"Oh, dear," Grace said with a sigh. "Now I'm starting to get teary-eyed."

  Maggie patted her shoulder, then moved to block the outer door, which had begun to swing open. She grabbed the handle, halted the door's progress, and poked her head outside. "This rest room is closed," Grace heard her say. "Fashion show. You'll have to use the one upstairs."

  From the inner room, Holly called out a tremulous "Thank you."

  Justin drew a deep breath, then let it out on a sigh. "People in love get married. That's the way it works. What did you think would happen with us?"

  "I don't know. I've tried not to think about it."

  "That's stupid."

  Maggie looked at Grace. "Mike talks that way to me sometimes. I hate it."

  Holly lifted her chin and went on the defensive by marching to the sitting room and addressing Grace and Maggie. "What's stupid is that I didn't see this coming. Does love create some sort of misfire in a woman's brain? It must. I sure haven't been thinking right. I should have known to expect this. After all, he told his family we were engaged."

  Justin swept into the outer lounge and scowled at Holly. "How did you find out about that?"

  "Your mother all but abducted me on Thursday. She showed up on my doorstep and demanded I go shopping with her. I thought it was to buy you something for your birthday, but oh, no. She took me to some little boutique over on Camp Bowie Boulevard. To shop for wedding gowns. Wouldn't listen to a word I said. I had to strip for a man named Randall."

  Justin winced. "He's her personal consultant. She's worked with him for years."

  "He put me in a six thousand dollar wedding gown. Six thousand dollars for a dress. Like I can afford that."

  Now Holly was the one storming around, her arms folded, her lips pursed in a pout.

  Grace saw Maggie's lips twitch with a smile. She leaned toward Grace and murmured, "The girl does a good snitty pout. I've had great respect for that particular tool ever since the ninth grade when I watched Cheryl Harris pout her way into a date with Tommy Lee Wilson to the homecoming dance."

  Grace nodded. "I can manage a decent pout, but I'm a better sulker. When I do resort to pouting, it usually proves productive."

  "Less is best," Maggie agreed.

  In this case, it obviously worked. Justin walked over to the lounge chair and took a sprawling seat. Grimacing, he rubbed his forehead. "I shouldn't have mentioned marriage to Mother. It slipped out when she said she'd fixed me up with Puffy Larson's daughter for a Kimball Art Museum fund-raiser."

  Maggie perked up. "Puffy Larson's daughter Jenna? I know her. She's a pretty girl, but bubble-headed. Dated one of my sons in high school."

  Holly flopped down on the couch beside the empty wedding gown box. "Jenna Larson is a beautiful blonde, thin as a rail with long supermodel legs."

  Grace gave the young woman a sympathetic nod. "I despise her on principle."

  Staring blindly at the magnolia painting on the wall, Holly asked, "So you have a date with Jenna Larson?"

  Justin sighed. "No, Holly. No. I'm thirty years old. I don't let my mother fix me up and I don't want a date with Jenna Larson. You know me better than that. You know me better than anybody."

  "Oh," Maggie said with a sigh. "That's so sweet."

  Grace simply shook her head. This was getting out of hand. "Maggie, why don't you gather up your things. There's a dressing room in the ballroom. I think we should give these two some privacy."

  "Either that or get them a room. I personally believe discussions like this one are better held in close proximity to a bed rather than a toilet."

  Justin gave a short, bitter laugh. "I don't think we can solve our problems with sex."

  Holly tossed him a hopeful look. "It wouldn't hurt to try, though, would it?"

  "Dammit, Holly. You're breaking my heart."

  "No!" She whirled around on him, temper flashing in her eyes. "Don't say that. It's not true. I don't break men's hearts. I won't do it. I swore I never would. I promised."

  Her outburst shocked the room into silence.

  She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "I care about you, Justin. Too much. I do love you. But marriage?... Please, can't we just keep this simple? Can't we just—"

  "Screw?" he finished bitterly, the look in his eyes as mean as the word. "I'm good enough to screw, but not to marry?"

  Grace wasn't going to listen to any more. She had no business being in the middle of this argument at all. Gathering up her purse, she stood and motioned for Maggie to join her.

