Queen Bee Goes Home Again (13 page)

Like all Southern ladies of her generation, Miss Mamie had her priorities straight, and those included offering her very best to her guests. Even when it meant ironing tablecloths and napkins in the heat, and polishing the silver.

“Connor Allen couldn't find food like this anywhere but on your table,” I praised. “And he'll remember it.”

She gave me an affectionate nudge. “Well, you helped. You know how to cook Southern as well as I do.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don't forget: the way to a man's heart is still through his stomach.” She took off her pinafore apron. “As long as men get good food, lots of sex, and plenty of sleep, they're happy.”

What was with all this sex talk from my
mother
?

“I am not trying to catch Connor Allen.” I didn't even attempt to address the fact that my ex had had great food, everything he'd wanted in the bedroom, and lots of sleep, but cheated on me anyway.

I flashed on my father and wondered if he had ever strayed. Knowing the General, he might well have, but he never would have let it get back to Miss Mamie. The old double standard had been alive and well in their generation, but I wouldn't embarrass my mother by asking.

Even if she knew he had, she'd never shame them both by admitting it.

The Mame touched my arm. “Why don't you go lie down for a little while in your air-conditioning, then shower and freshen up? We want you to look your best for your preacher friend.”

“Miss Mamie, he's not my preacher. Or my friend.”

She beamed, smug. “Uh-huh. And I didn't just fall off a turnip truck.” She motioned for me to leave. “Shoo. Rest. Get ready.”

“You rest,” I retorted.

“I will.” My mother waved me out with a satisfied lift of her still-strong chin.

 

Seventeen

As usual, I woke that evening just in time to put on my face and try to tame the curls I'd caught back, damp from the shower, with combs. The AC dried them out enough for me to fluff them into a passable attempt at a coiffure. Then I did my eyes, bronzed my cheeks, and donned my favorite pink silk slacks and matching unlined raised-collar jacket, with a white satin camisole underneath.

Cream flats, pearls, and my antique gold cross completed the outfit. I went to the big mirror in the living room for a final check.

If I squinted, I almost looked forty in the mirror. But Connor Allen wouldn't be squinting.

Nervous as a teenager on her first day in a new high school, I braced myself for the hot trip to the house.

I actually considered driving all the way around to the porte cochere so I wouldn't get all sweaty—correction, dewy—on the way, but rejected the idea as ridiculous, not to mention environmentally irresponsible.

Suddenly, I craved a cigarette.

What?

Forty years since I'd quit, and I was jonesing for a
cigarette
? Please!

Give the devil an inch,
my inner Puritan scolded,
he'll take a mile.

Can it,
my inner hedonist retorted.
So you're attracted to the guy. It's not like you've
done
anything.

Yet,
my Puritan snapped.

Thinking cool thoughts, I glided out of my apartment and down the stairs, then up to the kitchen. By the time I got there, the lap of my slacks had creased from hip to hip like an accordion, but I did my best to ignore it and maintain my dignity.

The Mame had everything ready. “Oh, Lin,” she said, “you look gorgeous.”

“Thanks.”

We both pulled chairs from the table and sat to wait.

“Do you think he'll be late?” my mother fretted.

“Nope,” I answered, looking up to the old depot clock on the wall. “He still has three minutes.”

Her immaculate nails tapped the cutwork cloth. “Where's your brother?”

“His truck's there,” I offered. “He's probably getting ready.”

The house was so well built, we couldn't hear the water flowing in the copper pipes or cast-iron drains.

The doorbell rang, bringing both of us up out of our seats like a fire alarm.

In unison, we shoved the chairs back into place. “You answer it,” I whispered, the victim of cold feet.

“No. You need to introduce him to me,” Mama whispered back, pushing me into the dining room. “It's proper form. So you answer it. Then introduce me. I'll be right behind you.”

Shoot. Propelled by protocol, I opened the front door to find Connor haloed by the late evening sun. Blinking, I pushed open the screen. “Hi. Please come in.”

