Free The Hurricane Sisters by Dorothea Benton Frank Page A

later?”
    “I’ll be around,” I said and thought, Okay, this is it, I’m definitely going to drop dead right here. But the other side of my brain was already living in the White House, pregnant with his twins and pushing our toddler on a swing while a Secret Service detail looked on with concern. I had to find Mary Beth right away.
    I spotted her across the room passing a tray of mini beef Wellingtons.
    “Want one?” she said. “I’ve had four. Delish!”
    She really was packing on the pounds lately. But I wasn’t saying a word about that.
    “Are you kidding me? I can’t eat. Did you see him talking to me?”
    “Yep, so did half the room. I hate to say I told you so, but I did.”
    She walked away and I felt someone tap my shoulder. It was Maisie.
    She whispered, “I saw that damn fool looking at you and I need to tell you something about him.”
    “What?” I whispered back.
    “I’ve known him since the day he was born. He used to come around with his grandmother, God rest her soul. But he was bad, Ashley. I mean he was a bully.”
    “Like how?”
    “Like once he was playing with some neighborhood kids in my yard? He turned the hose on all of them and made them cry. He must’ve been about four or five years old”
    “Oh! But he was just four or five years old. Wasn’t Prince William a little stinker when he was that age? He grew up to be great!”
    “I’m just telling you what I know.”
    “Don’t worry, Maisie,” I said.
    “Now you listen to me; I’m just saying all these politicians aren’t worth a hill of beans anymore. Didn’t you read the papers about that idiot, what’s his name? That guy in North Carolina with the four-hundred-dollar haircut?”
    “That guy? He’s old. They’re all old men, Maisie. They’re from a different time. Porter is the new generation. The new generation of politicians are a lot smarter.”
    “Really? They’re all a bunch of egomaniacs. Remember that man in New York sending his you know what all over the country by phone? How one does that, well, I’m uncertain but he did it! He wasn’t old.”
    I started laughing then. It was too funny to me that my eighty-year-old grandmother was almost hip to texting but not quite.
    “Um, Maisie, it was seriously gross but he’s way over forty. That’s old.”
    “Whatever. Where does that leave me? Decrepit? Just watch yourself, that’s all.”
    “Oh, stop worrying, Maisie. Don’t you think Porter exudes, you know, something special?”
    “Yes. Power. And it’s the most dangerous aphrodisiac on this earth. He’s trouble with a capital T.”
    “No, he’s not. He’s a sweetie.”
    “I guess I just don’t like politicians,” Maisie said, shaking her head. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and handed me an envelope. “This is for you. I have to go and find Lorraine.”
    I opened the envelope and saw the two fifties. Now I could pay my cell-phone bill!
    “Oh, Maisie! Thanks!”
    “You behave yourself,” she said and disappeared into the throng.
    “I will, Maisie. I’m a good girl.”
    Mary Beth was passing another hors d’oeuvre and paused when she came near me.
    “Did you see Tommy? He cleans up good.”
    “No. Where is he?”
    “Over there with his hair slicked back, wearing black glasses.”
    “That’s Tommy ? Are you serious ?”
    “As serious as anything,” Mary Beth said. “He’s looking mighty fine, if you want my opinion.”
    “He’s adorable. Still. Where’s he going with his life?”
    “Probably the Amalfi Coast for the month of August for the rest of his life?”
    “Yeah, right. And sleeping in a hammock on the beach.”
    “Just saying. With our luck he’ll wind up being a bazillionaire. Anyway, I’m having drinks with Samir.”
    Samir was a rich Saudi with a huge yacht in Charleston’s harbor. Mary Beth talked about marrying a doctor and having a herd of children, but meanwhile she was working on sleeping with a representative of every country in the United Nations. One of