Sweet Tea and Sympathy

by Molly Harper

  “Everybody?” Margot groaned. “But we’ve been so careful and discreet!”

  “Well, not as careful as you think. Sweet Johnnie practically swoons when she talks about the looks you two send each other during the planning committee meetings,” Frankie said slyly. “And Hutch Gershaw was running crappie jigs last weekend and saw the funeral home truck parked out in front of Kyle’s house at six in the morning.”

  Margot slumped against the table and buried her face in her hands. “That was one time.”

  “Also, Nate came home the other day and asked when his aunt Margot could come have a sleepover at our house. Because Hazel told all the kids at school that you’d had a sleepover at her house and Nate didn’t think that was fair.”

  Margot’s forehead thunked against the table while Frankie cackled. Marianne patted her shoulder. “Welcome to small-town dating. There are no secrets.”

  “So everybody knows? Even those judgmental church ladies in Tootie’s card group? Sara Lee? My father?”

  “Most likely,” Marianne said. “Aw, hon, it’s not a big deal. Most people are pleased for you both. And those that aren’t? Well, screw ’em.”

  Margot thunked her head on the table again.

  “Um, this seems like more than embarrassed head-thunkin’,” Frankie said. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

  Margot mumbled a string of indistinguishable sounds into the wood.

  Marianne smirked. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Margot said. “I don’t think we’re dating in the traditional sense, but I’m not quite a booty call. It was going so well the other day and then Hazel came home early from her slumber party and I was wearing her dad’s robe and it was just so awkward. And then Kyle basically tossed me out of the house, which hurt, but I can’t really blame him because his girls have lost enough as it is and they shouldn’t see him dating. Plus I don’t know how to talk to children anyway and that just makes it worse. I just don’t know how to navigate this. I am unprepared.”

  “Do you want to date Kyle in the traditional sense?”

  “I don’t know. He’s funny and smart and kind of drives me crazy but in that intellectually challenging way I like so much. I’ve never met a man who can manage as much chaos as I do, and I find that attractive in a slightly disturbing way. And he feels things and lets me know what those feelings are. He doesn’t hide them behind a glib mask that lets him keep his dignity. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, even when it would be better for both of us. And that is so . . .”

  “Endearin’?” Frankie suggested.

  “Sensitive?” Marianne added.

  “Bizarre!” Margot barked. “Even though I know it’s coming, it catches me off guard every time. There are times when I think a little sugarcoating would be nice.”

  “So why wouldn’t you want to date him?”

  “For one thing, I don’t have a lot of experience with real relationships, not the kind that are meant to go anywhere. And for another, there are his kids.”

  “What about them?”

  “I don’t know anything about kids. I’ve never dated anyone with kids. I don’t know how to act around them. I definitely don’t know how to take care of them. I’ve killed off so many houseplants, my assistant at my last job gave me plastic cacti to keep in my office.”

  Marianne patted Margot’s hand. “But Hazel and Juniper seem to like you, from what the boys tell me,” Marianne assured her. “And if I can keep Nate alive for seven years, you can supervise two well-behaved kids who want to impress you.”

  Frankie grimaced. “Besides, his girls are part of who he is. That’s his life. Trying to divide up that life into parts you can manage and ignore the rest, that doesn’t work.”

  Margot muttered, “That sounds oddly similar to something he said.”

  “So if you’re thinking of dating Kyle, does that mean that you’re not gonna be bolting out of town like your ass is on fire?” Marianne asked.

  “It’s possible,” Margot admitted. “But that has nothing to do with Kyle. It turns out I’m unmarketable to employers who are not related to me.”

  “Yay!” Frankie cried. “I mean, sad for you. But yay for us!”

  “You could be less thrilled about my inability to find work,” Margot told her.

  “I don’t think so,” Frankie said, shaking her head so her pigtails jiggled.

  “Keep it up and I will vote for The Notebook,” Margot told her.

  Frankie slapped her hands over her eyes. “Noooo!”

