Life Without You (12 page)

Neither option was particularly appealing.

“Don’t pay attention to Vivi,” Annabelle said, catching my shocked expression. “She sometimes loses her head and forgets to think before she shoots off at the mouth.” The glare she gave Vivi would have reduced a lesser woman to tears. Luckily for Vivi, she wasn’t a lesser woman.

Vivi stared right back with a satisfied smirk. “You have no room to talk, Annabelle, and you know it. And I’m sure Dellie is intelligent enough to realize that I’m not serious.” She shifted her gaze to me. “Right?”

I nodded mutely, still momentarily dumbfounded.

Vivi smiled in triumph.

“Don’t you have coffee to fetch? And other customers who need to be attended to?” Annabelle asked archly.

“Yes, the coffee is probably done by now, but I don’t
fetch
anything. If Dellie wasn’t here, I’d let you sit here stewing for awhile longer; but since she’s probably ready for coffee with a shot of bourbon in it after having to deal with you, I’m going to go get her some.” She sniffed. “And I’ll get yours while I’m back there, I suppose.”

“You suppose right.”

The two women exchanged mock glares again before Vivi set off for the kitchen.

“Like I said before, Dellie. Don’t pay her any mind. She’s just trying to get a rise out of me in front of you,” Annabelle said, sounding much more the well-cultured woman she presented herself to be.

The two certainly had a strange dynamic between them—one I couldn’t accurately judge, having only known them both for so short a time. I wanted to ask more, but I wasn’t really feeling up to risking my good standing—and my ride home—by poking my nose somewhere that it didn’t belong, so I stuck to a question that seemed a little safer.

“Who’s General Lee?”

Annabelle barked out a laugh so suddenly, I jumped in surprise. She could sure make some noise for such a tiny thing.

“General Lee is Hal’s dog,” she whooped. “He’s a bloodhound so old he was there when Moses carved the Ten Commandments. He’s blind as a bat, and he drools like a leaky faucet.”

I felt my nose wrinkle in involuntary disgust. Eeew.

“You should see your face,” Annabelle said, still laughing.

“Sorry. I’m not much on dog drool.” I tried to find a more neutral expression.

“Not many people would be—especially not as an ingredient in their grits.”

“I don’t know. I think maybe the subtle meaty notes of kibble would enhance the taste of the grits, kind of like bacon flavoring,” Vivi interjected, depositing our coffee cups onto the table with a flourish.

“If you keep sneaking up on people like that, you’ll give them a heart attack,” Annabelle reprimanded.

Vivi cocked a hip and rested her fist on it. “One can only hope.” She sighed wistfully.

Lord, these two were quick. It was hard to keep up. And, to be honest, intimidating.

“Will you ladies need anything else at the moment?”

“No, Vivi, this is just fine.” I might have been mistaken, but Annabelle’s voice sounded a little but tight to me.

“Really, are you two always like that?” I gawped, once Vivi had gone again.

Annabelle waved a dismissive hand. “It’s all in good fun, Dellie. We like to see who can be the quickest. She learned it from her mama—we used to do the same thing.” She smiled oddly at me and shrugged. “That’s just how we operate.”

I could feel myself staring with eyes bulged.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Annabelle sniffed.

“I’m sorry. This is just a bit odd to me. I’m usually good at reading people, but I have to admit—you two have me confused. You act like you loathe the sight of one another.”

“Not at all, dear. Quite the contrary. We just like to keep one another on our toes. It sharpens the mind.” More grinning. “It’s—what are they calling it now? Cognitive therapy.”

“Okay, if you say so,” I muttered, hearing the disbelief in my voice. And I had good reason. It wasn’t normal…
Unless
. I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Annabelle, did you steal any of her mama’s boyfriends?” My eyes widened right back up again as another thought crossed my mind. “Or
hers
?”

Annabelle had the good grace to look slightly scandalized at the suggestion.

“Me? No, no. I never had any interest in Azalea Durham’s boyfriends—or Vivi’s for that matter,” she smirked. “But she never really forgave me for running them off, either.”

Chapter Twelve

“She did
what
?”

