Free All the Single Ladies by Dorothea Benton Frank

deep man voice, Well, I have a problem with child labor, destroying orangutan habitats, and driving Sumatran tigers to extinction. I was like, You’ve got to be joking! Sumatran tigers? Oh Lord! But I said, Oh! Of course! Me too!”
    Carrie started laughing so hard and Suzanne laughed politely, but something about the way Carrie had been speaking didn’t sit right with me.
    â€œWhat in the world are you talking about?” I asked nicely even though I was irked.
    â€œRemember I told you that guy was a tree hugger?” Suzanne said. “I mean, not that there’s anything the matter with saving the planet.”
    â€œIt’s just that he’s so adamant. I don’t know. It’s just a little undignified for a man his age to be out there raising hell at a Krispy Kreme. Aren’t college students supposed to do that?” Carrie said. “It’s weird.”
    â€œMaybe,” I said, “but at least he’s got some convictions. Every man I’ve dated in the last ten years, and I mean both of them? Their only convictions are that they don’t want a committed relationship, and don’t worry, you’re not going to emasculate them by paying half the bill. Then they want to screw.”
    â€œThen give them half a screw,” Carrie said, and her face turned scarlet.
    Then we laughed, really laughed. It felt good.

 
Chapter 4
    In the Dark
    The late-­afternoon horizon was dissolving into the jewel-­toned colors of sunset. The temperature was finally dropping too, but the air was still warm and nearly wet. It would be as sultry an evening as any I’d ever known. We were gathered on Suzanne’s porch sipping wine, picking at a wedge of Gruyère, nibbling apple slices and thin slices of a smoked sausage, and talking. Pickle was curled up at my feet. I was looking forward to meeting Miss Trudie. Suzanne and Carrie assured me she always appeared around the cocktail hour. And besides the much anticipated arrival of Miss Trudie, it was the most exciting hour of the day. The colors of the sky all around the horizon went completely berserk, sending out flashes of rose and purple and shades I could not name because there were no words for them. Even for the most hardened old salt, sunset was too spectacular to ignore.
    â€œMiss Trudie likes to have a small glass of sherry with me,” Suzanne said. “And then she goes in the kitchen and makes herself a martini in an iced-­tea glass and she thinks I don’t know. She eats the olives on the side. By the handful.”
    â€œWhenever you see her eating olives,” Carrie said, “you can be about one hundred percent positive that there’s gin in her glass.”
    â€œWhat happens when the gin runs low?” I asked. “And the vermouth and olives?”
    â€œWell, I go to the liquor store, of course!” Suzanne said. “We just don’t discuss it.”
    â€œNo! Of course not!” I said.
    Weren’t they merely doing their part to live up to our hard-­earned reputation as eccentric southerners?
    And of course, the more wine we consumed, the more we revealed about ourselves. Going through Kathryn’s clothes, papers, and books had once again been profoundly unnerving. We were all just wrung out.
    â€œYou know what was really strange?” Carrie said.
    â€œWhat?” Suzanne said.
    â€œSeeing what she read,” Carrie said. “I’d bet you a tooth that I’ve read all the same fiction authors that she did. Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Anne Rivers Siddons, Anna Quindlen—­all the Anns. But we never talked about books. Not even once.”
    â€œWell, she played her cards close,” Suzanne said. “But she read lots of ­people. She always had a book with her.”
    â€œDidn’t you think her clothes were like ultratailored? Almost to the point of being utilitarian?” I said. “So much khaki and so many little