Eleven
“Nana!” Marcy was beside her, too close, panic-stricken. “Nana, are you okay?”
Edie pushed Marcy’s hand from her forehead. “I’m perfectly fine. Help me up.”
“Maybe we should call—”
“Don’t you dare,” Edie said, and rolled onto all fours to help herself up. She stood, straightened her silk robe, tightened her sash, and then turned to glare at her past. “You have to go. All of you. Out,” she said, and flung her arm in the direction of the front door.
“Could we just—” Frances started.
“No! Get out of here. How did you even get here?” she cried, her thoughts warring between shock and fear. Had they been found out after all this time? Did Simon—
“I’m sorry, Nana,” Marcy said, her face in front of Edie’s again. “I let them in. They said they were your friends.”
Edie was already shaking her head. “They’re no friends of mine.”
“Ouch,” Irene said. “That hurts.”
“Just hear us out,” Joan said. “Think of it as catching up.”
Were they insane? “No!” She paused, certain she’d heard something upstairs, some movement.
She feared Simon was coming downstairs for snacks, and her heart raced faster.
She’d managed to stave off an arrest the last time, but she didn’t know if she could do it again.
She could not risk Simon finding them here and immediately began to hustle her dear old friends toward the back door by crowding their space.
“Five minutes,” Frances said. A tear drop of perspiration slid down her temple. “We just want to talk about getting the gang back together for one last go.”
“What gang?” Marcy asked.
Edie lost her mind in that moment and directed her fury at Frances. “You came here to this house, where my husband lives, to say that? Are you insane? Get the fuck out.”
“Nana!” Marcy cried.
Good God, did this really have to happen with Marcy in the room?
“Sorry,” Edie said curtly, but her granddaughter looked stunned.
Genteel Southern ladies did not speak that way.
Foster kids did. “Listen, honey.” She jumped back to the fridge and threw open the door.
She frantically pulled out some cheese, some ham.
She slammed that door shut then lunged for the pantry and grabbed a box of crackers.
She threw those things on a serving tray and thrust it at her granddaughter. “Take this up to Pappa.”
“What?” Marcy was forced to grab the tray before one of them dropped it. “But—”
“Sit and talk with him if you have to, but don’t let him leave that room. Do you hear me? I need five minutes.”
Marcy looked at Joan, Frances, and Irene.
“Marcy!” Edie snapped.
“Yes, ma’am,” Marcy said, and went out with the tray, pausing to look back once more.
Edie’s heart had climbed out of her chest and lodged in her throat. “Which one of you idiots thought this was a good idea?”
Joan and Irene pointed immediately at Frances. Frances, her dearest friend. The three of them, ghosts in her memory but now standing in front of her. How odd that they would all look the same. But older. And Frances looked too pale, too thin. And a bit too sweaty for some reason.
Frances held up both hands in surrender. “Okay, not the best plan. But in our defense, we didn’t know if you’d be here. We weren’t even sure you lived here.”
“Well, I do, and so does Simon, and he is upstairs.”
The three women physically recoiled at the mention of his name.
He was still capable of ruining their lives.
Not only capable, but willing. Edie was so unnerved by the possibility that she couldn’t help but glance apprehensively over her shoulder.
She wouldn’t put it past him to spring up and surprise them. “Why are you even here?”
“We want to do it one more time,” Frances said.
“Do what?” Edie asked, confused.
“A job.”
She couldn’t have possibly heard that right. Because there was no planet on which these three women, who had just barely escaped getting caught over forty years ago when they were young and had nothing to lose, could think it was a good idea to go again. “A what?”
Frances looked nervously at Joan and Irene. “You know. A heist.”
Edie gaped at Frances. She had so many questions, but the most burning was the obvious one. “Is it dementia? Is dementia contagious? Because I think the three of you have shit for brains. Okay, that’s it. Get out. Come on, out.”
“Don’t have to ask me again,” Irene said, and marched past Edie, as if she was the injured party. Joan slinked after her. “You could lead with love, you know.”
