"Hey," Lance said, gripping her outstretched hand, pulling her closer to him. "You want me to leave. Remember? You want me out of your house and out of your life and ..."

She wrenched her hand from his grasp. "So, what do you have lined up? Is it a play?" she asked with feigned casualness. "A movie?"

She saw him flinch, and she knew she'd hit a vein of truth.

"You can tell me," she said, wanting to ignore the alarm bells sounding in her mind. Then she looked at his bag on the floor and saw the corner of a script peeking out from the side pocket. She pointed at the pages. "Where did you get that?" she asked. Tell me I'm wrong, Lance, she thought. Tell me I'm wrong.

"Julia, it's not..."

"Don't tell me what it isn't. Tell me what it is" she said, but then her eyes fell to the ashes in the fireplace, to what was left of her great secret, and she realized where the script had come from. "He gave that to you. Didn't he?"

Guilt spread across Lance's face.

"You didn't break in and throw his clothes in the pool. You lied to me." She sank into the truth, then whispered, "You lied."

"Julia," he said, "I did what I had to do."

Then another image came to mind. "You knew last night you were going back, and still you tried ..." Julia couldn't finish. She played through the scene again and again, wondering how she'd known that he would betray her, wishing that she hadn't been right. "Like I said, thanks for your help. Good luck." She bolted for the stairs, but Lance was instantly beside her, looking into her eyes.

"Just say you don't want me to go. All right? Just say it. Don't pick this fight, please."

"I'm not fighting. You're the one who wants to leave. I'm not standing in your way."

"Then stand in my way," he said. "If that's what you want, then stand in my way."

"What I want is my life back!" Julia cried. "I want my reputation. I want my career. I—"

"You are like a little kid!" he barked. "Spoiled. Used to having your own way—"

"Did I just hear you correctly?" she asked, her voice seeping with indignation. "Did you just infer that I am not a grownup?"

"Yeah." He nodded his head, defiantly. "I did."

"I've been on my own for fifteen years! I've built a dynasty! I've been on Oprah’

Lance pointed to her grandmother's painting that still leaned against the wall. "Where are you going to hang your picture, Julia? You've leaned it up against every wall in this house. Pick one. I'll drive the nail."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Thirteen cabinet knobs, Julia. Thirteen. You can't even commit to a two-dollar knob." He shook his head as the headlights of the shuttle washed across the widows facing the porch. "How did I ever expect you to commit to me?"

He grabbed his bag and walked toward the door. "Keep on playing solitaire," he told her. "Keep on staying up nights and wondering why you're too tired to get out of bed in the morning. Keep on laying out those cards, and then ask yourself when you're Ro-Ro's age if it would have been so awful to put that painting someplace."

The car outside honked, and Lance glanced involuntarily toward it before turning back to her. "I don't have a lot of pride, Julia, but I can't hang around here waiting just because you're not used to other people's noise."

He opened the door, then stepped onto the wide-planked porch with its peeling paint and sagging center and started for the rickety stairs. When he reached the bottom step, he turned to her. "Good-bye, Julia," he said. "And good luck. I really mean it."

Julia watched him walk away.

She stood in the cold wind until the taillights of the shuttle disappeared. Then she went inside again, locked the door, sat in front of the fireplace, and shuffled.

Chapter Twenty Six

WAY #88: Plan for your later years.

It's a well-accepted truth that eventually, it's the children who care for the parents. If you're single, that likely won't be an option, so think about your future and long-term care. Finally, create and stick to a savings plan that will give you the financial security to keep your independence as long as possible.

—from 707 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire  

"If this is supposed to be a welcome-home banner made I by Cassie, then why isn't Cassie making it?" Julia asked as she peeled layers of glittery glue from the ends of her fingers.

"Because it has to look nice, but like it was made by an actual five-year-old—that's why you're doing it and not Nina," Caroline said.

Julia studied the crude puffy letters and runny strips of glue and realized that if she were a five-year-old, she would never see the first grade based on her creation. She craned her head, hoping the banner might improve with distance, but no. WELCOME HOME AUNT ROSEMARY was still crooked on the long strip of yellow paper, the a-r-y of Rosemary still squished together and disproportionately small in relation to the w-e-1 of welcome. She looked across Caroline's massive dining-room table, at the glitter and errant marker doodles covering the newspaper they'd laid out to protect the wood, and felt certain that Cassie herself would have been neater.

She started to pick up pieces of the newspaper and slide the glitter into nice, uniform piles. Caroline stared at her blankly as she worked.

"Hey, Caroline, it's okay to breathe. Ro-Ro's hired nurses, and she's going to her own apartment when she leaves the rehab center, remember? We talked her out of coming here or to Mom and Dad's. You don't have to take care of Ro-Ro!" But that newsflash didn't make Caroline smile. Instead, she was looking around her own formal dining room as if she were a buyer at an open house.

