by R. R. Banks
“It’s probably best for both of you that she’s not here,” I said, a bit of panic settling in my stomach. “You wouldn’t want to expose yourself to those kinds of germs.”
She looked over her shoulder at me and nodded, the expression on her face telling me that she really didn’t need to hear my lecture. I squeezed my lips closed, determined that this wasn’t going to turn into an argument. I didn’t need another one of those today. I remembered the flowers that I was holding and stepped forward, holding them out to her.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting them and tilting her face down into the golden, red, and orange blooms. “They’re beautiful.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I also brought this,” I showed her the bottle of sparkling grape juice. “Since you can’t have wine.”
“Really?” she asked. “I thought that that was an old wives’ tale. And here I’ve been guzzling down bottles of moonshine and cooking wine all day. A little for the pot, a little for me.”
My mouth fell open, but then I saw the sparkle in her eye and realized that she was teasing me. I could probably back off a bit.
“I’m sorry to hear that your friend couldn’t be with you today,” I said. “If you’d like, I could send my doctor over to her house to check on her. Maybe bring her something that would make her feel better. I know that it’s going to be hard to get any kind of medical attention for the next few days.”
She shook her head and reached up into a cabinet to pull down a glass jar which she filled with water. Settling the flowers into the jar, she tucked it onto the sill of a window that was open just enough to release some of the cooking heat and bring in a crisp, leaf-scented breeze.
“No, it’s alright. She’ll be fine. I wouldn’t want your doctor to miss his own family’s Thanksgiving dinner.”
The way that she said your doctor made me feel like she was still teasing me, and I realized that the idea of a private doctor was something that she would have never experienced.
“If you’re sure,” I said. “But if you find out that she’s doing worse, let me know. It really would be no problem.” I looked around the kitchen at the platters and plates filling the counter space and spilling out onto an old pink and black Formica table that had been pulled up to one side. “I’m sorry that you went to all this trouble to cook dinner for her and she wasn’t even able to join you.”
Rue turned with the pot in her hand and poured thick gravy into a gravy boat.
“It’s no trouble,” she said. “I would have probably cooked this much even if Tessie hadn’t planned on coming over.”
“You would have?” I asked, surprised at the revelation.
Rue nodded.
“Yeah. I’d like to say that it’s all because of the baby, but since we’re not even sure a baby’s in there, I don’t really think that I can pull that off.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes soft and a tenderly startled expression on her face.
“You are?” she asked quietly.
I nodded.
“I know,” I said. “I just know that it worked. It’s like I can feel the baby’s presence.”
It was something that I hadn’t admitted to anyone, but I felt comfortable enough in that moment to say it to her.
“I can, too,” she said.
We stared at each other, our eyes locked on one another so intensely I felt like everything else around us was blurred out of focus. The breath caught in my lungs and emotion churned in my belly. A sudden loud buzzing sound broke me out of the trance and I looked around, startled by the sound and worried that there was something wrong.
“What’s that?” I asked, knowing my voice was higher than it usually was.
Rue laughed and walked over to the oven, taking down an old timer and turning it off.
“Haven’t you ever heard a kitchen timer?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“No,” I admitted.
She laughed again and settled the timer back into place.
“It just means that the turkey is done resting.”
“Did it work hard today?” I teased.
Rue smiled and nodded as she disappeared around the corner of the refrigerator and then appeared a moment later carrying a platter with a perfect-looking turkey on it.
“You know, it did. It worked really, really hard and I thought that it deserved a little bit of a break before dinner.”
“You mean you eat this early?” I asked, taking the turkey from her and following her point toward another room off of the kitchen.
I settled the platter into the center of the table and went back into the kitchen.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s Thanksgiving dinner. When would you eat it?”
“Around six,” I said, remembering how strange it was when I ate with Flora’s family and they ate their pseudo-Thanksgiving meal in the early afternoon.
“That would make it Thanksgiving supper,” she said, handing me a covered casserole.
“There’s a difference?” I asked.
“There is around here,” she said. “Dinner is the big meal in the middle of the day. That’s when you eat the main feast. Then comes dessert. Then by the time supper rolls around you’re picking at the cold leftovers while you chop them up for hash, soup, and sandwiches for the next day. Then it’s more pie and some egg nog to usher in Christmas.”
“So many holiday rules I didn’t know about,” I said.
She carried another platter into the dining room and I followed her with the final two casseroles.
“Oh, well, you can’t help it,” she said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It’s just that I can’t really imagine a man who shows up to someone’s house on Thanksgiving wearing a suit that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe put together has really had all too many warm and fuzzy home-for-the-holidays style Thanksgivings or Christmases.”
