who lunged suddenly from the bed. “Hey, where you going?” he cried.

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror brushing her hair. It appeared from the love bites on her shoulders that it had, indeed, been a wild night. Suddenly, without warning, Virginia giggled. Two bright spots of color appeared in her cheeks and her eyes shone. She giggled again and clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Hey, baby, come here. I've got something to show you,” Redmon called on the other side of the door. She quickly put on her robe, opened the door, and walked past him with as much dignity as she could muster, given the circumstances.

Downstairs the kitchen was only partially cleaned. She had sent Della home soon after the Gracious Southern Living crew left. Virginia hadn't felt like spending the evening washing dishes. Instead, she had helped her grandchildren pack. Later, when they left with Nita, Redmon had said, “Well, I'm gonna miss the kids.” He added roguishly, “But now we got the whole house to ourselves.” He was standing with his back to the front door, grinning at her, and Virginia, seeing his expression had said, “Oh for goodness sakes.” He finally cornered her in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but when he started in on his impression of Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” Virginia realized further struggle was futile.

She made a pot of coffee and went outside to get the newspaper. The sun shone brightly across the wet lawn and she had to shield her tender eyes as she bent to retrieve the paper from the azalea bed. Back inside, she poured herself a cup of coffee, pushed aside a stack of dirty dishes, and sat down at the table, steeling herself for what was coming next.

She opened the paper and found she could look, without flinching, at the grainy photograph of Grace Pearson. She couldn't, of course, think of her as a daughter. At least, not yet, not sober in the cold hard light of day. She wasn't certain how long it would take to openly acknowledge their kinship, to call Grace directly and talk about their shared past, but surely the fact she no longer despised the woman meant something. Surely a lack of repugnance was the first step toward a promising mother-daughter relationship. Virginia took it as a hopeful sign.

She flipped the paper open to “The Town Tattler” column. The headline read, Local Hostess Featured in TV Special. The article was straightforward and informative, with Virginia featured by name, without the coy use of initials usually favored by Lumineria Crabb. There was no mention of Virginia's breakdown. Grace had tactfully skirted that event, which Virginia took as another hopeful sign for the future of their mother-daughter relationship.

Not that this would stop the town gossips and scandalmongers who were at this very minute, no doubt, spreading rumors about Virginia's sad but bawdy personal history. Oh, what do I care? Virginia thought savagely. What was it Rhett Butler had said to Scarlett? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

TWO DAYS LATER SHE GOT A PHONE CALL FROM LEONARD TWO- horses, the Creek Indian activist she had used to shut down the Culpepper Plantation project. It seemed that with the improvements made by Redmon and Jimmy Lee, the island was worth more now to the Creeks than just a burial ground. They had decided to buy the island from Virginia and turn it into a gambling casino called Tsali-wood. Although stunned, Virginia kept her cool. She had learned a thing or two about negotiation from watching Della Smurl operate, and in less than a week she had hammered out a deal that would pay her more than enough money to live on for the rest of her life. In addition, they agreed to pay Redmon and Jimmy Lee to waive their lien rights, an amount that would allow them to recoup a good portion, if not all, of their original investment money. Virginia did what she could to broker this second deal. She figured it was the least she could do.

For the rest of the week, she walked around the house like a tiny ballerina on point. She was so excited she couldn't eat; she couldn't sleep. With the money she'd receive from the sale, she'd be a free woman. She could travel. She could move to Atlanta or Savannah or West Palm Beach, shaking the red dust of this provincial town off her shoes forever. She could divorce Redmon. Although, oddly, now that she no longer needed to stay married to him for the money, she found she did not really want to leave him, either. After all, he was the only man she had ever shown herself to, the true Virginia, and the fool still loved and worshipped her anyway. What were the odds, at her age, that she'd ever find another man who actually loved her for who she was, and not some idealized version of herself? And then there was Grace. They had spoken, shyly and tentatively, by phone a couple of days ago and had made plans to meet for dinner the coming week. Did she really want to leave her long-lost daughter before at least at tempting to establish a relationship with her, did she really want to abandon her now just as she had done forty-nine years ago? Virginia had a lot of decisions to make. But strangely, she did not feel discouraged.

On the contrary, she felt as light and buoyant as a box kite dancing on the currents of a high-flying breeze.

