by Mandie Tepe
When noon rolled around, Nova had sandwiches delivered from the convenience store’s deli and everyone ate lunch. By then everything that needed done in Axel’s apartment was done.
After that Axel decided to head out to where he had a crew working on shingling a roof so he could take his anger out on a bunch of poor innocent nail heads. The Vagabond family, Willy and Roscoe scattered and Jimi went to her apartment. She called to let her supervisor know that she could come in and work that afternoon but was assured things were under control, the phone had barely rang all morning, and Jimi could handle whatever clerical duties she had on her desk the next day.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
It was mid-afternoon and Jimi had done a minimal amount of housework in her apartment. Since she’d been gone all weekend and had the habit of leaving her place clean before she traveled, there hadn’t been much to deal with. By now she was mostly killing time waiting for Isla to come by and help her wind the warp on her loom for Pop’s Christmas gift project.
She was sitting on the couch, the television tuned to a daytime cooking show, as she wound navy and green yarn around stick shuttles . . . so practiced at it her hands were a blur. A knock at the door stopped her short, though.
Setting the shuttle and skein on the coffee table among several others, she stood up and moved toward the door. She called out before she even took hold of the doorknob, “What’re you doing knocking, babe?” She laughed as she pulled the door open, but her laughter died immediately when she saw it wasn’t Isla standing on the other side. “Mrs. Reynolds!” she exclaimed in surprise.
Suzanne seemed uncertain as she stood there in yoga pants and a chic designer sweatshirt. “I-I . . . I just wondered if you were home. I’d like to thank you for last night.”
“Umm . . . well, you’re welcome,” Jimi answered awkwardly. Suzanne’s excuse for being there seemed pretty lame because Jimi hadn’t really done anything to warrant a thank you. They remained there studying one another until things got even more awkward. Finally—not knowing what else to do—Jimi opened the door wider. “Would you like to come in?”
“Oh. If you’re not in the middle of something.”
“Not really. I’m just winding shuttles.” Jimi almost blushed because to most of the population that would sound like gibberish.
Suzanne blinked at her and stepped into the apartment. She stood looking around the space and Jimi wondered what Chance’s mother’s impression was of what she saw. Jimi assumed that Suzanne lived in and sold big fancy houses with upscale furnishings. The nicest stuff Jimi had was from IKEA. She liked it, but even she knew it wasn’t all that special.
“Can I make you some tea? I’d offer coffee, but Axel finished it off this morning,” she offered.
“Tea would be nice,” Suzanne said graciously.
Jimi stepped over to open a cabinet above her coffeemaker. “Let’s see . . . I have ginger, peppermint, chamomile, green tea, lemongrass, chai, Earl Grey, Sleepytime, English breakfast, orange clove—”
Suzanne gave a little laugh. “You have a lot of tea. Earl Grey is fine.”
“My mama is always bringing me teas,” Jimi chuckled.
“Your mother brings them?” Suzanne asked almost wistfully.
“Yes, she does.”
“What does your mother do?”
“She runs the deli at the ByWays Convenience Store out by the highway. For a long time she worked as an overnight cashier, but a couple of years ago they needed a deli manager and she got the promotion,” Jimi chattered away as she filled the teapot, set it on the stove and turned the burner on under it. “Turns out she’s a sandwich artist,” she laughed. “Who knew?” She turned to face Suzanne. “Have you been there?”
“Umm . . . no, I don’t believe so.”
“Well, you should go for lunch sometime. Great sandwiches and they do salads too. Fall is coming, so they’re offering their harvest salads. Everything is made fresh in the store.”
“I’ll have to remember to go in,” Suzanne said politely, but somewhat doubtfully.
Jimi didn’t take offense. She was used to people like Suzanne judging her family. Long gone was the day she let it bother her. At that thought, she felt a small twinge. What if Chance’s mother convinced him he could do better? He definitely could, but that didn’t mean that Jimi wanted him to.
She cleared her throat. “Do you want to have a seat?” she asked, scurrying over to move a couple of skeins off the sofa.