I couldn’t really argue with her, but the thought that that was how she perceived me stung for reasons that I didn’t understand. She came into the room carrying two plates and a handful of silverware. She set them out at two places at the table and gestured toward it.
“You want me to join you?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, taking one of the chairs. “That’s why you came over, isn’t it?”
“I came over to check on you, and so you would know that someone was thinking about you today,” I said. “I wouldn’t presume to think that you’d invite me to eat with you.”
She looked at me like I had spoken a different language to her and gestured at the chair.
“Sit down,” she said. “Like I said, I’d probably cook this much even without someone coming over, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good for me to try to eat it all myself. My appetite is something that I’ve never had to worry about, and I’m a bit concerned that this whole eating for two thing is going to have dire consequences for my waistline. You know, beyond just the whole bump thing that’s going to happen.”
I laughed and shook my head, holding out my plate to accept the slabs of turkey that she was offering me.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’re beautiful.”
Oh, shit. Did I just say that?
Rue was staring at me over the turkey and I tried to avoid her gaze as I reached for the spoon in the mashed potatoes.
“Where’s Flora today?” she asked, obviously trying to cover up my comment.
“She, too, has taken ill,” I said, though the tone of my voice expressed just how much I actually believed that Flora was suffering from anything more than a temper tantrum.
“Oh, really?” she asked. “That’s a shame.”
“Mmmmm,” I said.
By now my plate had more on it than I had eaten in about a week, but I was excited to dig into it. I finished with a drizzle of the gravy that I had watched Rue make and picked up my fork. I took a bite, groaning at
the flavors that filled my mouth. I had piled so much together that I wasn’t even sure what it was that I was tasting, but it was unlike anything that I had ever tasted.
“This is incredible,” I said when I swallowed my fifth bite.
“I’m glad you like it,” Rue said. “Most of these were my Grammyma’s recipes.”
“Grammyma?” I asked.
“My grandmother,” I said. “This was her house. It was actually her parents’ before her. I grew up here.”
“You did?” I asked.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” she asked.
“It’s just…” I tried to come up with the right words. “I just don’t see you as part of this.”
Rue narrowed her eyes at me.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Meeting you in the city I could see an intelligence and sophistication about you that just doesn’t seem to fit in around here.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
The happiness that I had been feeling started to fade as I realized that I had offended her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to…can we just kind of move past what I said?”
She glared at me for a few seconds and then took another towering bite of the food on her plate. I felt my muscles relax.
By the time we finished eating, I felt like I was going to burst, but when she offered me a slice of fresh sweet potato pie I knew that I couldn’t resist. We walked into the living room and settled onto one of the worn old couches that nearly filled the space. Rue curled her legs under herself and settled her plate of pie on her knees, smiling as she took a bite.
“This was always one of my favorite things that my Grammyma made during the holidays,” she told me.
I took a bite and nodded.
“It’s delicious,” I said.
We ate in silence for a few moments and then she looked at me as if she wanted to say something, then shook her head slightly and looked back down at her pie.
“What?” I asked. “Did you want to say something?”
She looked at me again, her expression saying that she was thinking about something. She shook her head again.
“No,” she said. “I shouldn’t.”
“What?” I asked. “Go ahead. What did you want to say?”
Rue took another bite of her pie.
“Why aren’t you and Flora married?”
Chapter Thirteen
Rue
Richard didn’t respond as aggressively as I would have thought that he would have. I actually didn’t know what to expect when I asked the question, but the quiet, contemplative look that he got didn’t seem to fit. I hadn’t really intended to ask that question. It wasn’t any of my business and one of the things that my Grammyma always taught me was that you should mind your own biscuits. At that moment, however, considering I could be carrying Richard’s biscuit around in my oven I figured that I had a little bit more leeway in learning about him than I might with just any other person.
“Um,” he said, his fork swirling around in the whipped cream on his plate. “I don’t really know.”
“Do you want to marry her?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at him sharply. He seemed just as surprised at himself for giving the answer that I was for hearing it. He stumbled over himself for a few seconds, his eyes flickering from the pie to my face and back to the pie a few times.
“Why don’t you know?” I asked.
I’m already this deep. I might as well just keep on digging.
Richard sighed, and I felt like he had been holding that sigh in for far longer than just the few seconds since I asked the question.
“Have you ever felt like you don’t know where a big part of your life went? Like you woke up and your life has happened, and you didn’t really have any part of it? And now you’re just kind of there and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do about it?”
