“Fuck,” she said, shrugging off her London Fog raincoat and hanging it on the peg by the door. She stood quietly for a moment then, looking around the living room.
Nothing had changed. The small house looked the same. It even smelled the same, the faint scents of furniture polish and cinnamon and coffee lingering over a subtle note of honeysuckle air freshener. She and her mother had not been close, despite only having each other. But there had been some good times, and now the odors of home brought back a collage of memories. Her mother at the table, bills spread out in front of her, trying to decide which ones to pay. Sitting in silence watching their favorite Wednesday night sitcom with popcorn and sweet tea. Rearranging the furniture to put up the live tree her mom insisted on buying each Christmas whether they could afford it or not. Sneaking into the house two hours past curfew. Jace Whitaker walking in like he owned the place.
The last memory put a lump in her throat, but Lily Mae had just the thing to wash it down. Kneeling, she rifled through her purse at her feet for the bottle of liquor she’d purchased on her way over. She pushed the purse aside with her foot as she stood and then headed to the small kitchen and switched on the light. She tried not to look around too much as she fetched a glass from the cupboard. Of all the rooms in the house, this one reminded her the most of her mama. Helen Slater had been proud of the little kitchen. She’d wallpapered it herself a year before Lily Mae left home and had sewed cute curtains for the window over the sink. Several hummingbird feeders hung outside the window. Lily Mae’s mom had loved to watch the tiny creatures zip and quarrel over the sugary red mixture. The feeders were empty now. There was no activity outside the window. Lily Mae headed to the living room, kicked her heels off, and plunked down on the sofa.
All day she’d been trying to keep her thoughts off of Jace. It was a day to mourn the loss of her mother, not the loss of a relationship never meant to be. But she couldn’t help but think of him as she sat in the home where he’d been a fixture for so many years. He’d not bothered to come to the funeral. Of course, she’d made it a point not to contact him and had even insisted the services be listed as private. But still, he could have crashed it, if he’d cared enough. But he hadn’t.
Lily Mae poured a half inch of liquor in the glass, remembering how she’d glanced around the cemetery, half hoping to see him walking toward her, his sandy hair slicked back, the shadow of stubble visible on his chin because he’d not had time to shave, a blazer thrown over his best shirt. In her fantasy, he was still wearing blue jeans, though, his solid thigh muscles apparent through the faded denim.
Lily Mae could still remember what it felt like to be over those thighs, could still remember the sting of the spanking he’d given her, the sweeter sting of his cock banishing her maidenhead, then the awful sting of regret.
She poured another finger of liquor into her glass and then gulped the amber fluid down in two fiery gulps that sent her into a coughing fit. The effects hit her almost immediately; she’d hardly had anything to eat since breakfast. But the haze of alcohol didn’t completely diminish the guilt she felt over shedding her first tears of the day not for her mother, but for the absence of a man she’d left. Why was it so hard to cry, she wondered? And why was he the only person who could drag it out of her?
After arriving in L.A., she’d made two phone calls. The first was to her mother, to apologize and say she was starting a new life. Her mother’s voice was sad, but also relieved. Lily Mae had been a bright student, but had spent her last two years of school in and out of trouble. She barely graduated due to her truancy. Was it any wonder her mother was ready for a break? The second call had been the bank to check her balance. She’d worked as a waitress for several years before graduating and had saved nearly every penny. That combined with her graduation money had given her enough to get started. By the end of the second week in California, she’d enrolled in a community college and gotten a room in an apartment with two other women who’d posted a ‘Looking for Roommate’ notice on the quad bulletin board. Then she found a job working at the corner coffee shop where the regulars good-naturedly nicknamed her ‘Sandy Squirrel’ because of her Texas accent.
It felt like a dream, those early days in L.A., because Lily Mae didn’t think it was permanent. Every time there was a knock on the door of the apartment, she was sure it was Jace come to fetch her home. At work, she’d sometimes catch a glimpse of a broad back in a chambray shirt and think it was him. But it never was.