Suzanne glanced around before taking a seat on the near end of the couch. “Your place is really cute,” she commented. Did it sound patronizing? Jimi couldn’t tell.
“Thank you.” Jimi gave her the benefit of the doubt. “How are you feeling after last night, Mrs. Reynolds?”
Suzanne winced. “Please call me Suzanne,” she said. “I’m feeling a little off balance, to be honest. Kind of fuzzy.”
“Yeah,” Jimi said. “Panic attacks can do that. The bad ones can make you feel a little hung-over for a day or two.” The kettle began whistling so she moved back to the kitchen, pausing to grab the remote, aim it toward the television and click it off. “You’ll feel better soon,” she assured the older woman over her shoulder as she prepared the cup of tea. “It’s nice you were able to take the day off today.”
“I know,” Suzanne agreed. “I’m off balance for a lot of reasons. I guess I’m going to have a lot of adjustments to make.”
Jimi brought a small tray holding a filled mug, a bowl with sugar and sweetener packets and a spoon. “I’m sorry about the mug, but I don’t have any real teacups,” she admitted. “And I wasn’t sure if you take sugar or sweetener.” She set the tray down on the end table beside her guest. “Oh! Do you need milk? I don’t have plain creamer . . . just vanilla-flavored.”
“The mug is fine and no milk, thank you. Just the sweetener.”
Jimi sat down in the nearest chair. “Do you have a plan going forward?”
“The boys and I sat down and discussed some things. They took my things over to my storage unit . . . where I’ve been storing my furnishings that we didn’t have room for in Donald’s house after we got married.” She let out a humorless smile. “I don’t know what happened between Donald and the boys, but they were able to get more of my things than I expected he’d let go.” After a sip of tea, she said bitterly, “I hope they intimidated the crap out of him.”
Jimi let out a giggle. “Whatever it took, I’m glad they got your stuff.”
“Yeah,” Suzanne sighed. “Anyway . . . I have some calls in about some brand new condos that have just gone on the market. If it works out I may be able to move in a couple of days.”
“I’m sure Chance wouldn’t mind if you needed to stay with him for awhile.” Jimi said. Then again, now that she thought about, maybe he would.
“Oh, no. I would never want to interfere with his life.” She shifted uncomfortably. “We don’t really have that kind of relationship.”
Jimi leaned forward and fiddled with the yarn on the coffee table, not wanting to meet Suzanne’s eyes.
Suzanne let silence linger a beat too long. “I don’t know how long you and he have been together. Has he talked to you about his relationships with his family?”
“We’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks.” She paused. “I knew River—not well, but we were acquainted—back in high school.” She leaned back into her chair. “Chance has talked a little about the family but not much,” she finished lamely.
“Right,” Suzanne muttered. “I guess I’ve never been Mother of the Year. His father hasn’t been much of a father either.” She sighed again. “It’s all coming home to roost now,” she whispered.
Jimi—feeling more uncomfortable than she could ever remember—changed the subject. Sort of. “Where is Chance?”
Suzanne took another sip. “He said he had an appointment.”
“That’s right,” Jimi murmured as she recalled his schedul
ed meeting at the CPD. “I remember.”
His mother looked like she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. “I was feeling bored, so that’s why I came over here. He told me you have Monday afternoons off.” After Jimi’s nod, she asked, “What do you do, Jimi?”
“I work as a receptionist at New Hope Fellowship.”
“Ah,” Suzanne said.
That was it and Jimi wondered if her lack of ambition was another item for her new boyfriend’s mother to jot down in the “con” column of reasons that Jimi was not good enough for Chance.
Then—like a gift from God—Isla came bursting through the door. “Hey, Jimi babe! I’m here. Sorry I’m late,” she greeted.
Jimi jumped to her feet. “Hey, Isla,” she greeted almost desperately. “You’re not late. Even if you were, I wouldn’t complain since you’re taking off early to help me out.” She sent a silent message to her best friend with her eyes.
Isla’s eyes shifted to take in Suzanne who was standing and staring in surprise at her. “Suzanne?” Isla said in confusion.
