by Liz Talley
So when Betty barreled into Sal’s, smoking a cigarette no less, Eden’s whole carefully controlled plan of keeping Nick away from anyone who could reveal how poor, downtrodden, and unimportant Eden was had been blown to itty-bitty smithereens.
Because of course her mother would find her.
Betty wasn’t always sane, but when she got a bee in her bonnet, she’d squash it.
“Why’d you leave me with Sunny anyway? She won’t let me have any E.L. Fudge cookies. You know those are my favorite.” Eden’s mother took a drag on her cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke directly toward them.
Eden pulled the cigarette from her mother’s hand. “You’re not allowed to smoke in here, Mama.”
“Well, shit,” Betty said, sinking back into her chair, resigned. “Ain’t allowed to do nothin’ fun it seems.”
Eden didn’t look at Nick. She knew he’d be appalled at the faded woman shriveled in the ancient wheelchair. Her mother had once been lovely—long blond hair, pretty blue eyes, and a smart mouth that made people both love and hate her. But after the drug use, two stints in rehab, and the stroke, she’d withered into a dried strip of jerky with wispy hair bleached platinum, Tammy Faye Bakker eyelashes, and whore-red lipstick. To be honest, with the paralysis in her face, Betty looked a little like Heath Ledger playing the Joker.
“Watch your language, Mama,” Eden said, jerking her head toward Sophie, whose eyes were big as the bread plates sitting on the table beside her wheelchair. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Lorraine, but Fred told me you were coming. Reservation at the bed-and-breakfast place.” Betty huffed, her eyes following Eden as she opened the door and snuffed the cigarette out in the planter, intending to retrieve it later. “It’s just I’m scared. Your sister is crazy. Brought a dog home, and I got allergies.”
Her mother’s speech was slurred from the stroke, but the curse words and the sour disposition were easily understood. Welcome to my world . . . or what was my world.
“Hello, Mrs. Batten,” Rosemary said as Eden trudged back to where her friends gathered around her mother.
“I ain’t Mrs. Batten. Divorced the son of a bitch and went back to Voorhees. At least that means something in this town. Or used to. Plus I’ll be dead and buried before Roddy gets outta the joint, so ain’t no use waiting. How’s your mama? Surprised she ain’t drowned yet she’s got that nose pointed so far in the air.”
Eden shot Rosemary an apologetic look, but her friend just grinned.
“She’s still kickin,’ Ms. Voorhees. Thankfully it’s been a dry spring.”
Betty laughed. “You’ve got a bit more fire than I remembered. Eden, help me home. Vienna don’t know how to load me in the van. She nearly closed my leg up in the damn door last time. We gotta talk. You gotta stop Sunny from selling the house.”
Vienna, the aide provided by the state, merely did a slow blink but said nothing. She was accustomed to Betty’s many complaints and crazed conspiracy theories. Though this time, Betty wasn’t so far off. Her sister intended on getting Betty into a senior living center.
“Where’s Sunny?” Eden asked.
“I dunno. Running around like she always did. She’s supposed to come home and take care of me like you did, but all she’s been doing is fixing up the house. Wants to put me in a home. I ain’t doing it. Done told her I ain’t signing no papers. And now she’s trying to open some stupid rescue. Feeding stray mutts. I told her strays are county business, but you think she’ll listen? Only smart thing she’s done is letting ol’ Delmar’s boy sniff around her. That’s the hound dog she should be focusing on. Got money for miles.”
“She’s seeing Henry?” Eden asked, wishing she could extract herself from the conversation, the restaurant, and the whole town. Why had she agreed to this? She should have talked Nick into Disney World. Dear Lord . . .
Betty flinched as the door to the restaurant opened and Sunny charged in. “Mama, I told you not to leave the house. You’re taking a new medicine, and until it’s in your system good, the doctor told you to rest. Why did you bring her out, Vienna?”
The aide shrugged. “She told me you was meeting her here. I called you.”
