Page 13 of The Summer We Made Promises (The Destin Diaries #3)

“Preposterous!” Jo Ellen burst out. “Was Betty drunk?”

Maggie snorted. “Was Betty ever not drunk? The woman chugged chianti like it was afternoon tea.”

Jo Ellen leaned in and made that face that Maggie knew oh so well. Whatever was about to come out of her mouth would be just a little…scandalous.

“Because,” Jo Ellen stage-whispered, “unless she had some juice, she didn’t… you know .”

Maggie bit her lip against another laugh and an age-old ache to sit in a corner with Jo and just…gossip. What a guilty pleasure. And yet another thing Roger had stolen when he forced her to make that promise.

“I don’t know,” she lied. “But that much booze probably went a long way to causing today’s confusion. Artie and me? I mean, give me a break.”

Jo Ellen gave a sad smile. “He was a wonderful man and incapable of infidelity and just let me tell you, Mags—your husband might have had his flaws, but he adored you. Worshipped the ground you walked on. He?—”

Maggie held up a hand. “I know, Jo. I remember.”

For a few seconds, they were both quiet, then Vivien cleared her throat to ask, “Do you want their address?”

Maggie and Jo Ellen shared a look, silent, then they both shook their heads, proving that they could still communicate without speaking.

“But I’ll tell you what I do want, Vivien,” Jo Ellen said.

“Anything,” Vivien replied.

“That recipe. Do you still have it?”

“Yes. It’s on the back of that diary entry, if you want to write it down.”

“I do, and I want to take it to the store.” She reached a hand over the table toward Maggie. “Because tonight, my old friend—not old -old, you know what I mean. Tonight, we are…”

“Making bolognese,” Maggie finished, a smile pulling.

“I’ll get the recipe,” Vivien said, shooting up as if hesitation might break the moment.

“I’ll get my handbag.” Jo Ellen rose, too. “Can you still drive, Maggie?”

“Honey, please. I’m seventy-eight, not a hundred.”

“She’s a great driver,” Vivien called as she went inside. “You guys can take my car.”

They both left the deck, and Maggie stayed very still, staring back at the water, trying to process all her feelings. It wasn’t easy.

From the disappointing news about the files, to the ridiculous rewriting of history by Frank and Betty, to the sweet release of endorphins from being with the woman who was once her best friend.

Not to mention that every time they spoke, she was breaking a promise to Roger.

Vivien breezed back, holding a colorful notebook. “Here you go. Let me take a picture of it for you and?—”

“Just give me the recipe, Vivien,” Maggie said as she stood. “I can’t read tiny words on a screen.”

“But I have writing on the other side and I don’t want to tear it out.”

“Vivien.” She glowered at her daughter. “You can tape it back in and feel safe in the fact that I have no desire to read your childhood diary entries. Come on. I’m feeling benevolent toward Jo Ellen. Do you want to ruin that?”

She huffed a breath, opened the notebook on the table, and tore out the page, handing it to Maggie. “Benevolent is good. I hope that lasts.”

Maggie gave a tight smile and took the paper, folding it neatly to slide it in her handbag.

Yes, she was breaking a promise, but right then, she didn’t care.

Nothing was like they remembered . Traffic was insane, with at least five million cars on the road.

Parking was impossible, requiring Maggie to swear not once but twice trying to get in a spot.

Publix was ten times the size it used to be, the sun was hotter than the second level of hell, and the recipe was written by a fourteen-year-old in chicken scratch not made for seventy-eight-year-old eyes.

But Maggie simply couldn’t recall feeling so…light.

Not since the last time she’d been in this very town with this very woman on a very similar shopping mission.

They were halfway through their grocery list—onions, celery, carrots, the good canned tomatoes—when they came to a stop in the spice aisle.

“Nutmeg,” Maggie read aloud, squinting at the paper, then the shelf. “Just a pinch.”

Jo Ellen turned a few bottles. “Do you see it?”

“I don’t know what I see,” Maggie said. “Why isn’t it alphabetical? Basil’s next to turmeric. That should be illegal.”

“Well, you write your congressman, Maggie. In the meantime, find the nutmeg.”

Maggie scanned the rows, then spotted a tiny glass jar wedged behind some coriander. “Wait—is that it?” She reached for it, knocking over a tower of garlic powder canisters. One hit the bottom shelf and rolled across the floor.

“Whoops.” Jo Ellen snorted. “Clean up on aisle six. Geriatric Spice Girls have caused a mess.”

“Speak for yourself,” Maggie whispered, laughing. “But if we are, I’m Posh Spice.”

“Nope. Scary Spice.”

Maggie swooped the nutmeg into the cart and glared at her friend. “Well, you’re not Baby Spice. More like…Seventy-something Spice?”

