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We were about as old money as a family could get in Half-Moon Hollow. Pucketts were pillars of the community. We served on committees and councils. We funded buildings and restored memorial statues. We sponsored youth sports teams and hosted Labor Day picnics for state senators.
Well, that’s what my family did. I served the community in more of a “judge ordered me to” sort of way. Until the previous year, I’d been the family embarrassment, the college dropout, the kid who never quite made it into the Christmas newsletter. My shameful status was temporarily revoked when—
“Have you called Jason?” Mom asked.
—when I agreed to marry Jason.
I let out a long, slow breath. “No. The point of me taking this trip is that I have space and don’t have to talk to Jason, so I can figure out what I want.”
Mom sniffed. “Well, he’s worried. I know you’re upset with him, but he’s worried about you. He asked me to pass that along.”
“Hmph.”
“I really think you should just come on home. I know you’re hurt, honey, and I’m not saying you don’t have good reason. But you can’t run away from your problems. I’m so worried about you, out there on your own. And how are you supposed to do … whatever it is that you’re going to do concerning Jason unless you talk it out?”
I tugged at Jason’s tasteful diamond engagement ring, hanging from a sturdy chain around my neck. “We did talk it out, Mom. We have spent hours talking around and around this Lisa thing. We spent a whole weekend getaway at the lake talking about it. I canceled the wedding. I keep giving his ring back, but he finds some way to slip it to me again. We’re never going to break out of this weird, pointless cycle unless I have time to figure out what I want, without him hovering over me with apology flowers, apology candy, apology jelly.”
“Apology jelly?”
“Yeah, I didn’t get that one, either,” I muttered.
“Well, I don’t think this temp job”—Mom said the words with as much contempt as good manners and the Botox injections that kept her from expressing the full range of human emotions permitted—“is the answer to your problems. And besides, we miss you around the office. It’s just not the same without you.”
“I’ll bet.” I chuckled, genuinely laughing for the first time all day.
Despite the fact that I lacked only two credits for my certification, I was a terrible paralegal. Filing systems made my head hurt. I could not handle rude clients in the delicate, pacifying manner prescribed by firm policy. And every time I used the Xerox machine, I posed a danger to myself and others.
But since the spectacular failure of my photography studio in Chicago, I’d been training under the aging Mrs. Whitaker to take her place as the primary support staffer at Puckett and Puckett. My parents were well aware that I wasn’t an asset to their office. But they wanted to know that I was safe, that I was taken care of. And ultimately, I think that was why they liked the idea of my marrying Jason. He was safe. He would be a good provider. And he would probably keep me from setting fires with most household appliances.
“Mom, everything’s fine here. I’m enjoying my time on the road.” I sighed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, sweetheart, how could you say that? You know I’m only worried about you. I would think that you would want to come home, just so I would know you were safe. I just want you to be happy.”
As long as it was her preferred brand of happiness.
“I like this temp job, Mom. It was really nice of Iris to hook me up with this assignment. She knew I wanted to get out of town to clear my head, and she helped me out. And believe it or not, I’m actually qualified for the work. I’ve moved almost a dozen times over the last eight years. I have a lot of experience driving back and forth across the country,” I said, taking the phone away from my ear long enough to pull a White Stripes T-shirt over my head. “And the one thing that you can say proudly is that I have a pristine driving record.”
My close encounter with the despondent chicken was on a need-to-know basis. Mom didn’t need to know.
“Well, it seems a very silly way to make a living.” She sniffed. “Then again, if it lasts as long as the other jobs, I won’t have much to worry about.”
And there went the eye again.
A half hour and many “I just want what’s best for you’s” later, my self-esteem was properly checked. Mom had given me the up-to-the-minute news on my family. Jason had successfully defended one of Daddy’s best friends from tax-evasion charges. Daddy shot a seventy at the Half-Moon Hollow Country Club and Catfish Farm, a new personal best. Glenn had just broken a record for highest-ever settlement against a grocery store in Kentucky. The management at the Shop-N-Go in Murphy hadn’t properly shelved bottles of dish soap, resulting in back pain and suffering for someone not smart enough to step around a puddle of it. My sister-in-law, Courtney Herndon-Puckett, had decided to open a brick-and-mortar store for her start-up cosmetics business.
OK, that one caught me off-guard.
“Does the world really need an outlet for repackaged Mary Kay products?” I asked, slipping into well-worn jeans and orange Chucks.
“Please don’t mention Mary Kay in front of Courtney. You know that upsets her.”
Courtney wanted to teach me how to apply makeup that didn’t make me look like “a sad-clown hooker,” film it, and post it on YouTube to promote her business. I wasn’t really worried about Courtney’s feelings.
I managed to wind down the conversation halfway through the semicondensed version of who from church was having surgery/a baby/surgery to help them “tighten up” by saying, “Sorry, Mom, my boss is calling on the other line,” and hanging up quickly. Was there a call from Iris? No. But it was more mature than what I used to tell her to cut calls short: “Sorry, Mom, a pigeon just spontaneously combusted on my windowsill.” That only worked when I was living in a city, anyway.
Palming my keys, I took a deep breath as I wandered out into the cool early-autumn night. Talking to my mother always left me feeling hollowed out, as if someone had taken an overpriced melon baller from Williams-Sonoma and scraped away perfectly spherical chunks of my resolve. Picturing a giant fruit salad composed of my emotions probably meant that I needed food desperately, or I would never get enough sleep to qualify as human in the morning. The Waffle Shoppe sign blinking across the parking lot put me in the mood for French toast.
Hold the melon.