  AND OF COURSE, the moment Margot began to accept that she might be staying in Lake Sackett, she got a nibble on one of the dozens of résumés she’d sent into the professional ether. She was sitting at her desk in the funeral home, gloating over the completed forms for the very first funeral service she had planned from start to finish, including selling the casket and arranging for the grave excavation. She had mastered all the paperwork, managed to give the bereaved Jenkins family comfort and help during their planning process, and sold a bright pink sparkle-finish Duchess casket at a deep discount for eighty-two-year-old MayJean Jenkins, who had adored all things pink and rhinestone covered since her childhood. The glittery, satin-lined casket made her family smile, and that had made Margot happy, knowing that she was doing this weird family job well.

  That self-satisfied grin was still plastered across her face when she answered her desk phone. “McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop, how may I help you?”

  “Funeral Home and Bait Shop? That’s really a thing? I thought that was a typo,” a female voice drawled on the other end of the line.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I was tryin’ to reach Margot Cary,” the caller said. “She listed this number on her résumé.”

  “Yes, ma’am, this is she,” Margot said, a little flutter of anticipation taking wing in her belly. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, aren’t you charmin’?” the voice declared. “I wouldn’t expect that sort of Southern syrup in a Chicago gal.”

  “Oh, my family’s from Georgia. I’ve been spending a lot of time with them lately, so I guess the niceties are rubbing off on me. I’m sorry to ask, but who’s calling, please?”

  “Where are my manners?” the woman cackled. “This is Rae Temple, the R in RAB Events in Dallas? I’m head of corporate shindigs.”

  Margot lifted her brow. She vaguely remembered filling out an online application to RAB through JobLink during one of her late-night submission binges in Chicago.

  “Yes?” Margot squeaked.

  “Well, we just had a position open up in my division and your name was at the very top of our callback list. How would you feel about doing a Skype interview in the next few days, and if that goes well, we can fly you down here for a face-to-face chat?”

  “Of course, that would be great,” Margot said, working hard to keep her voice from trembling as an unwelcome thought occurred to her. She cleared her throat. “Are you sure you have the right Margot Cary? There isn’t some other Margot K-E-R-R-Y that’s supposed to get this phone call, is there?”

  Rae snickered. “No, hon, we tend to do a pretty thorough background check on our applicants before we call them.”

  Margot sighed. “Oh, so you know about . . .”

  “The birds? Oh, sweetheart, that was the funniest thang I’ve ever seen. We have you-themed GIFs on file to attach to interoffice e-mails when we’re afraid we’re gettin’ too serious.”

  “Ms. Temple, is this a joke interview?” Margot asked carefully. “Because I don’t think I could handle another one of those.”

  “No, no! We’d love to have you,” Rae exclaimed. “We’d be lucky to get someone who can wrangle shrimp-crazed birds with one hand and call 911 with the other. That sort of disaster happens all the time in our business. You’ve got people drinkin’ too much when they don’t have enough food in them, while wearin’ uncomfortable shoes and tryin’ to impress each other. That’s a recipe for disast
er. Besides, it’s not considered a party down here until someone falls into a pool wearing a five-thousand-dollar cocktail dress. The difference is we see the humor in it, and we appreciate someone who can handle those situations quickly, without losin’ her damn mind and making it worse. You’ve got style and you’ve got grit, and we need both. What kind of people have you been dealin’ with up there, darlin’?”

  Margot actually felt her eyes tear up a bit. All this time, she’d assured herself that one disaster didn’t negate her entire career, that she still had talent. But she’d needed to hear it from someone in her industry. She didn’t know what that said about her as a person. She was sure it had something to do with chasing the approval of her difficult-to-please mother and absent father or some Freudian bear trap that would cost her thousands at the therapist’s office. But for right now, she was just grateful not to feel that crushing disappointment in herself.

  “Thank you. That is the first time I’ve heard that,” she said. “I haven’t had a callback on an application in months.”

