Center Stage: Magnolia Steele Mystery #1 (12 page)

“White wine sangria?” she asked as she held out the glass to me, giving me an anxious look. Was she worried her friends would find out Momma had roped her into representing me? Or maybe she was worried I’d tell everyone about how she’d frozen up in that interrogation room. She had nothing to worry about. I didn’t plan to tell anyone any of it.

“Yes.” The alcohol was masked by fruit juice and ginger ale, and I’d drained half of it before realizing what I was doing.

Emily offered Belinda an empty glass, but she shook her head with a sweet smile. “Oh, no thank you. I’m the designated driver, so I’ll stick to sweet tea.”

“Really, Magnolia—” the woman’s voice was horribly familiar, and it came from behind me, “—I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up after all these years and everything else.”

Dammit. I didn’t have the strength to do this. I spun around to face Ashley Pincher, the girl Blake had been cheating with on the night of our graduation. She’d hated my guts since middle school. She probably liked me even less now that I knew her little secret. “Talk about nerve, Ashley. I’m surprised you have time to play Bunco, what with all your extracurricular activities.”

I took a sip of my drink, pretending like I didn’t give a damn. Belinda and Emily gave me a curious look, but Ashley’s eyes narrowed. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

“No one wants you here,” Ashley said, enough venom in her voice to kill. “You should run off and leave like you did before.”

“Maybe I should spill a few secrets first. Some Maddie might like to hear.”

Her face paled, and the hatred in her eyes was overlaid with fear.

Belinda looped her arm through mine and said in her sweet, cheerful voice, “Leave? Why, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.” She turned to look at me and squeezed my arm, offering me a warm smile. “We’re thrilled you’re here.” Something shifted in her eyes—ever so slightly—as she turned her gaze to Emily’s, but I saw it and I know Emily did too.

Emily plastered on a half-smile. “Yes, of course. And so is Lila.”

Maddie walked into the kitchen with a tray of appetizers. She stopped and her mouth dropped open at Emily’s statement.

Oh. Shit.

But Maddie recovered faster than I probably would have given the situation. “Lila’s like a second mother to me,” she said to Belinda, ignoring me. “In fact, she gave me the recipe for these crab puffs. So if Lila’s happy, then I’m happy for her.”

She poured herself another glass of sangria. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on my other guests.” She shot me a glare, then cast one that read
traitor
to Emily and headed out of the kitchen.

I wanted to apologize to Emily, but I wasn’t sure why. She’d held a grudge against me for years, and she’d basically taken over my old life. Was I supposed to apologize for coming back and disturbing her friendship with my ex-best friend?

But
I
had been the one to move on.
I
had been the one to make a fresh start, leaving everyone I cared about behind to pick up the pieces. Could I blame Maddie or Momma for the way they’d coped? Could I be upset that they had lives that no longer included me? Or that they resented my return?

“Let’s get something to eat,” Belinda said, handing me a blue Fiestaware plate.

Another look at Maddie’s island told me that she’d drunk the Williamson County Kool-Aid. There was so much food displayed, it looked like she’d been preparing for days instead of since this morning. Multiple appetizers and dips, six desserts, the white wine sangria—which I recognized as another one of my mother’s recipes—as well as sweet tea, margaritas, and cosmos. The food was staggered in varying heights so each dish could be displayed, and the pitchers of drinks were arrayed in a silver ice bucket.

I realized this would have been my life if I hadn’t left. I would have come home after college, and then I would have gotten married and had kids. Two of them. Maddie and I had come up with almost identical life plans our senior year of high school. I remembered mine by heart: I would go Southern University and major in education. Then I would come home, marry Tanner, and we’d start a family—a boy and a girl and a dog. Tanner and I would live in this very neighborhood, and we would have our happily ever after. But watching these women now, I had to wonder how happy they were throwing Bunco nights and cul-de-sac cookouts. Living in houses with literal white picket fences.

For the first time since I’d left, I wondered if I’d done myself a favor.

