Nowhere, Carolina

by Tamara Leigh

  What am I doing here? My jaw is nearly locked, vocal cords are fried, and gavel-wielding hand does ache. And yet here I sit at Skippy’s kitchen table across from Reece, who is more talkative than I’ve seen him since his return to Pickwick. Make that ever.

  When we dated, he never had half as much to say as he does now. Either he’s changed or it has something to do with Yule, who can’t keep her hands off him—punctuating tales of the wacky world of physical therapy by tapping his hand, patting his arm, and playfully punching his shoulder. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s flirting—

  I don’t know better. Considering how much attention Reece is paying her, the smiles he bestows, and eyes so lit that even when Skippy not-so-subtly calls me to his attention they retain their twinkle, flirting may be exactly what Yule is doing.

  “But I do love my work!” Yule bobs her chin.

  Reece grins. “It sounds like life is good.”

  “Boy, is it. Not that it’s a fairy tale, but I’m a good sight happier than when we were in high school.”

  My past slaps not only me across the face, but Skippy, causing us both to startle.

  Yule hoots with laughter. “Talk about an understatement!”

  Why did I come? If anyone deserves an early night, it’s me. For over six hours, I pushed one-hundred-thousand-dollars’ worth of antique dolls, perfume bottles, and clothing. Had I pulled a Puck & Sons, it would have been easier, but Mrs. Dudley Tuttle’s heirs are happy, Uncle Obe is happy, my ringmen with their nice bonuses are happy, and my accounts receivables is happy. Me? I could use another antacid.

  “Why, I could use some more lemonade.” Skippy pushes back her chair. “How about you, Reece? You look to be about out.”

  “Yes, thank you.” He passes his glass to her, and she crosses to the counter.

  “Anyway,” Yule continues, “like I was sayin’—”

  “I apologize for not offerin’ you something a bit more lively to drink, Reece,” Skippy tries again to change the subject, “but I stopped keepin’ that kind of stuff in the house when I come to realize I like it better than I ought to.” She tops off the glasses and turns back. “If you know what I mean.”

  Reece takes the glass she hands to him. “Actually, I do know.”

  He does?

  “And that’s why I no longer drink the stuff myself.”

  Is he saying he had trouble with alcohol? Reece Thorpe, who always set a good example? Whose only flaw was in liking someone as flawed as me? And what is he doing admitting to it?

  “Well, good for you.” Skippy gives his shoulder a squeeze before lowering back into her chair.

  For several long moments, nothing is said, during which Reece’s gaze settles on me, but then Yule picks it up again. “You know, a lot of people would give anything to relive their high school years. Not me.”

  Why didn’t I beg off?

  Pride—fear that Reece might attribute your “no show” to his “show.”

  Yule shakes her head. “No way I’d go back to that. I like the real world just fine.”

  I catch the twitch of her lips as she glances my way. Then this isn’t merely a bubbly, unthinking Yule? She knows what she’s saying and the light in which it casts me? That hurts. What happened to the fence between us? The one over which she willingly talked to me? Is it a wall again, raised by the reappearance of Reece and an opportunity she can’t pass up? Revenge? But she’s a Christian!

  So are you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes stray from right to do wrong. For instance—

  No! I’m protecting Devyn, and that’s that!

  Only Devyn?

  “Are you all right?”

  It’s Reece, but not until the kitchen hums with the silence of his unanswered question do I realize he’s talking to me. I follow his gaze to where I clench a hand on my middle. “Er, just a bit of an upset stomach.”

  “My pot roast,” Skippy says. “I musta been too free with the pepper.”

  I appreciate her attempt to help me save face, but I won’t pin my discomfort on her. “No, it was delicious as usual. I probably just got too worked up today.”

  “Poor thing.” She pats my hand. “It wore me thin bidding for that there bottle.” She glances at where she set the pink-flowered container on the kitchen counter so she could admire it while preparing our meal. “And I wasn’t at the auction but an hour. Why, you’re probably about ready to go over the falls.”

  Without a barrel.