  Even as Maggie gathered her billowing skirt to rise, Holly erupted from her seat. She advanced on Justin, her hands clenched at her sides, anger snapping in her eyes. "We don't screw. We don't even have sex. We make love, and damn you for calling it anything different. Just stop it."

  Justin shoved to his feet and squared off in front of Holly. His jaw was tight and he stood with his hands braced on his hips. "Well, maybe I should just stop it. Maybe that's exactly what I should do."

  He laughed, then, but the sound was anything but amused. Stalking toward the corner, he scooped up the engagement ring from the floor and said, "It's obvious I'm wasting my time here. It's a beautiful day outside. Think I'll go fishing. Maybe I'll see if Jenna Larson wants to come along. Maybe she'll want to try out my Bobbin Bass Bait."

  Holly buried her face in her hands. "Justin... please."

  At the door, he paused. Without turning around, he said, "I love you, Holly. I want to marry you, to have children with you, to be a family with you. I want to grow old with you. I didn't expect it to happen, but it has, and damned if I understand how you can tell me you love me, show me you love me, and not want to take the next logical step. Hell, you won't even consider it."

  "It can't work, Justin. Believe me."

  He looked over his shoulder and fired the word like a bullet. "Why?"

  She didn't answer him. She wouldn't even look at him. Justin muttered a particularly ugly curse, then said, "All right. Have it your way. Damned if I'll continue to beg."

  The door swished shut behind him.

  Holly wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. Below the hem of the darling red dress, her knees began to sag. "What's the matter with me? Why do I have to be such a coward?"

  Maggie clucked her tongue and crooned in a soothing tone, "Now, sugar. Calm down. It's all right. Everything's all right. Just don't cry, okay? You'll get me started again and I'm trying hard to give it up. Crying is bad for me. I'm sloppy at it. No matter how much I want to weep like Scarlett O'Hara, I always ended up shedding Lucy Ricardo tears. Just ask Grace here. She's seen me in action. Believe me, you don't want to get me going again. Hush now, sweetie."

  Grace saw Holly sway and feared she might collapse. With Maggie's help, she guided the young woman onto the sofa, where she sat stiff and still, staring blindly ahead. She spoke in a tone barely above a whisper. "He doesn't know it, but that's the cruelest thing he's ever said to me."

  Grace sat at her right side and took her hand. "Which thing is that?"

  "Marriage. Marrying Justin is my most cherished dream."

  Grace and Maggie shared a look of surprise. Swishing her train to one side and taking a seat on Holly's left, Maggie asked, "So why did you refuse him?"

  "Because I love him."

  Again, Grace and Maggie's gazes met. Maggie waggled her eyebrows. "You love him so you can't marry him."

  "That's right."

  "Are you already married, sugar?"

  "Of course not."

  In a gesture repeated thousands of times with her daughter, Grace gently tucked an errant strand of hair behind Holly's ear. "What is it, Holly? What's the problem?"

  "I can't talk about it. I won't. I try not to even think about it." Holly burrowed against Grace's bosom and finally broke down. Grace held the weeping young woman, absorbing her emotional pain, while Maggie patted her knee and murmured words of comfort.

  "I think my heart might explode," Holly sobbed. "Can a person die from crying?"

  Maggie wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "I don't think so, sugar. Otherwise, I'd be a goner myself. Although considering the circumstances, I won't swear drowning isn't out of the question."

  Though slow off the mark, once Holly let loose, she gave Maggie a run for her money in the bawling department. She went on for what felt to Grace like hours—maybe even days—but turned out to be about ten minutes. When finally the young woman had wrung herself dry, she lapsed into hiccups. Those, too, eventually stilled.

  "Mercy." Maggie exhaled a loud sigh of relief, rose, hitched up her wedding gown, and fetched an entire roll of toilet paper from a stall. "Here, sugar. Blow."

  Holly blew, then said to Maggie, "That's a beautiful dress. Did you buy it here at the sale?"

  "Ac-tu-al-ly," Maggie drawled, drawing the word out into four, very long, Southern syllables, "it's my wedding gown. My mama's, too. I brought it to donate to the Pink Sisterhood Foundation." Addressing Grace, she asked, "I'm curious... because it's old and all... will they even have a use for it? I'm not trying to back out of donating it, mind you. I just wonder if a girl would even want it. Nowadays, strapless gowns are all the fashion."