“Love?” Edie echoed, disbelieving.
Frances was the last to go, turning her puppy dog eyes on Edie. “It’s really good to see you,” she said as Edie marched her to the door behind Joan and Irene.
“Stop that,” Edie commanded.
“Are you really so mad?” Frances asked, trying to peer at her face. “It seems an outsized reaction.”
Edie laughed maniacally. She opened the door and pushed them out. “Go,” she said again, then slammed the door shut, put her back to it, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
They didn’t leave fast enough; she could hear them outside, talking over each other.
She pushed away from the door and ran to the front window.
She watched them climb into an old Cadillac.
The same Cadillac that was puttering along in the rain.
My God, they were being obvious. “Stupid. So stupid,” she muttered.
“Nana?”
Edie hadn’t heard Marcy at all and jumped a foot in the air. She pressed a hand to her wildly beating heart. “You startled me.”
Marcy was standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the empty tray. “Who were they?”
“No one—”
“They weren’t no one, Nana. You’re acting too weird. And they said they were your friends from a long time ago.”
“Well, they’re not my friends now.”
“Why are you so angry? You’re even madder than you were when skinny jeans came back in style.”
Edie snorted. “I’m not mad at all.” Nope—she was livid.
Marcy walked across the room and peered out the window as the Cadillac rumbled away. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s just as well, because you don’t need to.” She took the tray from Marcy and walked into the kitchen.
Marcy followed her. She slid onto a barstool and watched Edie get tequila out of the fridge and pour a shot. Edie eyed her. “You want a shot?”
Marcy’s brows rose. She looked at the bottle. Then at Edie. “Why not?”
Good girl. There were moments in life that just begged to be chased by a shot of tequila.
Edie poured another shot and slid it to her granddaughter.
She pictured Joan, Irene, and Frances standing where Marcy was sitting now.
They’d been even younger than Marcy when they’d started their gang.
God, what babies they’d been. She could picture them, healthy and young, orphans of the world, convinced no one could touch them.
She wondered about Frances. Was she using a weight loss drug?
Everyone was now. But she looked a little gaunt and someone should tell her to stop.
And Joan! Edie almost smiled. What was with the Lady Godiva hair?
But Joan looked as fit and muscular as she ever had.
Then there was Irene, who didn’t look as if she’d aged at all.
She’d kept her hair ink black, and her skin was smooth.
If she had a secret, Edie would guess it was dark magic. She wouldn’t put anything past Irene.
Oh, but she had questions. So many questions.
Beginning with Why show up now? What had happened to them after Simon turned them in?
Where had they gone? Had they lived happy lives?
Unhappy lives? Did they have children or lovers or careers?
She’d thought about them so often through the years.
She’d even toyed with finding them. She would putter around the internet, but never seriously, because she was afraid of leaving a search history for Simon to find.
Not to mention, after everything that happened, they’d made it clear they never wanted to see her again.
So why had they come?
Something soft and wet slid down the side of her face.
“Nana?” Marcy was peering closely at her. “Are you crying?”
“What? No,” Edie said, and hastily swept the lone tear away.
“Why wouldn’t you talk to them?” Marcy asked. “What did she mean, ‘Getting the gang back together for one last go’?”
“That’s just the way we used to talk. You know, like how you say your cousin Max has no rizz.”
“He doesn’t,” Marcy said. “But that’s not the same.”
“It’s a long story, darling. A very long story that doesn’t need to be dug up.
Especially not with Pappa around. He can’t know they were here.
” She reached across the kitchen bar and patted Marcy’s hand.
“It’s probably best that things are left in the past.” A sentiment that made her incredibly sad.
She downed another shot of tequila, smiled sadly at Marcy, and walked out of the kitchen, unwilling to say more.
Quite honestly, she didn’t trust herself to say more—if she did, she might fall apart with grief.
She thought that was all behind her, but seeing them again? So many emotions had been dredged up.
She really missed them.