Southern Hearts (14 page)

I didn’t know what I had done, or why I had done it. What had I done? I had no clue what I had been trying to achieve with my little exhibition. My movement had been sudden and brash, spite causing me to do what I knew Lani had witnessed. I wanted a reaction—that was obvious—one similar to my reaction at the festival that afternoon. I raised my head and looked toward her, and she shot me a tenuous, but accepting smile, as if she were giving me her approval.

She watched me for a moment and then turned back toward the bar. The woman beside her put her hand to Lani’s spine, caressing it, then masterfully letting her hand drop onto Lani’s ass. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her; my heart raced as my glance unexpectedly caught hers.

The dance floor cleared and the room emptied, then a lyrical beat cut into the silence. Stealthily, I neared Lani from behind. My hand skimmed the side of her arm and she turned, her eyes smiling into mine. She brushed her thumb over my lips as they parted, and when she put her finger onto my tongue, its touch sent a tingle down my breasts to my clitoris. I put my hand on the inside of her thigh, moving it gently upward so that my finger rubbed her crotch. She closed her eyes softly and I put my tongue ever so lightly to the nape of her neck, my finger continuing to exert delicate pressure.

I put my pelvis smoothly up against hers, our hips moving in unison to the beat.

My imaginings vanished like a puff of smoke when the other woman squeezed Lani’s ass again. As much as I tried to look away, I was incapable. I shook my head and let out a huff, and everything I had thought about in the orchard, like the strength of a mighty river, came washing over me. I squirmed anxiously over the stool’s padding until I couldn’t take it anymore and I stood up.

I moved the women blocking me as I knew Moses had parted the Red Sea. I sidestepped, weaving my way toward her, my anger rising with each forward motion. As I neared, I noticed the woman’s arm—that gargoyle hand, that paw—had been placed over Lani’s shoulders. I approached, I stalked, my eyes slitting tight until I was just at Lani’s back. I reached forward, knocking the arm from around her.

“Oh, sorry!” I said with an apologetic grin, as if I had only accidentally bumped her.

She turned, glaring at me, and upon hearing my voice, Lani turned to face me, her eyes wide and timid.

“Oh, this is Kari,” Lani said quickly, sensing the tension and clearly wanting to dispel it. “She’s a friend of my mother’s. How are you, Kari?” she asked quickly, as if we hadn’t seen each other in years.

“Fine!” I said, as the woman and I continued to stare at one another.

“Does your mother need more help with the party?” Lani asked, slipping her arm around the woman’s neck.

“That was what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you mind?” I asked, my tone slightly rough.

“Sure, I’m always glad to help if I can.” She kissed the woman on the cheek. “Be right back, honey. Order me another beer, okay?”

“Sure,” the woman said without moving her stare from mine.

Lani led me into a back hallway and down a flight of stairs into what appeared to be a cellar.

“Are you crazy? Why did you act like that?” Lani demanded.

“Like what?” I said stupidly.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I said blankly. “I just...” I stopped.

“You just what?”

“I just...that woman, I don’t like her.”

“You don’t even know her, and you don’t even know me, for that matter,” Lani said, her voice suddenly fretful.

“She’s got
user
written all over her face,” I stammered, feeling a bit light-headed. I swayed and the room spun.

“Here, sit down.” Lani took my arm and guided me back onto a stack of wine crates. “What brought all of this on?” Her hand touched mine.

I looked down at it and then swallowed at the touch, my heart racing out of control.

“She’s a user, Lani, and I don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all.” My voice was low and calm.

“What would make you think that she would use me?” Lani snapped. “Do you think that just because I’m not a skinny little thing, that the only reason someone would be interested in me would be to use me? Huh? Is that what you think?”

“No. I...” She had cornered me, and now I was trapped. “I don’t.”

“You seemed to be at a loss for words, so let me help you!” Lani stood up. “Mind your own business and stop poking into my life.”

I took her wrist, gripping it tightly. She looked at me as if she could see into my soul. I ran my thumb over the veins in her forearm, and she pulled away.

“Lani...” I called after her as she walked up the stairs. She stopped a few steps from the bottom, then without turning to me, she continued up.

I had wanted to say more but didn’t know what. Maybe if she had turned, come back toward me, or not left in the first place, I would have. Though my mind was foggy and I was clearly inebriated, fearing that my words or lack thereof would do further damage, I dragged myself up the stairs and escaped through the back door. Without a word to anyone, I stood in the dark beams of light in the parking lot and used my cell phone to call a cab.