Well, that’s not the type of answer that I thought I was going to get.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I didn’t think you would.” He sighed again. “Flora and I have always known each other. Literally. Always. Our families have known each other for years and I was only a few years old when she was born, so I don’t remember a time without her. It has always just kind of been assumed that we would end up together. I didn’t really think about it much when I was younger. Even though we were expected to be together, nobody really thought much of us dating other people as long as we went to social occasions together and knew that eventually we would pair off exclusively. Before I knew it, though, that happened. Suddenly her mother was talking wedding venues and our fathers were discussing the ways that our merger would benefit their companies.”
“Merger?” I asked.
“And you can see the type of romance that characterizes our relationship.”
“So why do you go along with it?” I asked. “If you don’t want to be with her, why are you? And why are you trying to have a child with her?”
“We’ve been together for so long that I can’t really imagine anything else. She understands my lifestyle. She understands my culture. She knows that my work is the primary focus of my life right now so she’s not the type of woman who expects me to be at home at a certain time every night or to be able to take the weekends off to spend fixing up the house.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that you spend a lot of time fixing up your house,” I said.
“That’s true,” he said. “But you know what I mean. Flora understands the type of marriage that I would be able to handle and that is expected of both of us. That takes pressure off and I guess I’m comfortable with that idea.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a marriage,” I said.
“I guess it wouldn’t to someone who’s never seen it. But it’s what we know.”
“If you don’t even have time for a wife, why do you want a child? Babies are a lot of work and you can’t just tell them that you aren’t going to be home or that you can’t spend time with them. Well, I suppose you could, but that wouldn’t make you a very good father, and then what would the point be of even having a baby?”
“It’s going to be different when the baby gets here,” he said. “I’ve already committed to cutting down on my work and spending more time together as a family. I’ve wanted a baby for a long time. I want a family and for a chance to be a dedicated father. I know that now is the right time to have a child.”
“But if that’s so perfect for you, why haven’t you done it? Wouldn’t it make sense to just go ahead and get married before you have a child?”
“I’ve asked myself the same thing.”
“And have you answered yourself yet?”
He shook his head.
“I guess not.”
I stood and took his empty pie plate from him to carry them into the kitchen.
“Would you want to take a walk?” I asked. “Try to work off some of this Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Gearing up for Thanksgiving supper and Christmas dessert?” he asked.
I laughed.
“Exactly. It’s just something that my grandmother and father and I used to do every Thanksgiving. We’d walk around and visit with the neighbors that might be outside. If we’re lucky we’ll get a chance to see some people putting out their Christmas decorations. The Christmas bowls are something that nobody should miss.”
“The Christmas bowls?”
Richard’s voice followed me upstairs to where I was changing into warmer clothes and doing my level best to get my hair under control. How is it that I have seen this man only a handful of times and two of them involved me looking like the hottest of the hot messes. I should have at least put on clothes rather than yoga pants and an old sweatshirt. It was Thanksgiving, after all. Didn’t people usually look fancy for the holiday? The fanciest my family ever got was my papa putting on his best ugly Christmas sweater by the end of dessert. I squeezed into my skinn
y jeans, knowing full well that if the baby had stuck I wasn’t going to be able to wear them again within the next few weeks. I wanted to give them a fond farewell while I still had the chance. Dropping a thick sweater over my head, I tucked into my favorite ugly moccasins and headed back downstairs.
Richard was standing by the door with his jacket folded over his arm and smiled at me as I walked down the stairs toward him. I felt a flicker of the sense that this was more than just two people walking off their sweet potato pie, but I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t let my mind go there. That dream had been plenty, and I couldn’t let myself even entertain the thought of any more. Richard followed me out of the house and paused at the front door. I had gone down the first two steps before noticing that he wasn’t following me. I turned and looked at him.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Aren’t you going to lock the door?” he asked.
“We’re just going for a walk,” I said.
He looked at the door.
“You’re not going to lock it?”
“Richard, you aren’t in the city anymore. Half the people in Whiskey Hollow don’t even have keys to their houses. The last time that there was a break-in here it was Jeb Montaigne, he was drunk, and he had wandered into the old barn at the Galloway farm thinking that it was his grandpa’s house. They found him cuddling with a tractor fast asleep.”
“That’s not exactly the crime of the century.”
“No.”
He relented and came down the stairs. We started through the Hollow, the cool air of the afternoon spiraling around us and bringing with it the distinctive smells of outdoor-fried turkeys, pies, and dressing.
“Hi, there, Rue!”
I heard Cletus’s voice before I saw him running toward me through his yard. When I did catch sight of him I saw that he was carrying two ears of corn, freshly grilled and dripping with butter. He held them out to Richard and me.
“Hi, Cletus,” I said. “Happy Thanksgiving.” I took one of the ears of corn. “Thank you. I’ll have your pumpkin muffins for you this evening. You come on by and get them for breakfast tomorrow.”