  “Well, isn’t that lucky for us, then? Look, I’ll send the details for the Skype interview to your e-mail address. And really, we’re interested in workin’ with you, Margot, as long as you think you might like the culture ’round here. Give movin’ to Texas some serious thought.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Thank you.”

  Margot hung up the phone and covered her mouth to contain the ecstatic squeal that would have raised the nearby dead. After months of nothing, she had an interview, with someone who sounded like a reasonable employer. The life she’d been trying to steer back onto the tracks ever since the Night of the Flamingos was finally coming back together. She could live in a city again. She would have access to more than one grocery store and dependable cell coverage and not have to worry about possums breaking into her garbage. Or worry about Sasquatch as a real possibility instead of possums. She would be herself again.

  As her eyes landed on the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop stationery stacked on her desk, that euphoric thrill ebbed from her chest. She could be leaving this place. What would she tell her family? They would be so hurt that she was leaving, after everything they’d done to make her part of their lives. She couldn’t have that easy, comfortable relationship with Marianne and Frankie over Skype. She’d prove everyone who’d said she was just like her mother right.

  Her father . . . wasn’t as much of a consideration. The progress she’d hoped for with him just wasn’t happening.

  Oh, hell, what would she tell Kyle? The fragile green shoots of whatever sort of relationship she shared with her favorite principal would collapse under the pressure of a nebulous long-distance relationship. He wouldn’t want to be with someone who was a fly-by-night presence in his girls’ lives, confusing them even further.

  She would have to start all over, again, just after she’d become comfortable in the life she’d started in Lake Sackett.

  Margot slumped down in her chair and, for the first time ever, said, “Dang it.”

  MARGOT STOOD AT Kyle’s front door on a bright, cloudless Saturday morning, debating whether to knock. In her hands she held the finalized schedule for the student presentations at the History Pavilion. It was an excuse, really, to talk to Kyle, to casually drop into conversation that she could be leaving town and gauge his reaction to that.

  Rae had set up the Skype interview for the following week. Margot hoped that if she ended up being offered the job, she would be able to negotiate a start date after the festival.

  Though it seemed impossible, the festival had taken on even more importance after Uncle Bob reported the Chamber of Commerce’s totals for summer tourism. The town’s visitor numbers were down 8 percent from the previous year and more than 15 percent from five years before. Rental income was down for the third year running. And Harley Ramsett, owner of one of the biggest boat rental companies in town, was thinking about closing, taking ten jobs and an incredible amount of tourist appeal with him.

  Sara Lee had used the Lake Sackett Ledger’s coverage of these grim numbers to try to wrest control of the festival out of Margot’s hands a whopping two weeks before opening ceremonies. She’d called an emergency meeting of the PTA to ask members to sign a petition to fire Margot. Fortunately for Margot, volunteers couldn’t be fired and only ten people signed the petition—all of them Sara Lee’s cronies. So for now, she still held the reins to what could be the biggest show in town. She did notice, however, that her card got declined more often than not at local businesses owned by Sara Lee’s friends. And all four of her tires seemed to go flat every time she parked her truck in town. Carl, bless him, had put an air pump behind the bench seat so she could blow them back up without his help.

  She’d almost retracted her hand and decided to silently scuttle back to the truck when Juniper opened the front door, wearing sparkly purple tights, neon-green Crocs, and an orange life vest. Margot lifted a brow.

  “Is there a flood warning or is the life vest a fashion statement?” Margot asked.

  “We’re going sailing today, Miss Margot!” Juniper cried, grabbing Margot’s hand and dragging her into the house. “It’s the last sail of the season before we have to put the boat up for winter. We do it every year. Daddy always packs a special lunch and we have a picnic on the fairy island.”

  “Wow, that sounds great, Juniper—”

  “JUNE.”

  “That sounds great, June. But maybe I should just come back at another time.” Margot tried to back away toward the front door, but June’s grip on her wrist became Teamster tight.

