“Jeez-o Pete!” I cried, letting my weapon drop to the floor with a clatter. “You scared the living crap out of me. You’ve gotta stop sneaking up on me like this, Austin.”
He picked up the tongs and gave me a questioning look. “Or what? You’ll tong me to death?”
“It was the first thing I grabbed,” I said. “You’re lucky my granddaddy’s butcher knife was at the back of the bottom drawer.”
He followed me back into my living room and dropped down into an overstuffed armchair covered in my favorite blue and white Pierre Frey toile, while I chose the matching chair opposite him.
“So?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“So. What?”
“I was back in your stockroom when A.J. came in,” Austin said, not bothering to apologize. “I heard the whole sad drama. So my question is, do you believe him?”
I picked at a piece of blue braid trim on the arm of the chair. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does,” he said, his voice cheerful. “If it was just that one time, and they were both drunk, well, maybe it’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s a big deal no matter what,” I said. “I can never trust him again.”
“Never is a mighty long time,” Austin observed.
“Since when did you switch over to A. J. Jernigan’s side?” I asked.
“I’m not on anybody’s side,” he said. “I’m Switzerland.”
“You’re gay, so you have to be on my side.”
He rolled his eyes. “Honey, no offense, but if I had to choose a side to sleep with, it’d be A.J.’s. He may be a liar and a cheat, but honestly, with those blue-green eyes and those shoulders? I could eat him up with a spoon.”
“Don’t be nasty,” I said.
He stuck out his tongue at me, and we both laughed.
“How was Atlanta?”
“I’ll never make it as a secret agent,” I said. “I got caught spying red-handed.”
“She threw you out? Called the cops?” He was loving the intrigue.
“Nope. Actually, she invited me in. I met her dog and cased the joint. So, mission accomplished. Now all I have to do is design a home around a woman who likes dog art, Prada, and shoes.”
“You can do it,” Austin said, patting my shoulder. “If anybody can do it, it’d be Keeley Rae Murdock. You want some pizza?”
I opened the box and wrinkled my nose. The anchovies and pepperoni and a half-dozen other toppings had congealed into a single unappetizing layer of gunk.
“No thanks,” I said, dropping the box on the counter. Instead I opened the refrigerator door and scanned its contents. There was still one foil-wrapped tray of potstickers left over from my canceled wedding reception. I shuddered, took it out, and dropped it in the trash.
“Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast,” I said finally, grabbing a carton of eggs. “I love breakfast for supper, don’t you?”
“If you’re fixing it, I’ll eat it,” Austin said. “Just don’t take after me with those tongs of yours.”
I cracked the eggs into a bowl, added sour cream, some grated cheddar cheese, and some bacon bits, along with salt and pepper. In a minute or two, the smell of bacon frying permeated the small kitchen. Austin popped the bread in the toaster, and five minutes later, we were back in the living room with our supper on a pair of television trays I’d brought with me from Daddy’s house when I moved into the apartment.
We ate breakfast and watched Jeopardy!, and drank Diet Coke from some crystal wineglasses that had been a gift from one of my daddy’s cousins. I’d already started sending back gifts from A.J.’s family, but most of my relatives had been calling to tell me just to keep theirs.
It turns out I was the one doing most of the Jeopardy! watching. Austin was mostly just watching me, I finally figured out.
“What? Do I have something stuck in my teeth? It’s my hair, isn’t it? You know what this rain and humidity does to me. I look like Michael Jackson, don’t I?”
He shook his head. “You look fine.”
“Then why are you gawking at me? Come on, you’re making me nervous.”
“I want to ask you something, but I don’t know if it’s too personal.”
“Just ask, then.”
“You won’t get mad? Never speak to me again?”
“Don’t be stupid. What do you want to know? I mean, it’s not like the whole town doesn’t already know all my business.”
“This isn’t about A.J. or Paige.”
“What’s it about then? Come on, now you’ve got me curious.”
He got up and walked to the window, pulling the drapes aside. Rain slashed down. The sky was plum-colored, with streaks from the last light of the day. From across the square, I heard a car backfire.
“I’ve been wondering…” He half turned. “Whatever happened to your mama?”