When he did, I saw he was holding a pretty basket full of zucchini, the ubiquitous late-summer gift from anyone with a garden. Another gift from a single woman, no doubt.

“My, what lovely vegetables,” my mother declared, the definite edge to her tone a reminder that I hadn't done my duty quickly enough.

“Miss Mamie,” I hastened to comply, “please allow me to present our new next-door neighbor, Pastor Connor Allen. Connor, this is my mother.”

My mother offered her hand like a queen. “Please call me Miss Mamie,” she instructed. “I just know we're all going to love having you so close by.”

Connor gently lifted her fingers with his own and briefly bowed above them. Then he bestowed that glorious smile on my mother. “Thank you, ma'am. I could say the same. I've heard so many wonderful things about your family already.”

Underneath the mask of years, my mother sparkled like a debutante. “Please, please, come in.” She motioned to the parlor. “Why don't you and Lin chat in the living room while I finish getting dinner on the table?” she instructed. “I'll ring when everything's ready.”

As she left us, we went into the muggy parlor and sat at right angles, he in a chair and me on the far end of the white camelback sofa. For a moment, an awkward pause ensued, then we both started talking at once, which broke the tension.

Connor scanned the room. “This is quite a place,” he ventured. “What was it like, growing up in such a wonderful house?”

“Hot in the summer and cold in the winter,” I responded with a smile. “It's just a house, bigger than most, but I never thought much about that. What mattered was that my family and my grandmother were here. I adored my Granny Beth.”

“Good grandparents are great for kids,” he said. “Parents have to be the policemen, but grandparents can give unqualified love. Both are so important.”

Generic preacher talk. Maybe it was the situation, but I wished for the easy honesty of our first conversations.

Another awkward lull set in, broken by the sound of Tommy's loud descent from the front stairs.

We looked his way with anticipation, and Connor rose.

Tommy strode across the parlor and broke the ice with a hearty handshake for our new neighbor. “Great to see you. I hope you'll come often.” He leaned in confidentially. “I don't get to eat this way every day.”

With that, the resonant little crystal bell from the kitchen announced dinner.

 

Eighteen

Tommy pushed open the swinging door from the dining room, then motioned me and Connor into the relative cool of the kitchen.

One look at the setting and the artfully plated food, and Connor all but salivated. “Wow. Miss Mamie, that's the prettiest table and the best-looking food I've ever seen.” He crossed to seat her at the head of the table while Tommy followed suit for me next to the guest of honor's seat.

“Wait till you taste it,” Mama said with pride. Then she ruined it by adding, “Lin's just as good a cook as I am, by the way, but she's always on some silly diet.”

My jaw dropped behind flat lips as I struggled to keep from showing my embarrassment about her blatant hint to Connor.

Once we were all seated, she nodded to Connor. “Would you please bless this for us?”

Connor nodded, then closed his eyes. “Dear Lord in heaven, thank You for this wonderful food and the hands that prepared it. And thank You for the blessing of our homes, and for friendship. Open our eyes to the needs of others, that we might be Christ's hands and hearts in this world. Amen.”

“Well said,” Miss Mamie announced, then offered Connor the platter of sliced pork garnished with pickled peaches. No sooner had he helped himself to a few slices, than Miss Mamie followed up with mashed potatoes. Gravy would come next, then all the rest.

Tommy to the rescue. “So, how are things going with the church?” he asked Connor as we passed the food.

“Very well. They've been very receptive to my sermons about living a full Christian life.” He looked over to me. “This Sunday, I'm teaching about unity and support within the body after a Christian has sinned, then repented. The scriptures are very clear that we should all support and forgive the repentant one.”

Tommy chuckled. “That'll get their feathers up.”

Connor nodded, unfazed. “The Lord's Prayer teaches that unforgiveness quenches the Holy Spirit, both in a believer and a congregation.”

Tommy let out a low whistle, helping himself to the deviled eggs. “Good luck with that.”

I would have loved to be there to hear it, but half the congregation was still mad at me for going over to the “heretic” Methodists who'd approved female clergy and homosexual unions. All sure signs to the hidebound that the apocalypse was soon upon us.