The ride home, though it took only minutes, seemed long and agonizing. In one night—three hours; well, one hundred and eighteen minutes, to be exact—I had gotten fall-down drunk, danced my way into dork stardom, kissed Regee and then pulled away without reason or explanation, alienated a bull dyke who could have killed me with one blow had she felt so inclined, and made a complete and utter joke out of myself in front of Lani, and now I was on my way back to the house alone in cab that smelled of cooked broccoli and rotten eggs.

All in all, I would say the night had officially been a disaster.

chapter twelve

I woke to the pounding of my head, like being stabbed by a sharp knife. I could recall that several hours after I had gone to bed, I had woken up to the wrath of my queasy stomach, vomited into the basin, and then crawled back into bed. Drinking had never been a rational choice for me, which is probably why I had consciously partaken of it so rarely. Things were fuzzy and obscure and my body was paying the price for my overindulgence, but the stress of the last few months had given chase and caught up to me, so a night of nullification seemed like something I had been entitled to.

I had only crumbs of recollection from last night, but the biggest piece was my altercation with Lani. And as the clouds began to clear from my mind, I knew that I would have to explain my actions. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her, and now the last thing I wanted to do was let her leave without my apology packed along with her belongings.

She would be in New York City, her new home, comforted by her new career by this time next week. My feelings for her were unclear, but what was unmistakable was that she had been right about it being her life. She was beginning a new chapter, and I had no right to interfere with that. She could see whomever she chose to, make her own choices or mistakes. We were friends, and though other sensibilities were skulking around inside of me, our friendship and its preservation was what was most important to me.

Love is skillful and clever in the way that it seduces; it had baited me and I had indulged myself. It had snuck up on me without my permission, and I had allowed it to manipulate my every thought.

I tossed back a few aspirin and yanked on a cap in hopes of camouflaging my puffy and reddened eyes before I headed out to the yard to help Tami with the day’s tasks.

“Don’t put the table on the grass, it will stain them.” Tami acted as supervisor, barking directions to three burly men in matching monochromatic uniforms unloading the Ryder rental truck of its contents.

The morning was coasting into a slow burn as the sun smothered from overhead. Sweat formed on my hairline and speckled my brow with moisture. My head was pounding.

“What happened to you? You look for shit,” Tami said coolly, putting her wrist over her forehead to shield the sun.

“It’s not important.” I took a few folded chairs that were leaning under the eave of the house and began toting them down toward the water.

“Mother, you shouldn’t be out here lifting stuff. Kari and I can take care of arranging the tables and chairs.” Tami unclasped our mother’s fingers from around one of the many table leaves. “Sit on the patio and give directions if you have to do something, but no lifting.” She wrapped her fingertips around our mother’s elbow, guiding her toward the padded lounger nearby.

“I’ll do what I choose to,” Mother snapped. “I’m not a feeble old woman confined to a rocker, not yet anyway.”

The latter part of her words tore through the lining of my stomach, sending a hard knot up into my throat. I had never thought of my mother as old, not close to it and not getting there, but her words suddenly brought me face to face with reality. My dad hadn’t looked old, he had never been weak or sickly, yet he had died within weeks of his first diagnosis. My father, the muscular man who used to hoist me up on his shoulder above the crowds at Mardi Gras, the man who used to throw the softball so hard it stung the inside of my mitt. The man who withered away to a fragile shell of himself and then died.

“How about I help you rearrange the flowers that have already been arranged?” I said, breaking her attention from my sister and directing it to me. “You know how you like doing that. They’re never quite to your liking.” I did the best imitation of her that I was capable of as my stomach constricted with pain.

“I don’t rearrange them, chèr, I correct the arrangement mistakes that were made, but yes, that is an important task that is in need of tending to, and I can do it without aid.” With a withering stare she dismissed us. Tami and I looked at one another and shrugged.

“Take these in to Grandma, Megan, and tell her to be careful of the thorns.” Tami placed an orphaned bundle of wrapped flowers into her daughter’s cupped arms. “You be careful too. Let Grandma or Marney take those from the package. Okay?”

“Okay, Mommy,” Megan said before turning to go inside.

“Great, first you treat her like an invalid, and now you’re implying she’s too senile to remember that flowers have thorns,” I teased.

“I’m trying not to upset her, which is more then I can say for your approach.”

“Our mother wouldn’t know what to do with herself if I wasn’t flippant with her. She expects that from me, and as the good daughter, I do what I’ve been taught.”

“Well, I think you need to try to be nicer to her. Stop arguing with her all the time. Would it be the worst thing to go along with, or at the very least, give in to one of her requests of you?” Tami’s voice was stern.

“I don’t provoke her, she does that all on her own. I’m afraid you’re gonna have to lay the blame for that one squarely at her feet, not mine!”