Sweet Gone South

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “What are you doing back here?” Missy asked her husband. “You know this is girls’ night.”

  “After practice, I stopped and got this for you.” Harris pressed a cup from the Dairy Delish in Missy’s hand. “We’re about to go catch up with Nathan.”

  “Then go. We were about to get something good out of Lanie.”

  “Never let it be said that I impeded the collection of information.” Harris lifted Beau from Tolly’s lap and stepped toward Missy. “Give your mama a kiss.”

  From the bar Lucy said, “Can I pour you a glass of wine, Missy?”

  “I have a chocolate milkshake.” She held up her cup and lifted her face for Harris’s goodbye kiss.

  The kiss was brief, no more than a peck really, but oh, so intimate. When Harris pulled away, he and Missy swapped smiles and she offered him some of her milkshake. He took the straw in his mouth, smiling around it the whole time. Then, in a motion that was so ordinary that most wouldn’t have noticed, Harris placed his hand on Missy’s abdomen. Their expressions changed — not much but just enough.

  Cold washed over Lanie — cold, pure, selfish jealously. Not at her friend’s happiness and certainly not for Harris.

  Through all her false starts, failed dreams, and bad decisions, a child was the one thing Lanie had always wanted. And it couldn’t have been any clearer that Missy was going to have one — another one. Prickling guilt over her jealously set in and turned to blistering shame.

  Lanie was not the only one to read what had passed between the couple.

  “You’re pregnant!” Lucy shouted, slamming the wine bottle down.

  Missy’s and Harris’s astounded faces spun toward Lucy. They’d been so caught up in their moment that they didn’t realize they’d done everything except put up a billboard in town square.

  “No!” Missy said.

  “You can’t know!” Harris said at the same time.

  Missy and Harris locked eyes. “You told!” they accused each other.

  “You did!” Missy pointed her finger at her husband. “I knew you’d tell.”

  “I didn’t! If I was going to tell, it wouldn’t be Lucy.”

  “Why not me?” Lucy demanded. “What wrong with me?”

  “Who would you tell?” Missy put her hands on her hips and leaned toward Harris. “After we decided we’d keep it secret for a while?”

  “Well … ” Harris shifted Beau to sit on his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe Tolly.”

  Tolly smiled. “It’s not my fault that I know. He’s the one who can’t contain himself.”

  Harris shrugged and tilted his face toward Missy. “She’s right. I couldn’t. I have no self-control.”

  Missy’s frown evaporated. She gave him a melting little smile, burst into tears, and held out her arms to everyone. Harris laughed and stroked his wife’s back but he didn’t try to comfort her. She didn’t need comfort. These were happy tears. Harris looked at Missy like he couldn’t quite believe his luck.

  They all landed in a group hug and no one knew that Lanie’s tears were bittersweet. She had recovered enough to be happy for Missy but the renewed knowledge that no one would ever look at her the way Harris looked at Missy left her with an all too familiar hollow feeling. The knowledge that she could never have a child turned that hollow into a throbbing ache. A little of her had died that day seven years ago when she walked out of that Memphis hospital with news no twenty-year-old woman ought to have to face.

  But no one made a better truffle. Sugar Sugar Magazine said so. That was something. And nothing.

  • • •

  At exactly 3:30 P.M., Judge Luke Avery left his chambers.

  “I’m going out for a while,” Luke said to his secretary. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. At the very least, I’ll be back to pick up my laptop.”

  Olive Watson, who seemed to have no immediate plans to forgive him for not being Coleman Gilliam, nodded and kept typing. If she had her way, they’d be having court at the Merritt Cemetery, right on Judge Gilliam’s grave.

  Well, good luck with that. The grave didn’t give much back. He ought to know.

  Keenum Sutton, his law clerk, was coming down the hall with a stack of books from the law library. Like Olive, Keenum came with the job. Unlike Olive, Keenum seemed to like Luke. Too bad Judge Gilliam hadn’t left a nanny. That’s what Luke really needed.