“Isla!” Suzanne greeted her. She stepped toward the younger woman and Jimi watched to see if there would be hugs exchanged.
The two other women simply reached out and shook hands in a very businesslike manner. This seemed out of place because they were both dressed casually—for them anyway. Suzanne was in her designer athleisure-wear and Isla in leggings and a plaid shirt that was perfect for a casual early fall afternoon. But it was Burberry, so that made it fabulous.
Meanwhile, Jimi stood there in an old pair of cutoffs and a Baja-style sweater. “You two know each other?” she asked.
“We served on a Chamber scholarship committee together last year,” Suzanne gushed.
Jimi expected her to follow up with a statement that she’d also earmarked Isla as a match for her son because Isla was no doubt just the type of woman she wanted for Chance . . . well-to-do, beautiful, stylish, and a successful businesswoman. Of course, Jimi was only projecting her own insecurities. She shook it off and studied Isla’s face. When she did, she realized the other two women really didn’t know each other well at all after serving on that committee.
“That’s nice,” Jimi stated.
Isla looked over at Jimi. “How are you two acquainted?” The look in her eye telegraphed that she couldn’t imagine them having anything in common.
“Suzanne is Chance’s mother,” Jimi informed her. “She’s staying over at his place.”
Isla blinked at her, glanced at Suzanne, then looked back at her bestie. “Really? Wow. Small world—huh?”
Suzanne—a weird tone in her voice—asked, “And you two?”
Isla waved a hand in the air. “Oh, Jimi and I have been best friends since seventh grade.”
Suzanne’s brow furrowed. “Really?” she asked in disbelief.
Jimi’s back went up a tad, but Isla answered. “Oh, yeah. In fact, I agreed to come over in hopes of meeting Chance and giving him the once-over to see if he’s good enough for my Jimi.”
Jimi could sense Suzanne’s mood shift at that, so she decided to change the focus. “Hey! I thought you came over to give me a hand winding the warp on Pop’s project.”
“That too,” Isla said airily.
Jimi turned to Suzanne. “Do you mind if we move this party to the other room? You’re welcome to come along.”
Suzanne obviously had no idea what was going on, but she nodded. Isla moved to the refrigerator and helped herself to a Diet Coke and Jimi picked up her bottle of water, so Suzanne followed suit by retrieving her tea. As they walked down the short hallway, Jimi dragged a chair from the dining set along.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Once inside the weaving room, Suzanne’s eyes widened. She took in the colorful yarn bins and shelves full of pottery before focusing on the loom in the middle of the room. She seemed flabbergasted but, since the younger women had a job to do, they didn’t notice as they got to work.
“Oh, you’ve already wound the warp, put it on the raddle and put it on the loom,” Isla observed.
“Yeah. I know you hate that part,” Jimi laughed. “I need you to help me wind it on and thread it.”
“This isn’t as big a job as I expected it was going to be.”
Suzanne sat and watched in fascination as they took bundles of threads, attached them to the back of the wooden loom and expertly wound them tidily around a roller, Jimi doing the winding and periodically placing warpsticks as she did. Isla pulled the opposite ends of the thread bundles taut. Next they separated the threads neatly along a board between what looked like nails inserted evenly all along it. After that they pulled the colored threads through a mass of horizontally tied white cords and tied them into smaller bunches. This was a tedious process, but with Isla working from one side and Jimi the other, they got through it fairly quickly.
While they worked, they chatted and joked and Suzanne imagined what it might be like to have a good female friend. She’d had friends in the past and wondered what happened to all of them. Like her children, she had let them fall by the wayside for the men in her life.
While she eavesdropped, she learned a lot about the younger women. Occasionally, they would try to pull her into the conversation but she enjoyed listening to them, so she didn’t engage much. At one point Jimi offered to fix her more tea, but her hands were full of warp threads so Suzanne got up to refresh their drinks, even indulging herself with a Diet Coke. She tried to remember the last time she’d allowed herself to drink a carbonated beverage but couldn’t recall.
