“Don’t worry about it,” Peri said as she popped open the compact and used her finger to dab the makeup around her eye to find it was a good match. “My mom is worse. Bless her heart,” she added in a thick southern drawl to make Taf chuckle. “She wanted me to be a dancer,” she said, not knowing why she was opening up to Taf, except that they both had overbearing, controlling mothers. “I took all the classes, spent my summers at dance camps, blah, blah, blah.”
“My mom just wants me to be married,” Taf said as she closed down her laptop.
Peri laughed at the dry humor she’d put in her voice, but Howard’s crack about the MRS degree now made sense. “You’re one hell of an event organizer,” Peri said as she spun around to find Taf slumped into the cushions. “What did you minor in?”
“Business,” Taf said glumly.
Which was clearly not her first love. “What else did you minor in?” she prompted.
Taf’s eyes flicked up and away. “All kinds of things,” she said, clearly avoiding the issue. “My mom thought it was a waste of time, but I’ve got almost-minors in half a dozen studies.”
So she wouldn’t have to graduate, Peri thought, completely understanding. It was far easier to avoid a domineering mother than to stand up to someone you loved. And Taf did love her mother. “Taf. You can’t live your life on what your mother wants,” she said, and Taf looked up, shocked. “So it’s a hassle standing up to her. So she might cut you off. It’s your life. She already got your first twenty years. Don’t give her your second. By then, it’s too late.”
Her lips pressed, making Peri wonder if she’d gone too far. But then Taf stood and held out a matching shawl. “We’d better get going.”
Yep, she’d gone too far. Peri took the shawl from her, feeling depressed. “Thanks.”
Taf’s pensive silence held all the way up the sawdust-packed path to the track, giving Peri time to stew over the stone-faced guards accompanying them in the golf cart. All around was colorful, early-spring attire, and the men were taking the rare opportunity to flaunt pinstripes and flamboyant colors as much as the women. Big hats, mint juleps, and outrageous ties made Peri think she should have gone with Taf’s first instinct of the short red dress.
The silence continued to grow as the cart driver took a service road leading to the back of the main building, the cinder block painted a dull yellow and lined with one-way doors probably leading to kitchens and service areas. From the unseen track, a bugle sounded to bring the stragglers in. A rising exhalation from the stands rose into a roar.
If Peri had been trying to get away, it would have been a perfect spot to act—quiet and unobtrusive, and the bodies wouldn’t be found until after the race. But she wasn’t, and the rising adrenaline broke over her with nowhere to go. Her pulse quickened as she got out of the cart.
“Down the hall, through the doors, and up the stairway,” Taf directed, and Peri halted.
“Taf. I’m sorry I said what I did about your mother,” Peri said, and Taf jerked as if slapped. “It was out of place, and none of my business.”
Taf almost smiled, reaching out to give Peri’s elbow a squeeze. “No,” she said softly, leading her forward to the double steel doors. “You’re right. I need to grow a pair.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Peri said. “You’re not a coward. She’s your mother.”
“Exactly.” Taf gestured Peri should go first, and feeling even more unsettled, Peri followed the first security man through the twin service doors. The sound of people laughing grew loud long before she saw them, and Peri balked when they turned a corner and the hall opened onto a huge room overlooking the track.
“That way,” Taf said, pointing out the staircase, and Peri nodded. It was a fabulous southern affair, complete with a woman in full southern belle regalia at the base of it, her accent charming as she checked names on a list before allowing access to the second floor. Two men in servant livery waited to reject any unwanted visitors if needed. Haves were being parted from the have-nots, and Peri’s tension spiked. But the organizer of the event wouldn’t be in the stands.
“Go right on up, Ms. Jacquard,” the woman said, drawling Taf’s name into four syllables.
The noise muted as they rose, and the soft strains of a piano became more obvious. The wood floor was varnished to a hard black. “That’s ours,” Taf said, indicating an elaborate door, and Peri slowed as she entered the sprawling observation room.
The floor-to-ceiling windows were expansive, and the comfortable seating was arranged like a living room, with coffee tables and plush pillows. Older women in bright colors mingled with thin women in tight black who threw their heads back to show off their necks when they laughed, mimicking those downstairs but in a higher tax bracket. The piano was live and the food in tiny portions. Overlooking it all was Fran.