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“I- I-“ I find myself stuttering for the first time in years. “I'm sorry, Mama Belle, I didn't mean to offend you.”
“Well, of course you didn't, sweetheart. But I've got some freshly baked cornbread with your name all over it, straight outta the oven. Looks to me like you need some real, hearty food to put some meat back on your bones.” She bustles me up the front porch steps. “Come on now, I'll fix you a plate.”
I don't attempt another argument, no matter how full I am from lunch, because what's the point? In fact, I say nothing at all as she leads me through the front door and into the large entryway. The silence makes it easier to pretend that the smell of pine and home-cooked food doesn't make my eyes burn with the onslaught of buried memories.
Because standing here in the entrance to the Pine Ridge farmhouse, aging wooden beams above me and sandstone tiles beneath my feet, it's as if time hasn't passed at all. It's like I'm a teenager again, waiting for Cole to come and meet me at the bottom of the stairs, because even after we both turned eighteen, we weren't allowed to be alone in his bedroom.
It was the same at my house too.
So, we spent our time curled up together on the linen couch in the living room, holding hands underneath the table at dinner, or stealing kisses in the barn out back.
Our parents' conservative values were both our downfall and our saving grace. Because while I couldn't give Cole the one thing I so desperately wanted to, we loved each other with an innocence and purity that wouldn't have been possible if sex was involved.
Though, it shatters me that the man who finally did manage to steal my chastity wasn't the man I loved. It was some wannabe male supermodel with a sharply cut jawline and no sexual skills on a pull-out bed in a rundown apartment he was renting.
I thought of Cole the entire time.
“Feel good to be back, sweetie?” Belle says, snapping me out of my nostalgic haze with a knowing smile.
I nod shyly and follow her through to the kitchen where I take a hesitant seat at the dining table. Made of pinewood harvested from the farm, Cole and Conan built it seven or so years ago in some team-building exercise their dad forced them to do to stop their fighting. One of the legs is shorter than the others and there's a slight bend to the wood in the center, but for a table constructed by two angry adolescent boys, it's surprisingly successful. And if I remember it right, it stopped their fighting too.
Belle sets a plate of cornbread and collard greens down in front of me and looks at me expectantly.
It takes everything in me to take a forkful and swallow it down. Not simply because I'm still full from my salad at lunch, but because six years in the industry has ingrained in me a dangerous but very real fear of food.
Disordered eating is inevitable when there are weekly articles on the internet, analyzing recent paparazzi shots and speculating the possibility of pregnancy.
It's no secret that society favors the thin. Beauty is determined by thigh gaps and invisible waists, and though I don't endorse such unreasonable—and frankly impossible—expectations of women, I can't help but force myself to try and meet them. So, over the years, restricting myself has become second nature and bulimia a close and personal friend.
It's not right, but that's just the way it is in Hollywood.
We take laxatives like molly in my line of work.
Belle must notice my hesitation, because she raises a stern eyebrow. And despite the war raging inside me, it frightens me enough to take a second mouthful. And then another.
“My boy seems mighty upset with you,” she says after a long period of quietly watching me eat.
I laugh darkly. “Which one?”
“Conan, I was meaning. But Cole too. Poor darlin' was all out of sorts at our family dinner this week.” She cocks her head to the side as she waits to see how I'll react.
I school my face into a neutral expression to conceal the way her words tear me up inside. “I saw him yesterday,” I tell her simply, nudging away the half empty plate across the table. “We exchanged words.”
“Did it not go well?”
I shake my head. “I went to thank him for the flowers he sent, but we ended up yelling at each other. I don't even know why.” Despite how hard I'm working to appear unaffected, the crack in my voice gives me away.
“Sweetheart,” Mama Belle says gently, reaching across the table to take my hand. “I can't pretend that it didn't hurt me how you left like that and broke my son's fragile little heart, but I listen to the words of the Lord when he preaches forgiveness. And I harbor no ill feelings toward you, Althea. I loved you like my own daughter back then, and that hasn’t changed even after all this time.”
She pauses, standing up and carrying my plate to the sink. Turning back to me, she says, “But I'm sad to say that Cole is more like his daddy than me on matters like these. He's stubborn and can hold a grudge like his life depends on it.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I remember.”
Cole's stubborn mind was the source of many fights back when we were young, but it was always something I liked about him. Something I respected. He has his principles and he stands by them. I found it sexy back then.
I still do now.
“He had his heart broken, sweetheart. His pride even more so. But if you're hopin’ for his forgiveness, then take it from me as his mama…it's possible so long as you're willing to work hard enough for it.”
