The Liar

“I heard about that.” Fingers still working yarn and needle, Ada Mae glanced up with a smile. “It’s the Ridge, baby. If I don’t hear about something ten minutes after it happened, I know I have to have your daddy check my hearing. Hattie Munson—you remember she lives across from Bitsy, though they’re feuding about something half the time. They’re feuding now because Bitsy’s getting a new kitchen and didn’t take Hattie’s advice about the new appliances. Hattie’s boy works for LG, but Bitsy bought Maytag, and Hattie took that as a personal insult. Of course, Hattie Munson takes offense if she sneezes in her own kitchen and you don’t say Gesundheit from yours.”

Amused at the way her mother found a way to wind through a story, and how her father cursed at the ballplayers, the referees, the coaches, Shelby eased a hip on the arm of the couch.

“So, they might be feuding, but Hattie doesn’t miss any tricks and saw you and Emma Kate outside Bitsy’s house, and saw you go on in. How’s that kitchen coming? I haven’t gotten over there in more than a week.”

“They were putting cabinets in. Pretty ones.”

“Emma Kate’s young man—Matt—and Griffin. Cutie-pies, the pair of them—and they do fine work. I’m having them do me a master bath, an en suite, out of your old room.”

“Now, Ada Mae.” Clayton surfaced from the game long enough to hear about the bathroom.

“I’m doing it, Clayton, so you’d best climb on board. Griff said how they could take out that wall, and I could have me a spa-like en suite bathroom. I’ve been looking at magazines, getting ideas. And Griff, he’s got whole books just on plumbing fixtures—I’ve never seen the like of some of them. He’s done himself an en suite already. I went over to the old Tripplehorn place to see it, and it’s like a magazine, even if he is still sleeping on an air mattress on the bedroom floor. He’s finished the kitchen over there now, and it just makes me green with envy.”

“Don’t even start, Ada Mae.”

“I like my kitchen just fine,” she said to Clayton, then grinned at Shelby, mouthed, For now. “I bet you and Emma Kate picked up right where you left off.”

Miles from that, Shelby thought. “That’s the favor. She said she’d like to meet me tomorrow, at Bootlegger’s, about seven-thirty, if I could. But—”

“You go right on and do that. Old friends are the bricks and mortar of your life. I don’t know what I’d do without Suzannah. Your daddy and I will watch Callie, get her to bed. We’d love to.”

“Finally something I can agree to.” Clayton looked over at his daughter. “You take some time catching up with Emma Kate. We’ll spoil Callie.”

“Thank you.” She leaned over, kissed her mother, got up, kissed her father. “I’m going on up because a day of pampering’s made me sleepy. Thanks for that, too, Mama. And we’ll need to eat at six tomorrow night. I’m cooking dinner.”

“Oh, but—”

“I’m doing it, Ada Mae,” she said in the same tone her mother had used to her father, and had Clayton snickering.

“I’ve gotten to be a pretty good cook, and you’ll judge for yourself. I’m going to pull my weight while Callie and I are here, because I was raised right. ’Night.”

“She was raised right,” Clayton said when Shelby started upstairs. “So let’s pat ourselves on the back there, and we’ll see what’s for dinner tomorrow.”

“She wasn’t so pale and tired-looking tonight.”

“No, she wasn’t. Let’s see how it goes for the next few days, and be glad we’ve got them home.”

“I am, and I’ll be gladder when she makes things up with Emma Kate.”

•   •   •

IT WASN’T HARD to keep busy. By mid-morning, she hauled out the stroller. Taking Callie on a stroll around town, picking up what she wanted for the chicken dinner she intended to make for her parents was an easy—casual—way to wander around the Ridge and see if anyone was hiring.

The clouds had lifted, and the air had the bright-edged sparkle of spring after a shower. She put Callie in her pink denim jacket with a light cap—and since she might find herself applying for a job, did her makeup before setting out.

“Are we going to see Chelsea, Mama?”

“We’re walking to town, baby. To the grocery store, and I have to open up a bank account. Maybe we’ll stop in and see Granny.”

“See Granny! Chelsea, too.”

“I’ll call Chelsea’s mama later, and we’ll see.”

She passed Emma Kate’s house, noted the workman truck in the drive—and had to resist the urge to lift a hand in a wave across the street where she imagined Hattie Munson’s eagle eye was trained on her.

People like Ms. Munson did plenty of talking, she knew. There was welcome in the Ridge, but there were those—and more than a few—who’d enjoy gossiping over the back fence and in the grocery store aisle, over lunch at Sid and Sadie, about the poor Pomeroy girl who’d come home a widow with a child. But what did you expect when she’d run off that way with a man nobody knew a thing about?

They’d talk about how she’d moved north, rarely came home, dropped out of college after her parents had worked hard to send her.