  “Judge,” Keenum said respectfully. “I think I have what you asked for. I’ll look these over and leave what’s pertinent on your desk by morning.”

  “Give yourself a couple of days, Keenum. We’ve got some time. You need to be studying for the Bar.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Luke expected a “sir” out of anyone under fifteen, but he was not old enough for a “sir” from Keenum. But a lot of things went with judge territory and this was one of them. He couldn’t very well say to Keenum, “Call me Luke. Let’s get a beer and hang out.” But he could use a beer and someone to hang out with. Last night he’d had a tea party and read Goodnight Moon seven times. Not that Goodnight Moon didn’t have its charms.

  But he was alone, so alone.

  Luke walked toward Heavenly Confections to look at his prospective new home. It had never been his intention to live in his parents’ farmhouse this long. He’d arrived two days before Thanksgiving, ready to start a new life. His new job in the Merritt County DA’s office started the first of the year and he had intended to use the time between the holidays to find a nanny and a place to live and get settled. But the day after Thanksgiving, he’d fallen off a ladder while decorating the Christmas tree and broken his arm. It had been so easy to stay and let his mother take care of him and Emma and easy to let her stay at the farm when his father went back to the state capital. But eventually the cast came off, the pain pills went away, and Coleman Gilliam died. When the call came from the governor’s office with the bench appointment, it seemed a good time to get on with life and let his mother join the senator in Montgomery. If Luke lived with her much longer, she’d be tying his shoes.

  Gail Avery had protested, claiming that she didn’t want to leave Merritt. It was a lie. Though the farm had been in the Avery family for three generations and would always be home, the Averys lived in Montgomery when the legislature was in session. Gail loved the political life as much as the senator did. She’d tried to persuade Luke to stay in the farmhouse, going so far as offering to leave Susie, who had worked for the Averys for so long that she was more family than employee. But he declined.

  That might have been a mistake.

  Luke had never run a household alone, unless you counted his bachelor days. Truth be told, he’d not done much to help run the house he’d shared with Carrie. He’d just sat back and basked in the comfort, order, and warmth she’d brought to their lives — albeit with the help of Rhonda, their live-in nanny. After the accident, Rhonda had stayed on and maintained the order — if not the comfort and warmth. Luke might have lived on like that forever, if Rhonda hadn’t announced that she was quitting to get married and go back to school. That, combined with the bad memories and the gossip, had finalized his decision to sell Carrie’s real estate business and leave Mobile.

  Luke hadn’t lived in an apartment since law school but, since he needed to start simple, the one above Heavenly Confections seemed a good choice. There was no yard to maintain and he had heard that it was newly renovated. Best of all, it was convenient to work, Emma’s nursery school, church, and places to eat and shop. The only drawback was dealing with Lanie Heaven. Every time he saw her, she reminded him of his humiliating entrée into the Merritt social scene — if you could call a gathering to watch the Alabama/Auburn football game that.

  Every Thanksgiving weekend, the entire state went into an absolute frenzy over the Iron Bowl — the biggest football game of the year in a state where
football was practically a religion. People declared their loyalty by decorating their yards, their cars, and their bodies. On game day, lifelong friends became bitter enemies and retail businesses suffered. It was ridiculous. And until last year, he’d joined right in, loving every minute of it.

  Luke hadn’t intended to go to the Braggs’ Iron Bowl party. Though they had gone to law school together, Luke barely knew Harris Bragg and had felt no obligation to accept the invitation. Holidays were hard enough without the pain of a broken arm and football. Football meant Jake and that was another black crater in his soul. But the senator had gotten wind of the party, like he got wind of everything, and kept insisting that Luke “get out of the house and get to know some people.” In the end, Luke thought it would be easier to go than not.

  That was a mistake. The party was nothing short of torture. The only thing worse than being alone was being alone in a room full of people with history, who are delighted with everything about each other. He knew some of them vaguely from summers and vacations spent in Merritt, but he hadn’t gone to school with them — hadn’t gone to their birthdays, been in their weddings, lost his virginity to one of them.