I put some food on my plate, but not much—my stomach was still churning with anxiety. It was like a bad case of stage fright, except the only way I was going to get applause from this group was if someone doused me with pig’s blood at the end of the evening—which they’d only dare if they got me outside and next to the sewer drain, lest the blood leave a stain. But even that seemed unlikely. Thank God.

Instead I told myself I was playing the part of a young woman who had been deeply wronged, and had returned to her hometown only to be ostracized. Sure, it was remarkably similar to what was actually happening, but I’d learned it was easier to pretend to fill the role of someone else, even it was an imitation of my own life.

I handed my plate to Belinda and excused myself to the powder room, pausing first to finish off my drink and pour myself a new one. The door was locked, giving me time to study the photos in the hall. Maddie with Blake. Maddie holding a baby.

The photos of Blake made my nausea increase. Especially the ones where he was touching her in some way. I’d let Maddie marry a cheater at best . . . and at worst? What had happened that night ten years ago? What secrets had her husband kept?

But I knew her enough to recognize her fake smile, and there was evidence of it in half the photos. It looked just like her smile in the homecoming photos the year her mother made her go to the dance with Mike Pringle from down the street.

A lump filled my throat. If I’d been able to convince her that Blake was a cheater, would she have still married him? Would she be happier without him?

The bathroom door opened, and Maddie stepped out, dabbing her cheek with a tissue. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, and her mouth formed an O.

“You have a baby,” I said, pointing to the photo.

She put a hand on her stomach, looking self-conscious. “Blake, Junior.”

I tried not to think about her poor baby being saddled with his asshole father’s name. “How old is he?”

“Six months.” She shook her head and her voice broke. “Why are you here, Magnolia?”

I wanted to give her a laundry list of reasons for leaving, along with a string of apologies, but she didn’t want to hear any of them, and I didn’t blame her. “I wish you would have answered at least one of my calls or texts.”

She sucked in her bottom lip, her chin quivering.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered.

That brought a fire to her eyes. “Don’t,” she spat out. “Just don’t. You don’t have a right to say that.”

“Okay. You’re right,” I said, trying not to cry. “Are you happy?”

She released a bitter laugh. “You don’t have the right to ask that either.”

I expected her to storm off, but she remained rooted in place, while the voices of the other guests roared behind us. For a brief moment it was Maddie and me, caught in this four-foot-long hallway time warp.

“You’re in my house, Magnolia.
My
home.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry. I really had no idea it was your house, or I never would have shown up.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “You keep saying you’re sorry, yet it doesn’t change a thing.”

“I’m sorry for that too.” This was ridiculous. We were having a conversation that should have taken place somewhere private, not several feet away from some of Williamson County’s most notorious busybodies. “Would you like me to leave?”

“You can’t leave now!” she whispered in horror. “If you leave now, they’ll think I couldn’t handle it. And I most certainly
can
.”

I had serious misgivings about that. She looked like she was about to fall to pieces, and it killed me to think I was hurting her all over again. “Tell me what to do, Maddie. Just tell me what to do to make it right.”

She released a bitter laugh. “We’re not kids anymore, Magnolia. Some things you just can’t make right.”

I’d already resigned myself to that, but her words still shot straight into my heart like an arrow. I nodded and swallowed. “I know. I’ll try my best to lie low and keep to myself, and as soon as this thing is done, I’ll leave.”

She nodded and her gaze narrowed. “And then I never want to see you again.” She pushed past me, her shoulder brushing mine.

I ducked into the powder room, fighting the urge to cry. I had no right to tears. Maddie was the wronged party here.

I got myself together by getting into my character, whom I’d revised to have a stoicism that kept her from getting hurt by barbs from her former best friend and a posse of snotty bitches who had no right to hate her.

Belinda looked relieved when I found her with a small group of her friends. They eyed me with some wariness, but it was easy to see they loved her. Two of the women had moved to Franklin a few years ago, so they had no knowledge of my sudden disappearance ten years ago, but they did know about my Broadway debut. They soon forgot about me and started talking about Lisa’s husband, who managed the careers of two prominent Christian artists.