ACROSS TOWN, NITA'S LITTLE FAMILY WAS FINISHING UP DINNER. She had cooked chicken tetrazzini and homemade yeast rolls, and she'd made a fresh spinach salad with portobello mushrooms and a raspberry vinaigrette. She'd gotten word today that her paper on domestic servants was going to be published by the Journal of Southern Historical Perspective, and they were celebrating. Jimmy Lee had come for dinner and brought a bottle of wine with him. Whitney and Logan had set the kitchen table with a bowl of apples and silver candlesticks, and they'd eaten dinner by flickering candlelight.

Outside the windows, dusk fell. A high-flying wedge of geese passed, flying in perfect formation against the darkening sky. Otis, who was sleeping on the rug by the door, lifted his head and whined as they flew over.

“Poor old Otis,” Whitney said fondly. “Don't you wish you could fly?” The dog looked at her and thumped his tail against the floor.

“He missed y'all,” Nita said. “He was lonely.”

Whitney leaned over and put her arms around her mother. “I was lonely, too, Mommy,” she said earnestly. Her life had changed that fall, in ways that went beyond simply changing schools and being the celebrity pawn in a high-stakes custody battle. She had discovered drama. At her old school, the drama coach was also the wrestling coach and the plays had always centered on halfhearted, poorly attended productions of Our Town or The Glass Menagerie. At the Barron Hall School, however, drama was a Big Deal. Whitney had won the coveted role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew, beating out Michelle Campbell-Jones, a junior who had played the lead in various plays for three years running. Whitney was only in eighth grade but she could have warned Michelle Campbell-Jones not to even bother showing up for tryouts. Whitney had the part of Katherine nailed. She'd been playing it for most of her adolescence.

The drama kids at school provided Whitney with a whole new peer group. They went out together after practice and sat at The Waffle House smoking cigarettes and drinking black coffee and talking about anarchy and nihilism and Friedrich Nietzsche until it was time to climb into their big expensive SUVs and go home to their big expensive houses for dinner. There was something about being a prep school nihilist that appealed to Whitney's nature. She saw a bright future for herself at the Barron Hall School.

Whitney stood and began to clear the table. “I can't believe how spoiled the kids at Barron Hall are. I can't believe Sophy Shelton's parents bought her a brand-new Volvo for her sixteenth birthday. And Ashley Butler's bought her a Range Rover.”

Logan said, “Well, that's pretty funny coming from a girl who was trying to get her grandmother to buy her a brand-new BMW just a few short weeks ago.”

“I don't care about any of that stuff now,” Whitney said carelessly. “I'm not a shallow, superficial person. At least, not anymore.” She stood beside Nita and Jimmy Lee and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Promise me you won't buy me a new car when I turn sixteen. Promise me you won't buy into all that bourgeois coming-of-age stuff like sweet-sixteen parties and gifts of expensive imported automobiles.”

“I promise,” Nita said.

“A 1976 Ford Pinto it is then,” Jimmy Lee said cheerfully. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a navy blue sweater and Nita was having a hard time keeping her hands off him.

“You can get me a new car if you want to,” Logan said. “I won't mind.”

“You're funny,” Jimmy Lee said.

“Materialism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” Whitney said, quoting Nietzsche. She patted her mother on the shoulder. “Thank you for not raising me to be a spoiled rotten yuppie. Thank you for teaching me the pleasures of a simple life”—she lifted her hands and indicated the crowded kitchen around them—“in a simple house with simple food and very few material possessions to speak of.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Jimmy Lee said.

“Thank you for taking me away from Grandmother with all her riches and wealthy enticements.”

“Listen.” Nita turned slightly in her chair so she could see both of her children. “I want you kids to understand something,” she said. “Whatever Grandmother did, she did it for the love of you two. I don't want you to blame her, or your daddy, either.” Here she looked pointedly at Logan. “Don't blame them for the way they are.” Logan scowled and looked at his feet but he didn't protest, which Nita took as a hopeful sign. “Daddy wasn't the best father in the world and he knows that. But sooner or later you'll have to forgive him and just move on.”

“I don't really need a father,” Logan said.

“Everybody needs a father,” Nita said firmly. “You and your dad just need to figure out some way to spend time together without fighting all the time.”

“Charles just loves himself,” Logan said. “He doesn't care about anyone else. He doesn't care what I do.”

“He's your father,” Nita said, “don't call him Charles. If he didn't care about you, you wouldn't fight all the time. He wouldn't react no matter what you did. Indifference is much more terrible than conflict.”

“So you're saying, because we fight, it means we love each other?”