  “Noooo!” she howled. “You should come with us, puh-lease? It’s always more fun when another grown-up comes with us because Daddy doesn’t worry about us falling out of the boat when he’s working the lines.”

  “Does that happen a lot?” Margot asked as June locked the front door, then dragged Margot through the house to the back door, looking over the water.

  June threw the glass sliding door open with the force of someone who had never made home insurance payments and screeched, “DADDY! MISS MARGOT IS HERE!”

  “Your ability to speak in all caps is astonishing,” Margot told June, who just grinned at her.

  Down at the family’s dock, Kyle’s head popped up behind the hull of the little sailboat. He appeared to be stowing ropes in a small hold at the front of the boat, while Hazel was untying the knots that kept the sail tightly rolled. He smiled and waved at Margot as June yanked her down the length of the dock by her wrist. How could someone that small be that strong?

  Kyle hopped gracefully over the hull and landed on the dock with both feet. He was wearing jeans and the green utility jacket he’d had on the first time she saw him. The sight of the jacket kick-started a warm flicker in her chest that she tamped down by remembering that Kyle’s children were standing right there and it would not do to ogle their father right in front of them. Even if they wouldn’t realize it was happening. Probably. Maybe a little ogling wouldn’t hurt.

  No.

  Margot broke eye contact and stared at the sailboat. It was even prettier up close. She knew very little about these things, but it seemed well cared for with its glossy wood and polished brass fittings. It was the sort of thing constructed in what Tootie would have wistfully described as the “good old days,” when everything was built to last. A careful hand had painstakingly painted MAGGIE’S LITTLE TREES on the bow in gold and white.

  “June, honey, we’ve talked about trying to dislocate people’s shoulders,” he told her, though his tone wasn’t at all stern. “It’s not nice.”

  Margot’s lips twitched as June reluctantly loosened her death grip. “Sorry,” June mumbled. She brightened considerably in less than a second. “Guess what, Daddy? Miss Margot is going to come with us!”

  Kyle glanced up at Margot and she shook her head back and forth. “Oh, I don’t think so. I mean, look at me. I’m not dressed for sailing.”

  The family looked at her j
eans and light green sweater, combined with the only pair of sneakers she’d brought with her to Lake Sackett. Kyle asked dryly, “You’re afraid you’d end up turning an ankle in those fancy shoes?”

  “My sweater is very absorbent,” Margot said, clearly searching for an excuse. “It would weigh me down if I went in the water. Also, you weren’t planning to feed me and I don’t want to make lunch too sparse.”

  “No, no, Dad always packs a few extra sandwiches and drinks because we drop them in the water. Puh-lease?” June begged.

  Margot grimaced. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re welcome to come with us,” Kyle said, though his tone clearly meant the opposite.

  “Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “Please!” June cried, making big anime eyes at her.

  “Okay,” Margot said, through an uncomfortable smile. “But I just want to point out that this is how Gilligan’s Island started.”

  “Get in the boat,” June said, pushing at Margot’s hip until she stepped onto the bow. Kyle was quick to take her hand and help her get on board without falling into the lake. The boat pitched a bit under her feet and she stumbled into Kyle. He gave her a light squeeze before picking June up under her arms and setting her down on one of the bench seats by the tiller.

  Kyle looped a thin, narrow life vest around Margot’s neck and clipped it closed. “It inflates when it hits the water,” he told her. “It’s a little easier to move around in than the neck pillows for the kids.”

  “This is some sort of practical joke, isn’t it? I’m being filmed?”

  “Just wear it,” he said. “And sit there, where you won’t get smacked with the boom.”

  She nodded. “Will do. Not getting hit in the face with a sail is a big priority in my life.”

  Margot sat next to Hazel, who was also wearing a colorful but mismatched outfit topped off with a bright orange life vest. She gave a halfhearted flick of her hand. “Hi, Miss Margot.”

  “Hi, Hazel.”