Page 17

If I told you so were a person, its name would be Keisha Marie Allen.

The moment we walked into the house and Jacqueline Miller stepped around the corner to greet us, Keisha’s forced smile transformed almost magically, and her brilliant, smug smile hasn’t faded since.

It’s a look I’m all too familiar with and I know, without a shadow of doubt, she will hold tonight over my head until my final breath.

“Jacqueline, your house is so beautiful,” Keisha says to Luke’s ex-wife as we stand around the island in her newly remodeled kitchen, snacking on the impressive spread she laid out. “How long have you lived here?”

Without the Stanley full of Pinot, Jacqueline is like another person.

She’s much quieter and more reserved, almost to the point of being a snob.

Not the bad kind of snobby though, the kind where you’d do anything, even join a skincare MLM, in hopes that you might impress her enough that she’ll invite you into her inner circle.

“Oh you’re so sweet, thank you so much.” Jacqueline brings her hand to Keisha’s shoulder and it’s somehow as charming as it is condescending.

“We’ve been here for about ten years. We were lucky enough to get into this neighborhood early.

It’s been wonderful to watch this community transform into something so gorgeous. ”

I bite back my laughter and almost choke on my wine as I watch Keisha battle her inner demons and try to come up with anything nice to say.

“Oh wow.” Her words sound strangled…and I have a feeling that’s what she’s trying to avoid doing to Jacqueline right now. “This neighborhood has definitely changed over the years.”

Like me, Keisha is also a Denver native.

I lived on the southeast side of the city growing up, but Keisha was raised in this neighborhood.

Her dad’s family is from Georgia, but her mom’s family all lived on the same street as her until they were priced out of the houses they called homes for decades.

The developers that moved in have not only knocked down the homes that had been standing since the early 1900s, but they’ve bulldozed the history and community right alongside of it.

Besides being a fantastic art teacher and independent artist, Keisha is on multiple boards and attends more city meetings than I knew possible.

She does everything she can to preserve even an ounce of the community that raised her.

Poor Jacqueline has no idea that she just made an enemy for life. Because if there is one thing Keisha never tires of, it’s holding a grudge. A talent I both respect and fear.

“Right? You should’ve seen it when we first moved.

” Jacqueline’s already gorgeous smile grows to something that can only be described as straight up dazzling.

“I wanted to move to Highland’s Ranch, but my ex-husband wouldn’t budge on being in the city and closer to his work.

I don’t like to give him credit for much, but he was able to look through all of the…

riffraff and see the potential of this place. ”

Keisha’s jaw ticks, and her long fingers tighten around the stem of her wine glass. I’ve watched enough episodes of Real Housewives to know it’s time for me to intervene.

“So, Jacqueline!” I jump into the conversation before Keisha loses her shit and rips her to shreds. “How long have you been a part of Petunia Lemon?”

“Five years!” She doesn’t even have to stop and think about it. “I joined right after Isla was born and never looked back. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.”

“Because she met all of us!” Nora pulls Jacqueline in for a hug and elbows her way into the conversation. She’s had three martinis since Keisha and I arrived, and it’s really starting to show. “Empowered now—”

“And sisters in skincare forever!” Jacqueline and the rest of the women chant in unison. The knee-jerk, conditioned response is as alarming as it is impressive, and it sends me straight back to the pews of my Catholic-school days.

I look at Keisha, and I have to imagine we’re both wearing matching what the fuck expressions because actually…what the fuck?

“It’s our little Petunia Lemon chant.” Nora explains what we most certainly didn’t ask. “You’ll catch on quick.”

I think I’m going to have to pass on that one.

“Speaking of sisters, Keisha was telling me Anna is in Petunia Lemon too.” I take a sip of my wine, waiting for the buzz to hit. “Is she coming tonight?”

“Oh god no,” Nora scoffs. “She just wasn’t cut out for this. You need to have a personality for this business and she was too quiet. It didn’t work.”

The buzz I’m waiting for must’ve found Nora instead because wow. That was kind of mean!

“You have to want to be sisters to make this work. Anna was nice, but she kept a distance between us that didn’t go over well.