“Thankfully.” Sunny then noticed the rest of them, eyes widening when she noticed Eden standing there. “What are you doing here?”
“We brought Sophie to the Easter egg hunt.”
Sunny took in Nick and Sophie. “Why would . . . They came with you? Here?”
Her tone said all that needed to be said. Why in the hell did you bring them to this shit show?
“Yeah, Nick surprised us with a trip.” Eden finally looked at the man she’d been sharing her life with for the past few months. His gaze was half-amused, half-alarmed. “Nick, this is my mother, Betty Ba—uh, Voorhees. And my sister, Sunny David.”
Nick extended a hand, first to her mother, who stared at it for a moment as if she didn’t quite know what to do with it. Betty eventually gave it a wag, and Nick moved on to Sunny. Sunny gave him an empty smile and a businesslike shake.
“And this is Sophie,” Eden said, giving the girl an encouraging smile.
The child looked embarrassed, her cheeks heating.
Betty cackled. “You’re taking care of another cripple? That’s rich. Ain’t moved too far up in the world, have you, Edie?” Betty said, her snake eyes going flat.
Eden flinched, knowing that Betty was about to show her ass in a very mean way, so she spun her mother’s chair toward the door. “Enough. Sophie’s a disabled child who has more gumption in her pinky than you have in your entire body. You should be ashamed.”
“Ha. Left me to—”
Eden turned to her sister. “Take her home, Sunny.”
Unaccustomed to Eden barking orders, Sunny blinked. Then she jumped to attention. “I’m so sorry. Vienna wasn’t supposed to drive her anywhere.” Sunny shot a stink eye at the aide.
“She said she’d call my supervisor and get me fired,” the aide said, looking upset.
“How’s she going to do that?” Sunny asked, opening the glass doors for Eden.
“Wait,” Betty whined, slamming her good hand on the armrest. “We might as well get some ice cream since we’re here. Why y’all so mad? A cripple’s a cripple. No sense in babyin’ the girl.”
Nick’s face grew thunderous.
Eden walked around, grabbed her mother’s face, and forced her to look at her. “There have been many times you’ve embarrassed me, but I’ve never been more ashamed that you’re my mother.”
Betty didn’t flinch but managed to jerk away. “Like I care. I don’t cover up the ugly with pretty words. I’m a cripple, wasting away in this goddamned chair.”
“Dance and you pay the fiddler, old woman,” Eden said, closing the restaurant door.
“At least I danced. But maybe you’re dancing too. I got eyes, Edie.” Her mother’s crooked smile was sly as she looked at Nick through the glass.
“Sorry,” Sunny mouthed, pushing her mother toward the ancient van that sometimes ran and sometimes didn’t. Betty continued to mutter ugly words beneath her breath.
Eden slumped, feeling like she’d gone twelve rounds with a heavyweight. She wanted to run. Anywhere. Just escape the embarrassment the viper-tongued woman had caused. This was exactly why she’d panicked when Nick had surprised them with the trip.
Betty was a wounded beast with a perpetual thorn in her paw. When Eden was growing up, her mother had good days mixed in with the bad. Of course, Eden never knew which mother would greet her each day. Some days she’d find a woman wearing an apron, baking chocolate-chip cookies. Some days a drunk lying in her own urine. Betty had never hurt Eden or Sunny physically, but her mother’s razor-tongued insults carried a wallop. After the stroke and the partial paralysis, she’d grown half-morose, half-angry. Some days she didn’t speak at all. Some days she never stopped complaining, bitching, and throwing tantrums. Eden had never realized how much her mother had worn her down. It had been her normal.
But hearing how her mother sounded in the last few minutes made her want to slap the woman silly. Eden rarely lost her patience to such a degree, but she’d been dangerously close to violence.
“Eden?” Nick stuck his head out the door.
She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t cry.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, sliding out and letting the door shut behind him.
“No, it’s not. She’s horrible.” She opened her eyes when he took her by the shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I wanted to keep you away from her. She’s . . . difficult. That’s about the best word I can come up with after that horrifying display.”
