She gives me a flat look. “The mayonnaise, honey.” She pauses. “Have you even tasted mayonnaise before?”
I smile. “That’s the white stuff, right?” Then I laugh lightly. “I’m teasing. Yes, I know mayonnaise. But you’re right—this was made with homemade aioli. My chef friend swears by cold-pressed olive oil and Meyer lemon. Try one!”
Loretta picks one up and sniffs it like she’s a drug-sniffing dog on assignment. No matter how easy I pretend to smile, my stomach is in knots.
Eunice smacks her shoulder. “We haven’t said grace yet!”
“It’s a bite of egg, Eunice. The Good Lord will understand.”
“You don’t speak for Him,” Eunice says.
“And you do?”
Just then, the pastor claps his hands. “Y’all, let’s bow our heads.”
Everyone goes quiet. I clasp my hands and bow my head, but my brain is sprinting laps. Did she even taste my egg?
“—and bless the hands that prepared it,” the pastor finishes.
“Amen,” everyone murmurs.
“Now,” Loretta says as if no time has passed at all, “speaking of deviled eggs, did you see that Serena brought the ones with the red pepper hearts?”
“Oh yes,” Eunice says. “And the little bacon roses? Precious.”
“Who’s Serena?” I ask.
They both look at me. Then at each other.
“I thought you and Sean were old friends,” Loretta says, putting my egg down on her plate—uneaten—and turning to lift a spoonful of salad. I follow her in line.
“We are,” I say, faking confidence. “But I … don’t know all of his friends.”
We walk by the pastor, who smiles at us, but even he looks at me like I’m a math problem he needs to solve. Is it because I lied that Sean and I are old friends?
Can he sense it?
My throat tightens.
Eunice leans in, doling out gossip like Werther’s. “Serena’s not just a friend. She was the woman Sean was going to marry.” She gives a small pause. Then she whispers, “But she left him at the altar.”
Loretta nods solemnly. “And all the while, she’d beenrunnin’ aroundwith her ex while Sean was helping raise their daughter.”
My mouth falls open, and I snap it back up.
My brain scrambles to find logic in the story, but it’s impossible. All I find is warm pressure behind my eyes and a pang in my heart. No wonder Sean was so worried that he broke up Aldridge and me. The idea that he may have been a home-wrecker must have made him sick.
Was my explanation to him enough? I can’t stomach the thought of him blaming himself when hesavedme.
Marrying Aldridge would have been the nail in the coffin of my personality, my happiness, my hope.
And if Sean had married Serena, it would have been the nail on the coffin of all my hopes here, too.
Funny how things work out.
“Well, good for Serena that she’s such a good cook,” I say.
“Oh, she is wonderful,” Loretta says. “The girl is good at everything she does. Always has been. Sean forgave her, and she and her ex are married now. You know, he was the father of her little girl, so it really worked out for the best.”
