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After quickly rinsing and drying her hands, she hit the green phone button before the call could transfer to voice mail. “Is it time?” she asked without preamble.
“Sadly, no,” Debbie responded.
“You’re not feelinganything? Not even false labor?”
“I’m feeling uncomfortable. Does that count?”
“No, you were uncomfortable the last time we talked.”
Debbie chuckled and Talulah wondered what it would feel like to be pregnant, especially this pregnant. Would she ever have that experience? Maybe she’d end up like her spinster aunt, with a niece one day cooking the meal forherfuneral. “So what’s up?” she asked.
Her sister sobered. “Mom called me a few minutes ago.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “It’s the middle of the night in Africa, isn’t it?”
“Not quite but close.”
“She must be excited about the baby.”
“I think she is, but that isn’t why she called.”
Talulah sank into a kitchen chair. She’d been on her feet all day, and something about Debbie’s response made her uneasy. “What did she want?”
“Dinah contacted her an hour ago.”
“Charlie’s mom?” Of course. Now Talulah knew what this was about. Word was traveling even faster than she’d expected. “To tell her about Brant?”
“So...it’s true?”
Talulah dropped her head into her free hand. “I’m thirty-two, Debbie,” she replied. “My sex life should not be any of my mother’s concern.”
“I agree with you...to a point. But you have to realize that you’re not in Seattle anymore. What you do in Coyote Canyon reflects on Mom and Dad. They have so many lifelong friends who still live there.”
“I understand that. It wasn’t supposed to become public knowledge.”
“You really slept with Brant?”
Talulah couldn’t deny it. “I might have,” she said softly.
Her response was met with a long moment of silence. Then Debbie said, “I thought you didn’t like him.”
Talulah was beginning to sweat even more than when she’d been cooking in the hot kitchen. Desperate for some fresh air, she hurried through the sitting room and burst onto the porch, slamming the crooked screen door against the house as she went. “I don’t know what to say. It was... It was... I guess I made a snap decision, and it wasn’t the right one.”
“Youthink? How’d it happen?” her sister asked.
“I have no idea. Not really.” It wasn’t any cooler outside. Rivulets of sweat ran down Talulah’s back and dampened her hair. Remembering the air conditioner, she went back inside, down to the basement, and sat directly in front of the unit, which was already cranked up as high as it could go.
“Did you two go out?” Debbie prodded. “Or did you invite him over for a drink or something when you saw him at the café?”
“No. It was nothing like that. He brought me a portable cooling unit because we’re in the middle of a heat wave. That’s all.”
“Apparently, thatisn’tall,” she said. “What about Paul?”
“I’ve told you before that Paul and I arenotan item. I didn’t cheat on him.”
“Does he know what happened with Brant?”
“Of course not.”
