“Oh, you know my dad.” I laugh a little. “Same as always, far as I can tell.”
His smile grows wistful because hedoesknow Dad. Molly and Ezra were my parents’ best friends in Blue Ridge. We spent Sunday evenings just like this one together around this table. Mom and Molly would take their wine on the porch and talk late into the evening, while Dad and Ezra cleaned up and then hunkered down in chairs on the lawn where they’d talk crops and philosophy and, I suspect, smoke a joint. The adults left the kids to our own devices, but Charlaine and Chance usually shut themselves off in the living room to watch horror movies because they knew it’d keep us little kids away. That’s how Rachel and I got so close to begin with. Our parents forged bonds between our families, and who were we to fight them?
Rachel slides into the seat across the table from me and plunks a bottle of chilled Into the Woods Chardonnay onto the table. “Sorry, Zoe. We’re out of your spiked Kool-Aid tonight. Hope wine will suffice.”
The nostalgia for our past disappears in an instant. My fingers tighten around my fork, an unchecked impulse away from becoming a murder weapon, when a warm hand rests on mine. I glance up to see Laine taking her seat next to me. Her hand slides off as she gives me a wincing smile. “No homicides at the table, no matter how warranted.” Laine’s eyes flicker to Rachel, turning stony in warning. A small thrill races up my exposed arms, prickling the flesh. I’m not sure if it’s from the feel of her hand on mine or her being mean to Rachel. Both do it for me, I guess.
“That’s right,” says Molly, uncorking the Chardonnay without looking. “It’s my number one rule.” She pours me a healthy glass first, which I want to ignore to spite Rachel, but it’s a crime to waste good wine and besides, how else am I going to get through this dinner?
Rachel glares at me and Laine and rolls her eyes. “Looks like you really listened to my advice, Zoe. Did you bring the money you owe me?”
“You owe her money?” Laine asks me, then understanding pinches her forehead. “For thegoat?”
I arch an eyebrow. “Are you referring to the two dollars and fifty-two cents, Rachel?”
“Sure.” She tosses back a healthy slug of wine. “Before interest.”
Ezra smiles down at me. “Zoe, as our guest tonight, would you please say grace?”
“Uh, sure.” I’ve never understood the hospitality behind making a guest pray for everybody. It’s embarrassing enough to make small talk, let alone religious supplications. “Thank you, Lord, for uh, this food tonight, and for friends, and for, uh—”
Rachel snorts.Snorts!At a prayer! I suck my breath in through my nose, and my voice fills with earnest conviction. “And, dear Lord in heaven,pleasebless Rachel Woods. She is but a lonely,humbleservant of yours, with no friends or lovers of her own, and has made running her entire personality—”
Laine snorts this time, and it only emboldens me further. “We beg of you, dear, sweet Jesus, please deliver thislowlywoman from her bitchiness—”
Ezra clears his throat loud enough to dislodge a tonsil, and I deliver a hasty “Amen.”
“Amen!” echoes Laine.
“Daddy, what’s a bitchiness?” Benny asks.
Laine leans over before Chance can respond. “Like a disease. Makes you mean.”
“Come on, y’all,” Chance says, covering his face. “Can younotteach my children cuss words?”
“Oh, Aunt Rachel definitely has that, then,” Darla says thoughtfully, then turns to Rachel, who’s so furious she can’t even speak. “I hope the bitchiness goes away soon, Aunt Rachel.”
“I don’t have the bitchiness!” Rachel finally sputters, then points at me and Laine. “They do!”
“Will I catch it if I sit too close to you?” Darla scoots as far as her chair will go. “Sounds itchy.”
“That is e-nough, y’all!” Molly says, exasperated, but a smile’s pulling at the corners of her mouth. She loves this, I realize. Having all her kids at the table, even if they’re bickering and throwing cheap shots in the name of the lord. I’m beginning to suspect she’s not mad about the field day debacle at all and simply used it to get her quarreling family together. She trades a look with Ezra who, taking her meaning, says loudly, “Can someone pass the biscuits?”
We settle in, comforted by the feast before us. Ezra’s homemade fried chicken, vinegary collards, baked macaroni and cheese, fresh biscuits, and honey still dripping from the honeycomb go a long way in making this evening tolerable, even if every time I lift my eyes, they’re met by Rachel’s icy stare. Benny and Darla are human excavators, shoveling the food intotheir mouths so quickly, they’re done and excused from the table before I’ve finished my first glass of wine.
Molly sighs happily, leaning her chin on her hand. “It’s so good to have you home, Lainey-belle.”
“Yes, it only took, what … two and a half months before you came over?” Rachel stabs her drumstick with her fork and knifes off a hunk of meat. Who cuts a drumstick? “Great job ‘reconnecting,’ Charlaine.”
“Rachel,” Ezra says, a warning.
Laine’s lips form a thin line as she butters her second biscuit. “It’s been busy. Learning my way around Bluebell, working on some new projects for Zoe. Just hadn’t found the time yet.”
My eyebrows rise, but I direct my surprise to my plate. While I knew Laine sticks mostly to the treehouse in her off hours, I didn’t realize that Laine still hadn’t come over to see her family atall.
“It’s been a real busy decade for you, hasn’t it, Charlaine? You must be plumb tuckered out.” Rachel sits back, arms folded over her chest. “How many times have you come home? How many times have you called Mom or Dad? How many birthdays have you missed, how manyweddings? Not sure we could count them all.”
My mouth drops open as I glance between the twins that were once so tight, they shared clothes. Did Laine missChance’s wedding? It was a small family affair so Dad and I weren’t invited, but I just assumed Laine would come out for her twin brother. What was so important that it kept her away from that?
