Free Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) by T'Gracie Reese, Joe Reese

joy.
    “Oh, how good it is to see you Nina! How long has it been? It’s going to be so good working together again!”
    But would there be a momentary glint of iron gray in those flinty eyes peering out of the confection that was masquerading as a face?
    Would there be just hint of the old animosity?
    Well, no more time to speculate, one way or another.
    Nina was near the podium now, three golfers in front of her, now two data consultants, now one off shore exporter..
    … and now April van Osdale.
    Standing there, in the yeast, if not in the flesh, before her.
    She extended her hand.
    “Hello, April. It’s been a long time.”
    April van Osdale stared back into her face, blinked once, stared a bit longer, and finally asked:
    “Do I know you?”
    There was a pause.
    After a time, Nina shook her head, said:
    “No.”
    Then she turned around and left.

    “When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have a second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there’s no holding me.”
                                   –– William Faulkner

    Saturday morning was spent running back and forth to Margot’s, answering the shop door to accept presents, arranging presents, telling Margot all about her adventures as principal, waiting for Margot to tell her all about the ghost she’d encountered at this haunted plantation/artists’ retreat, mixing punch bowls, and making sure all was in readiness. All this joy Nina might have shared, of course, had it not been for her rage at being snubbed—forgotten actually—by April van Osdale.
    How could this woman have the gall, the unmitigated gall, not to hate back as much as she was hated?
    “Do I know you?”
    PULEEEZE!
    True, Nina had not thought much about April van Osdale a great deal during the last fifteen years. But there was a special little niche in her brain reserved for bitter enemies, and that niche was sacrosanct. It was an important place. What kind of a lifetime was it that might be spent wholly devoid of just the smallest piece of utter detestation?
    Why, no life at all, obviously!
    And April van Osdale, as horrid a human being as she was, must have an especially large niche.
    But Nina wasn’t even worthy of being in it!
    The woman had dismissed her exactly as Lysander had dismissed Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream :
    “Get you gone, you dwarf; you minimus of hindring knot glass made, you bead, you acorn!”
    April van Snobbery, surrounded and adored by all those reporters, while Nina stood invisible in the back of the crowd.
    Nina should have screamed back at her:
    “Are you grown so high in their esteem because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I thou painted maypole?”
    That’s what you are, April van Osdale! You’re a painted maypole!
    Damn her!
    But, by and large, her rage subsided.
    So that the afternoon could be spent in her shack, taking a nap.
    And then, as dusk settled and the street lamps of Bay St. Lucy began emitting their soft blue glow and God’s fingernail of a new moon hovered over the hills to the west of town, the guests began arriving and the shower of Meg and Jennifer came into being.
    It was a perfect shower, just the way Nina had planned it.
    The gifts were beautiful.
    Meg and Jennifer were radiant.
    There were many laughs about Margot chasing ghosts, and thus almost missing the shower.
    Nina thought of her favorite banquet toast:
    “I shall dine late, but the room will be well lighted, and the guests few and select.”
    You have dined late, Meg and Jenny , she found herself thinking.
    A lot of years.
    But the lights were right in this room, and the guests were few and select.
    And the punch was viciously spiked.
    It must have been eight o’clock or so when, holding a glass of it up high, and spying Meg and Jennifer holding hands on the far side of the room, Nina shouted out her toast:
    “To those who are about to wed!”
    All eyes, smiling, stayed fixed on the couple for an