Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Diane, and Linda are back in a warm, sassy Southern novel from the New York Times bestselling author of QUEEN BEE OF MIMOSA BRANCH and RED HAT CLUB.
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Linda and Diane have been friends for more than thirty years. But when Pru Bonner, black sheep of the group, falls off the wagon so hard it shakes their world, "the girls" stage a hilarious kidnapping in Vegas to help their childhood friend clean up her act. As the women confront their pasts along with their hazardous adventure, they discover surprising strength in themselves and their friendships. Laughter is spiced with secrets, surprises, and pitfalls aplenty, including a midlife pregnancy test, the perils of internet dating, an all-expense-paid plastic surgery cruise, and a surprise celebration that proves it's never too late for love.
As in THE RED HAT CLUB, these irrepressible heroines face the challenges of friendship in sickness and in health, with heart and indomitable humor. So join The Red Hats and remember that age is all in your head, calories should always be in chewable form (Diet Coke with chocolate éclairs!), and that when all else fails, your Red Hats will see you through.
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Diane, and Linda are back in a warm, sassy Southern novel from the New York Times bestselling author of QUEEN BEE OF MIMOSA BRANCH and RED HAT CLUB.
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Linda and Diane have been friends for more than thirty years. But when Pru Bonner, black sheep of the group, falls off the wagon so hard it shakes their world, "the girls" stage a hilarious kidnapping in Vegas to help their childhood friend clean up her act. As the women confront their pasts along with their hazardous adventure, they discover surprising strength in themselves and their friendships. Laughter is spiced with secrets, surprises, and pitfalls aplenty, including a midlife pregnancy test, the perils of internet dating, an all-expense-paid plastic surgery cruise, and a surprise celebration that proves it's never too late for love.
As in THE RED HAT CLUB, these irrepressible heroines face the challenges of friendship in sickness and in health, with heart and indomitable humor. So join The Red Hats and remember that age is all in your head, calories should always be in chewable form (Diet Coke with chocolate éclairs!), and that when all else fails, your Red Hats will see you through.
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Overview
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Diane, and Linda are back in a warm, sassy Southern novel from the New York Times bestselling author of QUEEN BEE OF MIMOSA BRANCH and RED HAT CLUB.
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Linda and Diane have been friends for more than thirty years. But when Pru Bonner, black sheep of the group, falls off the wagon so hard it shakes their world, "the girls" stage a hilarious kidnapping in Vegas to help their childhood friend clean up her act. As the women confront their pasts along with their hazardous adventure, they discover surprising strength in themselves and their friendships. Laughter is spiced with secrets, surprises, and pitfalls aplenty, including a midlife pregnancy test, the perils of internet dating, an all-expense-paid plastic surgery cruise, and a surprise celebration that proves it's never too late for love.
As in THE RED HAT CLUB, these irrepressible heroines face the challenges of friendship in sickness and in health, with heart and indomitable humor. So join The Red Hats and remember that age is all in your head, calories should always be in chewable form (Diet Coke with chocolate éclairs!), and that when all else fails, your Red Hats will see you through.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429989589 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 708,726 |
| File size: | 575 KB |
About the Author
Hometown:
Buford, GeorgiaDate of Birth:
April 21, 1949Place of Birth:
Atlanta, GeorgiaEducation:
One year of college and several professional real estate degrees and appraisal certificationsWebsite:
http://www.haywoodsmith.netRead an Excerpt
The Red Hat Club Rides Again
By Haywood Smith
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2005 Haywood SmithAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-8958-9
CHAPTER 1
Here We Go Again
One of the nice things about being a goody two-shoes Buckhead housewife is that nobody would ever guess I'd commit a crime, much less kidnap anybody. I have the ultimate mommy face and "comfy" physique. All four of my best friends and I look like the respectable, middle-class, middle-aged women we are.
Okay, with the exception of SuSu till this year, but even she has gone respectable lately.
I still can scarcely believe we pulled it off — a real Keystone Cops kidnapping, complete with security guards chasing me and a desperate getaway. The law and conscience aside, my mother — a true lady — brought me up better than that.