Lisa lowered her voice and looked around. “Did you hear about the sleazy talent agent who was murdered at Luke Powell’s party last night?”

The piece of shrimp cocktail in my mouth suddenly tasted like chalk.

“I heard someone shot him in the head,” the other woman said.

“Oh, my goodness!” Belinda gasped, nearly dropping her plate of appetizers. “I set Lila’s catering company up with that party.” She shot me a look of alarm before she turned back to her friend. “Do they know who did it?”

Lisa shook her head, but from the way she leaned in closer, it was clear that a lack of knowledge wouldn’t stop her from speculating. “No, but there were plenty of people there who had motive. There was a country singer there who’d been hoodwinked by him, so you can imagine he was pissed. And then the vice president of Highway 24 Music was there . . . Max had screwed him over by chasing a big star away from the label. And then there were all the women he’d convinced to sleep with him in exchange for career help that never materialized. Narrowing the list down should take some time.”

I felt a presence behind me, and I looked back and up at Emily, whose eyes were fixed on Lisa. She glanced down at me with knowing eyes, then walked away.

Belinda had said that some months they never got around to playing Bunco. I was hoping tonight would be one of those nights, but I should have known better. A few minutes later, Maddie rang a bell and announced it was time to play.

I had all of the bad luck in Franklin. Well . . . maybe slightly better luck than Max Goodwin.

I soon found myself in the most complicated game of musical chairs I’d ever played. Of course the five glasses of white wine sangria I’d downed weren’t exactly helping me figure out the intricacies of the game. One thing I did register was that my partner and I would either switch tables or stay depending on how many points we’d gained in a round. Thank God Belinda was my partner. She was true to her word; she had my back.

Most of the woman were nice, but a few gave me dirty looks and made snide remarks about my photos online.

“Since your career on Broadway crashed and burned,” one woman said with a smirk, “perhaps you can continue in the entertainment world at the gentleman’s club in downtown Nashville. Just tell them your resume’s on YouTube.”

But as sweet as my new sister-in-law seemed to be, she was perfectly capable of turning into a momma lion. Keeping her attention on the dice in her hand, she said in the sweetest of tones, “I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea, Sydney. Considering how often Lionel goes there, he’d be liable to get a lot of up close and personal time with Magnolia. He very well might want to leave you for her.” She rolled the dice on the table and looked into the shocked woman’s face. “Bless your heart.”

“She did
not
just bless her heart,” a woman behind me murmured.

“I think she did,” someone else whispered in disbelief.

Sydney kept any other comments to herself, but judging from the deep shade of red tinting her cheeks, she was choking on them.

I breathed out a sigh of relief when another bell rang from the head table announcing that the game was over and the winners would be awarded their prizes in five to ten minutes. I couldn’t stand one more minute of hostile scrutiny, let alone five to ten. I refilled my wine glass, grateful that Belinda was the designated driver, and slipped out of the kitchen and into the backyard.

The night had cooled off, but the alcohol had warmed my blood and dulled my senses. I leaned my head back and took in the stars in the night sky. A spectacular view I couldn’t get in the city.

“Magnolia Steele. You are the
very
last person I expected to see in my backyard,” a man’s voice said.

For a moment I was certain I was hallucinating, but why was I so surprised? It was his house, after all.

I turned around to see Blake sitting in a lawn chair, his hands gripping the ends of the arms. He stood and took a couple of steps toward me. “I heard you were back, but I sure as hell never thought you’d have the nerve to show up here.”

Fear coursed through my blood as I took a step backward. The memory of him shouting my name on that rainy night made me start to shake. “How’d you know I was back?”

“I have my ways.”

But there was a logical explanation. One that wasn’t too surprising. “Tanner called you.”

He didn’t respond.

Should I confront him with my fragmented memories? But he beat me to it.

“Are you here to tell Maddie?” He looked out at his impeccably landscaped backyard, then turned back to face me. “We were kids back then, Magnolia. We both did stupid things that night.”

“Maddie has a right to know.”