Happiness Key by Emilie Richards

Author:Emilie Richards
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Families, Contemporary Women, Mystery & Detective, Florida, Contemporary, General, Romance, Mystery fiction, Female friendship, Fiction, Friendship
ISBN: 9780778327868
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2010-06-01T06:26:08.007000+00:00

chapter nineteen

Had anyone ever brought up the subject, Tracy would have snickered at the idea of an early-bird special. Had she been asked where she wanted to eat, she would have said any place except a noisy tourist restaurant that flung plastic baskets with greasy clumps of dough on every table right along with the menus. Yet here she was, late on a Thursday afternoon, sitting at the Dancing Shrimp with her neighbors, gazing at the early-bird chalkboard. Worse, as she debated between fried scallops and deviled crab, she was finishing her second hush puppy.

From the head of the table, Wanda was waving a straw like a scepter. “Nobody makes hush puppies as good as we do. Nobody else puts shrimp right inside them.”

Tracy was calculating calories in her head, a skill she had learned along with her ABCs. She had eaten a meal’s worth already, and she hadn’t even ordered. Worse, she could feel her hand struggling to reach for another hush puppy.

“And I told you, Janya, we have a vegetarian selection every single night. See, right there.” Wanda pointed to the place on Janya’s menu.

“Eggplant parmigiana. I will learn something.”

Wanda looked pleased. In fact, Tracy thought Wanda had looked positively radiant since Wednesday afternoon, when all the women had accepted her invitation to dinner. Even Alice and Olivia were with them. In fact, the date had been arranged with Lee’s schedule in mind. He was in Tampa at a seminar, and Tracy had promised she would keep an ear out for Alice and Olivia tonight. She just hadn’t mentioned she would be doing it at the Dancing Shrimp or, later, the dog track.

She still couldn’t believe she was going to the dog track.

A young server arrived to distribute drinks and take their dinner order. Even at this hour—or maybe because of it—the restaurant was bustling. The tables were jammed together, with fish nets, plastic pelicans and loudspeakers playing top-forty music just over the women’s heads.

To be heard, Wanda had to raise her voice to something approximating a shout. “So, where are we now with Herb?”

Tracy told herself one more hush puppy couldn’t possibly add more than say, an ounce, to her slender frame. What was an ounce?

It was gone in two bites. “Yesterday I stopped by city hall and asked if Pamela’s name turned up anywhere. It was a big waste of time. If she’s living here, everything’s under a married name. I called the local high school and asked if they keep alumni records, but they don’t.”

“Well, I’ve got something we can try,” Wanda said. “After we’re done here, I thought we’d go see if the house Herb lived in before the war is still standing. We’ve got the address from that welding certificate of his. Hall Street. It’s a long shot, but maybe somebody there remembers the family.”

“That was almost seventy years ago,” Tracy said. “What are the chances?”

“I’ll be happy to do something else, but that neighborhood’s over by the track, so why not give it a try?”

Tracy was running out of things to try.

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