Just as she’d predicted, the house was empty in another half hour. She sent Mabel home with the promise that she’d put away the perishable snacks before she went to bed. “And you stay home tomorrow. If we want something to eat, we’ll either eat what’s here, cook for ourselves, or go to the café. Besides, I’m going back to my apartment tomorrow, so you don’t have to cook for anyone or do much around here.”
“No arguments here,” Mabel agreed. “I’m so tired, my butt is draggin’. I may not even make it to church tomorrow. I overheard lots of talk about what you intend to do with the company tonight. My advice would be to listen to your heart.”
“I intend to do just that, now shoo! Go home and get some rest.” Jennie Sue hugged her.
“And don’t get in a hurry about anything, darlin’. You need to think about things before you act,” Mabel said as she headed out the back door.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jennie Sue called out.
Rick came inside seconds after Mabel left. “I stopped to talk to Frank in the garage just as the last of the cars left.”
“Hungry?” Jennie Sue asked. “There’s lots of food left.”
“Yep.” He nodded.
“Me, too,” Jennie Sue said. “All those people made me nervous, and I couldn’t eat. Let’s go sit down at the table and have some food. I’ll get Cricket in from the porch, and after we eat we’re going swimming.”
“No bathing suit,” he said.
“No worries. We keep a closet full of them in the bathhouse.”
Rick’s hands began to sweat, and suddenly he didn’t think he could swallow a single bite of food. He’d always worn long-sleeve shirts to cover his scars, only rolling them up halfway to his elbows when it got really hot. Jennie Sue knew he had scars, but she’d only seen the one on his jawline. What was between him and her would be over before it had hardly even gotten started if she saw his body. He needed more time with her before he took this step. He couldn’t go out there in swim trunks—he just couldn’t.
It’s time to come out of your shell. It sounded an awful lot like his father’s voice in his head. It’s part of you.
“I can’t,” he whispered.
“Can’t what? Are you hungry? I couldn’t eat with all those people here, so we can have something together.” Jennie Sue took him by the hand and led him to the dining room table.
“I should wash up.” He avoided answering her questions. “I’ll be right back.” He escaped to the restroom, where he spent several minutes staring at his reflection in the mirror and trying to think up a plausible excuse for not swimming.
You are acting like a sophomore with a pimple at prom time. This time it was his mother’s voice in his head. Jennie Sue has proven to be an amazing, compassionate friend. Get over yourself.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess it’s time to swim or drown.”
Cricket and Jennie Sue were already eating when he arrived at the table, so he took a seat across from them and picked up a plate. “It all looks good. Where do I begin?”
“With those little chicken sandwiches,” Cricket said. “I wonder who made them. They are scrumptious. I’ve had half a dozen, but they’re only bite-size, so it’s really not even a whole sandwich.”
Jennie Sue reached for another tiny sandwich. “Come on, Cricket. You know who makes these. You work for Elaine. Surely, you’ve eaten them before. Sugar has been buying them for years, even back when Elaine did some catering for a few choice folks. She also made those cookies and those pinwheel-rollup things with the cream cheese and ham and the little thumbprint cookies. And the vegetable tray and the fruit tray.”
“Nope, I had no idea Elaine did anything like this on the side. She should put these on the menu,” Cricket said.
“How do you know all this?” Rick asked.
“There’s a secret to this kind of thing,” Jennie Sue said. “You pay someone else to do the work. Then you put it on a fancy platter and make it look all pretty, and the last thing is to slap a fancy little sticker on the bottom with your name on it so the person can return the plate. Mama’s famous for her fried chicken, but she’s never stood over a skillet of grease in her life. It comes from Kentucky Fried Chicken in Sweetwater.”
“Well, thank you, Elaine, for being such a good cook.” Rick loaded up his plate a second time. “Maybe we’d better put off swimming since we’re supposed to wait half an hour after eating.”
“Drink a beer,” Jennie Sue said.
“What?” Cricket raised an eyebrow.
“Proven fact. Eat. Drink at least part of a beer and you won’t drown. The bubbles in your stomach will keep you afloat,” Jennie Sue answered. “It also works when you’re hiding from people, right? And I’ve been wonderin’, is Cricket your real name?”
“It’s your name, so you can tell her the story,” Rick said.
Cricket rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “The name on my birth certificate is Edwina Lucinda Velma Lawson. Don’t even crack a smile, because it could’ve been worse. I was named for two grandmothers and Daddy’s favorite aunt. But I could’ve been Beulah Oma Lucille Lawson.”
“How did you get Cricket out of that?” Jennie Sue asked.
“When Mama brought me home from the hospital, she told Rick to be gentle with me because I wasn’t any bigger than a cricket, and it stuck. Rick gave me the nickname, and thank goodness, no one even remembers all those other names,” she answered.
“And I thought Jennifer Susanne was a mouthful.” Jennie Sue finished off the last cookie on her plate. “Let’s pop the tops of three beers and go swimming. I need something to settle my mind. It’s buzzin’ around in circles. I never knew that people could ask so many questions. Thank goodness Justin is takin’ the business burden off me or I’d be completely overwhelmed.”
Rick pushed his chair back. “Think we should clean up this table first?”
“We can do that afterward. All we have to do is put away what’s left of the perishable stuff for tomorrow’s lunch, then throw a tablecloth over the rest,” Jennie Sue said. “Come on. I’ll show y’all the way to the bathhouse where we can all change.”
“Are we doing something wrong? This feels kind of hypocritical. We were talkin’ about the people that came tonight acting like this was a party,” Cricket pointed out.
“No, we are not,” Jennie Sue declared. “I’m sure the enormity of what lies before me is going to overwhelm me in a couple of days, but I have to focus on one thing at a time to get through this. I want a swim and a beer to unwind. To work the tangles out of my brain and my body. But I have been thinking about doing something for underprivileged folks with part of the inheritance I’ll have.”
“That doesn’t surprise me a bit,” Cricket said.
Rick couldn’t have denied Jennie Sue anything, up to and including starting a walk across the Sahara with only half a canteen of water. “Then let’s go swimming. We’ll get through these next two days, and then maybe things will get back to normal.”
“I hope so.” Jennie Sue slid the doors open out onto the big porch/patio and laced her fingers in Rick’s. “Please don’t think I’m callous or uncaring for doing something frivolous like going swimming. I just have to deal with this my way.”
“Everyone deals with grief in their own way.” He squeezed her hand.
He let go of Jennie Sue’s hand and darted into the men’s side of the bathhouse. He found the closet with a variety of bathing suits and chose a dark-green one. Stripping out of his clothing, he folded each piece neatly and laid it all on a shelf. At least the dark-green suit covered up part of the scar on his leg.