Page 20 of The Summer We Made Promises (The Destin Diaries #3)

“ D on’t you think it’s rude to just show up unannounced and uninvited?

” Jo Ellen asked from the passenger seat, one arm around her handbag like it was a baby, the other gripping the door as though Maggie’s driving was going to kill them both.

“You always follow social protocol, Mags. Also, would it kill you to use a turn signal?”

“This isn’t a social protocol situation, and I haven’t seen a turn signal since we got on the road,” Maggie replied as she navigated—rather well, in her opinion—the heavy traffic. “I don’t want to stand out as a tourist.”

Jo snorted and let it drop. “But we’re just going to knock on their front door?”

“That’s what Kate and Eli did,” she said, recalling her conversation with her son this morning. “No one had a heart attack. It’s fine if we just arrive.”

Jo Ellen sighed and studied the shops going by. “Kate and Eli. Who’d have ever thought that would be a thing?”

“It’s not a thing ,” Maggie said quickly. “They’re friends.”

“Friends who kiss, talk on the phone every day, and can’t wait to see each other again.”

Maggie let her eyes shutter, not quite ready to accept that relationship yet. What would Roger say? After he stopped spinning in his grave, that was.

“What? Why don’t you like them together, Mags?” Jo Ellen pressed when she didn’t answer.

“You know why,” she finally replied. “It’s bad enough that the kids have all become friends again and you and I are spending endless hours reminiscing and laughing and cooking and falling back into old patterns. But if Eli marries a Wylie…”

“You think they’ll get married ?” Jo couldn’t keep the note of excitement out of her voice.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Maggie shot her a look. “We made promises, Jo. Both of us.”

“Did that include our kids?”

“I don’t know ,” she repeated on a huffed breath. “But that’s why we’re going on this mission.”

“To solve The Case of the Mysterious Promise .” Jo sang the words, making Maggie smile even though she didn’t want to.

“I hate to break it to you, Jo, but at seventy-eight? We’re more Murder She Wrote than Nancy Drew.”

“I hope there’s no murder,” Jo muttered. “Just a dumb promise.”

“We don’t know if it was dumb,” Maggie said, spying her next turn—and using the signal this time. “Here’s the bridge to Santa Rosa Beach, so maybe we’ll find out soon.”

“What are we going to say?” Jo Ellen asked. “Do we tell them everything?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie admitted. “But I sure want to know why Frank told Eli that you and Roger had an affair?—”

“And Betty told Kate that you and Artie did.”

They both chuckled at how preposterous either scenario was, but their smiles faded after a few seconds.

“Maybe they were sauced,” Jo Ellen said as she shifted in her seat. “Kate said they broke out the limoncello.”

“Frank’s favorite,” Maggie recalled. “Betty liked her wine. Remember how she’d bring it to the beach in a thermos? I was always so afraid Crista would drink it by accident.”

“She was fun, though,” Jo Ellen said. “Remember the disco ball in the middle of the deli?”

“Do I remember? I told her it was the definition of tacky and you know what she said?”

“No, what?”

“My ‘obsession’ with Gone With the Wind was tacky. She told me I shouldn’t have named Vivien after a movie star.” She gave a sly smile. “So I threatened to hit her with my gold-dipped brick from Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta.”

“You have one?” Jo Ellen asked.

“Roger bought it for me at a silent auction fundraiser. It’s got a plaque on it with the date of the premier in 1939.” She sighed. “There was nothing that man wouldn’t do for me.”

“Except, you know, not commit crimes.”

She fumed at Jo Ellen’s whispered comment, biting back a response. She was right, and Maggie knew it.

“They live on the next corner,” she said, turning onto a tree-lined street and slowing at a one-story brick house with a gaudy red front door.

“Way to be subtle, Betty,” Maggie muttered as she pulled into the driveway.

“The landscaping is gorgeous,” Jo Ellen mused, taking in a riot of bougainvillea and well-tended plant beds. “Frank must still like to garden. Glad they’re not too old for that.”

“Just pray their memories still work,” Maggie said.

As they climbed out of the SUV, the front door opened and a much older version of Frank Cavallari stood peering suspiciously at them.

At eighty-seven, his hair was thinner and all white, and his bushy brows more salt than pepper.

He’d never been a tall man, but he’d shrunk to about Maggie’s height of five-foot-six, and the sorry-looking overalls he wore just made him look shorter.

He took a step out to the small porch, clearly wary of them. “You ladies sellin’ something? ’Cause I ain’t buyin’.”

