You Take It From Here (20 page)

I practically dove headfirst into the bathtub once we got back to the house. I wanted to use my allotted extra “hair time” to decompress.

As the water splashed across my aching stomach, I thought about how this plan had already gone on longer than I could have ever thought possible. More unbelievable was how it was starting to feel real. I was actually thinking about how I’d handle carrying out Smidge’s wishes, picturing myself in her house, sitting with her family at church. Although I confess I probably wouldn’t be too overly concerned with the purse I carried.

Smidge hadn’t once asked for my own opinions on how to run her house smoothly, so if it had nothing to do with my skills as a domestic consultant, why should I even be involved? Couldn’t Henry handle these things on his own? Renew his own prescriptions. Take his own daughter to Second Baptist. Make sure the rosemary is trimmed back. Promise never to use soap on the cast-iron skillet.

A cold blast hit me as the bathroom door opened. Before I could say or do much more than splash and screech, as if I’d just summoned him myself, Henry was standing above me, eyes widened in terror. “Oh!” he shouted, his voice high and ladylike, his fingers covering his eyes in honest shock.

“I’m in here!” I shouted, which was the most obvious statement I could have made at that particular time.

“I’m sorry!” Trying to leave, he accidentally slammed the
door into his own forehead, which made him have to open the door once again, only to see me sitting up in confusion. If he hadn’t seen me naked the first time, he certainly got to see quite a bit on the second showing, before successfully closing the bathroom door with him on the other side of it.

I slapped the bathwater with my hand. “Henry!”

After a few seconds I heard his mumble. “You should lock that,” he said.

“I did!”

“The lock is broken, it would seem.”

“Yes, I suppose it would seem that!”

As I pulled the stopper from the drain I could hear Smidge’s delighted peals of laughter through the walls.

The next time that door opened, Smidge leaned in wearing a green spaghetti-strap dress under a black cardigan. Her hair pulled high atop her head and secured with a white flowered barrette, she was beautiful—exactly as tragically beautiful as she would’ve wanted it to be if only everybody knew how sick she was. I am sure it bothered her that she wasn’t able to milk her frailty for maximum sympathy.

“Smidge!” I said, not equipped with enough hands or limbs to cover everything I needed to hide from her view. I finished wrapping myself in a towel, wondering why I even bothered with modesty.

“That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” she said, stopping only to make an actual hooting sound. “Henry!” Smidge shouted down the hall. “Come back, she’s out! Now you can see the rest of her! Not just a titty preview!”

“Why can’t you be a normal sick lady who wanders around
in a blanket asking for soup?” I hissed before I slammed the door in her face.

Her response came muffled but cocksure.

“You love me.”

Forty-five minutes later I was sliding a pair of oxblood heels onto my feet, waiting alone in the kitchen. From the other room I could hear the murmur of Smidge fidgeting with Henry’s clothes.

“Don’t tuck that in, why would you tuck that in? It’s dinner, not your mama’s house after a funeral.”

Henry entered the kitchen a few minutes later, head down as he finished buttoning his cuffs. His hair was still damp, swirled, and pushed into dark blond tufts that would relax once they dried into his composed, thick tousle. A heavy cloud of woodsy cologne followed him as he passed, and I found myself hit with an unexpected and sudden ache for a male counterpart.

From the living room, I could hear your mother saying good-bye to you, forcing you to do Odd Hugs and promise to be home before curfew. I heard the heavy slam of the front door as you left.

Henry limped around the kitchen on one shoe, searching for the other. I saw it peeking around the corner in the other room. He busied himself, rustling through the kitchen drawers, pulling one open before closing the last. Utensils rattled and clanked as the junk drawers sprang open like impatient jack-in-the-boxes.

“I need a shoehorn,” he muttered.

I spotted one in the drawer he’d left open closest to me.

“Here,” I said.