“Yes.”

“That's fucked up,” Logan said, shaking his head.

“Hey,” Jimmy Lee said.

Nita said, “You're a smart boy. He's a smart man. You two just need to figure out some way to communicate your feelings without letting all that resentment and rage get in the way.”

“In the meantime, you've got me,” Jimmy Lee said.

Logan grinned and they slapped palms. “Cool,” he said, rising. “Hey, me and the boys are playing in that Battle of the Bands they're having next weekend over in Statesboro. Grandpa Redmon called a couple of people he knows and got us on the bill. Are you coming?”

Jimmy Lee said, “Is a pig's butt pork? Of course I'm coming.”

Nita said, “You have to figure out some way of forgiving Daddy and Grandmother. Both of you. It's important.” She had given up reading how- to-be-a-good-parent books and was just winging it now.

“Oh, I forgive them,” Whitney said airily. “Daddy is sweet as can be. He really is. And Grandmother, well, Grandmother is just Grandmother. Living with her was not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. She's so damn picky. It's always, ‘Sit up straight,’ or ‘Don't talk with food in your mouth,’ or ‘Don't put your elbows on the table, my goodness what will people think.’”

“You know who I feel sorry for?” Logan said. “Grandpa Redmon. What's he gonna do now that me and the boys aren't there to protect him?”

“Old Virginia rides him pretty hard, does she?” Jimmy Lee grinned and winked at Nita.

“He enjoys every minute of it,” Nita said, grinning back.

“He's like a whipped dog,” Logan said. “‘Yes, honey,’ this and ‘no, honey,’ that. Like a lovesick teenager, always following her around and slapping her on the butt every chance he gets.”

“Ew, don't remind me,” Whitney said. “It's disgusting. They're both so old.” She shuddered at the disturbing notion of people over forty having a sex life.

Nita smiled gently at Jimmy Lee. “Y'all go ahead and stack the dishes in the dishwasher,” she said. “And then get your homework done.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Whitney said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Logan said.

When the kids had finished cleaning up the kitchen and gone into their bedrooms to do their homework, Nita and Jimmy Lee sat at the kitchen table in a companionable silence. “This is nice,” Jimmy Lee said, taking her hand.

“Yes, it is.”

“It's funny, what Whitney said about living a simple life and all that. She's right.”

“Out of the mouths of babes.”

“How long do you think her change in attitude will last?”

“Maybe two weeks.”

He laughed. “This is all that matters, right here.” He looked around the kitchen and back at his wife. “Everything I care about is right here in this little house.” Otis raised his head and thumped his tail on the floor. Jimmy Lee played with Nita's fingers, gently pulling each fingertip. “I want it the way it was before. I want to appreciate it this time.”

“We can't go back. We can only go forward.”

“That's true,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her, soft and slow, and she could feel everything there was between them in that kiss—all the love, regret, and above all, hope. When he pulled away, he kept his face close to hers. His breath was sweet. His eyes were round and dark as river stones.

“I want to come home,” he said.

Nita leaned and kissed him back. “What are you waiting for?” she said.

THREE WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS THE AX FINALLY FELL AND Joe Solomon lost his job. He had been dreading it for so long that when word finally came, it was almost a relief. He showed up on Lavonne's front porch carrying a bouquet of pink roses and a bottle of champagne. When she opened the door, he just stood there grinning. “I got fired,” he said finally.

“Well try not to look so depressed,” Lavonne said, opening the screen.

She'd been making pad thai for supper and he kissed her and followed her into the kitchen. He put the roses in a vase of water and rummaged around in the cabinet for a couple of champagne flutes. “Where's Eadie?” he said, over his shoulder.

“She's out at the art supply store.”

She stood at the stove and he leaned over her shoulder and looked down at the smoking wok. “That smells good,” he said. He kissed her again and she said, “Why don't you set the table and we'll celebrate the demise of your sorry-assed corporate job.”

She was surprised to find him in such a cheerful mood. Most men she knew who lost their jobs in middle age lapsed into bitterness and despair, but Joe had the cheerful demeanor of a reprieved death-row felon. He was whistling as he set the table and he looked like he had lost about fifteen years of age and worry.

“So what's next?” she asked, halfway through the meal. The thought that he might have to look for a job elsewhere hovered always at the edge of her consciousness like a bad dream.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he said, pouring them both another glass of champagne.

She said, “Atlanta? Detroit? Chicago?”

He frowned. “Oh come on,” he said.