” Jacqueline tries to soften the knockout punch Nora just laid out.

“When I was going through my divorce, these women never left my side. We really are sisters and I honestly don’t even know if I would’ve been strong enough to file without them.

They were the ones who convinced me that I deserved better and Isla deserved to grow up watching her mom being the ultimate girlboss who never folded to what a man has to say. ”

An image of Luke bent over my car, replacing my car battery, flashes into my mind, and I have to work overtime to push it away.

I’m familiar with being in awkward situations, but standing in the kitchen of a student’s parent and listening to them talk about their ex who not only fixed my car, but gave me the best orgasms of my life is a level of awkward I didn’t even know existed.

But besides her ex-husband’s ass and my immediate aversion to the term “girlboss,” I have to admit that it’s really nice to hear someone talk about this side of Petunia Lemon.

I signed up to sell the products, but I’d be lying if I said the bigger draw wasn’t seeing how much fun the women at the convention were having. Gathered in the kitchen and knowing how much they support one another only confirms that I made the right decision when I signed up.

I’m so busy with work and trying to stay afloat that I’ve let my friendships suffer over the years.

It’s hard to forge meaningful relationships when you aren’t sure if you’re going to be able to pay your bills.

The stress that has been building over these last few years has reached critical levels recently, and I’m not sure how much longer I can do it alone.

And I love Keisha too much to lay all of my problems at her feet.

“Cheers to that!” Nora lifts her fourth martini in the air. “Lucas might be hot, but he’s such an asshole.”

At least that’s a sentiment I can agree with.

“I know.” Jacqueline rolls her crystal blue eyes to the back of her head. “He thinks he’s so much better and smarter than everyone because he went to Yale and wrote for the New York Times .”

“He worked for the New York Times ?” I hate that I can’t stop myself from asking.

I hate it even more that I’m impressed.

“Barely.” Jacqueline plops a cheese cube in her mouth.

She’s been standing in the kitchen all night, but it’s the first thing I’ve seen her eat.

“He was offered a job straight out of college, but we were only there for a year before I told him I couldn’t do it anymore and if he wanted kids, we had to leave that awful city. ”

I never want to stick up for a man, especially Luke, but I can’t say I’m on her side here.

Getting a job offer at a place like the New York Times straight out of college isn’t just a big deal, it’s huge.

But keeping my mouth shut seems like the right choice for a multitude of reasons.

Jacqueline’s forehead hasn’t moved since we arrived, but when it comes to Luke, disdain is written all over her face and there’s no way I’m getting involved in whatever went down between the two of them.

“I’ll never get over the audacity of that man trying to get you to stop doing Petunia Lemon after seeing how well you did,” a woman whose name I already forgot says. “Some men just can’t handle having a wife who is more successful than they are.”

“Exactly!” Alyssa, one of the women I met at the convention, shouts. “This is why sisters in skincare are forever, even when husbands aren’t.”

“We even have the tattoos to prove it!” someone else yells from across the island.

Without warning, almost every woman in the room turns their wrist over and reveals an infinity sign tattoo with the letters SIS woven into the symbol. I grab Nora’s wrist to take a closer look at the tattoo that I’ve somehow never noticed before.

“What’s sis?” I ask, not sure I even want to know. I’ve watched enough true crime cult documentaries to be more than a little concerned.

“S-I-S, sisters in skincare,” she explains like this is a totally reasonable, and not at all shocking, thing to have permanently etched onto your skin.

“Once we make it to the Pink Petunia level, we all get the same tattoo. Then for every level you reach after that, you go back and add a little petunia around it!”

“Wow!” Words have temporarily escaped my brain. “That’s…That’s something.”

“I’m just so sorry you have to deal with Lucas, he’s so condescending.

” Jacqueline takes my—tattoo free—hand and turns everyone’s attention back to her.

“Please know that you can always email me if any issues with Isla arise, even if it’s not my day with her.

If anyone understands how difficult it can be to communicate with Lucas, it’s me.

I mean, I still can’t believe he forgot my girl on her first day! ”

Horrified gasps ring out around me, and my skin itches with how uncomfortable I am.