But as SuSu always used to say (before she became a law student last fall), "Rules are made to be broken," and boy, did we ever break them. We're talking high crimes and misdemeanors. Not that we were strangers to the occasional well-intentioned misdemeanor, especially when it involved helping out one of our own.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, let me put this all in proper context.
If there's to be any hope for higher civilization, some things in this life have to be held sacred, and for me and my four best friends (Teeny, SuSu, Linda, and Diane) it's our second-Tuesday, monthly Red Hat luncheons at the Swan Coach House tearoom in Buckhead. The only acceptable excuses for absence are death, incarceration, or nonelective hospitalization.
Through all the triumphs and tragedies of more than three decades — including Junior League, potty training, wayward husbands, wayward children, menopause, aging parents, and the frightful resurrection of seventies clothing — our commitment to meeting monthly, for ourselves and one another, has kept us close. That, and the Twelve Sacred Traditions we've evolved since we were fellow Mademoiselle pledges from Northside, Westminster, Lovett, and Dykes high schools back in the sixties.
But the most amazing thing about our monthly luncheons is, no matter how well we know one another, there's no telling what surprises are going to crop up over the Coach House's white tablecloths and fresh centerpieces.
Take last April....
Swan Coach House tearoom, Atlanta. April 8, 2003. 10:55 A.M.
As always, I got to the Swan Coach House Restaurant before the valet parking, so I saved myself a tip and pulled into a slot under a canopy of blooming dogwoods and towering, newly tasseled oaks across from the main entrance. Spring — a precious, unpredictable event in Atlanta — had come early this year, confusing the plants into a glorious, out-of-synch display that sent the pollen count soaring along with the spirits of the populace.
As I crossed to enter, I savored the warm air perfumed by narcissus and hyacinths. The clouds of oak and yellow pine pollen would come later, driving everyone inside and providing a bounty for car washes and sellers of antihistamines, but for now, the day was perfect.
Once inside the gift shop, I made my usual cursory circuit to see what was new since last month in the tempting array of gorgeous things. Fortunately for my budget, nothing sang to me, so I proceeded down the short flight of stairs to the restaurant foyer.
Funny, how you fall into ruts without ever realizing it till they're interrupted. I've always liked to get to our Red Hat luncheons first, before the tables fill and the floral padded walls rumble with a polite roar of female chatter and chairs scraping on the dark wood floors. Our regular waitress, Maria, always seats me at our usual banquette in the back corner and brings me fresh, no-cal hot lemonade right away, which I load with Sweet'N Low and sip slowly, taking advantage of the waiting quiet to shake off the mundane concerns of my life and focus on friendship.
But that morning when I entered the dining room from the bright yellow foyer, I saw that SuSu had already beaten me there for the third time in as many months — a total turnaround from her pathological lateness of the past two decades. I shook off a tiny stab of disappointment that I wouldn't have my settling-in time.
She waved, looking like a just-ripe Lauren Bacall in a red cashmere beret and bulky black turtleneck sweater over slim black slacks. She'd finally gotten with the program about wearing a red hat a year ago, but the purple clothing thing was still a no-go.
Talk about a makeover. Gone were the brassy red hair and too-young clothes from SuSu's bitter, wayward years following her divorce. With the help of Teeny's generosity, she'd aced her LSAT, gotten into Emory Law School, and adopted a whole new, professional look. Classic to the core in her smooth, shining, dark-honey, chin-length hair and elegant wardrobe (most of which came from Teeny's Perfect line of real-woman clothes) SuSu already looked like the domestic relations lawyer she would be when she graduated in another two years. Every time I saw her this way, it made my heart swell with pride for her.
As always, an aura of smoke-tainted perfume surrounded her. She'd reformed, but not completely.
"How's school?" I asked.
We'd been busy praying all year for good grades, though SuSu had always been brilliantly book smart. It was just men she didn't have a lick of sense about.
"Brutal," she grumped. "And, Georgia, you'll never guess what my study group did to me."
I knew it was major; she rarely called me by name.
After all our years as friends, I fell instantly into the tried-and-true rhythm of our conversations. "No. What did your study group do to you?"