As I went to hand him the tortoiseshell tool, he simultaneously reached back to grab it, misjudging the distance between us. The next thing I knew his hand was jammed in the crook between my upper arm and my right breast.

“Jesus Christ.” He spun on his one shoed heel and marched out of the room.

“It’s okay!” I weakly shouted after him. I’m still surprised he didn’t faint with all that blood rushing to his head.

Smidge danced in, humming. “This is all good,” she said, pointing with two fingers at my black dress, my hair pulled back into a high ponytail, my heels. She flipped up my hem, flirtatiously. “Dig them stems, missy.”

“Thanks. Your husband just accidentally touched my boob.”

She smirked, squinting. “Maybe no accident. That man can’t resist an off-the-shoulder dress. He was probably aiming for the other side where you’re more naked.”

“It is weird, what you are doing. You know that, right?”

“What, teasing you?”

“No, acting like you’re setting me up with—” I stopped myself, lowering my voice to a furious whisper. “Like he’s not your husband.”

Smidge hopped herself onto the counter so that she was sitting eye level with me. Her legs in the space between us, her bare knees grazed my stomach. We were close enough so that I could see where her eyeliner was smudged. She had one false eyelash coming loose from its adhesive, curling upward.

She licked her lips, top then bottom, like she was choosing her words carefully. “I don’t know why I can’t get this through to you, Danielle,” she said, her voice trembling around the
edges of her words. “So let me try one more time. I know what I’m doing. I know why I’m doing it. And I know this is best. So if you want things to go more easily,
get on it
.”

“I just think—”

“Stop. Thinking.” Her lips had gone thin with frustration. “You want me to cry every day and
woe-is-me
in my bed until the tumor gets big enough to fill my throat? You want to wait until I can’t jump or move or lift my arms? You want to wait until it’s too late? Or do you want to do me a favor, act like someone who is supposed to love me, and just
get on it
. Suck it up and deal.”

My tongue felt like it had turned into a lump of damp paper shreds. A useless, aimless pulp. I meekly nodded as my stomach shot a fierce bullet of pain into my sternum.

“Sorry,” I managed to stammer.

“I’ve been giving you a little while to grieve and whatnot, but it’s go-time now, okay? No more whining like you wet your pants.”

“You sound like your dad.”

“Good. That man knew how to make me do what he wanted.” She rocked back and forth on the counter with hands on her hips like a cowboy. She pretended to have a wad of tobacco tucked in her cheek, transforming herself into the perfect image of Mr. Carlton from the waist up. “Now
yew
be a good
gurl
and
git on it
.”

“I miss your dad.”

“I’ll tell him you said hi.”

FIFTEEN

W
e were overdressed for the wet mess of crawfish dumped onto our table, but nobody minded. Sometimes it was nice to look fancy while being busy with your hands. The four of us sat in silence as we focused on ripping the boiled red crustaceans in half, pausing to suck their briny heads before shredding their crunchy legs to the table. A final pinch to the tail revealed sweet, white meat. The process was time-consuming and labor-intensive to the newcomer, but we were like an experienced knitting circle, heads down, fingers working, pausing only for the occasional sips of beer or an appreciative grunt before taking a bite of spice-rubbed corn on the cob.

No one was quieter than Henry, who had refused to meet my eyes since our bathtub encounter. His discomfort seemed worsened by what became the topic of conversation. Me. Tucker asked questions ranging in scope from something as broad as my neighborhood back in Los Angeles, to something as minute as my plans for Monday. Often before I could respond, Smidge would interrupt to answer for me, but direct it toward Henry.

“Isn’t that interesting, Henry? Danielle’s neighborhood in Los Angeles just got a new bakery.” Like I was their foreign exchange student, or more accurately, was on an extremely awkward and terribly inappropriate first date.

I kicked at her under the wooden table, hoping she’d get the message that she needed to lay off, but she chose to ignore me.

“Maybe you could show her how good you make biscuits, Henry. Since Danielle doesn’t have Monday plans.”

