The Nice Girl Gets Even novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Sunday Dinner

"Come in, ma'am," I said. "I'll get him."

She didn't come in.

She stood on my step with her hands folded over her purse, looking at my grandmother's floor through the glass.

Emmett came down the stairs barefoot in his jeans, buttoning a sweater.

He stopped when he saw her.

"Mama."

"Your father doesn't know I'm here," she said.

"He will."

"I know."

She looked at the ash on her own reflection in the door, and then at him.

"I'd like you to come home for Sunday brunch. At the club. We'll talk about all of it."

"No, ma'am."

Her chin went up, exactly like Margot's.

Then it came down again.

"Then where?"

Emmett looked at me.

I didn't say anything.

It wasn't my family.

"Sunday," he said. "Six o'clock. Gussie Blanchard's house in Oakleigh. The yellow one with the swing."

"The lunch lady?"

"Yes, ma'am. The lunch lady. Both of you. Bring nothing."

On Sunday at six, the Merrills came up Gussie's porch steps.

His father had a bottle of wine anyway.

Gussie took it out of his hand at the door.

"I said nothing, and I meant nothing," she said. "But I'll keep it."

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