  "Some girl would love it," Grace assured.

  "I'd love it," Holly said in a wistful, dreamy tone. "I'd love to wear a vintage gown like yours. If I were going to marry, that is. Which I'm not. Not ever."

  Still again, Grace and Maggie's gazes met and held.

  Then Maggie spun her gold charm bracelet around her wrist and said, "You know, Miss Holly, my friend Grace and I can't help but be a little curious. Considering how we've become bathroom buddies and all, why don't you tell us why having that handsome fella ask you to marry him sends you into hysterics."

  Holly swallowed a hiccup and shrugged.

  "Oh, come on, now. We'll keep your confidence, won't we, Grace? A ladies' room is like a confessional when it comes to secrets. Call me Father Maggie, if that will help."

  "You want me to pretend you're a male priest while you're wearing a wedding gown?"

  "Sugar, this is the Church of the Makeup Mirror. We're very liberal." After a moment's pause, she reached over and squeezed Holly's hand. "Besides, it might help you to talk about it. Talking helps me."

  "Who would have guessed?" The glint of amusement in Grace's eyes defused her dry tone.

  Holly looked down at her feet and made a vain attempt to change the subject. "Oh, dear. I've scuffed the toes of my shoes something awful. Maybe I'll make a run by the mall this afternoon and buy a new pair. I have an extra fifty dollars in my bank account from tutoring an undergraduate calculus student last week."

  Maggie studied her hot pink nail tips. "Well, now. A girl can never do too much shoe shopping."

  "That's right. Thank goodness I'm about through buying textbooks. Can you believe what a racket that is? Tell me how they justify charging almost two hundred dollars for a single book. How much does a professor earn for writing a textbook anyway?"

  "Sweetheart," Grace said, patting Holly's knee. "We'll leave you alone if you truly don't want to talk about it, but I agree with Maggie. I know firsthand that it helps to have a friend with whom to talk over one's troubles."

  "You have troubles, too?"

  Grace pursed her lips, considered explaining, but settled for saying, "I'm living with them."

  "We all have troubles," Maggie added. "Actually, I wouldn't mind sharing mine with a girlfriend right about now."

  "Go ahead," Holly said.

  "You first."

  Holly grimaced and nibbled at her lower lip. A full two minutes passed before she opened her mouth. Words tumbled out like kittens. "I can't marry Justin and I can't tell him why because he'll argue with me and cajole me and try to make me out to be an irrational fool. I'm not irrational. I have my reasons for feeling like I do. Excellent reasons. And as for my feelings, well, they are my feelings and I own them and... and... and... Oh, I can't think."

  She threaded her fingers into her dark curls and exclaimed, "He's going to date Jenna Larson and marry her and have two-point-three blond-haired, blue-eyed children who play the piano and go to Montessori school and eat artichokes for lunch."

  "Oh, sugar."

  "But at least he'll have children. He'll have a wife. A family of his own. That's important to Justin. Justin and Jenna. Justin and Jenna and Jeremy and Janet and... how do you name a third of a kid?"

  Tears were once again running down her face. Out of tissues and with the toilet paper beyond her reach, Grace wiped the wetness away with her fingers. "Sweetheart, why can't you marry him?"

  "I'm so pathetic." Holly swallowed a nervous giggle, then slowly looked up and met first Maggie's gaze and then Grace's. Swaying, she said, "I think I'm going to faint."

  Grace frowned. "Do you think we should get a doctor?"

  "Either that or take off her bra. That always makes me feel better."

  Holly shoved to her feet. "Oh, no. I need to... I'm going to... "

  "Let's get her to the stall, Grace."

  They made it just in time. With Maggie Prescott, dressed in a vintage wedding gown, tenderly supporting her shoulders, Holly lost what little was left in her stomach. Again.

  "Sugar? Are you in a family way?"

  "No, I'm not. I can't let that happen." Staggering out of the stall, Holly headed for a sink. "I'd love it. I love children. That's why I decided to teach. I teach math. Pre-algebra." She lifted sad, soul-weary eyes and met Grace's gaze. "I still have twenty-seven items on my list."