“Apparently, Annabelle played a pretty powerful hand in making Vivi’s daddy—who, by the way, was apparently
not
married to the fair, sweet Azalea—turn tail and run before Vivi was born. They were almost to the altar, actually,” I said, trying to keep all the details straight as I relayed them to my sister later that evening.

“So what happened? And is it just me, or does it seem like Annabelle has a certain gift for sabotaging weddings?”

“No, it’s not just you. I had that thought, too, but supposedly she’s only on record for wrecking two. Not that that’s not enough,” I added quickly. “And from what Annabelle said, she just
strongly suggested
that he might want to consider the benefits of starting a new life above the Mason-Dixon line and what having a wife and a new baby would do to his budding career as a lowlife. Which I suppose means that she saw the writing on the wall with that one and decided her best friend would only suffer from marrying the guy.”

“And let me guess, Azalea didn’t have the easiest time seeing Annabelle’s preemptive strike as a good thing,” Charlie replied.

“Not entirely. She was left with a baby to raise on her own while she swooned over the one that got away.” I bit my lip and chewed thoughtfully. “You have to wonder, though, who really was right. Who knows how things would have turned out if he’d stayed? But then again, if Annabelle had been so wrong, why did they still stay friends?”

“Well, being stuck here—
big as a whale and all
—I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting either of these ladies for myself to get a great feel for them. Maybe if I was there, with you, I could form more of an opinion on whether Annabelle was committing a selfless act of heroism or putting her own self-interests before her friend’s for some reason,” Charlie went on. “But sadly, I am not,” she sighed.

I arched an eyebrow and smiled. “Mike is there, isn’t he?”

“Whatever makes you say such a thing, Dellie?” Charlie asked, all mock innocence.

“Because I know you. And it’s six o’clock there, so you must be angling to guilt him into running out to bring home some dinner. Straight to hell, Charlie, straight to hell,” I tsked.

“
Never
. Besides, I have a
loving
husband who would deny me nothing if I asked,” she said, the volume of her voice increasing with each word.

“Why do I feel like I’m being used?”

“Why are you so suspicious?”

“Does Mike know how truly insane you are? Surely, after all this time, he must.”

“It’s part of what made him fall in love with me.”

I sniggered. “Riiiiight,” I drawled. “Poor Mike.”

“You didn’t call me to discuss my husband’s virtues, and you know it, Dellie. So what’s going on? Are you okay?” she asked, growing a bit more serious.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, leaning back into the pillows stacked against the headboard in the guest room I had claimed. I looked around, surveying the room, which had looked the same since the early days of my teenage years. Not much had changed in most of the house in the past ten years—the last time any of the decor had really been updated—and that had always been a comfort to me. It was the one constant in the midst of so much uncertainty.

And now, there was so much more uncertainty that even this very familiar space felt a little bit foreign.

I missed my mom. I missed my sister. And I missed the one person who could fully answer all of the questions I had swirling around in my head about the past.

“I wish you were here,” I murmured.

“Me, too, Dellie,” she said back, heaving a sigh of her own. “We could play Nancy Drew together.” It was obvious that she was trying to make me feel a little bit better with the joke, but it had the odd effect of making me miss her more.

I sniffed at the runny nose I could feel coming with the onset of teary eyes.

“Oh, Dellie, did I upset you?”

“No, you didn’t upset me. It’s all just so odd. And being here now, without Grammie, is even weirder,” I sniffed. “And I want to know what happened. Even if it was years ago, I still want to know. Everyone else knows—even Vivi knows, from what Annabelle’s said. But I didn’t know.
We
didn’t know,’ I stressed. “
We
didn’t know, and it feels important.” I sniffed again and cast a quick glance at the dresser a few feet away to see if there was a box of tissues on top. “I miss you, and I feel like Grandpa thinks I must be crazy for wanting to know about any of this. Maybe I am. If you were here, you could keep me sane.”

“You’re sane, Dellie! It’s just confusing. I think really all families are a big confused mess of weird people with weird histories.” Charlie paused. “We just happen to be finding out some of ours very late in the game.”