“The Big Apple?”

“I was thinking more like Provence. Saint-Tropez or maybe Marseilles.”

Lavonne put her fork down. “Were you serious?” she asked. “You mean all that talk of biking through the south of France was for real?”

He looked hurt. “Of course it was for real,” he said. “Why do you think I've been working my ass off for the last twenty-five years? Why do you think I've been saving every penny I could for the last fifteen?”

“But do you have enough?”

“Sure. If I economize. I got a good severance package from DuPont and Katie's education is already paid for. I set up a trust fund years ago. I need some time away from the corporate rat race to work out a business plan for my bike shop. And Provence seems like the perfect place to do it.” He laughed and pinched her cheek. “I mean, we won't exactly be living a life of luxury but we'll get by.”

Lavonne said, “We?” She said, “Provence?”

He pushed himself away from the table and got down on one knee. She shook her head but he just laughed and took her hands. “Come on, girl, run away with me to the south of France.”

“Get up off the floor before you hurt yourself.”

“Let's live the Bohemian life, if only for six months.”

“I'm not getting married again anytime soon.”

“Who said anything about marriage?”

“But what about my business?”

“What about it? Hire somebody. Hell, I've seen your balance sheet. I've seen your profit and loss. You can afford to hire a manager, or even a whole management team. Both you and Mona deserve some time off.”

She smiled in spite of herself and shook her head. “You'll throw your back out if you don't get up.”

“Come on, Lavonne,” he teased. “What are you afraid of? You always said you wanted to travel. You always said you wanted to write a book for women looking to protect themselves financially from bad husbands.”

“If I promise to think about it, will you get up off the floor? You're not a damn twenty-year-old, you know.”

He grinned and pulled her toward him. “Then why do I feel like one?” he said.

SINCE THE CATHARTIC PRE-THANKSGIVING THROW-DOWN, EADIE had pretty much worked nonstop painting a series of large female nudes for the gallery up in Atlanta. She had given up on abstract expressionism and had returned to her first love, classical realism. Her females now looked less like geometric body parts held together by paint and more like Botticelli angels. She rose early every morning and went out to Lavonne's little shed to work, sometimes painting steadily for five or six hours before taking a break. Now that Nita had her family back, now that Lavonne was happy in love, now that Eadie had banished whatever demons haunted her from her childhood and gone back to work, her job here was nearly done. She wanted to go home to New Orleans. She wanted to spend Christmas with her husband.

Later that afternoon, he called. He had cut short his tour of the Midwest and was home waiting for her. He had taken to calling her daily, as if the ha rassment alone might be enough to make her jump on a plane and head back to the Big Easy.

“I'm making Cosmopolitans just the way you like them,” he said, when she picked up the phone. “On the veranda. It's a beautiful day. The sun is slanting through the ironwork making lacy patterns on the old bricks. The banana plants are swaying in the breeze. It smells like New Orleans.”

“Like mud flats and jasmine? Like garbage and gardenias?”

“That's right.”

“Goddamn, I miss it.”

“So come home.”

“I can't just leave in the middle,” Eadie said. “I've got to finish what I started.”

Trevor sighed. Eadie wiped her hands on a rag and went outside into the yard. It was sunny here, too, and the air was cool and dry. Not like New Orleans, though. Not soft and balmy and sweet with decay.

“I thought you had finished helping Nita. I thought your job there was done.”

“It is,” she said. “Almost. I have to finish what I'm working on and get the canvases up to that gallery in Atlanta.”

“I talked to Grace yesterday. I invited her to come up and spend some time with us in New Orleans. I told her I had a lock of my father's hair that I'd be happy to have DNA tested if she so desired.”

“You're a good brother.”

“I'm a good husband, too.” When she didn't say anything, he chuckled and said, “So, I've been looking at some of the pictures I took with my digital camera last Christmas.”

“How'd they come out?”

“Odd.”

“What do you mean odd?”

“There's one of you in the bedroom. You're sitting on the edge of the bed. It looks like you've been napping and you've just woken up.”

“Oh shit. Destroy that one.”

“And here's the odd thing,” Trevor said. “There's this light just beyond your right shoulder.”

“Maybe it's a reflection off the window.”

“I thought of that. It shows up on several of the shots and then gets darker. But when I checked the shots immediately before and immediately after, it's gone. It's like it appears on one frame, gets larger, gets darker, and then disappears.”

“What does it look like?”

