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I fell to the side, shoving my weight against her shoulder. “Scared the hell out of me, too, dude. I’ve never seen her like that before.”
We were quiet for a while, both of us focusing on our cigarettes. Eventually, Rhonda broke the silence. “There’s a story there,” she said, pointing at the chapel steeple visible on the horizon. “I won’t pry, but if you ever need to talk, I’m here, doll.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. She took another hit off her cigarette and peered off into the distance. With her free hand, she pulled her cigarette pack from her pocket and began tapping it against the porch railing.
“Things between you and the boss seem better.”
It was true. Since our talk, things had improved between us. We didn’t go deep, but the awkward tension was gone and we were in a comfortable place. The day after our conversation at the lake, Gray had arrived at the Pick-n-Save with two bags of Mr. Bronson’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, minus the nuts. When he’d handed them to me, his knuckles were scabbed. Assuming he’d punched a wall to release some of his own residual trauma, I didn’t question him on them. Instead, I’d brought his hand to my lips and kissed each knuckle. We shared a knowing glance, and then we shared the bag of cookies.
“He sure does stare at you a lot.” She took another hit off her cigarette and smirked, letting the smoke escape through the gap between her front teeth. “Touches you all the time. His hands are always on your shoulder or your back. Have you guys always been like that with each other?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to play coy. Rhonda hadn’t known us back then. She hadn’t seen us in our prime. That’s why I thought I could get away with the little white lie. I didn’t want her endless questions, and in all honesty, Gray’s sexuality was his journey. It wasn’t mine to discuss. “We weren’t all that close before.”
“What you’re not about to do,” she said, cutting me off, “is stand here and lie to me.” I took another hit off the cigarette and tapped the butt, sending ashes down into the flowerbed in front of the porch. “When I started working at the store, his office was a pigsty. It looked like an episode ofHoardersup there. When I was throwing out the mountain of empty candy wrappers, I accidentally knocked a picture off his desk.”
“Congratulations,” I said, dropping the cigarette into my soda can. Rhonda followed suit. She pulled another from her pack before holding the red and white box out for me. I shook my head, knowing if I had another that I might have another, then another, and another. Lighting her cigarette, she took a deep pull and blew the smoke into the sky.
“I had a picture of my pet python Petunia that I was gonna put up there, but I felt terrible for busting his frame. I went to put the picture of him and his momma in my frame to smooth things over. When I went to switch the pictures out, I caught sight of something that stuck with me.”
“If there’s a point to this tiresome little soliloquy, I’d suggest getting to it,” Kate called out from behind us.
“Christ,” Rhonda huffed out. “Why are you just sitting in the shadows? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Kate lifted the bottle of vodka and grinned like a drunken fool. “Day drinking for days, bitches.”
I held both arms out toward her and twinkled my fingers like jazz hands. “God, I fucking love you. Remind me why we broke up?”
Rhonda gaped at me as Kate wedged the bottle of vodka between her legs and started jacking it off.
“Didn’t have the right parts, babe.”
The denim debutantes chose that moment to walk onto the porch. Elmyra screeched. Myrna started talking in tongues. Dottie waggled her eyebrows. Bernice looked absolutely scandalized. And my mother—my glorious, ferocious, beast of a mother—walked over to me and pulled me in for a bear hug.
I didn’t ask Rhonda what she found in the picture frame. I didn’t really need to. If Gray had hoarded some hidden love letter from our youth, he could tell me himself.
***
Three weeks had passed since my lakeside chat with Gray when Bernice Holden arrived at the Pick-n-Save one scorching July evening. She was on a mission, apparently. The stupidest mission that had ever been undertaken.
“A fruitcake?” I asked her.
“Yes, hon. One of those delicious little fruitcakes.” Bernice Holden nodded her tiny head, the curls atop rippling like waves during a hurricane. The mountain of frizz held its shape, defying all laws of gravity. Her thin lips stretched against her pasty, parchment-like skin, forming a smile. “For next week’s Sunday gathering. Elmyra was meant to bring it to surprise Myrna Thorpe. It’s her birthday, you know.”
“Well, happy birthday to Myrna Thorpe,” I groaned. Turning back toward the shelf, I continued stocking jars of maraschino cherries above an endless variety of fruit cocktails. As Bernice droned on about her damn fruitcake, I pondered why one store needed to provide so many brands of fruit cocktails.
Bernice’s voice cut through the familiar fog of disinterest I often found myself lost in during situations like these. Usually, I would just offer a dismissive “no,” but something about this little woman with an impossible volume of curls spoke to me.
“I’d make one myself, you see, but I’ve been having a real tough time of it. My arthritis has been flaring up. It’s gotten so bad that I had to have Dottie come around the other day just to give Jonathon his bath.”
My eyes bulged, and I whipped my head in her direction. “Wait, who did Dottie bathe?”
“Jonathon.” She smiled, chuckling at some inside joke I wasn’t privy to. “Oh, he gave her a tongue lickin’, let me tell you.”
“That doesn’t sound very safe. Or hygienic, despite the soap.”
“I was sitting on the pot while she bathed him. She wasn’t in any danger or anything.” She flashed a clueless smile that did nothing to make this story any more acceptable.
“You were on the toilet?”