  “Can I get you a Tums?”

  “Thank you, but I have some in my purse.” I push my chair back.

  “Enough about me,” Yule says as I step past her. “I wanna hear about you being a famous artist and all.”

  There’s my cue. A couple of antacids, a bathroom stop, and this former mean girl is heading home.

  I exit the kitchen and cross to where my purse sits on the table near the front door. As I dig through it, I sense Skippy’s approach; then her hand is on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. My Yule is in somethin’ of a mood. Had I known—”

  “It’s okay.” I continue rooting for the antacid. “Seeing Reece again must have dredged up old memories, good and bad.”

  “Still, that’s no cause—”

  “Here they are!” I pull out the bottle. “I’ll just take a couple of these and head home.”

  She blinks. “Already?”

  I hate how brave my smile feels. “If I don’t get to bed soon, I won’t be up in time to get Devyn from Bridget’s and make it to Sunday service.” I head down the hall. “Be right back.” Well, not right back, as it takes a five-minute “talkin’ to” in the mirror to prepare myself to say good-bye to Reece and Yule. When I step out of the bathroom, their voices carry from the living room.

  “That’s Mama and me on a missions trip into the Appalachians.”

  “Is that Maggie?” Reece’s question makes me falter on the living room threshold. Holding my breath, I focus on the two standing before the wall of pictures on the far side of the room.

  Yule laughs. “Why, it is Maggie. I forgot she tagged along. And brought little Devyn too.”

  They’re looking at the picture in which I stand in the background, my drooling baby girl peering over my shoulder from the backpack I toted her in while we ministered to some of the poorest people in the South.

  “Why”—Yule cants her head to the side—“that was a long while back.”

  Oh, Lord, please don’t let her clarify how many years ‘a long while’ is.

  “Musta been nineteen ninety—”

  “Goodness, I don’t feel well.” As they look around, I grip my stomach. “Not at all.” And not a lie, though a hand to my heart would be more fitting,

  Yule frowns. “Did you take some Tums?”

  “I did. They should be kickin’ in soon. Well, I’m going to push off.” And hope they don’t pick up where they were before my interruption.

  “It was nice to see you again.” Yule makes no objection to my early departure.

  “You too.” I consider Reece who is watching me. “Night.”

  “Good night, Maggie.”

  I look around. “Uh, where’s Skip?”

  “Here!” My friend pushes through the kitchen’s swinging doors, cheeks flushed, bouffant leaning to one side. “I was scarin’ up some dessert.”

  It seems like she’s the one that got scared up. Skip gives me a hug. “You drive safe now, hear?”

  Why is she breathing so hard?

  She widens her smile. “See ya at church.”

  Hmm. “Yes, I’ll see you there.” I retrieve my purse and slip into my jacket. The chill night air begins to work through the weave of my clothes as I pull the door closed behind me. Picking my way down the walkway, I glance through the big window where Reece and Yule are talking between themselves again.

  Lord, please distract them from those pictures.

  I open the door of my SUV, slide in, and once more root through my purse. No keys.
Great. I mutter my way back up Skippy’s walkway and hear muffled laughter as I knock.

  Skippy answers the door. “Changed your mind, did ya?”

  “I think I left my keys on the table.” As I step inside, I glance at Yule and Reece on the sofa, angled toward each other. At least they’re no longer interested in the pictures. Thank You, Lord.

  “Your keys aren’t here, dear,” Skippy says.

  I pat my pockets. Empty.

  “Yule…Reece…have you seen Maggie’s keys?”

  “I haven’t,” Reece says.

  “Me neither.” Yule jumps up. “I’ll help her look.”

  The sooner to get Reece to herself? Or is she once more talking to me over the fence? Regardless, I just want to go home, pull on my pajamas, and fall asleep to the drone of the classic movie channel. But five minutes later, still no keys.

  Reece comes back through the swinging doors. “Not in the kitchen.”

  Skippy straightens from plumping the chair cushions back into place. “They’re bound to show up eventually.”