  "What list?" Grace asked, worried by the look.

  "My Life List. Not a bucket list. Goals I want to achieve. I was going to mark one off today, but I blew that. No sex in the storeroom for me now. And I'm afraid I'll run out of time. I wanted to be deliciously wicked today. That's number twenty-one: I will do something deliciously wicked. Oh, God, I don't want to die."

  "Die?" Maggie exclaimed. "Sugar, are you sick?"

  "No. I'm healthy as a horse. I bungee jump and ski dangerous mountains. I clean out my closets once a year. I plan to skydive and scuba and get politically involved by the next election."

  "I hope that's not local politics you're talking about," Maggie warned with a smile. "Then I'd think you do have a death wish."

  "No, it's the opposite. I have a no death wish. Not for ten or twenty or fifty years."

  "That sounds like a plan to me." Maggie glanced at Grace, the arch of her brows asking what to do next.

  Holly made use of the toothbrush once again, brushing with fast, angry strokes. "I'm so mad at him," she said, through a froth of bubbles. She rinsed, then wiped her mouth with a brown paper towel which she crushed into a ball and threw into the trash can with a hook shot.

  "He was supposed to be safe. He said he wasn't looking to get married. I took a chance on him." Her look of despair offset her tone of outrage. "Now he's ruined everything by proposing."

  She walked into the lounge and flopped back against the sofa, letting her head rest against the cushion. Her gaze fixed on the painting of pink magnolias. "He did it in honor of my mother, you know. That's why he proposed here, today."

  "Your mother?"

  "It's all about my mom." Tears filled weary eyes yet again. Her voice cracked. "Everything. My relationship with my dad, with my friends, with men. Especially with men." She grimaced. "She died when I was twelve years old."

  "Oh, honey." Grace sat beside her on the left.

  "I miss her so much."

  "Sure you do." Maggie sat on her right, patted Holly's knee. "Girls never stop needing their mamas."

  "My dad is still lost without her, even after all these years. I promised myself I wouldn't do that to a man or child."

  Maggie leaned away, angled her head, and stared at Holly. "Do what?"

  "I'd never seen Daddy cry before. In the hospital room, afterward, he sobbed. He held her hand and cried so hard it scared me. Finally the nurses made us leave. On the way home, I promised myself I'd never break a man's heart like that."

  "And that's the reason why you won't marry Justin?"

  "Part of it."

  "What's the rest?"

  Holly opened her mouth, then shut it abruptly. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to marry him. That's the bottom line. There is nothing anyone can do or say to change my mind."

  Grace and Maggie shared a skeptical look. Maggie drawled. "Sugar? Just a small piece of advice. You've used that 'C' word a few times here today."

  " 'C' word?" Holly looked almost haggard.

  "Change. I've lived a bit longer than you—not all that long, mind you—and I've learned a thing or two about change during that time. Sugar, one thing you can count on, change is gonna happen. Life is just a big old square dance. Just as soon as you think you're getting the swing of it, it's allemande left and do-si-do. Sometimes it's hard to stay on your feet."

  Holly sighed heavily. She closed her eyes and let her head fell back against the sofa. "What is your point, Maggie?"

  "My point is that it's easier to keep your balance if you let your knees bend. Bend a little, Holly. Be flexible."

  Grace smiled her encouragement. "It's good advice, Holly. That way, when the dance ends, you'll still be standing strong. Believe me, standing strong is very important to a woman."

  Chapter 3

  It took Holly a good twenty minutes, but she eventually pulled herself together. After she washed her face and touched up the little bit of makeup she wore, Grace suggested they all adjourn to the hotel restaurant to indulge themselves in a slice of the Greystone's famous triple chocolate cake.

  As they walked toward the restaurant just off the main lobby, a Pink Sisterhood volunteer flagged down Grace. "We're getting awfully busy," the harried woman said. "Could you please take another turn at the table? People are stacked up waiting for tax receipts."

  Minutes later, Grace chatted sympathetically with a woman donating a wedding gown in memory of her best friend, and Maggie had pitched in to work the floor helping brides find sizes and styles among the rows and rows of gown-filled racks.