  Just when the game was almost over and his escape imminent, his bad day had crashed into calamity. He knew better than to eat anything, especially candy, without being certain it didn’t contain peanuts. But under the best of circumstances he didn’t have much appetite and the chocolate had looked appealing. Besides, someone had told him it was caramel filled. Turned out some of it was, but not the one he put in his mouth.

  Much drama ensued involving an EpiPen and everyone missing the end of the game. It did no good to tell Lanie Heaven, who’d brought the candy, that she hadn’t caused his attack, that he was responsible for his own allergy. With wide, terrified eyes and a quivering voice, she’d apologized over and over again, and insisted on driving him home. Every time he’d seen her since, Lanie had blushed, stammered, and apologized — until yesterday. Yesterday, she’d been downright snappy, almost mean — though that was preferable to the groveling.

  It might be a trial to live in such close proximity to Lanie, but maybe he wouldn’t run into her much. He knew little about her, but she seemed to be something of a train wreck. Her shop had a big fancy coffee bar and Lanie made an excellent espresso but she didn’t open until nine o’clock — way too late for a coffee bar to be much good, though she would sell him a cup of espresso before opening if he knocked on the door.

  With her thick, shoulder-length chestnut hair, jade green eyes, and rosy complexion, Lanie was pretty, though it was impossible to tell what her body looked like in her ridiculous work clothes. In those baggy candy print pants and aprons, she always looked like a refugee from Candy Land. The few times he’d seen her at church and around town, he hadn’t noticed what she’d been wearing, but he hadn’t noticed her body then, either, so her other clothes were probably baggy too — not that it mattered.

  He needed to keep his eyes to himself where that was concerned. That was another reason he’d left Mobile — to escape the pie and casserole brigade. Women bearing food. It had started six hours after Carrie died and hadn’t ended until he’d moved. At first, they’d worn somber clothes and cried, but as time passed, their skirts got shorter and their smiles got brighter.

  He’d made a mistake five months after burying Carrie and Jake. When Virginia Wallace had made it clear that there was room for him in her bed, he’d gone there out of loneliness and the desperation to feel something. He’d corrected that mistake barely a month later when Virginia had begun to hint that there was also room for him at her dinner table, at her parties, and on her vacations.

  Luke opened the door of Heavenly Confections and the electronic chime played a few bars of The Candy Man. Dear God, he’d forgotten that — probably blocked it out. He hoped the apartment wasn’t decorated anything like the shop. No matter how many times he came in, he was stunned anew.

  The walls had a pink background with large pieces of candy painted helter-skelter over the entire surface — gumdrops, lollipops, candy canes, chocolate bars, peeps, conversation hearts, candy corn. You name it. The ceiling was meant to look like the sky but it was hard to tell if it was supposed to be day or night. It was blue with divinity clouds and a butterscotch hard candy sun, but it was also littered with chocolate stars. That didn’t even make sense.

  And that wasn’t the worst of it. At least Lanie hadn’t broken any laws when she’d decorated the ceiling and walls. The concrete floor was another matter. It was painted to look like the board of Emma’s Candy Land game. Unless Lanie Heaven wanted to find herself in the middle of a lawsuit, she had just better hope that no one from the Hasbro legal team happened by and got a hankering for a bon-bon.

  “Can I help you, Judge Avery?” The question came from the smiling woman behind the counter. Everybody knew who Judge Avery was these days.

  “I’m here to see Ms. Heaven. She’s expecting me.” The woman looked so pleasant that he tried to return her smile. He wasn’t sure if it happened or not.

  “She’s in her office.” The woman pointed to the hallway behind the counter. “It’s the door across the hall from the kitchen.” Luke hesitated. Everyone knew non-employees weren’t supposed to go behind counters, but there didn’t seem to be any other way back there and the woman was pointing.