  And in the meantime? I rise from where I was on my knees searching under the sofa.

  “Reece, dear,” Skippy says, “I know you and Yule want to visit more, but could I impose on you to drive Maggie home?”

  “No!” I look from her to Reece to Yule who has also come up off her knees. “I can call a cab.”

  Skippy makes a face. “That could take a while, and what with you feelin’ poorly, we ought to get you home now.”

  “You could drive her, Mama.” Yule’s pitch is on the high side.

  “Yes, but I’m as pooped as Maggie looks.”

  Yule starts forward. “Then you stay here and visit with Reece. I’ll take her home.”

  “In your delicate state? I am not sendin’ you out at night, especially when there ain’t no call for it, what with Reece goin’ Maggie’s way anyhow.”

  “Maamaa,” Yule stretches her drawl. “I’m barely six months along, and I did drive all the way from Knoxville—”

  “In broad daylight.” Skippy tilts her head to the side. “You don’t mind, do you, Reece?”

  With gritted teeth and mounting suspicion, he considers me where I stand. “Not at all.”

  What’s with the narrowed lids? Does he think I purposely mislaid my keys? I wouldn’t do that. But Skippy might.

  I look a question at her, and the answer is in the way her gaze slides away from me. The flushed cheeks, skewed bouffant, heavy breathing—she took my keys while I was in the bathroom.

  I step toward her. “Can I speak with you, Skip?”

  She waves me off. “I’m sure it’ll keep till tomorrow.” She crosses to Yule, who I haven’t seen sulk like this since the day she came home from college and found Devyn and me living in her mother’s spare bedroom. “Let’s get you a good night’s sleep, darlin’, so you’ll be fresh for your drive back to Knoxville tomorrow afternoon.”

  “All right.” Yule turns but comes back around. “See you at church, Reece?”

  “I plan on being there.”

  I am not jealous. He’s all hers, especially if their socializing keeps distance between Devyn and him.

  Yule beams. “Then I’ll save you a piece of our pew.” She shifts her attention to me, and her smile tightens. “Night, Maggie.”

  Where, oh where, has our little fence gone? “Good night, Yule.”

  From the passenger seat of Reece’s car, I look from my key-forsaken SUV to Skippy on the stoop, her hand waving alongside her lopsided hair. When I get home, she is getting a call. And an earful. If she picks up.

  She won’t. But by morning my keys will have miraculously reappeared, my SUV will likely be in my driveway (dropped off by her and Yule on the way to church), and Reece will be sharing a pew with the Baggett women. Regardless, Skippy will hear about this.

  “The case of the missing keys,” Reece says as we accelerate down the dark street.

  I draw a deep breath. “I assure you, the last thing I want is for you to drive me home. As God is my witness”—thank you, Scarlett O’Hara—“I do not know where my keys are.”

  He meets my gaze. “Skippy does.”

  Then he doesn’t believe I’m responsible? I’m relieved but still embarrassed. Leaning back, I vaguely register the houses we pass. “I’m sorry for ruining your evening. Once Skippy sets her mind to something, she’s hard to budge.”

  “What has she set her mind to?”

  Stepped smack-dab in that cow pie. Now how do I get it off my shoe? Hold it! There is an alternate explanation for what Skippy did. She did it to push Reece and me together, but… “Skippy is protective of Yule, especially with her at the end of her second trimester.”

  “I think it’s more likely she’s trying to push you and me together.”

  Now, why didn’t I think of that? I sink down in my seat and lower my lids in hopes of sending the message that I’m too tired to converse.

  A moment later, he brakes, and when I crack open an eye, the stop sign that marks the end of Skippy’s subdivision is before us.

  “Which way?”

  Of course he doesn’t know where I live. I straighten. “Left, and then a ways down the road.”

  He makes the turn, and as we once more pick up speed, I feel his sideways glance. “You and Skippy are close.”

  “Yes.” My monosyllabic response should put an end to his probing, as he’s not likely to come right out and ask what hangs in the spaces between his words.