Maggie stiffened, lifting her chin as they reached him, noticing that his brown eyes were still penetrating, if a little cloudy and surrounded by deep wrinkles. Did she look that much older, too? Probably, but in true Scarlett O’Hara fashion, she didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Frank Cavallari,” she started. “You don’t remember?—”

“Maggie!” He spread his arms and swooped her into a hug, surprisingly strong for his shrunken body. “And Jo Ellen?” Another hug, then he yelled over his shoulder, “Betty, get yourself out here, woman! Maggie and Jo Ellen are here! In the flesh!”

Maggie couldn’t help smiling at the response, but she didn’t know why she’d be surprised.

They’d left on fine terms that last summer.

She and Roger had had one more dinner with Frank and Betty after the Wylies left in such a hurry.

Neither one of them breathed a word about the big fight, or that the Wylies had left for any reason other than Artie’s job.

They’d all lost touch shortly after the hurricane that hit in September, so there’d be no reason not to have a loving reunion.

“Mags and Jo?” Betty called from inside the house just before appearing in the entryway. She gasped and covered her mouth. “Are you kidding me?”

She came out and they hugged again, a little more effusively than Maggie liked, but there was never any stopping Betty Cavallari.

She’d aged a little better than Frank—pickled from all that chianti, no doubt—though her hair was white and she’d put on a decent amount of weight, most of it in her bosom.

But her laugh hadn’t changed, nor her bright and warm smile, flashy earrings, or the bubblegum pink top they matched.

After the infernal hugging finally ended, Frank invited them in, sweeping them past a formal living area into the kitchen.

With non-stop chatter—mostly from Betty—they eventually took seats around a breakfast table in a nook overlooking one of those fake Florida reservoirs that people called “lakes.”

Betty insisted on bringing out her powdered sugar cookies and Maggie and Jo Ellen accepted her offer of some coffee. While she brewed a pot, Betty beamed her huge smile at them.

“So I guess you heard your kids were here a while back,” she said. “Surprised us just like you two.”

Jo Ellen nodded. “Kate told me all about your visit.”

“And everything you said,” Maggie added, getting a raised eyebrow from Betty. Well, too bad. She was not interested in beating around the bush with small talk. They could do that later, but she had too many questions that had to be answered.

“I don’t know what all we said,” Betty responded. “But they told us you two hadn’t talked in thirty years. Happy to see you’re best girlfriends again.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Maggie said dryly.

Frank gave her a smirk. “So you haven’t lost your, uh, sarcastic sense of humor, Maggie?”

“No, but I have lost my husband,” she said. “I assume you heard that Roger was incarcerated and passed away in prison.”

Anytime she spoke the words it felt like gravel in her mouth, but today was particularly bad. These people had known Roger, and loved him. But the elephant was too big in this kitchen to gloss over it.

For a moment, no one spoke, then Frank let out a soft groan. “It’s so sad, Maggie. I’m sorry. And Kate told us you’ve lost Artie, Jo.” He reached over the table and put a hand on hers. “We were so devastated to hear that.”

“Thank you,” she murmured as Betty came back with a small tray holding four coffee mugs and fixings. “Kate and Eli told us your families are sharing that old beach house after a renovation. How exciting!”

“Very,” Maggie said as she fixed her coffee.

Betty fussed with the cookies and, finally, the four of them sat facing each other in an awkward silence.

“Oh!” Betty exclaimed, pushing her chair back. “I have to show you pictures of our grandchildren.”

“No.” Maggie underscored the single syllable by putting her cup down with a thud. At their looks, she shuttered her eyes in apology.

“As much as we’re enjoying this reunion,” she began, hearing her clipped tone, but not caring, “Jo Ellen and I actually came here for a reason.”

Jo Ellen leaned in. “Maggie’s right. We need to find out a few more details of…some things we don’t understand. We hoped your memories would be better than ours.”

“My memory is fine,” Maggie interjected. “But the fact is, our husbands both made us promise not to speak to each other. We accepted that edict, but now, thirty years later, both men are dead. We are trying to find out why they wanted us separated.”

“We certainly don’t know,” Frank said quickly.

“And what difference does it make?” Betty added. “Be friends if you want to be friends! As you said, both men are dead, rest their souls.”

“It makes a world of difference,” Maggie insisted, impatience crawling over her. “If it was something awful, then Jo and I shouldn’t be friends.”

“We have no idea,” Betty said.

Frank just looked down at his coffee and uneaten cookie, quiet enough that Maggie thought he did have an idea, but didn’t want to say. Something he was hiding from his wife?

Well, too bad. The truth, whatever it was, had to come out.