His smile was gentle. “I’m sort of getting why you weren’t jumping up and down to come to the Easter egg hunt.”
A bark of laugher escaped her. “You think?”
“Sophie’s fine. We talked about those words while you were rolling your mother out. She understands your mother was mad at you. Mad at everyone. If anyone understands the frustrations of not being able to make her body do what she wants it to do, it’s Soph.”
“God, Nick, that poor baby,” Eden said, resting her head briefly against his chest, so glad to have someone to lean on. For once.
“She’s fine. She’s heard a lot of unkind things in her short life. She knows her value to me. To you.”
Eden nodded. “I want to forget this happened.”
“Already forgotten. Let’s go check into the Polk House. I’m dying to see the gazebo with the clematis. It was featured in one of the pictures and seems to be a big selling point.”
Eden managed a laugh against his shirt. She inhaled his scent and realized there was nothing left to hide from him. He’d seen the worst. Envisioning her in a Penny Pincher’s vest was a piece of cake compared to the crazed rant her mother had just had in the middle of Sal’s. “There’s a rice bed from a plantation. And a koi pond . . . though Miss Edna calls them big ol’ goldfish. She’ll probably let Sophie feed them.”
“Score,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
She could see he was trying to make her feel better, and that made her heart contract. This man was like a dream. The perfect man for her . . . at least for right now.
But what about forever?
Forever was a long time, and she still had so much left to do before she traveled down the flower-strewn path of love toward a faceless man and a happily-ever-after. She wasn’t succumbing to L-O-V-E no matter how much her heart tugged her in that direction. No matter how perfect a man seemed for her. Nick was a right-now. Not a future. She’d known that when she’d agreed to go on the first date. It was getting harder and harder to remind herself though.
“Let’s go,” he said, kissing her forehead.
Rosemary peeped through the glass, her face showing her thoughts. Eden hadn’t told Rosemary or Jessie about her relationship with Nick.
“I’m assuming you booked me a room at Polk House? If not, Rosemary can put me up.”
“You and Soph are sharing. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get the rice bed, whatever the hell that is. And maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll lose your way and accidently wander into the wrong guest room later tonight,” he said, making air quotes with his fingers around “accidently.”
“I’ve always had a bad sense of direction,” she said with a slow smile.
Eden stared at her cell phone. Seconds ago she’d pressed End on the call she’d been waiting on her entire life.
Why now?
She felt as if she were split down the middle. Part of her wanted to scream in jubilation. The other part melted into a puddle of despair.
Fredric had been so pleased with himself, his reserved nature cast aside for uninhibited enthusiasm. The friend who’d owed him a favor had come through, and Eden had two auditions in New York City next week. For shows being developed for Broadway. Not off. But on Broadway.
Not only was Fredric pleased as punch about the auditions, but he’d called another agent he’d been friends with since his own acting days and found her a place to live, sharing an apartment with two other women who were single and her age—one a Rockette, the other a runway model. To top it off, he sent her a list of available waitressing jobs around Times Square, putting her close to most theatres. He’d delivered her dream to her on a silver platter, any concerns she could possibly bring up nixed. She didn’t even have to worry about leaving Gatsby’s hanging. Lola was back, and Fredric had intentionally inserted a clause in her new contract allowing her to pursue a Broadway position without penalty.
But the problem was she had to be in NYC in one week.
One week.
Nick waved at her from across the square, smiling over his daughter’s head, and Eden headed his way. Minutes before they’d watched the crazy bachelor auction, making side bets on how much someone would go for. Then they’d spread out their borrowed picnic blanket. Sophie sat in her spongy chair, her basket of plastic Easter eggs beside her. A box of takeout from Sal’s containing deli sandwiches and a jug of iced mint tea awaited them. Around them families frolicked, laughing and fussing and doing what families did on a pretty spring day. Her sister Sunny sat across the square collecting donations and volunteers for the rescue she and Peggy Lattier had started to help homeless animals. Eden’s mother was at home with a properly chastised aide. Rosemary and Sal held court outside Sal’s Pizza, serving lemonade and iced tea. Eden should be wearing a smile and enjoying having her boyfriend and an excited Sophie with her.
