Free Sisters and Husbands by Connie Briscoe Page B

married about a year ago.”
    “Oh? Tell her I said, congratulations. What about you? Married? Kids?”
    Evelyn paused for a second, not sure how to respond to the question about marriage. Then she collected herself. There was
     definitely no need to go into details about her marriage—or lack thereof—with a man she hadn’t seen in thirty years. “Yes,
     we have two children, a boy and a girl. Rebecca is in college. Andre just finished and now lives in Baltimore. How about you,
     Reuben? Did you have children?”
    He nodded. “Two boys, both grown now.”
    An elevator appeared again, and Evelyn stuck her hand in to keep the doors open.
    “It was nice seeing you, Reuben.” She nodded toward Carissa. “Nice meeting you.”
    Carissa smiled. “You too.”
    Reuben reached out to help Evelyn hold the elevator doors, which were doing that thing they do when they desperately want
     to close. “Do you work here in this building?” he asked.
    Evelyn nodded. “Yes, I have for several years now.”
    “Cool. I just moved here from downtown D.C. a couple of weeks ago. I’ll probably see you around.”
    “I’m sure.”
    They let the doors have their way, and Evelyn realized that she still had a smile on her face when she stepped out into the
     first-floor lobby. She couldn’t believe she had just run into Reuben Roberts, easily the most popular guy in the entire high
     school when they were there. She would have to be sure to tell Charmaine. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Charmaine used to tease her
     relentlessly about the way she got excited whenever Reuben was around.
    She opened the door leading onto Georgia Avenue, a busy street in downtown Silver Spring filled with the sights, sounds, and
     scents of lunchtime traffic. She clutched her bag a little more tightly and headed toward the restaurants. It didn’t take
     long for the smile on her face to fade away as she trudged up the rain-slicked hill, all her recent troubles with Kevin filling
     her memory.

Chapter 10
    C harmaine’s suggestion was made with the best of intentions—a nice little family outing to a restaurant for dinner on a Friday
     evening, with Kenny and Tiffany getting to choose the spot. When she suggested it to Tyrone, she pointed out that it would
     be a great way to get Kenny and Tiffany to cooperate on something. That was the idea at least.
    She should have known better. Kenny stood firmly in the living room in his baggy blue jeans and baseball cap and stated that
     he wanted barbecue at Famous Dave’s. Tiffany, her hands on her hips and dressed in a denim fluff miniskirt and orange cami,
     insisted on the Olive Garden, which Charmaine found strange, since Tiffany didn’t eat pasta or tomatoes. But Tiffany claimed
     to love the stuffed mushrooms and said she had learned to avoid the things she disliked.
    The disagreement between the kids didn’t seem so awful at first, as the whole point was to try and teach them to work together
     and to compromise when they disagreed on something. So back and forth they went, with Charmaine trying patiently to broker
     an agreement. After nearly thirty minutes of this, neither of them had budged a millimeter. Which was weird to Charmaine because
     she knew that Kenny liked pasta and Tiffany liked barbecue. Or maybe it wasn’t so weird, since what they
didn’t
like was each other.
    So she got tougher and warned that if they couldn’t agree on a restaurant, the adults would pick an alternative. That helped
     not at all, and Charmaine threw her hands up in despair. It was obvious that this was going nowhere. “We’ll do seafood,” she
     decided firmly. “We haven’t been to the Crab Shanty since last summer.”
    Her decision was reasonable and fair, she thought. After all, she had warned Kenny and Tiffany repeatedly as they both stood
     there with stubborn scowls on their faces.
    “Everybody likes seafood, right?” Charmaine said, looking from one to the other.
    Kenny shoved his hands in his jeans pockets