"They invited in a new guy without even asking me, then stuck me with him as a study partner for tort review," she fumed. "Probably stuck me with him because he's even older than I am. I guess the legal eaglets think it's pretty funny, but I sure don't."
The old SuSu would have cussed a blue streak next, but the new SuSu bottled that all up and minced out a tame, "I am so annoyed."
Maria arrived with warm mini muffins and took advantage of the break in conversation to ask me, "Excuse me, but would madam like the usual, or perhaps some fresh-brewed coffee this morning?"
Mmmmm. Coffee sounded good for a change. Iced tea season was still a few weeks away. "Coffee, please."
I returned to our conversation, surprised that SuSu would mind studying with a man "full-growed." Last fall she'd solemnly sworn off stud puppies, a resolution she'd already broken several times, but Tradition Eight (No beating ourselves up — or each other — when we blow it) had kept us from mentioning her "slips."
"Is he a problem?" I asked her.
"I'll say." SuSu adjusted her beret with her perfect American manicure. Gone were the red talons of the past. "He's the stupid, embarrassing Mattress Man!"
I tucked my chin. "The guy on those cable ads?" The one who stood there dressed in a blue baby bonnet and matching footed pajamas, singing mangled lullabies with his ukulele to promote his chain of mattress stores?
"Yes," SuSu bit out. "And he's as big an idiot as he looks."
Having been the gullible brunt of many a prank over the years, I eyed her with suspicion. Last time I looked, they didn't let idiots into Emory Law School. "You're kidding. This is some April Fools' joke, isn't it?"
SuSu glowered. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"
Mouth pursed, I shook my head.
"The joke's on me, kiddo, and the only April Fool is him. The guy's totally annoying. Always joking around when we should be studying." Her nostrils flared. "Not everybody has a photographic memory like he does."
I injected logic, futile though it was. "Ah. A photographic memory. Maybe that's why your study partners thought he could benefit the group."
SuSu would not be appeased. "Maybe so, but they at least should have asked me first."
I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing at the idea of SuSu, trapped, studying with a man who was famous for wearing a blue baby bonnet and footed pajamas on late-night TV ads. "I always thought he was kind of cute, in an older sort of way. Nice dimples."
"Well, he's bald as a mango under that baby bonnet," she grumbled.
"How can he go to law school and run those stores?" I wondered aloud.
"He doesn't. He sold them."
"But I just saw him on a new ad a few days ago."
Her mouth flattened. "That was part of the deal. They paid him a fortune to keep making the ads. At his age, you'd think he'd be embarrassed."
This, from the woman who'd come back from the bathroom at a charity fund-raiser at the Piedmont Driving Club dragging a toilet-paper comet, with her dress caught up in her sheer pantyhose, exposing half her fanny to high society. But SuSu's memory worked in adverse proportion to her alcohol consumption, so she probably didn't even remember it.
I looked up to see Linda stomping toward us, her usually sunny round face grim as thunder and her broad-brimmed red hat askew on her soft gray curls.
SuSu abandoned the subject of the Mattress Man. "Whoo," she murmured as Linda approached. "Looks like she's got a bee up her butt."
Very out of character for our level-headed Linda.
Linda dropped her open-topped Kate Spade bag by her chair as she plunked down into her regular seat beside me, then started fanning herself vigorously with her napkin, her plump neck red and mottled.
SuSu and I exchanged knowing looks, recognizing the symptoms immediately.
"At last," I crowed. "She's having a hot flash. Coming to join the rest of us on the shady side of the hill."
Linda glared at me like a bull eyeing a toreador. "It is not a hot flash," she snapped out. "And just because y'all have all gone through the change before me doesn't mean I have to."
"Oooooh," SuSu gloated. "Moody, moody, moody. Been there, done that. It's the hormones talking, baby. Estrogen in the major minuses." She patted Linda's arm. "Time to crank up the old HRT, and you'll be right as rain."
Linda recoiled from her touch, irate. "Contrary to your personal experience, SuSu," she snapped, "some people don't try to solve everything with a pill. Or a drink."
