“Great,” Maddy said quickly. “Bob, you don’t mind if I ride with Eleanor, do you?”
“What? No, not at all,” Bob said. “David, do you need a ride?”
“I drove over here by myself, but if you’d like some company, I can always pick my car up tomorrow.”
“Nonsense. No one has to babysit me. I’m over that fool. I’ll see you all later.”
After the men were gone and Maddy and I were standing in line for food, my sister said, “Eleanor, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I should have gone with him.”
“You can probably still catch up with him, if you really want to,” I said.
She thought about it and then finally said, “No, he wouldn’t like that. Bob’s got a great deal of pride, and sometimes I have to tiptoe around his ego so I don’t accidentally bruise it. It may not show, but the man does have his flaws.”
“Unlike the two of us,” I said with a laugh.
“We are pretty perfect, aren’t we?” she asked.
“We are as far as I’m willing to admit to the outside world,” I answered. “Don’t worry. Bob and David will be fine.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I just don’t like the way Grant threatened us all.”
“Do you think he’d actually follow through with it?” I asked. “He never seemed like the dangerous type to me when you were married.”
“No, but he’s always had a bit of a cruel streak in him, and who knows how much he’s changed since we were together?”
“Maddy, we can call Kevin Hurley if you’d like.” I knew that Grant, and her marriage to him, were both sore spots for her.
“No, I’m just being silly. I’m sure that they’ll be fine.”
It was our turn to order next, and we ended up buying enough food to feed an army. I was happy that Manny was used to cooking in such large quantities. After all the food they’d served that evening, there was still plenty left over for our little impromptu late-night picnic.
But if I were being honest with myself, I’d be relieved once we were all together again, sitting on my front porch and enjoying the meal, away from the crowds and, more importantly, a pushy ex-husband.
As a matter of course, Maddy and I kept clothes at each other’s places in case we had one of our impromptu overnight visits, so we went straight to my place so we could shower and change. The remodeled Craftsman-style bungalow where I lived was home to me for so many reasons. Joe and I had invested a great deal of sweat equity into it, bringing it back to its former glory one step at a time. It was the one place on earth, even more than the pizzeria, where I still felt his presence the most, and that was a very good thing indeed.
After Maddy and I had showered and changed, we set up a small table on the porch, reheated the beans and barbeque, and then added the potato salad and slaw to the offering. The table seemed to groan under all the weight on it, but I knew that wouldn’t last for long.
David’s headlights finally illuminated the porch, and he joined us.
“Where’s Bob?” he asked as he looked around.
“He’s not here yet,” Maddy said. “Should we be worried about him?”
“No, of course not. I’m sure he’s fine,” David said as he glanced in my direction and raised a single eyebrow out of Maddy’s line of sight.
“Of course he is,” I said. “So, what do you think? Should we wait or go ahead and grab some plates and start eating?”
“We should wait,” Maddy said at the same time David answered, “I say we go ahead and eat.”
We all laughed as Maddy reached for her cell phone. After a minute, she closed it abruptly. “That’s odd. He’s not answering.”
“Maybe he’s too busy driving over to pick up his phone,” I said.
David shrugged as he put the plate he’d grabbed down on the rail. “There’s no use standing around here speculating about it. I’ll go see what’s keeping him.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, but Maddy put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks. I would really appreciate that.”
“I’m happy to do it.” David was two steps from his car when another set of headlights started down the street toward us. Was it Bob or someone else? As the car approached, it slowed down, and I was more than a little relieved when I saw that it was indeed Maddy’s fiancé.
As he got out of his car, David grinned at him. “I was just about to start up a search party for you, buddy. Where have you been?”
“I had to take a really long shower to get all of the beer out of my hair,” he said. “I still can’t believe what a jerk your ex-husband was tonight, Maddy. What did you ever see in the man?”