But she couldn’t.
What she’d learned now dangled over her like a grand piano on a fraying rope. Everything was about to change and she wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked picking up a stack of paper plates he’d bought that morning at, irony of ironies, Penny Pinchers.
“Nothing,” she said, donning a smile.
His brow rumpled. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” she said, deciding she’d tell him later. She sank down onto the quilt and opened the box. “Soph, you can’t eat anymore candy until you have something for lunch.”
Sophie looked up from opening the plastic eggs, chocolate smeared on her chin. “I don’t want a sandwich.”
“I’ll take the lettuce off.” Eden tugged the basket from the child.
Sophie pouted for a moment, her eyes darting to her father as if he would intervene.
Nick shrugged. “Edie’s right.”
“And if you eat your sandwich, we’ll have ice cream. The Lazy Frog has a tent, and Sassy Grigsby makes the best ice cream in the county. Maybe the state,” Eden said, trying to stow away the whole career issue in favor of making the picnic pleasant. But she couldn’t chase it away. Because it sat there like a fat bullfrog staring at her.
Of course there wasn’t a decision to be made. She had to go to NYC.
This was the opportunity she’d been dreaming about for so long, and Fredric had put himself out there in order to procure it for her. He’d assured her that one or two auditions could lead to others. The theatre community was smaller than most thought. So if a performer was wrong for a particular part but good enough to impress, she was often sent to other casting directors for other shows. Fredric said if Eden wanted to do musical theatre, she had to get to NYC. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Dancing and singing on Broadway had been her dream, but the timing was . . . not ideal. Because of Nick and Sophie. The thought of leaving them behind in New Orleans made her heart break. Though she’d begged her heart not to buy in, she knew deep down she’d fallen in love with Hot Dad Nick and his sweet girl. How could she leave them?
And how could she not?
“Hey, chickadee,” Rosemary said, feathering her fingers through Eden’s hair, pulling her thoughts from the dilemma twisting her into knots. “How are the sandwiches? Sal’s working on his barbeque skills. You know you gotta serve some kind of barbeque if you’re going to make it in Mississippi.”
“It’s good. I like the slaw on it. Has an Italian kic
k I didn’t expect,” Eden said.
“The man’s a genius. What can I say?” Rosemary sank down and rooted through Sophie’s Easter basket. “You did good, Sophie.”
For the next few minutes, they talked about the auction. About Sal’s sister who showed up to bid on Clem Aiken, which knocked the socks off everyone. Mostly because everyone thought Clem would never be caught . . . and definitely not by an opinionated city slicker like Frances Anne. Morning Glory’s stud extraordinaire picked up the woman who won him and carried her away, a la An Officer and a Gentleman. It was all very romantic and made everyone a bit happier . . . except Eden, who couldn’t escape her future decision.
After they finished eating, Nick helped Sophie get settled back into her wheelchair. They headed off to the Lazy Frog tent to grab ice creams for everyone.
“I like Nick, Eden. He’s not only handsome as the devil, but he’s a good guy,” Rosemary said, watching as Nick wove through the blankets, thanking the townspeople who were quick to make an easy path for Sophie.
“He’s pretty great.”
“So . . .”
“So?” Eden responded, knowing what her good friend was asking. Where did Eden stand with Nick?
“Is this, like, a real thing?” Her friend ditched her chamber-of-commerce-ambassador vibe for the managing woman she hid behind all that sunshine.
“Do you mean have I fallen for Nick?” Eden asked, knowing she had indeed fallen for her boss but not ready to admit it aloud. Because then it would be too real, and with changes brewing, it could make things even more difficult. A woman in love didn’t leave to chase after a what-if career.
Did she?
Rosemary gave her a flat look.