Whoa! Serious personal foul! We never discussed SuSu's drinking. Granted, it had grown progressively worse since her second husband had left her in the lurch, but SuSu was still fully functional. We accepted the drinking as her problem, and hers alone, to deal with. "Fixing" each other (unless it was a life-or-death situation) was strictly taboo.
Why Linda had said that was beyond me. I doubted even menopause would have sent her for the jugular that way. There had to be something else.
A look of deep concern overrode whatever offense SuSu might have felt. She leaned closer. "Linda, honey, what's the matter?"
Linda looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Please God, not Brooks. It couldn't be. They had the perfect marriage. Linda's plump little urologist husband adored her. (Maybe because she still got up cheerfully at five every workday of the world to make him a hot breakfast before his hospital rounds.) If he'd gotten tangled up with some chickie-boom, I'd kill him with my bare hands.
Linda seemed to be searching for something to say, then blurted out, "It's Osama Damned Boyfriend," her nickname for her daughter Abby's live-in boyfriend of eight years. "Who else?"
Abby, six months before graduation at the top of her class at Agnes Scott, had abdicated her role as Jewish princess and dropped out to become a hairdresser, moving to Virginia Highlands with Osama (his real name), a first-generation Iranian-American, Rastafarian tattoo artist ten years her senior. (A very confused, but laid-back young man.)
At least he didn't eat pork or drink. They had that in common.
But he was still a Jewish mother's nightmare. Brooks and Linda had kept open the lines of communication (and, against my advice, their pocketbook). Now, eight years later, the unlikely young couple seemed genuinely happy, in an underachieving, counterculture sort of way. Still, he'd always been Osama Damned Boyfriend to Linda. "Abby is wasting herself on that pot-smoking loafer."
SuSu eyed her with lawyerly shrewdness. "I don't think that's really it. Abby's been doing fine. Has something new happened?"
Linda scowled and went pale.
I offered her the basket of tiny muffins. "Take one," I mothered. "You look like your blood sugar just tanked."
She went green around the gills and shook her head. "Back off, Georgia."
Only something really serious could make a polecat out of our placid Linda. Something big was bothering her. My overactive imagination projected the worst. "Ohmygosh. Is Abby pregnant?"
Linda all but took my head off. "No! She is not pregnant! That would be good news. At least I'd have a grandchild." She fanned herself harder. "Tradition Five, y'all. Leave me alone. Quit ganging up on me when I'm feeling unsteady."
She said the last so loud that several heads turned at nearby tables.
SuSu's expression clouded.
Afraid she'd make things worse by trying to pin Linda down, I called a Do Over. "Tradition One, then." I motioned for Maria. "Linda, do you think a cup of tea might make you feel better?"
The minute I said it, I realized how condescending it sounded, but Linda was through attacking. She just looked miserable and nodded.
"The usual," I told Maria. "And a couple of extra napkins, please." The way Linda looked, I might have to put a cold compress on the back of her neck.
If this was the start of menopause, she was in for a lulu.
Teeny provided a welcome distraction when she glided in wearing a lightweight, red faux-suede skirt with a matching jacket over a cutwork purple shell (size 3), topped by a gaucho-inspired flat-brimmed red straw hat that made the most of her blond coloring. I recognized the design as one Diane had done for the petite division of Perfect.
When our pal Diane had ended up a displaced housewife, Teeny (the mogul of our group, who had parlayed her nest egg into twenty million during the market's zenith) had taken advantage of Diane's bone-deep Southern class and penchant for organization by hiring Diane to supervise and design Perfect, a line of elegant, comfortable, easy-care clothing for real-women's bodies. The concept had hit pay dirt with America's baby boomers who longed for the return of clothes that made you say, "What a gorgeous outfit! It makes you look so slim!" Not that Teeny needed to look any slimmer than she was.
But watching her approach us, I wasn't focused on her outfit. I was focused on the uncharacteristic frown that drew her precise blond brows together.
Even when she'd been stuck married to philandering Reid, Teeny had presented a genteel mask of pleasantness in public. What was up with her?
Maybe the cosmic nasties were just in the air.