“A head. The shadow of a head.”

“A small head, right?”

“Yes. A small head. And small shoulders. And a small body.”

“Like a child?”

“Yes.”

“I told you I wasn't crazy,” Eadie said. There was a drumming sound in her head, slow and steady as a heartbeat.

“The thing is, now I'm kind of spooked. I'm kind of scared staying in this big house all by myself.”

“Now you know how I felt.”

He chuckled and said, “Promise me you'll be home for Christmas.”

“I can't make any promises about the future. I'm living one day at a time.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“No it doesn't.”

“But you're coming home?”

“Yes.”

“I need you here. All I have for company is a group of fawning flatterers.”

She laughed. “You must be in heaven then.”

“I'm lonely in this big old house all by myself.”

“You're not by yourself. There's a ghost.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“I'll send you a Ouija board so you'll have someone to talk to.”

He was laughing when she hung up. Smiling, she went back to work.

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE Eadie was scheduled to return to New Orleans, Lavonne had a going-away party. It was a small affair, just Lavonne, Nita, Grace, and Eadie. They sat out on the deck under a leaden sky, watching the neighbor's colored Christmas lights twinkle merrily. It had rained all day, a slow, steady drizzle that stopped just as evening fell.

“Three days from now I'll be home,” Eadie said, looking around the table. Clouds of fog rolled in under the lights. “What are y'all gonna do for fun once I'm gone?”

“Give my liver a vacation,” Lavonne said.

“Count the days until you come back,” Nita said.

“Plan a trip to the Big Easy,” Grace said.

“Y'all should do that. Come up and see me in New Orleans. We could get into all kinds of trouble and I know the police commissioner so it's nothing that would show up on our permanent records.”

Lavonne chuckled and shook her head. “Speaking of trouble, do you want me to mix up a shaker of Cosmopolitans?” Nita and Grace shook their heads.

“No, thanks,” Eadie said. “I think I'll lay off the hard stuff for a while. I feel a health binge coming on.”

“Sweet tea it is, then.” Lavonne went into the kitchen. She came out a few minutes later carrying a pitcher of tea and a tray of baked brie and crackers.

“Did Trevor call me on the house phone?” Eadie said to Lavonne. “I've been trying to reach him all day.”

“No. I checked messages when I came in from work.”

Nita said, “How long's it been since you saw him?”

“Three and a half weeks. That's the longest we've ever been apart, except for the two trial separations.” Eadie poured herself a glass of tea and then sat back in her chair. “He thinks I'm coming in next week. He doesn't know I'm coming home early. I thought I'd surprise him.”

“Better warn the neighbors,” Lavonne said.

“Very funny.”

“Are you blushing?” Nita said, giggling. “I don't think I've ever seen you blush, Eadie.”

“Speaking of blushing, how's that recommitting to virginity thing working out for you and Jimmy Lee?”

Nita took a long, slow sip of tea and then set her glass down on the table. “It was a pretty stupid idea anyway,” she said.

“Yeah, that's what we thought.”

Grace cut a thick wedge of brie and spread it on top of a cracker. “So what's the deal with Charles?” she said to Nita. “I hear he's leaving town.”

“He's moving to Atlanta. He was offered a job working for Coca-Cola back when Boone and Broadwell folded, and now he's decided to take it.”

“I'm not surprised,” Lavonne said, “after that blowout at his mother's house. I mean, how much humiliation can one guy take?”

“Don't tell me you feel sorry for that asshole,” Eadie said. “He's only getting what he deserves.”

Grace said, “Hey, that's my half-brother you're talking about.”

No one knew what to say to this. They hadn't asked Grace about her relationship with the Broadwells. They figured she needed time to come to terms with it before speaking about it openly.

“And don't tell me he wasn't in on Virginia's little kidnapping and land fraud scheme from the beginning,” Eadie said.

Nita shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. She didn't care about any of that now. She was happy and that was all that mattered.

Lavonne poured everyone some more tea. She leaned back in her chair and looked at Nita. “So how're things with you and Virginia?”

Nita helped herself to the brie. “She dropped the custody suit, of course. I've agreed to let Whitney see her, but only if I'm present. She and Redmon are coming for Christmas dinner. I believe in letting bygones be bygones. Up to a point.”

“You're a hell of a lot more forgiving than I am,” Eadie said. “I know she's turned over a new leaf and everything but I still wouldn't let her within ten feet of my child.”

“I thought you admired Virginia,” Lavonne said.