  Though the shop was relatively small, the building was big. And as Luke passed the kitchen, he saw what the rest of the space was being used for — the kitchen was huge. Surprisingly, there was no frivolous nonsense here and it was perfectly clean. The trays of lollipops left to cool on a marble counter were the only evidence that any cooking had ever gone on here.

  When Luke looked into the open door of Lanie’s small office, she was sitting with her back to the door. Who sat with their back to the door on purpose? Anyone could sneak up on you and, come to think of it, he just had. Though Lanie was at her desk with file folders open and the computer on, her head was bowed, her eyes closed. He thought she was asleep until she reached under her ponytail to massage the back of her neck. This room was neater than he would have expected from someone as haphazard as Lanie seemed to be. There was a bookcase of cookbooks against the wall and a rack of African violets in front of the window. Aside from the computer and files, there was nothing on Lanie’s desk except a coffee mug.

  He was about to knock on the door when she raised her head, yawned, and raised one of her legs high above her head. Today her pants and apron were pink, printed with assorted chocolates like came in a Valentine’s candy box. She pointed her bare toes, reached for the cuff of her loose pants leg and pulled it all the way up to her thigh.

  Luke’s mouth went dry. Leg, miles and miles of tanned, fabulous leg. This was the leg of a dancer or a runner — or a runner who danced. Trim ankle, round calf and — best of all — smooth toned thigh. And she had another one just like it. What would it be like to kiss that leg behind the knee? To run his tongue over the bend, while his hand moved from ankle to calf and upward? Dry mouth to watering mouth. Entranced, he almost took a step forward.

  Then Lanie touched a place on her upper outside thigh and turned her head to look at it — and caught sight of him.

  “What? Luke!” Lanie jumped up and, forgetting she had one clog off, stumbled. Instinctively, Luke stepped out and caught her. She smelled like vanilla and caramel. Fire shot through him, then panic. For the barest second, he couldn’t remember Carrie’s smell. But, wait. Yes. There it was. Spicy. Sweet and flowery. A little baby powder mixed in. Then Lanie jerked, fanning the scent of caramel back into the air.

  “Sorry — ” he said.

  “I didn’t see you!” Lanie’s face turned deep red. “I bumped my leg on the counter and I wanted to see if it was bruised.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I’m not scared.” She pulled away from him and searched for her other sh
oe.

  “Was it?” Luke asked.

  “Was it what?”

  “Was it bruised?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Would you like for me to look? Stop it!

  Lanie opened her desk drawer and pulled out a set of keys. “Do you want to see the apartment?”

  Apartment? Yes, apartment. A place to house himself and his child — Carrie’s child.

  “That’s what I came for,” Luke said. Not to see your leg, catch you in my arms, smell you. Not to let you remind me that I can still be aroused.

  “Then let’s go.” Lanie stepped around him to the hallway. When he didn’t follow immediately, she gazed over her shoulder with a puzzled look.

  “I’m coming,” he said. If only.

  Lanie walked (on those legs) toward one of the two doors down the hall from her office. “The other room is a storeroom for the shop,” she said as she unlocked the door nearest the back of the building. “This is my personal storage and there’s plenty of space if you need some.” Inside, he saw a bicycle, a treadmill, and a number of labeled storages boxes neatly stacked on industrial shelves. Was that a potter’s wheel?

  Lanie gestured to the corner where a commercial washer and dryer stood. “You might as well know before we go upstairs that there are no washer and dryer connections in the apartment, but you can use these to do your laundry.”

  Laundry? Of course. He hadn’t thought of laundry — how stupid was that? Lots of his clothes went to the dry cleaners, but not everything. And Emma sometimes messed up three outfits a day. Little socks, pajamas, underwear, towels, sheets — it all went in the hamper and appeared again clean and folded. Had he thought it was magic? Good God. What else had he not thought of?

  “I’m sorry,” Lanie said sheepishly. “I know it’s not convenient but the machines are high capacity and the cost of using them is included in the rent.”

  She had mistaken his silence for disapproval. A worried frown appeared between her eyes. Lanie wanted to rent this apartment to him — badly.