I pointed to the cabinet above the stove. Had it all been a dream? That would explain the magic and the fact that I had woken up on the couch. But not the suit. Or the mud.
Then it hit me. “Earl!”
“Who’s Earl?” Darcy made a hop and missed the salt by three inches. “Damn it all, people were my height when they built this house and I still can’t reach the top shelf. Little help?”
I moved to the stove and retrieved the salt. “Earl is Grammy B’s diesel truck. I drove him to what I thought was a job interview.”
And Earl’s location would let me know if my trip to Firefly Lane had been real or just a figment of my imagination.
I reached for the phone and dialed Grammy B.
“Hello?” She croaked into the receiver.
“Grammy, it’s Joey. Listen, did you see me drive Earl back to your house?”
“Sure did and I thought it was mighty strange that you didn’t stop in to tell me how your interview went.” She sounded hurt.
I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. I had no memory between drifting off at Robin Goodfellow’s house and waking up on the couch. But Grammy had seen me.
Grammy cleared her throat. “Joey gal? You all right?”
“Sorry, Grammy. Yeah, I’m fine. Interview was…odd. I’ll be by with cookies first thing tomorrow.”
“What was that all about?” Darcy had moved on to rimming the margarita glasses with lime juice. “You had an interview already? Oh, tell me it’s not for the Waffle Hut. You know they were shut down by the sanitation department again.”
I shook my head. “No, not the Hut. And you really need to stop eating there.”
“It’s the only place that serves food all my kids will eat. Mike says what doesn’t kill them will make them stronger.” Turning the prepped margarita glass upside down, she swirled the edge into the salt and then handed it to me. “Okay, so you were saying you had a job interview and you borrowed Grammy B’s truck to get there. What was the job for anyway?”
I took the green slush-filled blender and filled my glass with margarita and then topped off the one she held out to me. “Assistant life coach.”
Darcy had just lifted her margarita to her lips but she lowered it again. “You’re damn lucky that I hadn’t drunk any of this down yet or there would have been a big old comical spit-take. Which is less funny as an adult and you know how much a fifth of this stuff goes for. What on Earth would compel you to think you could be a life coach?”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “I could totally be a life coach.”
“Yeah, okay.” Darcy shook her head and sipped her drink.
“Well, not without training obviously, but I mean, that’s why I wanted to be the assistant to the life coach. To get trained.”
“Joey, how long have we been friends?” Darcy set her margarita down so I knew she meant business.
“Since the first day of tumbling camp before Kindergarten.” We’d both taken to the mat with unbridled enthusiasm. Me, because I loved the act of bending and moving my body in all sorts of ways. Darcy because she liked rolling into other kids and knocking them down.
She shut one eye and held her drink up to me. “Right. I was there when you got your first rip from overworking on the uneven bars. I was there when you did your all-around routine. I was there when your period started and you freaked out because your mama’s version of the birds and the bees talk was too focused on female empowerment and less on the nuts and bolts of how to handle yourself. I was there when you wanted to date that awful jackass Bill Tucker in high school and he didn’t know you existed. I was there when you got married and I was there when you signed divorce papers and when your grandfather died. So, for argument’s sake, let’s call me an expert on Joey Whitmore.”
I huffed out a breath. “Fine, you’re the expert. You really should have been a lawyer.”
She perched on a barstool and crossed her legs. “We’re on you right now. And as an expert on Joey Whitmore, I know that the idea of working with a life coach was not one that organically entered your brain. Something sent you careening towards it.”
I raised a brow. “You mean something other than the lack of decent jobs in this town?”
She waved that away as though my objection was irrelevant. “You could work with me.”
I sighed. “Baby-sitting your kids on snow days does not constitute full-time employment.”
Darcy took another sip of her margarita. “This have something to do with seeing Georgia?”
No use asking how she knew. If she had been to the supermarket and the post office, someone would have told her that Georgia had been towing my mother’s car out of the parking lot. “It’s just…I envy her. George knew what he wanted and went after it no matter how strange it sounded to the people around here. And then my mother came home and was on a tear about me finding direction and when I saw that want ad, I just thought….” I trailed off, unwilling to admit the truth.
“Thought what?” Darcy prompted.
I drew my finger through the condensation on the outside of the glass. “Thought that maybe if I did something a little off-beat it would help me reignite my spark.”
Darcy’s thin blond brows pulled together. “When you say your spark…?”
Frustrated, I threw my hands up in the air. “You know, that something special feeling. A zest for life. I can’t remember the last time I had that.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
Then Darcy reached for the pitcher and refilled both our glasses. “You know all you need is a really good vibrator.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? I tell you I have no zest for life and you tell me to get a sex toy?”
“Well, I’d tell you to get a man but you never have been good with the catch and release thing. Next thing you’d be cooking his meals and washing his skid-marked skivvies right alongside Grammy B’s.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “Grammy B does her own laundry and I doubt she has skid marks.”
“Right, because that’s apparently a Y chromosome thing.” Darcy shuddered. “I have six guys in my family and the proof is in the bacon strip.”
Tears were starting to form. “You know these are things I can’t unhear.”
Darcy snapped her fingers. “Hey, I know how we can find out for sure. Let’s ask Georgia.”
“Ask Georgia what?”
“That should be proof if it's in the chromosomes or not. Because she was a man and is now a woman. We could answer the age-old question.”
My mouth fell open. “You seriously want to call my ex and find out if she still has skid marks?”
“What? Is that taboo?” Darcy shrugged. “Okay forget I mentioned it.”
“I will be struggling to do just that for the rest of my natural life,” I vowed.
“Or until the next time I’m full of tequila and sage advice.” Darcy held up her margarita and we clinked glasses.
I had to call Darcy’s husband Mike to come to pick her up. As Margarita Monday was a regular occasion, he was expecting the call and made it in record time.
“He doesn’t want to be alone with his mother any more than I do.” Darcy hiccupped as I helped bundle her into her coat. “That and tequila makes my clothes fall off.”