I kicked again, this time finding her shin.

“That’s a bruise,” she said quite loudly.

I stopped, but my brain continued the violence.

Once Henry excused himself to the bathroom, Tucker took the opportunity to snatch his seat, sliding up next to me, his elbow resting against mine. Even though his white shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbow, he had damp spots in the fabric from where he was careless. A smear of copper-colored sauce in the shape of a thumbprint marked his collar.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew how pretty you look tonight,” Tucker said.

“You are hitting on me,” I informed him.

“Barely. And that’s only because I’m a little bored. Why don’t you do something interesting?”

“How’s this?” I asked, and then tossed the remains of a crawfish exoskeleton at his face. It hit his cheek with a satisfying pop before he batted it aside.

Tucker laughed. “Feisty. What else do you want to throw at me tonight?” He slurred slightly as he leaned into me, bumping my shoulder with his own. “Can I make a few suggestions? A request?”

“You get forward when you’re drunk,” I said. “I don’t remember that. Is that new?”

“About as new as your divorce, darlin’.” He leaned in for a wedge of potato. “I’m just playing,” he said. “You can stop looking like I served cat shit to the queen.”

Suddenly my shin exploded in pain. My eyes locked with Smidge’s. She was shaking her head like she just caught me licking the inside of her cookie jar, her dagger eyes trying to stare-stab me back into submission.

“That’s a bruise,” I said as I pressed my palm against the throbbing in my leg.

Henry returned to the table with an announcement. “It seems I’ve found someone we know.”

“Hello,” said the woman attached to that ridiculous parrot necklace.

“Vikki,” Smidge said dismissively, like a substitute teacher taking attendance.

“I see y’all went ahead and had Tuesday-night dinner with some new people,” Vikki sniffed, the words
new people
coming out of her mouth the way some people say “mucus plug” or “fetal pig.”

Smidge handed a wet-nap packet to Henry, who immediately opened it for her. “I didn’t think it was a tradition,” she said. “What, did we come here, like, twice?”

“Five times,” Vikki snapped. “Always on Tuesdays, like tonight. Which sure seems like a tradition to me.”

Smidge countered with, “And you’re here tonight without us, so looks like everybody’s ignoring this so-called tradition.”

Vikki shook her head, looking like she couldn’t decide between silence and murder.

“Ooookay,”
Smidge sang, rubbing the napkin between her palms. “We should get dessert, right? I need cobbler.” Her hands shot toward the ceiling, fingers wiggling like she was at a church revival. “Peach!” she cheered. “Henry, find out if they have peach cobbler.”

Alcohol loosened Henry into even more the doting husband. I think as he lost control of his faculties, he liked being pointed in a direction, kept busy with simple tasks.

Vikki gripped the back of my chair with enough strength I could tell she’d love nothing more than to catapult me out of the building still strapped to my seat. “Smidge,” she said, her voice calm and compliant, a negotiator dealing with a hostage situation. “Is there a reason you haven’t been returning my calls? I mean, a reason I need to be concerned about, and not just that you’ve been busy with your lingering visitor?”

Smidge’s face took on a look of carefully composed fake innocence. Her hazel eyes turned near black from their lack of compassion, round with feigned concern. “Have I been ignoring you, Vikki?” she chirped, her voice reaching a pitch that could summon local wildlife. “Is that what you want to know? Is that what you are asking here at Plantation of the Sea? Is this worth making a scene in front of all these people?”

Vikki had gone still, straight as a stick. Her hands clasped solemnly in front of her bulge of a stomach, as her thumbs kept busy in a quiet wrestling match with each other. “I just wanted to know if you are mad at me,” she wondered, and the question quietly descended upon us in a fog of discomfort, resting heavily on the backs of our necks, for we all recognized the voice of someone banished from Smidge’s inner
circle. It’s confusion mixed with shame, and a desire to apologize for slights unknown.