“You’re not kidding,” I said. “I still can’t believe none of us knew about this—even Mama.” I frowned, tracing one of the cabbage roses on the bedspread with my finger. The blinds were closed against the evening sun. I wondered if there would be fireflies out tonight.

That was one other thing I’d always loved so much about this place as a child—catching fireflies in mason jars with my cousin every summer. Hampton was the only place I could ever recall being that there was such an abundant population of fireflies, or “lightning bugs,” as we often called them. Always, always, we would take one of the bugs and squish its luminescent rear end at the base of a finger, like the glowing gemstone on a ring. No doubt the bugs didn’t much appreciate sacrificing their behinds to our strange childhood proclivities, but still.

It was our thing.

“Have you talked to anyone else?”

“
Anyone else
as in the uncles? Or our cousins?”

“Yes. And when you say it like that, it makes them all sound like some kind of mafia organization.” Charlie laughed.

“You never know,” I muttered.

“Somehow, I doubt it, Dellie,” she replied. “I was just wondering if maybe they already know, is all.”

I felt my eyebrows furrow. “But why would they know, if Mama doesn’t?” I asked, fully aware of the fact that she would have no answers to either one of my questions.

“I don’t know. Guess I’m just casting about for answers.” I could picture her shaking her own head now, lying on the couch in her living room a thousand miles away, waiting for her husband to bring home dinner.

“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “No, I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of them, yet, but even if I do, I’m not sure I’ll get much of an answer. They’re guys, so they probably give it just about as much space in their brain as Grandpa does.”

“Well, I have to admit, part of me agrees with him; maybe it shouldn’t matter so much. It’s an old story about a love triangle, plain and simple.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

Charlie laughed. “You’re doing it again, Dellie. You’re making it a soap opera story or something.”

“Can you blame me? I lived in one myself for eight months when I was married…” I trailed off, not really wanting to delve into this line of conversation right then, even though I’d accidentally been the one to bring it up. I hoped she would let it drop.

“I think we need to put this one to bed for the night, babe,” Charlie suggested, mercifully not taking the detour she could have taken. “Mike will be back with dinner soon so I need to go.” She paused for a beat. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing enough. “What are we having?”

“You sure you want to know?” she teased.

“Ye-es.”

“Cookie’s.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?” I moaned.

“Because you know me so well, and you know that I’ve been craving Asian food, like, every five minutes for this one?”

I rolled my eyes.

“I have a feeling that most people would hardly go so far as to consider Cookie’s authentically Asian, but still,” I replied, picturing the menu at Cookie’s Fortune, a little hole-in-the wall restaurant at home that was run by a punky, tatted-up Japanese-American guy named Tadashi Cookman who liked to push the envelope and make strange dishes with strange names like Miso Fried and Wanton Wontons. It was basically the culinary equivalent of what might happen if a redneck and an Asian had a love child—which was precisely what Tadashi was, if you were to get right down to it. Everyone was addicted to the Muffoons, which were his crab and cream-cheese filled cornbread muffins—inspired, of course, by cream cheese crab rangoons—so much so that there were times he was completely sold out. Charlie’s favorite was Teri-fried Chicken, a chicken breast marinated in teriyaki sauce, then dipped in buttermilk and dredged in flour before being pan fried in Crisco, served on a buttermilk biscuit that came with a kicky, sweet orange ginger and red pepper jam. The joint was strange and delightful, and it had been insanely popular since the day it opened.

“I’d tell you I hate you right now, but I guess we’re just about even, since I get to go to Wilkes while I’m here,” I replied, sinking farther back into the pillows at my back and trying to feel more confident in the words than I felt. Cookie’s was one of the places that still remained on my “safe list,” since he was more than willing to accommodate my need to strip my order down to its most natural elements, steaming veggies and piling them high on a plate for me while everyone else dove in with delight to his culinary curiosities.

Wilkes, on the other hand, had always been a place I had loved eating as a child, but now that I was so locked into the safe confines of my well-controlled list of foods, it was far outside of my comfort zone. And therefore, I had decided to make eating there part of the fulfillment of one of the items on my bucket list.
Eat Somewhere Unsafe
. And this time, I meant to
order
something that felt unsafe, as well.