“I’ll take it, but how did that happen, Mags?” Jo went to throw an arm around Maggie, and when she did, she knocked half a dozen bottles of dried rosemary, making them jump back and squeal a little.

“We are not to be trusted in a grocery store!” Maggie exclaimed as they both giggled like they were twenty-year-old Tri-Delts again, sharing cheap wine and late-night Taco Bell.

Jo Ellen wiped her eyes as they did a cursory cleanup and guiltily pushed the cart away from the scene and into the next aisle for more destruction.

“Nutmeg,” Jo Ellen mused. “You know what that reminds me of? Remember that formal in ’67? When that guy—what was his name? Todd something—thought you were Swiss because you said you liked nutmeg?”

“Sweater Vest Todd!” Maggie hooted. “He thought ‘neutral’ meant ‘from a neutral country’!”

They both lost it again, and Jo Ellen had to hold onto the shelf to steady herself.

Maggie studied her friend, feeling breathless…then swamped with guilt. What if Roger could look down from…from wherever he was…and see them?

What would he say? How could she justify standing in Publix laughing like loons thirty years after she’d given him her word she would have nothing to do with anyone named Wylie?

She didn’t know. But she didn’t have to, and this felt…good. Roger would want her to feel good, wouldn’t he?

Jo Ellen’s smile softened. “I miss us.”

Maggie nodded, blinking a little too much as she let the doubt and unwelcome sensations spiral through her.

Should she be doing this? No. Could she stop? She had to.

Clearing her throat, she glanced around, hoping they weren’t making a scene. “Okay, Jo. Go find the pancetta.”

“Come with me.” Jo grabbed her arm. “You know you can’t trust me alone.”

“I’ll stay here,” she said, forcing the smile off her face.

Jo Ellen instantly looked crestfallen. “It’s okay to laugh,” she said softly. “Artie used to say laughter was oxygen for the soul. And you, Mags? You’re suffocating.”

Maggie just nodded, unable to muster a response while Jo shrugged and walked away.

Tears, unwelcome and unwanted, stung her lids. Desperate for a distraction, she shoved her hand into her purse to double-check the list. There must be something she could go buy.

She tugged out the wrinkled page and opened it, squinting at Vivien’s rather poor penmanship.

Oh, wrong side. This wasn’t the recipe, it was?—

P.S.#2. Mom is so different here!

She froze at the words written at the bottom of the page. Everything in her wanted to turn it over and look at the recipe, but she couldn’t help herself and kept reading.

Why is that? When she cooks at home, it’s a little scary.

She has so many rules and things have to be done a certain way and it just isn’t fun.

But with Aunt Jo Ellen, all she does is laugh and do what she calls “back up support” which apparently means pouring wine.

I wish she were more like she is here when we are at home. It’s like having a different mom.

Maggie stood still, staring at the words. A lump formed in her throat before she even realized she’d stopped breathing.

Vivien had written that at fourteen, but somehow the feeling cut with more precision now—when there was so little left to do about it.

She folded the page carefully and slipped it back into her purse.

Was it…Jo Ellen? Did she make Maggie different or better? Yes, at least in fourteen-year-old Vivien’s estimation.

“Guess what?” Jo Ellen called as she returned, lifting the pancetta like a trophy. “I charmed the butcher into slicing it paper-thin. Betty would be proud.”

“She would,” Maggie said, clearing her throat. Then added, quieter, “I think Vivien would be proud, too.”

Jo Ellen gave her a confused look, but Maggie ushered her toward the front of the store.

As they unloaded the cart, Jo Ellen eyed Maggie and looked like she wanted to say something but just couldn’t.

“Did we forget something?” Maggie asked.

“No, no. I just…I, um, want to tell you something.”

“Please, Jo. I know I’m all uptight and no fun and not breathing your laughter or whatever. I made my husband a?—”

“We’re having a Celebration of Life event for Artie,” she said quickly. “Tessa and I decided we’d like to honor the promise we made a long time ago to put his ashes in the Gulf. We thought we’d make a party out of it. I mean, a celebration. Not a wild party, but…you know. A thing. On her boat.”

Maggie felt her fingers curl gently around the edges of the deli-wrapped pancetta. “All right.”

“I’d like you to be there,” Jo Ellen added softly.

“Is plastic okay, ma’am?” The question pulled Maggie and she turned, happy to look away.

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

“Will you be there?” Jo Ellen pressed. “Could you…please?”

Silence stretched between them before Maggie shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.

“Can’t or won’t?”

Maggie hesitated. “I made a promise to my own dead husband, Jo. Going to Artie’s memorial service would be…beyond the pale.”

Jo Ellen exhaled, then nodded. “Okay.”

They were silent as Maggie slid her card through the machine and pushed the cart toward the exit, aching for air in lungs that were…yes, suffocating.