When she returned to the weaving room with the drinks, she set the younger women’s near them and took her seat again.
Jimi was saying, “So, tell me the truth, Isla . . . did you pull some strings to get the Cassel Insurance adjuster over to Axel’s so quickly this morning?”
“I may have looked up his agent’s name and called to give her a heads up about the situation,” she said uncomfortably. “If she sent the adjuster over as a priority claim, that was her decision.”
“Cassel Insurance and Finance’s crown princess and Vice President of Marketing deigned to help out Axel Alexander in his time of need?” Jimi teased.
“Shut up,” Isla snapped—but mildly. “Look . . . your cousin hates my guts. All I need is for someone from my business to tick him off so he can throw it in my face next time I run into him.”
“He doesn’t hate your guts,” Jimi protested. Isla stopped her not-nearly-as-nimble fingers from threading the heddle to shoot Jimi—her extremely nimble fingers never breaking stride—a look. “Okay, fine. Maybe he doesn’t like you. No, I don’t think that’s it. I think he just doesn’t understand you.”
“Whatever. You know he’s always been jealous of our friendship. He thinks I’m the reason you’re not a biker babe.”
Suzanne’s eyes widened at that, but Jimi only laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably true. But it’s not on you.”
“I know that and you know that. I think your parents even know that. But Axel wants to blame me, so . . .”
The two women’s fingers continued threading the heddle in silence for awhile until Isla took up the conversational ball again. She peeked over at Suzanne before looking back at Jimi. “My parents want me to tell you they’re planning a dinner for you to bring Chance over. They want to meet him to make sure he’s worthy of you.” She glanced back at his mother. “No offense, Suzanne. My dad’s just protective over ‘his girls.’” She made air quotes with the fingers of one hand before informing Jimi in a dire tone. “Daddy plans on making his gumbo.”
‘No . . . no . . . no . . .” Jimi moaned. “Tell him not to do that.”
Isla shook her head comically. “Oh, no. It’s your fault he still makes it. If you hadn’t gone on and on about how great it was the first time, we’d never have had to eat it again.”
Jimi straightened from where she hunched toward the heddle. “What was I supposed to do? Tell him I hated
it? He asked me straight out. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you could have said that it was probably pretty good, but you weren’t a big fan of gumbo.”
“We’re still having this argument after all these years? What’s it been—five or six?”
“It’s still your fault. You just need to sit him down and have a heart-to-heart talk . . . tell him you lied and his gumbo is awful.”
Jimi laughed. “Well, that’s not gonna happen. You or your mom could do something about it. Or Shane. Shane can be as cold-hearted as they come when he wants to be.” Truth be told, Shane was a very nice guy, but he could let his emotions fly at times.
“My brother has bigger fish to fry,” Isla retorted.
“Oh, yeah. How are things going with what’s-her-name?”
Isla rolled her eyes. “Shaelynne. Her name is Shaelynne.”
“Is she still threatening to move to New York and become a supermodel?”
“Yes,” Isla answered. “Only problem with that is, she doesn’t realize she has only one expression. And it’s Resting Bitch Face.”
To Suzanne’s shock, she burst out laughing. Embarrassed, she put her hand over her mouth and stared at the younger women with wide eyes. “Sorry.”
Isla and Jimi were both grinning at her.
“No reason to be sorry for laughing. I should apologize to Shaelynne for talking trash about her,” Isla sighed. “But I probably won’t.” She looked toward the ceiling as she reached out to thread more strands. “Forgive me, Lord,” she sighed. She continued with her threading. “I just can’t see my brother ending up with someone like her.”
Suzanne asked, “Besides her face, what don’t you like about her?”
Isla observed, “It’s not so much that we don’t like her. They just don’t fit. I mean . . . first of all their names practically rhyme—Shane and Shaelynne. It’s kind of awkward. Then there’s the fact that she thinks she’s better than the rest of us. She grew up the daughter of a retired professional ball player in Town and Country. He played for the Cardinals. Her family has the view that we’re just a bunch of hicks from podunk Carrefour. It doesn’t matter that Shane has his own money.”