All three of us watched her take her place. "I haven't seen you frown that way since the divorce, Teens," Linda ventured, her genuine concern tempered, no doubt, by the chance to shift our attention away from herself. "What's up?"
"I really couldn't say," Teeny murmured, tacitly evoking Tradition Five. (Mind your own business.)
I really couldn't say had been our socially acceptable alternative to "don't ask," since we'd had it drilled into our heads as Mademoiselle pledges back in high school. It warded off unwanted questions and avoided hurting feelings when somebody asked a question best left unanswered, like, "What do you think of my tattoo?"
Oooooh. My mind took a left back to the previous subject. Maybe Linda was upset because Abby had gotten a tattoo.
Nah. Whatever it was, it was something worse than a mere tattoo.
Teeny looked down at the table. "Right now, it's confidential. But y'all will be the first I call on if anything develops."
Again, I projected the worst. "You haven't lost all your money, have you?" Could a person lose twenty million all at once? Probably not. Still ... "'Cause if you did, you can move in with us."
Not that she'd want to stay in our humble little Collier Hills ranch after life in her gorgeous double condo on Peachtree, high above Buckhead.
Careful not to skew my red fedora with her wide-brimmed gaucho hat, Teeny gave me a sideways hug, her face aglow with affection. "Bless your heart. No, honey. I'm set for life, no matter what happens to the economy." She drew back. "Someone I care about is in trouble, that's all. I want to help, but sometimes helping is hurting, if you're rescuing them from the consequences of their actions."
I wondered about her two hard-drinking, high-living sons. They adored their mama, but were following in their wayward father's footsteps.
Maria emerged through the swinging doors beyond our table, with a tray bearing fresh muffins, Linda's tea, and Teeny's orange juice. Maria knew all our individual preferences, as well as the predictable patterns of our luncheons.
As patrons began to filter into the dining room, Teeny and I started chuffing muffins and butter. I'd been on Atkins for six months and dropped twenty pounds, then switched to South Beach, but when the Red Hats got together once a month, I ate whatever the heck I wanted.
Linda took only tiny sips of her tea.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Red Hat Club Rides Again by Haywood Smith. Copyright © 2005 Haywood Smith. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1 Here We Go Again,2 The Twelve Sacred Traditions,
3 Whoa, Baby!,
4 Autumn,
5 I Always Wanted to Be a Princess,
6 The Wind Beneath Our Wings,
7 A Trip to Ancient Greece, Vegas Style,
8 Plan A,
9 Sirens,
10 Red Hats Fly,
11 Winter,
12 True Confessions,
13 No Bad Ink?,
14 Here's to Happy Endings,
15 Summer,
16 Rehabilitation,
17 Changing Colors,
18 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,
19 Fa La La La La, La La La La,
20 Spring,
21 Renewal,
22 Turning Points,
23 "Don't Let Them Out!",
24 Red Hats Rule,
25 "I Hope You Dance ...",
Haywood's Favorite Low-Carb Recipe,
Acknowledgments,
Reading Group Guide
Put on your red hats and plenty of attitude, and spend a hilarious, heart-warming read with a group of unstoppable women in New York Times bestselling author Haywood Smith's new novel…
THE RED HAT CLUB RIDES AGAIN
Georgia, SuSu, Teeny, Linda and Diane have been friends for more than thirty years. But when Pru Bonner, black sheep of the group, falls off the wagon so hard it shakes their world, "the girls" stage a hilarious kidnapping in Vegas to help their childhood friend clean up her act. As the women confront their pasts along with their hazardous adventure, they discover surprising strength in themselves and their friendships. Laughter is spiced with secrets, surprises, and pitfalls aplenty, including a midlife pregnancy test, the perils of internet dating, an all-expense-paid plastic surgery cruise, and a surprise celebration that proves it's never too late for love.
As in THE RED HAT CLUB, these irrepressible heroines face the challenges of friendship in sickness and in health, with heart and indomitable humor. So join The Red Hats and remember that age is all in your head, calories should always be in chewable form (Diet Coke with chocolate éclairs!), and that when all else fails, your Red Hats will see you through.