That said, although she could be immensely gentle, insightful and thoughtful, that didn’t mean when she had something to say, even if that something might be uncomfortable, she didn’t say it.

Which I was getting the sense she was gearing up to do now.

So I asked a fake innocent, “What?”

“What?” she asked back, not buying my fake innocent for a second and I knew this when her eyebrows shot up and she kept speaking. “Girl, I walked into your house and you had a face… a face…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what was up with your face and you still got that face.” Then, as if I didn’t know what a face was, she lifted a finger and jabbed it toward mine going on as she dropped it. “All I know is, three months you’ve been hell on wheels, no one could keep up with you and now you look all foggy like you’re living in a dreamworld.”

Damn.

I really needed to remember that even as Martha lived out her ever-present drama, that didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

“Sure you do,” Elvira stated, dumping ice into her cocktail shaker.

“Uh…” I mumbled to Elvira, a little surprised since I’d met her an hour before and she couldn’t know anything about me especially not about this.

“I got the gift,” Elvira informed me, answering my unasked question. “Can read people’s faces.” She topped the cocktail shaker and started shaking. “And yours is sayin’ you know exactly what your homegirl is talkin’ about.”

Oh crap.

I felt all eyes on me but it was Martha who spoke next.

“All right, Tess, I backed off because you know I did not like that Jake but that look on your face, I’m done backing off.”

Oh crap.

At this point Martha looked to the beauty parade of women around the table and shared,

“She got hooked up with this guy… hot and when I say hot I mean,” she licked her finger then sliced it through the air making a sizzle noise and went on, “smokin’ hot. But bad news.”

It was safe to say I didn’t want to talk about this at all but it was safer to say that I didn’t want to talk about this drinking clandestine cosmos on Ada’s picture perfect back deck with a bunch of women I didn’t know during a very badly hosted baby shower I didn’t want to be at but instead I wanted to be home preparing for nine o’clock when Brock would be back and we would be talking.

Therefore, I started, “Martha –”

“No, girl,” Martha cut me off, lifting a hand in my face to which Elvira muttered, “Oh shit, this is serious. She’s givin’ the hand.”

Martha continued, dropping her hand and looking back at the bevy of beauties. “This guy had it all, the walk, the voice, the hair, the ass, kid you not, I’d sell my soul just to run my fingers along his forearms,” she leaned in and semi-whispered, “he’s got these veins that pop out on his hands and forearms, freaking delicious. ”

Oh jeez.

Totally paid attention.

“Mm hmm, I hear you,” Elvira and Tracy muttered in unison, their eyes rapt on Martha’s face as were Gwen’s but Camille was looking at me.

Martha went on. “But did he take her to his pad? No. Did she know where he worked? No.

Did she meet any of his friends? No. Family? Unh-unh. Always her place or some dive.

Never a nice meal. Never got dressed up and took my girl on the town. He met her friends.

He showed up at her bakery. But for all she knows, he’s a lone wolf livin’ off his family’s inheritance and, from what I could tell, it wasn’t a generous one. If he called, she answered.

She couldn’t and he left a message, she called straight back. He wanted to meet, she asked where and what time and then she was there.”

“Oh boy,” Gwen muttered, clearly disappointed I’d let down our side.

“You got that right. Oh boy, ” Martha agreed . “Did she listen to me when I told her to play it cool? No. Did she listen to me when I said in four months you should see your man’s pad, at the very least meet a friend, just one? No. I get it. She was into this dude. Hell, Melissa Etheridge would be into this dude. He’s the walking, talking, breathing definition of a dude you… would… be… into. But a girl’s gotta play it cool and not put herself out there.”

I tried again. “Martha –”

She turned her bright blue eyes to me. “Unh-unh, Tess. You put yourself out there and I know, seein’ as for the last three months there’s been no talk, no sightings, Jake Knox all of a sudden fell off the face of the earth.” She leaned into me. “I know.” Then she leaned back.

“It’s ended. Because off you go, hell bent on whatever you’re hell bent on.” She turned back to the girls. “Suddenly, after twenty-five years of me talking to her about it, she gets contacts.

Suddenly, she’s at kick-boxing classes three days a week. Suddenly, she’s looking at places to open a new bakery and expand her business at the same time she’s put the house she loves on the market and is waxin’ on about movin’ to Kentucky. Suddenly, she’s off to a new hairdresser, spends three hundred friggin’ dollars for a new friggin’ look. Suddenly, she’s not shopping at Nordstrom’s but scrounging through the racks of Biker Babes ‘R’ Us. Now, we all know, a girl gets dumped by a serious hot guy she’s got two options. She deposits her ass at the nearest LaMar’s and steadily eats her way through the inventory until she’s gained fifty pounds and gives up on men until she finds herself a beer bellied loser who worships the ground she walks on. Or she gets herself a new look, kick-boxes her way to a new ass and throws herself into her job, that means she’s living and breathing for that moment when she sees him again and she can say, ‘Look what you gave up, ass**le.’” Martha’s eyes came back to me. “And that’s what you’ve been doin’.”

That wasn’t what I was doing.

Or, not exactly.

“Honey –” I began again only to get cut off again.

“But today, I see it in your eyes. Something is up and my guess is that something is that guy’s back. You’re in your head again, livin’ the dream that he’s going to be all you want him to be when everything about him screams he… is… not. ”