Free Sadie-In-Waiting by Annie Jones Page B

over at April’s, where I don’t have to get wind of it.”
    “How’s that going?”
    “Who knows?” Sadie shrugged and the cookies shifted forward. Gently she tilted the box to set them right again, sighing. “Neither April nor Daddy has said a word.”
    “Then they must not have any complaints.”
    “Well, if April did have a complaint, I don’t think for one minute she’d tell me. You remember when we were growing up how Daddy picked out admonitions from the Bible for each of us girls?”
    “Wait on the Lord, Sadie-girl. Wait on the Lord.” Having heard that booming through the household over the years, Mary Tate could do a better-than-passing fair imitation of Moonie’s simplified counsel.
    “For April it was ‘gird your loins.’ The single most closed-off, cautious human being I have ever known, and Daddy spent her childhood reminding her to always stay on guard.”
    After half a block, Sadie’s friend made an obvious show of looking dead ahead toward good old Pickett’s on the Point and asking, “So did you forgive Ed yet for the great facial fiasco?”
    “Forgave and forgot, what else could I do?”
    “Pout and punish?” She flexed her wrist and wriggled her fingers to set her jewelry sparkling. “Always worked for me.”
    “Put your hand down. You forget who went with you when you bought most of that stuff?” She pointed to herself.
    Her friend tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear, her eyes sparkling to rival the diamonds she’d just flashed. “You know I talk big. Just my way of, you know, keeping my spirits up. No harm intended.”
    “But…?” There was more. With Mary Tate there was always more.
    “I still say you can’t let Ed get off scot-free. You did catch him alone with a very attractive younger woman. If nothing else, he is guilty of using very bad judgment.”
    “If wives started punishing husbands every time they used bad judgment, or caused hurt feelings through carelessness, or took their wives for granted while spending too much time on other things, well, then…”
    “Well, then maybe men would start acting better, ever think of that?”
    “Hmm, seems like I recall someone around here just confessing they were nothing but a big talker. I don’t see you trying to ride roughshod over Royal the way you suggest I do Ed.”
    She wrinkled her nose sheepishly. “I was hoping you’d go first, so I could see how it worked out.”
    “No, Mary Tate. Wives bullying husbands is not biblical. It’s not wise. And it’s not going to happen, okay?”
    “Oh, all right.”
    “Besides, I’m too old now to start trying new tricks on poor Ed just because he acted like some clueless kid.”
    “Clueless? You sure? Carmen is awful pretty, and you know her nickname at her corporate office?”
    “I don’t want to know.”
    “Go-Go Gomez.”
    Sadie frowned. She could have lived a lifetime without having that wedged into the tangled knots of her thoughts and emotions.
    “On account of she’s such a go-getter,” Mary Tate went on.
    “Ed says she’s a live wire. And no, I am not worried one bit about that.” All right, she was a little worried. The statistics regarding fidelity, even among people of faith, were scary. But not half as scary as having your best friend plant ideas in your mind that had no business being there. “And I won’t have you read anything into it, either.”
    “You’re right. Right. Not my place to speculate. I’m sorry. You know me, not satisfied to accept the boring truth when something much more interesting might fit, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Of course,” Mary Tate singsonged softly as they turned the corner. “It could have been much worse.”
    “Oh, it’s worse all right. Much, much worse.” She played up her friend’s insinuation with a shake of her head, then broke into a wry smile. “The man now struts around the house puffed up as a peacock because he thinks I think I caught him on the verge of committing an indiscretion when