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Chapter
Twenty-Three
Bessie Clifton wasnowhere near ready to host the Supper Club for her friends when the doorbell rang.A beat of anxiety flipped through her, and she checked the beef strips and lowered the flame beneath them so she could go answer the door.
A dog barked on the porch, and Bessie quickened her pace, now knowing who stood there.She opened the door, and sure enough, Bea’s little bulldog bolted into the house as if he had the devil himself after him.“C’mon in, Fresco,” she said with a laugh.
She looked at Fresco’s owner, and Bea wore exhaustion and misery on her face for all to see.Bessie stepped into her and hugged her, wishing she was strong enough to hold the both of them up.The truth was, she wasn’t.
She wasn’t Cass, and she wasn’t Lauren, both of whom probably could’ve taken on everything for Bea in the past few weeks and kept up the rigors of their lives too.Bessie knew what flavor of heartache Bea tasted every day, and neither Cass, nor Lauren, nor Joy, nor Sage did.
None of them had been divorced.Perhaps Joy, now that she and her husband had separated, but even a separation wasn’t the same as a divorce.Lauren had never been married, and Bessie supposed she dealt with some heartache in a similar vein.
“I know I’m early,” Bea said.“I didn’t want to sit at my house any longer, and my daddy’s asleep.”
“You’re always welcome here,” Bessie said.“I can put you on the pudding cups.”
Bea pulled back, a knowing glint in her eye.“It’s not boxed pudding, is it?”
Bessie grinned and shook her head.“My gran would roll over in her grave if she thought I was serving boxed pudding at a Supper Club.”She laughed as Bea stepped into her house.She shut out the heat, and the two of them went through her living room to the kitchen behind it.
“Oh, no,” Bea said when she found Fresco pawing at Willow, Bessie’s gray and white cat.“Fresco, leave her alone.Leave her.”
Willow hissed and growled, her ears flat against her head.She swiped at the French bulldog with one paw, and Fresco jumped back in surprise.He barked, but Willow didn’t give him an inch.
“They’re fine,” Bessie said.“She’ll go find a bed to hide under.”
Bea still stepped over to her little dog and scooped him into her arms.“Leave him be,” she said to Fresco, who responded by licking Bea’s face.“I’m going to put him outside.”She dumped the Frenchie into Bessie’s backyard and sighed as she turned back to the counter.“All right.Pudding?”
Bessie indicated the bunch of bananas on the counter.“Banana pudding cups.Here’s my gran’s recipe.”She tapped the card on the countertop, so glad she’d always enjoyed baking and cooking.Without it, Bessie may have fallen apart when Jonathan had left her.They only had one daughter together, and Wynona lived in Peachtree, Texas, up near the Oklahoma border.She was working on a ranch there, and Bessie spoke to her often.
The first three years after the divorce hadn’t been so bad.Wynona was still in the house, but since she’d graduated almost three years ago now, Bessie had become lonelier and lonelier.She hadn’t tried dating at all, because Sweet Water Falls wasn’t that big of a town, and she’d lived here for twenty-two years.Everyone knew her, and everyone had known Jonathan.Neighbors still asked about him, as if Bessie should know the ins and outs of his new life.They asked about Wynona, and one little old man down the street asked Bessie about her dog Porkie, who’d been dead for a decade now.
The memories here in small town, Texas, were long, and Bessie didn’t want to cause any gossip to fly through the mill.She worked as the head baker at a new bakery in town, The Bread Boy, which meant this six-thirty dinner party would run into her bedtime.She got up before the sun, no matter what season it was, and she got her hands floury and buttery every day.
She loved baking, and after the divorce, she’d done so much of it that she’d had to take her breads, rolls, braids, and pies to everyone at church, her neighborhood, and to her friends just to get rid of them all.Baking had saved her sanity more than once, and it always conjured up good times with her gran.
She’d laminated her gran’s old recipe cards to preserve them, and Bessie watched as Bea picked it up lovingly.She seemed to know how very important it was to Bessie, and she offered her a small smile.“I think I can do this.”
“I’m going to get the beef into the sauce and stuff the dough,” Bessie said, turning back to the stove.“Then they’ll go in the oven, and I’ll be out of the kitchen completely.”
Bea joined her on this side of the counter, and Bessie mixed her cooked beef into the barbecue sauce—homemade, of course—green peppers, salt, pepper, green onions, and garlic.She moved around the counter and lifted the tea towel covering the dough she’d set to rise, and it looked airy and doubled and beautiful.
As Bea started measuring cream and cracking eggs, Bessie dusted the countertop with flour and poured the dough onto it.She kneaded and rolled, then cut out rounds with Gran’s ancient circle cutter.
“How’s your mama?”she asked as she worked, and Bea’s shoulders tensed.
“Good,” Bea said.“Daddy’s getting better every day.”
“Still lots of pain?”
“It reached a high in that first week,” Bea said, whisking over the stove now.“The swelling too.He complained so much about the compression socks and sleeves, but they work.”
Bessie started spooning the beef mixture into the center of the dough circles.She’d pinch the ends together and lay them on a greased cookie sheet before sliding them into the oven to bake.They made beautiful half-moon pies, and Bessie’s stomach grumbled at her.
“That video you sent on his birthday seemed fun,” Bessie said, wondering if she could get Bea to talk about Grant before the others showed up.They’d all bring him up, she knew.Cass wouldn’t be able to stop herself, and Joy and Lauren had actually been planning for how they could help out with Bea’s parents so she could return to Hilton Head.
The whole thing made Bessie’s muscles tighten and her stomach clench.She just wanted Bea to be happy, and sometimes, having everyone nag at her brought irritation and nothing else.At least Bessie felt like that.