  “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

  My, he has become more talkative, but then his success in the art world has made him something of a public figure. Hopefully, this is the extent of it.

  “Considering your history with Yule, that is.”

  Not the extent of it. And no doubt he’s remembering the scene on the school steps when he championed Yule against mean-girl Maggie.

  I touch the chill window. “Skippy is very forgiving.” Unlike some people. I miss the fence between Yule and me. Had I made more of an effort, apologizing to her as I did to Piper, would it still be there? Better yet, would it not be there at all? No fence or wall? Just a space crossed by carefully putting one foot in front of the other?

  “So she forgave you. How did that happen?”

  Why does he care about my relationship with Skippy? Still trying to find some good in me? Regardless, this is a bad direction for our conversation to go since it could lead right to Devyn City.

  “Is it a secret?”

  Getting way too close to my daughter. “There’s not much to tell. Skippy helped me out of some tight places and showed me what it means to be a Christian.” I glance at him and am grateful he’s in profile. “She’s like a mother to me—the mother my mother has a hard time being.”

  “What about Yule?”

  “If you’re asking if she’s the sister I never had, the answer is no, but she accepts me.” At least until you plunked yourself down in Pickwick and made her remember the girl I was. “Not that she had much choice, seeing as I was underfoot every time she came home from…college.” Ugh. Took the Devyn exit all on my own.

  “You lived with Skippy?”

  “For a while.”

  “Why?”

  He wants to know why my mother wasn’t there for me, but that street sign reads Devyn Way. “Just one of those tight places I got myself into.”

  In the ensuing silence, I start to relax, but then Reece says, “Yule showed me a picture of you on a missions trip with Skippy and her.”

  “I went with them.”

  “And took your daughter along.”

  Devyn Way straight ahead. “Yes, and I have to say it was an eye-opening experience.”

  “Not to be repeated?”

  I try not to take offense, especially since he posed that as a question rather than a statement. “We return almost every summer.”

  “Maggie Pickwick, a missionary.”

  Probably as unbelievable as Reece Thorpe having a drinking problem. I look int
o eyes that briefly reflect the green of the traffic light beneath which we pass. “The same.”

  He returns his attention to the road. “Not the same Maggie I knew.”

  True. But then, an unplanned pregnancy changes a person. And being toppled from one’s throne without a “friend” in sight. And being thrust out of childhood into adulthood. However, more than any of those things, it was unearned forgiveness and the discovery I didn’t have to go it alone that turned me around. Okay, I’ll go easy on Skippy for the missing keys stunt.

  I sigh. “I have my faults, but I’ve changed.”

  “I’m starting to realize that.”

  He is?

  “Your uncle thinks highly of you.”

  Uncle Obe, who is trying to pin down a father for Devyn and no doubt extols my virtues as he did with Piper when he set out to match her with Axel. Yes, his matchmaking worked in that case, but he’s going to be sorely disappointed in this case.

  “As does Piper,” Reece adds.

  “You’ve been talking to—? Oh! Turn right here.”

  He takes the turn so fast the car careens, causing my shoulder to bump his and the wheels to screech.

  “A bit more notice would be nice,” he rumbles.

  “Sorry. You were saying about Piper?”

  He eases back in his seat. “We talked this morning after I met with your uncle to present him with new ideas for the statue.”

  Then he hasn’t decided on a design yet? No real surprise, just as it won’t surprise me if the six months Reece has allotted for the job is insufficient.

  “Obadiah had difficulty concentrating on my sketches—”

  “It’s his dementia.” I rush to his defense.

  “I know. Fortunately, your cousin sat in on the discussion and directed him back to the topic when he detoured to sing your praises.”

  I could kiss Piper’s feet for not leaving Uncle Obe unchaperoned. Intentional or not, my uncle might have given Reece too much to think about concerning Devyn.

  “Afterward, when Piper walked me to my car, I asked her about you.”

  Why didn’t Piper tell me? Right. After the auction, I saw she had left me a voice mail, likely a heads-up. “Why would you ask her about me?”