“My mama?” I looked down at my hands. I always did that when I thought about her. It was one of the things people said I’d inherited from her. Hands. Long, thin fingers.
She could reach a finger down into the olive jar and spear out the last olive, her fingers were so long. She could French-braid my hair in a matter of seconds, taming my long curls into a flat plait down my back. She knew a dozen variations on cat-in-the-cradle, and taught them all to me one time in first grade when I had strep throat and couldn’t go to school for a week.
“Never mind,” Austin said, his face coloring. “It’s none of my business. Forget I asked.”
“It’s okay,” I said, exhaling slowly. “No big deal. She left when I was seven. Ran off with one of Daddy’s salesmen.”
“You never talk about her,” Austin said. “Are you in touch?”
“No,” I said flatly. “She just left. No note. Nothing.”
“For real?” Austin said, crossing back to his armchair. “No warning? She just up and vanished?”
“I guess,” I said. “If she was unhappy, I never knew it. They never fought. Not in front of me, anyway. One night she fixed corndogs and coleslaw for supper. The next day, when I got home from school, she was gone. I still can’t look a corndog in the face,” I said, laughing at the absurdity of that last statement.
“What did Wade do?” Austin’s eyes were sparkling and alive, his voice a melodramatic whisper. He seemed enthralled with what he regarded as an up-close-and-personal installment of Unsolved Mysteries.
“He called all her friends, but nobody knew where she’d gone. Then he got worried that maybe she’d had an accident or something. He called all the hospitals all around, talked to the sheriff. They put out a missing persons bulletin, dragged some farm ponds, but nothing came of it.”
“What about the man? When did your daddy figure out she’d gone off with this salesman?”
“His name was Darvis Kane. He was Daddy’s sales manager. He was supposed to be on vacation in Panama City Beach the week Mama left. He called Daddy’s secretary the day Mama left and said something had come up, and he was resigning. He had her forward his last commission check to a post office box in Wedowee, Alabama.”
“Wedowee!” Austin rolled his eyes. “Forgive me, sweetie, but quel scandale! Quel tacky! They eloped to Wedowee, Alabama?”
“As far as I know. Daddy never told me any of this, of course. He didn’t want to upset me. When it was clear Mama wasn’t coming back, he took me to a shrink in Atlanta. Poor Daddy. I was like a zombie. I wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t hardly eat. I think he thought he’d have to put me down in Milledgeville, in the junior nut farm.”
“What happened next?” Austin asked.
“Time. Gloria moved in with us for a while. That helped a lot. We’d go to movies together, she’d paint my nails and take me shopping. She talked to me about Mama when Daddy couldn’t.”
“How did they know she ran off with that man?” Austin demanded. “Did she file for divorce?”
“I guess,” I said. “Daddy never talked about her, after he figured out what had happened. So eventually I quit talking about her too.”
He sighed. “And you’ve never heard from her? Not in all these years?”
“No,” I said.
“And you’re not the least bit curious about her? Where she is, what she’s doing?”
I laced my fingers together. “I didn’t say that. Of course I’m curious. She was my mother, for God’s sake. Don’t you think I’ve wondered where she is?”
“GAAAWD,” Austin drawled. “I wish I did have to wonder where my mama is. Unfortunately, I know right where she is, just about every minute of every day. Sitting right in front of the twenty-eight-inch Motorola I gave her for Christmas, clipping coupons and watching daytime TV, right down there in Perry, Florida.”
“At least you know,” I said.
“She calls me every day at four o’clock, to give me the blow-by-blow of who did what to who on Court TV,” Austin said. “And to complain about my brother’s trashy wife.”
“Count your blessings,” I said, standing up to look out at the rain. “I couldn’t even send my mama a wedding announcement.”
Austin followed me to the window. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight. “You think she would have liked A.J.?”
I swallowed hard. “Maybe. Or maybe she could have seen right through him. The way I couldn’t. She was quiet, but she was a good judge of character. She used to tell Daddy who he shouldn’t give credit to. And nine times out of ten she was right.”
“She sounds nice,” Austin said. “What was her name?”
“Jeanine,” I said, letting it out in a soft stream. “My mama’s name was Jeanine.”