"We never use this room," she said finally. "Did you know that? We've eaten in here maybe twice in eight months. Twice." Caroline reached under the table and came back up with an extendible duster, which she used to reach the corners of the twelve-foot ceiling. "Doesn't stop it from getting dirty, though, does it?"

"Caroline," Julia started, but her sister cut her off.

"Did you know we have five bathrooms? Five?" Caroline faced Julia. "Four people, one of whom is in diapers, live in a house with five bathrooms." Caroline turned and began parading through her home.

"Have you seen our formal living room?" she asked, arms outstretched as she walked and Julia followed. "It's very nice. It's the room we walk through on our way to the family room, which is the room we walk through to get to the kitchen, which is the room the family actually lives in."

"Caroline"—Julia grew firm—"sit down." She wrestled her sister onto one of the barstools at the granite-covered kitchen island. "Tell me what's going on."

"Oh, I hate to say it," Caroline whimpered, burying her head in her hands, "but I think Ro-Ro's right. This house is too big for us. All Steve does is work because he's worried about the mortgage. All I do is clean. We don't even see each other most days. The only way I know he's living here is because I'm still doing his laundry." Caroline was crying, but she kept talking in sharp little gasps of breath. "And we can't sell because no one wants to live in an unfinished development." She paused. "Next to Myrtle!"

"You'll pay down the mortgage," Julia comforted her. "And it'll get better. I can help."

Caroline looked at her, shocked. "You mean give us money?"

"We could call it a loan if that makes any difference."

"No." Caroline shook her head vigorously.

"Why not?" Julia asked. "I've got more than I'll ever need."

"Julia, we're not taking your money. Steve and I made a grown-up decision when we bought this place, and we're going to deal with it like grown-ups."

Grown-ups. Julia remembered the last time she'd heard that term. "It's Nick and Cassie's inheritance," Julia said bluntly. "You saw Mom. You saw the way she worried these last few weeks, spending every day at the hospital or at the rehab center because she's Ro-Ro's only family. Well, that's me, Caroline. Someday, Nick and Cassie are going to have to take care of me because I'm not going to have any kids of my own to do it. So let me help you out now."

"Julia," Caroline cried in disbelief. "You don't honestly believe that!"

"Of course I do. You know that."

"You're nothing like Ro-Ro," Caroline exclaimed, but Julia wasn't so sure. They were both stubborn and full of themselves, set in their ways, and growing older. She thought about Lance, the way he'd always said that Ro-Ro reminded him of someone he knew, and only then did she realize that he was talking about her.

"Caroline," Julia said slowly, "let's face it. Ro-Ro is me with better jewelry." She'd said it to be funny, but the truth hit Julia hard. When Caroline didn't laugh, Julia focused on the problem at hand. "How much would bring your payment down to a manageable level?"

Caroline didn't offer her a figure. Instead, she asked, "Have you heard from Lance?"

"Lance and I aren't pen pals, Caroline. We've gone back to our own lives like we were supposed to. Besides," Julia added, "I'm leaving for Europe in three weeks. You know how hectic book tours are, and ..." She broke off.

"Oh, Julia."

"Caroline, it's okay. I'm going to be so busy, you wouldn't believe it. I've got to do press, and Abby wants to put out a new book really quickly, so I've got to do that. I've got to, work. This is what I do, remember?"

"Yes," Caroline admitted. "It's what you do."

Julia looked down at the half-eaten pizza slice that rested on the molded plastic seat beside her in the airport waiting area. "I guess you found lunch without me," Abby was saying, her voice clear through Julia's cellular phone.

"Oh, don't worry about me, Abby. I won't starve," Julia said before taking a sip of her full-calorie Coke.

Damn Lance Collins. He had left an entire case of the stuff, and Julia couldn't bear to throw it out. Now she was addicted. Between that and the whole milk she'd been drinking, she was glad to be going on tour. She needed to drop a few pounds, and more than a couple of Lance's bad habits, to distance herself from all the parts of Lance that remained long after he was gone.

Abby carried on. "Well, I'm heartbroken I couldn't see you while you were in town, but you know how it is."

Julia looked at the notebook peeking out of her bag and reassured her editor. "That's fine, Abby. I'll see you on my way back through. Maybe I'll have a draft ready for you by then."

"Jules," Abby protested, "I know you're good, but you're

not Wonder Woman. No one can finish a book and travel and do press at the same time. Just enjoy the trip. And sell lots of books!"

'I will. Thanks, Abby."

"Oh, hey, while I've got you on the line, I should fill you in on some sad news." A tremor of dread rippled down Julia's spine. "Turns out our friend Richard Stone hasn't paid income taxes in seven years."

Julia felt like the jets that were taking off outside. "Really?"

"Really. He's left town completely. I think we've heard the last of Richard Stone."