Page 34 of The One You Want

Chapter 8

Ididn’t realize I had stopped to watch Grant go until Margaret cleared her throat behind me. “Uh,Jenny?”

“Sorry!” I spun to face her, trying to banish thoughts of that last smile from my mind. “What’sup?”

She started talking really fast. “Okay, I know this is totally short notice and you probably had a whole thing planned, and I’m probably a bitch for even asking, but I was really hoping you might switch with me? I promise it’s important or I wouldn’t even ask, but it is. Like,reallyimportant.”

It took a minute for her rushed words to settle into place in my brain. “Switch withyou?”

“The meeting,” she explained, holding up the stack of books. “There’s something that I really want to do with the girls tonight.” She straightened a little, her shoulders going back. “No. There’s something that I reallyneedto do with the girlstonight.”

“Okay…” I didn’t know Margaret all that well, but even I could see she was acting kind of strange. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, and her breathing was pretty heavy. “Are you feeling allright?”

“I am now,” she said, eyes flashing. “I will totally owe you one, but I just really…I really need to do this tonight. Is thatokay?”

My stupid brain finally caught up. She was giving me anout. Yes, maybe Libby would rope me into leading the next meeting and I’d have to go through all the nerves all over again, but in that moment, I didn’t care. I would gladly take the anxiety in two weeks if it got me off the hooktonight.

“Sure,” I said quickly. “That’s fine with me. I have stuff for mimosas in there if you want to useit.”

She jerked her chin down towards her purse, where the tops of two bottles of Jack Daniels stuck out from the sides. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to need something stronger to get throughthis.”

Okay, there was definitely something off about Margaret right now. “Here, let me take some of those.” I reached out and heaved a handful of books from the stack in her arms—which, I noted, were shaking. “Margaret, did you carry these all the way from your house?” If I remembered correctly, Margaret lived up in the bluffs, a neighborhood that was a good fifteen-minute walk fromtown.

“I just brought them over on the ferry,” she said. “I had to lug them from the UPS store where I had them delivered all the way to the dock and then all the way here from themarina.”

“Well let’s head back so you can set them down,” I suggested, starting to feel concerned for her. There was something manic in the way she was talking, some weird flash in her eyes I couldn’t get a readon.

“Yeah,” she said, raising her chin like she was about to walk into battle. “It’stime.”

Bewildered, I followed as Margaret swept into Libby’s tastingroom.

“Change of plans, ladies,” she called out. “Tonight we’re going back to ourroots!”

There was murmuring of confusion as Margaret marched to the front of the room, dropping her stack of books on an open table with a loud thump. I followed, setting my stack down with much lessfanfare.

“Sweetie,” Libby called. “Jenny is leading the group tonight. She already brought all ofher—”

“Jenny and I have come to an understanding,” Margaret said. “Jenny could sense how important this was to me. Because we are sisters.” She turned to the room, her eyes flashing. “We areallsisters.”

“Did you start drinking before the meeting?” Coraasked.

“Not cool if you didn’t share, man,” Sherryadded.

“No, I didn’t drink before the meeting,” Margaret snapped. Then she paused. “Actually, that’s not true. I did drink. We all did! We’ve all been drinking the Kool-Aid of the patriarchy our entirelives.”

“Okay,” Libby muttered, standing and approaching Margaret with her hands out, the way you might a wounded animal. “Maybe we should go lay down,hon.”

“I’m not drunk, Libby!” Margaret yelled, slamming her hand down on her stack of books. “I’mmad. And I’m fed up. And I’m ready to do something aboutit.”

She turned to me, breathing heavily. “Thank you, Jenny. Will you take that stack of books over there and start passing them out? I’ll do theseones.”

“Uh, sure.” As I took the books to the other side of the room, I finally glanced down at the glossy cover.Find your Pride—the LionessWaythe text proclaimed in large, bold letters. Okaythen.

Once the books were passed out, I joined Cora and Iris at their table. Libby was at the front of the room with Margaret, talking to her quietly, her expressionconcerned.

“What the hell do you think is going on?” Coraasked.

“I have no idea.” I pointed at the book. “But apparently we’re all going to learn to belionesses?”