Johnny and Wayne had five kids between them —scrawny, unruly boys between the ages of four and ten. Mimi sat on a beach towel, playing with her nesting cups and occasionally looking up at her new cousins’ antics with the critical gaze of an anthropologist.
“You come on over here, Lily,” Sheila, Wayne’s wife, said. “Me and Tracee wanna give you a crash course on how to handle a McGilly man.”
Lily managed a smile, knocked back some beer, and sat down at the redwood picnic table across from the other McGilly wives. Lily could tell she was going to have a hard time telling Sheila and Tracee apart. They both had dark tanning-bed tans and peroxided blond hair. Their aerobicized bodies didn’t pooch or dimple in their bathing suits, and diamond rings and pendants glittered against their brown skin.
They were the kind of girls who had made Lily’s life hell in high school.
“So...” Sheila purred, “how did you meet Ben?”
“Through a mutual friend.” It was true. Dez had been dating Ben at the time he and Charlotte started collaborating on papers. To celebrate the publication of Dez and Charlotte’s first paper, the four of them had met for dinner at an Indian restaurant one night. Lily could have gone into detail about her and Ben’s first meeting, but she figured the best policy here was not to lie unless it was absolutely necessary and to never give any more information than the bare minimum. “We were friends for a long time before we got…involved.”
“Is that a fact?” Tracee laughed. “I had Johnny engaged to me before he knew what hit him. And of course, we had John Junior seven months after the wedding, so I don’t guess I can say much about your little un over there being born outta wedlock. Me and Johnny just got in under the wire ourselves.”
Lily smiled politely and took a big swig of beer.
“So, Lily, let’s see your ring,” Sheila said.
Lily looked down at her hands — so different from Sheila’s and Tracee’s well-manicured, gold- encrusted ones. Lily had artist’s hands — long, callused fingers with nubby nails and ink stains that never quite washed away. “My ring?”
“You know,” Sheila enunciated as though she were talking to a particularly slow-witted child,
“your diamond. That Ben bought you.”
“Oh,” Lily said, “we haven’t bought a ring yet.”
“But, Lil-eeee!” Sheila whined. “You absolutely have to make him buy you a ring. That’s one of the fun parts of being married. And let me tell you, you better enjoy the fun stuff while you can, because most of the time, being married’ll just make you wanna tear your hair out!” Despite Sheila’s words of doom, a smile was plastered across her face as she studied the enormous diamond that winked like a third eye on her hand.
“Well, I guess I’m just not that interested in material things,” Lily said.
Sheila and Tracee wouldn’t have looked at Lily with more shock if she had just confessed to being a serial killer.
Jeanie and an old woman Lily assumed was Ben’s grandmother were arranging a buffet on a folding table. “Wayne!” Jeanie hollered. “I reckon you’ll have to put the ribs on the grill. There’s no telling when your daddy’ll get home.”
The old woman stuck a serving spoon in a bowl of potato salad and then made her way to the table where the McGilly wives were seated. “Oh, lord,” Tracee muttered, “here she comes.”
“Honey,” the old woman said to Lily, “I just wanted to welcome you to the family. I’m
