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Vi nodded in agreement as she swallowed. “Hey, I’ve been wondering. How did you and your sisters end up opening stores in the same shopping center?”

Cory swallowed. “I wanted to open my own liquor store and CeCe dreamed of having her own salon, but we didn’t have the money.”

“I get that,” Vi said.

“When we were kids my dad had an uncle that would come visit. He loved playing with us and we loved him. We were in high school when Uncle Jack died. He didn’t have any kids and gave all his money to my dad. We were sad about Uncle Jack, but also excited about all the clothes and things we could buy. Well, my dad quickly put an end to those dreams.”

Cory paused to take a drink then continued. “He told us that Uncle Jack wanted us to go out to a nice restaurant and celebrate, which we did. But then Dad told us we weren’t spending that money. We didn’t understand why, but we also knew not to ask questions.”

Vi didn’t interrupt and waited for Cory to go on.

“Fast forward almost thirty years and my dad died,” Cory said.

“Oh, Cory,” Violet said compassionately. “I’m so sorry.”

17

“Thank you. I took care of Dad’s estate and came across this letter. He’d written it to us three girls and told us Uncle Jack left us the money and he wanted us to do something with it together.”

Vi gasped. “Oh wow.”

Cory noticed tears swimming in Vi’s eyes. “It’s like it was meant to be. I was on my way to CeCe’s to show her the letter when I looked up and here’s this shopping center still under construction.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No! I pulled in and called CeCe and Cat and told them to meet me there. I let them read the letter and then we bought the shopping center.”

“I know you wanted to open your own liquor store and I understand CeCe wanting her own salon, but what about Cat?”

“You know, I’m not sure why I ended up taking care of our folk’s business because Cat is a friggin’ tax accountant. She was always so busy and worked a lot,” Cory said. “But she wanted to open a bookstore and center it around sapphic literature.”

“So she just quit her job?”

“Yep. I had a corporate sales job and she quit her accounting firm. CeCe left the salon she was working in and we opened the Sloan Sisters’ Shopping Extravaganza,” Cory said, her voice rising.

“That’s amazing,” Vi said.

“We’ve only been open a few months, but all three of us are so happy we did it.”

They finished their sandwiches and drinks then Cory leaned back on her towel. “Violet,” Cory said softly. “Do you ever get lonely?”

Vi looked down at Cory and smiled. “When I do, I grab one of the sapphic books I bought from Cat’s bookstore. I’ve become one of her best customers.”

Cory chuckled.

“I used to go check on my accounts and hope I would meet someone, you know. But in my experience the women I’d meet in a bar were only interested in one night and that just wasn’t for me.”

“I know what you mean,” Cory said.

“What about you? You’ve told me about Talia…”

“Yeah, Talia and I started hot and intense, but it didn’t take long for that to fizzle out. We were better as friends.” Cory gave Vi a measured look.

“What is it?”

Cory sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this because you’ll want to jump in that truck and get away from me.”

“There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me run away. We’ve established that neither of us could do that.”