“Waitin’ on you,” Julia said.

Cadillac Jack’s was actually in Kitty Hawk, eight miles up the road. It was housed in a former Piggly Wiggly supermarket. The old neon sign with the jaunty winking pig still stood by the roadside, but the 1940s-era stucco building had been painted charcoal gray, and the large plate glass windows were shaded by scalloped pink-and-black striped canvas awnings. Ellis joined the line of cars streaming into the parking lot, where a burly off-duty cop in jeans and a navy T-shirt with SECURITY stenciled on the back waved them into one of the few remaining spots, at the rear of the lot.

“This joint is jumping,” Julia said as they walked towards the entrance. “How’d you hear about it?”

“I think I read something in a magazine,” Ellis said vaguely.

“This is kinda cool,” Julia said when her eyes had adjusted to the semidarkness. The club’s walls were still plastered with age-darkened signs advertising specials like CREAM OF WHEAT and COLLARDS and HAM HOCKS with Eisenhower-era prices, but now black leather-upholstered booths filled one wall of the cavernous room and round tables were scattered around the center, with a postcard-sized, slightly elevated wooden dance floor. Music thumped from speakers mounted around the ceiling. Ellis thought she recognized Lady Gaga’s latest hit, but nobody was dancing. The crowd was an eclectic mix, with groups of couples and singles Ellis’s age, but also lots of college kids, the girls in clingy tops and short skirts, guys in preppy polo shirts.

A bar took up the back wall of the room, with the grocery’s retro neon MEAT MARKET sign flashing off and on, the light reflecting in the rows of bottles and glasses on the back bar.

“Are we the oldest ones in here?” Ellis asked anxiously, staring at the bobbing heads of girls who looked a generation younger than herself. She suddenly felt horribly, terrifyingly out of place in her childish pink-and-green getup.

“Who gives a shit?” Julia said, tugging at Ellis’s hand. “Come on, let’s get a drink and snag a table.”

“Wait,” Ellis said urgently. “It’s so crowded. I didn’t think there’d be so many people. Maybe we should just find a quiet restaurant.…”

“Too late,” Julia declared, plunging into the crowd, dragging Ellis by the hand towards the back of the room, and the bar.

People were stacked three deep at the bar, but Julia expertly managed to wedge herself into a spot at the corner, between a pair of middle-aged men who were nursing beers and eyeing the crowd.

“Get you somethin’, darlin’?” The taller of the two men had horn-rimmed glasses and wore a pale blue ball cap with UNC embroidered on the bill. He grinned at Julia, and even seemed to include Ellis in his admiring glance.

“No thanks,” Julia said, flashing him a smile that managed to turn him down without shutting him down. It was a uniquely Julia art, one Ellis had always coveted.

Now Julia was leaning over and across the bar, her long, tanned arm waving in the air. “Excuse me,” she called loudly. The bartender, whose back had been to her, turned, and on seeing who was calling, put down the glass he’d been polishing.

“Hey there,” Ty Bazemore said, walking towards them. “Ellis. Julia. This is a nice surprise.” His easy grin took in both the women, but Ellis thought, just maybe, the warmth was directed at her.

“Wow, yeah,” Julia said, half turning and shoving Ellis forward. “It sure is a surprise. I didn’t know you worked here. Did you, Ellis?”

Ellis felt her face turn as pink as her dress. “Oh, well, yeah, I think maybe I did know that.”

“Hmm,” Julia said, enjoying her friend’s discomfort for a moment.

“Can I get you something?” Ty asked.

“What have you got?” Julia asked.

“Well drinks are two for one for the next ten minutes,” Ty said. “But you don’t want any of that rotgut. I’ve got a decent pinot and a cab, or I could fix you something else.…”

“Tanqueray and tonic for me,” Julia said decisively.

“Uh, well…” Ellis floundered.

“Give her a cosmo,” Julia said. “You don’t happen to have any food, do you? We actually didn’t eat dinner.”

He frowned. “The kitchen closes early on Sunday, but I’ll see what I can do.” He turned away, fixed their drinks, and was back a minute later. “I hope you like quesadillas. Go ahead and get a table, and I’ll get somebody to bring them over.”

“Thanks,” Julia said, pushing a twenty-dollar bill across the bar. “I think you just saved our lives.”

“Well,” Julia said when they’d settled into a booth on the far side of the bar with a pair of two-for-one drinks for each of them, and a heaping plate of chicken quesadillas. “That was quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Running into garage boy at Cadillac Jack’s of all places?”

“Umm-hmm,” Ellis said, sipping her drink.

“I think he is totally hot,” Julia said, looking past Ellis at Ty moving up and down the bar, slinging drinks and making small talk with fluid efficiency. “Don’t you?”

Ellis shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess he could grow on you. It was nice of him to get us some food after the kitchen was closed.”

“I think he likes you,” Julia said, her tone lightly teasing. “I checked my watch. Happy hour ended half an hour ago, and he still gave us the special.”

“Oh, no,” Ellis said, busying herself by slathering the quesadilla with sour cream. “He was just being polite. But what makes you think he likes me?”

“I’m a witch, remember?” Julia said, resisting the impulse to admit that she’d seen Ellis and Ty in a moonlit clinch the night before. “I can read the future. And I definitely see a man in your future, Miss Ellis Sullivan.”

“Hope so,” Ellis said fervently.

“Since when are you looking for a man?” Julia challenged.

“You think I’m not interested in men?”

Julia shrugged. “Are you?”

“Well … why not? Look, I know we promised each other that this would be a chick trip. But to be honest with you, I haven’t really dated in a while.”

“How long a while?”

Ellis knew exactly how long it had been. Five years, give or take a month or two. She’d made a brief, disastrous stab at online dating. Nine dates with four different guys. She actually felt queasy thinking about it.

She toyed with a piece of lettuce on her plate. “Please don’t make me talk about this,” she said quietly.

“How bad could it be?” Julia asked.

“Awful,” Ellis said, taking a large swallow of her cosmo. “Soul-searing.”

“Which is exactly why you should talk about it,” Julia coaxed. “Dorie and I are your oldest, bestest friends. There’s nothing you could say that would shock me, of all people, for God’s sake.”

It was true. If the game were truth or dare, Julia’s confession of the night before had raised the stakes for all of them.

“If I tell you about it, will you swear never to tell another living soul?”

Julia leaned in until her forehead nearly grazed Ellis’s. “Of course. But, you don’t even want me to tell Dorie?”

“No. Dorie wouldn’t understand. She’s so gorgeous, she’s never had to worry about meeting men. Not that you’ve ever had that problem either.”

Julia cocked her head. “Hey, don’t you remember what I looked like in junior high? That bad perm my mom gave me, the braces, the flat chest? And my God, my acne! I was the original pizza face. Not to mention I weighed, like, eighty-seven pounds and looked like a damned stork.”

Ellis sighed. “Yeah, but by the time we were seventeen, the braces were off, the acne cleared up, and you grew boobs. It was like revenge of the ugly duckling.”

“Turns out my mother was right,” Julia agreed. “I really was a late bloomer.”

“Not as late as me,” Ellis said, her voice low. “I’m thirty-four, Julia. And I haven’t really been with a man since…” She paused, and then forced herself to say it. “Since Ben.”

Julia’s eyes widened. “For real?”