Hyacinth's eyes filled, fast and sudden, and for a second I felt like the worst kind of person, needling a grieving woman over iced coffee. Then I remembered the bracelet in the hedge and reminded myself that grief and guilt could wear the same face, and I still hadn't figured out which one I was looking at.
"It wasn't what you think," she whispered.
"Then tell me what it was."
She didn't.
Instead, she sat up straighter. “Who is that guy?” She pointed to Hollis. “That’s the detective!”
“What do you mean?” I said vaguely. “That’s my boyfriend.”
It sounded false even to my own ears.
Hyacinth narrowed her eyes. “Really? I guess I could see that. You’re definitely a beer and band T-shirt kind of girl.”
All true and yet she made it sound so unsavory. “Yep. My boyfriend. Hollis.”
“Harper and Hollis? It sounds like a clothing store.”
It did. I picked at the sticker on my coffee cup. “It does.”
I’d lost control of the conversation.
“Why is he just sitting over there?”
“We’re going to dinner right after this. So why the fight then, with Evelyn?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s very painful. We had a falling out after my ex-husband asked to borrow money from Evelyn without my knowledge. We were just on the cusp of reconciling.” A tiny sob escaped her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t quite know what else to say. She wasn’t going to confess to anything.
“Is he really your boyfriend?” she asked. “Yoohoo, Hollis, can you come over here?”
I wondered if Hollis had ever been “yoohooed” in his life. I tried not to grin.
He actually stood up and came over. “Uh, hi, you must be Hyacinth.”
“Nice to meet you. So Harper is your boo?” she asked, sounding cagey and skeptical.
“My what?”
I knew he knew what a boo was. He was being cagey too.
“Your girl.”
“Yes.” His hand landed on my shoulder. “My little pumpkin patch.”
What the…
Hyacinth got a text. She read it and stood up. “Gotta run! Lovely to see you! Pleasure to meet you Detective Hollis.”
The woman was smarter than I’d given her credit for. She’d just run circles around me.
“Little pumpkin patch?” I demanded, when Hollis took her abandoned chair.
“I don’t know. It was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“Like, I don’t even know what that means. I have black hair and fair skin. Am I the vines, creeping along the ground?”
