Free All the Single Ladies by Dorothea Benton Frank Page A

cardigans.”
    â€œYes, she was pretty conservative,” Carrie said. “Did you have a chance to get a good look at her china? Her dishes were ancient. Probably from some relative. Her teacups were actually thin around the lip. I mean they were worn down!”
    Suzanne said, “That’s because she believed that drinking green tea would help push her cancer into remission.”
    â€œThe poor thing. I read somewhere that you’d have to drink five hundred cups a day for green tea to make a difference,” I said. “But what is truly interesting is that the Japanese get a lot less cancer.”
    â€œThat’s weird. I wonder why?” Carrie said.
    â€œThe only difference I could ever find in our diet and theirs was that they eat shiitake mushrooms like mad, a lot more fish, and way less gluten.”
    â€œAnd they drink green tea all the time,” Suzanne added.
    â€œListen,” I said, “we’re all gonna go someday from something.”
    â€œTrue enough,” Carrie said. “Nobody gets out of here alive. At least no one that I know of.”
    We smiled at that. Carrie was amusing even when she didn’t know she was.
    â€œWell, I’m not going to be happy until I can figure out why Wendy was wearing the bracelets you gave Kathy and what is up with her furniture.”
    And I liked Suzanne because she was so pragmatic.
    â€œI say that the answer is somewhere in Kathy’s boxes,” I said.
    â€œI sure hope you’re right,” Carrie said. “I really don’t like that woman.”
    â€œShe’d be hard to like,” Suzanne said.
    We rocked back and forth for a few moments, sort of mesmerized by the day’s end.
    â€œThis is such an amazing place,” I said. “How long have you been living here, Suzanne?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. Maybe fifteen years?”
    â€œReally? Wow!” In my mind all I could do was quickly calculate and then wonder why Suzanne, who would’ve been about thirty-­six at the time, would want to come and live with her grandmother, who would’ve been right at eighty-­five. So I asked the question in the most diplomatic way I could. “Have you always lived in Charleston?”
    Suzanne and Carrie exchanged looks.
    Carrie said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Suzanne. Tell her! It’s not like you’re protecting a matter of national security!”
    Suzanne took a deep breath and refilled our glasses.
    â€œOkay,” she said, “did you ever make a bad judgment and totally screw up your life? And no matter what everyone told you, you just kept making one bad call after another?”
    â€œYou mean, like when I married Mark, who left me with an infant to go live in the deep woods in the Northwest to become a doomsday prepper and live in an underground bunker?”
    Suzanne looked at Carrie and they burst out laughing. I joined in because what else could I do? It was just so ridiculous.
    â€œThat’s a good one!” Carrie said.
    â€œYeah,” Suzanne agreed. “ That kind of bad call.”
    â€œAnd he never sent any child support except for twenty dollars and a lottery ticket at Christmas?” I said.
    â€œOh God,” Suzanne said. “That’s terrible.”
    â€œAwful!” Carrie said.
    â€œAnd your own mother never fails to remind you that she told you so and that you’re still an idiot?” I tossed a crouton into the salad just to emphasize how incredibly unlucky and naive I had been, and that in addition to the price I’d paid, I was, now and forever, the family dartboard.
    Suzanne couldn’t wipe the grin from her face. Her right hand was covering her mouth, and I could tell that the laughter she was holding back was in the tsunami range. She held her left hand in the air like a woman about to testify at a revival, took several gulps from the wineglass in her other hand, clunked it down on the table, and