LITMIR.BIZ

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trash. You need to pee, but I need the little girls’ room.”

      “Oh, you trophy wives are all the same,” I put in. “You never grow up. What this debutante needs is a powder room. And fast.”

      We found one, and none too soon. Of course, after we relieved ourselves, M.J. made me walk from one end of the rest stop to the other, the entire time goading me to go faster. Faster. She said it was about a mile round trip, but in the desert heat it felt like five. I did it, though, and when we stopped two hours later for lunch, I gobbled up a huge Cobb salad with fat-free ranch dressing.

      Cat drove the next leg. We meant to reach Phoenix by dusk and get a hotel with a nice health club. Three to a room would keep it reasonable. Though I’d consumed probably less than four hundred calories at lunch, I was still halfway into a torpor when Cat said, “So, are we going to visit Margaret?”

      I blinked away the beginnings of a nap. “Maybe.”

      “Maybe?” M.J. turned around to study me. “The perfect mom doesn’t want to see her daughter whom she hasn’t seen in months?”

      Why did that make me feel so guilty? Because it was true. “I’m planning on calling, but she may be too busy to see us. She works evenings. Besides, if I see her I’ll only worry about her.”

      “You’ll worry anyway, so I say we go see her. Okay, Cat?”

      “Okay with me. We can go to the club where she works. Maybe I can pick up some young studly college boy. I’ve been thinking that what I need is a trophy husband.”

      M.J. laughed. “Sorry, darling, but it doesn’t work that way. Trophy husbands are old and wrinkled and very, very rich.”

      “Like Frank.”

      “Like good old Frank.”

      “Is that what you want again, M.J?” I asked. “A trophy husband?”

      “I think she should hook up with Mr. Football,” Cat said. “What was his name?”

      “Jeff Cole.” M.J. smiled and hugged her knees. Damn, but that girl was limber. “Wouldn’t that be great if my first real boyfriend was rich and still available?”

      “We should try to find out,” Cat said. “Bitsey gets to meet up with Eddie at her reunion. You could call Mr. Football.”

      “And what about you?” she asked. “Are you going to look up Mr. Stick in the Mud?”

      “Matt,” Cat said. “Sheriff Matt Blanchard, according to one of my mother’s infrequent Christmas cards.”

      “He’s a sheriff?”

      “Of my old hometown. Mais, I tol’ you, he’s a good ol’ boy,” she said, slipping into a thick Cajun accent. “He prob’ly has a passel of kids by now, cher, an’ a kennel of hunting dogs, an’ a gun rack in his pickup truck.”

      “I bet he chews tobacco,” M.J. said.

      “And has a beer belly,” I put in.

      “And hates uppity women,” Cat said. “Maybe I will look him up, just to be mean.”

      From the back seat I considered just what we were doing in M.J.’s semistolen Jaguar on our way cross-country to New Orleans. I was going to my high school reunion because I wanted to see Eddie. I couldn’t explain why. I’m happily married, although I’m not so sure my husband is. The fact remained, however, that I wasn’t in the market for another man. But M.J. and Cat, my two very best friends, could each use a decent guy in their lives.

      I unfastened my seat belt and scooted forward so that my head was even with theirs. “Listen to us,” I said. “We’ve all admitted that we have these unresolved relationships with our old boyfriends. Maybe there’s a reason we’re making this trip together. Maybe we’re supposed to resolve them. You and Jeff.” I squeezed M.J.’s shoulder. “And you and Matt.”

      Cat fixed me with a narrow gaze. “And you and Eddie?”

      I sat back. “Maybe.”

      “You would cheat on your husband?” M.J. asked.

      “I didn’t say that. God, you have your minds in the gutter. What I’m saying is that things are not…wonderful between me and Jack. I just need some perspective.”

      “I say go for it,” Cat said.

      “I will if you will,” I said right back.

      M.J. frowned. “I don’t know if Jeff is even in New Orleans.”

      I grinned. “I bet Margaret can find out for us.”

      “Margaret?”

      “The Internet. If he was a football player and later a coach, she can probably find out where he is now.”

      “Maybe there will be something about the good sheriff, too,” Cat said. “And Eddie Dusson.”

      It was decided then. Ahead of us the southern tail of the Rockies formed a jagged line on the horizon. But we would be driving over them and through them, and at the end of our journey we would find the girls we used to be—and maybe the boys we once upon a time loved.

      CHAPTER 2

      Not Without My Daughter

      Mary Jo

       B ig breasts can be such a curse. They attract attention from everyone, good attention and bad.

      Please, don’t misunderstand. I’m not naive enough to believe mine weren’t directly involved in my husband’s interest in me. The odd thing, however, is that Frank was most fascinated by the fact that my breasts were real. Apparently his first wife’s enhancement procedure was the beginning of the end for them. Why couldn’t life be simple? he used to always ask. So I made it my goal to keep his life simple and pure, first as his employee, then as his wife. Bottled water, organic food, nothing synthetic in his clothing.

      Except for his children and our lack of children together, I would have described our marriage as perfect. We were in balance, each with our own area of responsibility. Frank made the big decisions and paid for everything; I made all the small decisions and kept our life calm and organized. But then he died.

      Even more drastic than Frank’s actual death was the way he died. It made our entire life together a lie—messy, complicated and nasty.

      How could he want a man pretending to be a woman, when he had me, real breasts and all?

      Thank God for Cat and Bitsey. Those two saved me, and I mean that literally. I don’t know what I would do without them, my Grits sisters. And now here we were, cruising through the desert with Cindy Lauper blaring from a Phoenix radio station.

      Funny as it seems, my enthusiasm for this trip slipped a bit when we first started off this morning. I was leaving California for good. I knew it and I wasn’t really sorry. But I didn’t know where I was supposed to go, or what I was supposed to do.

      Then we were pulled over for speeding, and for some reason that changed everything. It sounds ridiculous, but when that cute lesbian cop gave me the once-over, it gave me just the boost I needed. Not that I’m interested in women sexually; men are definitely my first choice. But I realized then that no matter the stumbling blocks thrown at me, I can find a way through—at least as long as Cat and Bitsey are on my side. I promised not to speed anymore, the cop let us go, and we were on our way. Best of all, I was back to feeling great.

      The sky had begun to turn coral, aqua and rose in the rearview mirror when we exited I-10.

      “My butt is numb,” Cat muttered, shifting in her seat. “Just find the nearest hotel and let me out of here.”

      I had visions of a Motel Six. “There must be a Sheraton or Doubletree here. They usually have great spas.”

      “How about a Marriott?” Bitsey asked, pointing to a billboard. We followed

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