Page 163 of Protecting What's Mine

The greetings blurred together in a sea of faces and names that Mack would never remember.

“This is my sister-in-law Tiffany. My neighbor from two houses down Marie. My coworkers Sandra and Ellen. Two Ellens! Madison’s son is on my son’s soccer team and runs carpool on Tuesdays and Thursdays…”

Harper and Gloria were there. And Mack recognized Beth, from the offices of Garrison Construction, perusing the snacks on the sawhorse and plywood table.

There were women everywhere—on the worn couches, the upholstered rocking chair, two even shared a yellow vinyl bean bag. Plates of appetizers and bowls of snacks hogged every flat surface. If there was music playing, she couldn’t hear it over the hum of female conversation.

The mood was festive, light.

“Do you see the appetizers?” Ellen asked. “We’ve got a veggie tray, a fruit tray, grilled chicken skewers that my father-in-law made. The water is cucumber lemon, just like at a spa!”

“Very nice,” Mack said, feeling just a little overwhelmed.

“And healthy!” Ellen elbowed her. “I’m down six pounds. Six! Can you believe it?”

“That’s fantastic,” Mack agreed. “How’s the swimming?”

“Amazing!” She drew the word out to three full syllables. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I guess I should have talked to you about it before I sprung a dozen extra ladies on you for Ladies’ Night. But when I started telling people about what I was doing, they had questions.”

Questions about eating right and exercising? Wasn’t that what the internet was for?

Mack felt a flicker of concern. If this was about to turn into a Q&A with the doctor, she was going to fake an emergency call. She could clamp an artery and save a limb when necessary, but giving a lecture on nutrition was a bit out of her area of expertise.

“We got to talking, and we had a crazy idea that we wanted to run by you, you know?”

“Okay.”

Ellen clapped her hands. “Ladies, let’s tell Dr. Mack our idea.”

The crowd hushed. Someone turned on the TV mounted on the wall under a creepy, stuffed ram head.

“We made a PowerPoint,” announced a woman with curly hair somewhere between the shade of strawberries and wheat.

“Cue it up, Roberta!”

“Here, you can sit here,” Harper said, patting the cushion next to her.

Mack crammed herself between Harper and another woman she recognized as Peggy Sue Marsico from the grocery store and the Little League national anthem.

“We, the overworked, under-exercised, convenience food-dependent women of Benevolence, Maryland, would like to propose a social solution to our problems,” Ellen began.

She wouldn’t be able to send an SOS text to Linc without the women on either side reading it. She was good and stuck.

“Dang it. This thing isn’t working,” the woman with the slide remote said, shaking it vigorously. Her generous breasts bounced in a bra that clearly didn’t fit.

“Gimmie the clicker thing,” Peggy Sue demanded.

They fought with the technology, at one point fast-forwarding through the entire presentation upside-down.

Harper coughed. “Uh, how many slides are there?” she asked.

“Forty-eight,” Ellen said cheerfully. “We even made pie charts.”

Sweet baby Jesus.

“Maybe we should just summarize it?” Harper offered helpfully.

“Yes!” Mack said, unwedging herself from the couch and its occupants. “How about a summary?”