He looked around. “It’s a nice night. Cooling off some now that the sun’s gone down.” He gestured to the wine. “Should I pour a glass and join you?”
She smiled at him, feeling relief flood her body. Surely he wouldn’t do that if anything had happened with Jencey. She willed herself not to ask and ruin the moment. “Sure,” she said. “That would be nice.” He disappeared inside again, and she looked up at the stars as she waited for him.
He returned quickly and sat across from her at their little table. They were quiet for a moment as they both sipped their wine. She could feel the second glass beginning to blur the edges of her mind, doing exactly what she’d hoped it would.
“Sorry you missed the end of the fireworks,” he said.
She thought again of the voice-mail message. “It was OK. It was way past his bedtime. He crashed as soon as we got home.”
“I wonder how much James spent on those fireworks,” Everett said. He was making small talk, and she was grateful for it. “They went on forever.”
She nodded. “They must have. I was surprised by how long it took you to get home.” She had no right to challenge him, considering, but she also wanted to know. Her words hung in the air between them, and she saw him shift in his seat, then take a sip of wine. Her heart pounded and she, too, took a sip of wine. Only hers was more like a gulp.
“Well, I talked to some folks as I was gathering up our stuff and loading the car. You know, being a good neighbor. Channeling my wife.” He gave a little laugh and nudged her.
“Did you talk to Jencey?” she asked. She tried to keep her tone light, saying the name as if she was naming any other resident of Sycamore Glen. But she could tell her voice betrayed her by the barely perceptible wince on his part. This was ridiculous. They were married. They had a child. They had a good relationship, were good friends at their core. Her inexplicable unease about Jencey was either women’s intuition or complete paranoia. Or residual from their past, creeping in, never fully vanquished no matter how much they all moved on.
He put his glass down. “Do we need to talk about her?” he asked, turning to face her.
She shook her head, a reflex. That was the wrong answer—they probably did need to talk about her, but she wasn’t ready to, and probably never would be. They’d spent their courtship and married life successfully avoiding the topic of Jencey.
“Are you sure?” he pressed. “Because I did talk to her. If that bothers you, then we need to talk about why.”
She forced her mouth to smile. “Did she say she’s in love with you and can’t live without you?” She hoped she sounded like she was teasing. “Because if that’s the case, then, yeah, maybe we need to talk about Jencey.”
His laughter in response was as forced as her cavalier tone. “No.” He reached over and laid his hand on top of hers, the weight and size of it so familiar. “She did tell me why she came back, though.”
Bryte felt her heart pick up speed. She hadn’t felt comfortable enough to ask Jencey something that personal, yet Jencey had told Everett. She didn’t know if she was threatened by that degree of honesty between them, or jealous that Jencey had chosen Everett to confide in instead of her.
“Oh?” she tried her voice. “And?” She moved her hand from underneath his and reached for her wineglass. Her wine was almost gone. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had three glasses of wine in one evening, but this might be the night to do it.
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s pretty bad. Her husband’s in jail. They’re getting divorced. She was basically left with nothing and had no choice but to come back here and live with her parents.”
“But she wears her wedding ring,” Bryte argued, as if it would change anything. Jencey wasn’t just here for a summer visit, Bryte had come to realize. She was staying.
“She said she needs to take it off but . . . well, you can understand how final that has to feel.”
With the thumb of her left hand, she felt for her own wedding ring, remembering both the night Everett had put the engagement ring on her finger at their favorite restaurant in town and the day he’d put on the band to match it, completing the set. It had been such a happy day, made even happier by the knowledge that Jencey wouldn’t be there. Jencey’s mother had relayed the news as if it was a disappointment, when it was anything but. Though she’d felt obligated to invite her former best friend, her presence on their wedding day was the last thing Bryte had wanted. Bryte had believed then that they would probably never see Jencey again, and that had been OK with her.
“Yeah.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Yeah,” she tried again. “I’m sure it is.” She stood up and grabbed her wineglass, her head spinning a little. “I think I’ll go get another glass. You want some?” She started to walk away without waiting for him to respond, but he stood up and stopped her, blocking her entry to the house.
“Don’t let it freak you out, Bryte. Jencey being here changes nothing.” He looked down at her and gave her a reassuring smile. He put his hands in her hair, leaned in, and kissed her. She tried to go with it, to focus on him there, with her. Everything was OK. There was no reason to panic. Nothing changes, as he said. She kissed him back, trying to think about how much her adolescent self had craved this very thing. She had everything she ever wanted; they had everything they wanted. She longed to melt into him, to lose herself in him just as she had always done. Except. Except Jencey was back.
She let him take the wineglass from her hand and put it on the table, leading her inside. He led her right past her phone where she’d left it. She followed her husband upstairs to the room and bed they shared, knowing as she did that the next day she would return the call. She would blame Jencey for it, because it was easier than blaming herself.
ZELL
It was Cailey’s fault Zell was outside in this heat. The brim of her sun hat fell into her eyes once again, and she impatiently pushed it out of the way, feeling a smear of mud left behind on her forehead where her gloved hands had touched. With her gardening clothes and floppy wide-brimmed straw hat, she knew she looked every bit like Shirley MacLaine’s character in Steel Magnolias. But it was for a good cause. She straightened up and felt her knee respond. Cailey kept suggesting she see a doctor, not understanding Zell’s hesitance to do so. It wasn’t something she could explain.
Cailey crouched down beside her with an intent expression, studying their efforts, trying her best to learn all there was to know about gardening in the short amount of time they had together. The kid was a sponge. Zell tried not to think of that eyesore house she lived in with the desert of a front and back yard. There were no trees, and no shade, shrubs, or plants. It would be cruel and unusual to send the child back to that hellhole, and yet she had to sooner or later. She didn’t like to think about that, didn’t want to face what would surely end. “That kid has an expiration date stamped right on her forehead,” John kept warning her. “Don’t get all wrapped up in her and forget that.”
Though he was right, it didn’t make it any easier to think about saying goodbye. Cailey had given her someone to dote on, someone to nurture just as surely as she nurtured the plants and flowers in her yard. Cailey wasn’t taking her own children’s place, but she was a nice balm for Zell’s hurting heart. And, Zell liked to think, it worked both ways. What would Cailey have done this summer if Zell hadn’t offered her a place to stay? Spent a lot of time at home alone watching the boob tube and not learned nearly as much about the great outdoors, that’s what.