“Yeah, well, admiring her from a distance and welcoming her into the bosom of my family are two very different things. You might admire a grizzly bear in the zoo but that doesn't mean you'd bring it home for tea and cookies.”

“She's trying hard to change,” Grace said. They all looked at her. “I talked to her a few days ago. She's agreed to counseling. We think it might be the best way to rebuild our relationship.”

“Damn,” Lavonne said.

“Good luck with that,” Eadie said.

“I think that's sweet,” Nita said.

The sky darkened into evening. A damp mist hung over the yard. Lavonne got up to light some candles.

“Just tell me one thing,” Eadie said to Grace. “When did you find out about Virginia being your mother? And how?”

Grace shrugged and looked at her hands. “I'm an investigative journalist,” she said. “It wasn't all that hard. I knew I'd been adopted. My parents never tried to hide that from me, and for a long time it just wasn't important. But when I turned forty-eight, I started thinking about it. All the time. I wanted to know who my real parents were and I wanted to know why they gave me up. My parents told me everything they knew and I kind of worked backward from there.”

“So you've known for a couple of years?”

“No. I found out the truth a few weeks before Nita's wedding. It was a shock, I can tell you. It took me a while to assimilate. Everyone knows Virginia and I never got along too well. And I had no idea about Hampton Boone until the day of Virginia's pre-Thanksgiving throw-down.” She looked at Eadie and grinned. “That was a complete shock.”

Lavonne patted her on the shoulder. “Well, you seem to be handling it all pretty well,” she said.

“I'm adjusting,” Grace said. “Virginia's asked me to come over next week when they air the Gracious Southern Living holiday segment. She says she needs me there for moral support.”

“Does she have any idea what exactly it is they're going to air?”

Grace shook her head. “She has no clue,” she said.

Eadie snorted. “Well, it might be interesting. You know that producer, Carlin, called me to talk about filming a segment on next year's Kudzu Ball. She thought it might be just the kind of thing their viewers want to see.”

“Hell,” Lavonne said. “Maybe we should pitch it to the networks as a new reality series.”

Nita giggled and put her hand over her mouth. Eadie looked at Lavonne and grinned. Grace chewed a cracker and gazed at the twinkling Christmas lights, still thinking about her newfound mother.

“I mean, I'm not saying Virginia and I are ever going to be close,” she said. “There's no telling what kind of relationship we'll be able to forge through counseling. My feeling is, if we can get to the point where we can sit in a room without physically assaulting one another, that's a good thing.”

“I think that's the best you can hope for with Virginia,” Eadie said.

“You have to take love where you can find it,” Nita said, smiling and looking around the table. “It's not always pretty.”

There was a scent of wood smoke in the air, rolling in with the fog. The lights of the neighborhood houses glowed cheerily. Distantly, the strains of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” wafted on the cool damp air.

“Speaking of love,” Eadie said to Lavonne. “Have you decided whether or not to run away to the south of France with Joe?”

Lavonne sighed and looked at the Christmas lights. “I don't know,” she said. “We're such good friends and I'm kind of scared to ruin that. What if we hate each other after living together a month? What if it turns into a relationship like the one I had with Leonard?”

“You've got to get back in there, Lavonne. You can't be afraid of what might happen. You have to go for it.”

“Well, I know I can't stay for six months. Not with my business and the girls coming home for summer break.”

“If you're over there long enough, you'll learn to speak French.”

“Hey, will you teach me how to curse in French?” Eadie said. “I've always wanted to do that.”

There was a sudden thunderous knocking on the front door. They all jumped and looked at one another. Eadie frowned. “Joe?” she said.

Lavonne shook her head, rising. “He's still in Chicago.”

“Maybe it's Christmas carolers,” Nita said.

“If it is, send them back here,” Grace said.

They waited, listening for Lavonne's footsteps as she crossed the kitchen and into the front room. She opened the door and a deep, masculine voice said, “Evening, ma'am. I'm Officer Tater Hogburn. We've had a complaint about a disturbance coming from this residence, something about some vodka-crazed women and a troupe of high-flying circus midgets.”

It was Trevor doing his best redneck accent.

“Well, good evening Officer Hogburn, come on in. The midgets were just leaving.” Lavonne grinned and stepped back so he could enter. “Eadie, get your clothes on,” she said, swinging her head over her shoulder. “You've got a visitor.”

But she was too late. Eadie had already jumped up and was running for the door.