My views were traditional about what constituted marriage, but the last time I read the Bible, judgment was strictly God's business, not ours. So I'd left that to God and just loved folks, as my Granny Beth had always told me to do. Frankly, what went on behind closed doors was supposed to be private, anyway, no matter what a person's sexual orientation.

Behind closed doors with Connor Allen,
my inner hedonist hissed salaciously.

My Puritan pounced on that immediately with
Do not go there! Danger. Danger. Lewd!

I distracted myself by staring at my food and silently reciting the twenty-third Psalm, then the Lord's Prayer.

A skillful conversationalist, Connor soon had us all sharing our memories of Mimosa Branch. Mama told us about the Depression, when the Methodists and Baptists only had itinerant preachers every other week, so they'd banded together and met in the mill hall as one congregation, so the pulpit would always be filled. “Back then, you couldn't tell a lick of difference between us,” Miss Mamie concluded with a wistful sigh. “Except that the Baptists couldn't go to the movies or dance or drink.”

Connor said he wished we could have that kind of unity among believers again, and we could, as long as we kept the focus on Christ instead of our differences.

Miss Mamie's expression went wistful. “That's why I joined the women's club and garden club after the war”—World War II—“so I could keep up with the Presbyterians and Methodists.”

The operative words being
keep up.

Tommy put things on a happier note by reminiscing about his antics as a kid, and how he'd run away at twelve and tried to float down to Atlanta on the Hooch, only to have his inflatable raft snared by sharp branches, followed by his efforts to climb the banks for the long walk home. He'd arrived home scratched, remorseful, and covered with chiggers and mosquito bites.

He had all of us laughing.

By the time nine rolled around and we had done justice to the meal, we were all at ease over our decaf coffees and cake crumbs.

Connor rose. “Miss Mamie, why don't you stay seated and let me clean up?”

She bristled, standing. “No you don't. No dinner guest of mine has ever washed dishes, and I'm not about to let you be the first. I'd be mortified.”

Connor looked askance at me, alarmed that he'd offended.

Once again, Tommy came to the rescue. “Tell you what, Mama. You and Lin cooked all day, so why don't I clean up? Ya'll go sit out on the porch with Connor. It's nice and cool, now.”

A mere eighty degrees, a blessing for dusk in August after the sun had set.

Miss Mamie looked from me to Connor, then back to me. “Tell you what, Tombo,” she said in a sly tone. “Why don't I just sit here and keep you company? The kids can go to the porch to talk, if they want.”

The kids. Ha!

A blatant setup.

Connor brightened. “Thanks. Sounds great. But you're sure you don't want me to help?”

My mother waved him out. “Don't you start that again, young man.”

He winked at her. “As you wish.” Connor offered his arm, then led me out of the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind us as we entered the dining room.

Boy, was I in for a shock.

 

Nineteen

“I'm sorry,” I whispered when we were safely out of earshot. “I had nothing to do with that. They set us up.”

Connor mustered an enigmatic half smile, but his expression revealed a man at war with himself. About what, I couldn't begin to imagine, but with a face like that, he shouldn't ever play poker.

He took my hand and led me toward the porch, but halfway through the dim, oak-paneled foyer, he stopped, gently tightening his grip on my hand, and peered at me, his eyes sending so many mixed signals—conflict, resolution, temptation, wonder, shame—that I couldn't tell what it meant. But nothing prepared me for what happened next.

Proper Connor Allen, divorced Baptist minister, swung me into his arms and planted a dizzying, drop-dead, Times-Square-end-of-WWII-nurse-and-sailor kiss on me, his lean arms strong around me.

A simple kiss. No tongues. No pressing of bodies beyond respectability. Even so, it was the best, most amazing kiss of my long life.

My inner Puritan dropped like a fifty-foot poplar, on the spot.

Shoot! Shoot, shoot, shoot! I pulled free, reeling.

Grasping my upper arms to steady me, Connor let out a long, low whistle. He let go, and I almost staggered.