Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(104)

“Should I put them on the table?” she asked.

“Why not? Sure!”

“Who’s coming to dinner with all this hurrah?” Momma said.

“Well, there is the queen to be considered,” Suzanne said.

“I just felt that with all the trouble Suzanne went to scrubbing that awful old grill of ours plus buying wine and steaks, and the fact that Archie and Ted are coming to dinner, that maybe we should put our best foot forward,” I said. “I think the table looks really beautiful. Come see!”

Momma followed me to the dining room and was speechless for a moment.

Then she said, “I don’t know why we don’t do this all the time! It’s so pretty! Nice job, girls!”

“Thank Holly,” Leslie said. “This was all her idea.”

“I don’t know. I sort of miss Catalog Mountain,” I said and laughed. “We’re missing one thing.”

“I can’t imagine what,” Momma said.

“I’ll be right back,” I said.

I went to my room and unplugged my portable turntable and brought it to the kitchen. We were going to have dinner with George Gershwin. I texted Ted, Bring your Ella vinyl! He texted back, You bet! I plugged it in and put an album on and dropped the needle in the first groove. “Rhapsody in Blue” began to play.

“May I have the pleasure of a dance, my dove?” Suzanne said.

“Of course!”

For the next five minutes or so, Suzanne waltzed Momma around the kitchen table. She was an amazing dancer—Suzanne, that is. Momma followed her lead the best she could, blushing and stammering while Suzanne nuzzled her neck and she blushed some more.

“Too precious,” Leslie said.

“Should we have cocktails in the kitchen or on the front porch?” I said.

“I vote for the kitchen, so I won’t miss any of the conversation while I’m grilling on the back porch,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, and I think it’s too hot on the front porch,” Momma said.

“And we have a ceiling fan in here,” Leslie said.

“Then the kitchen it is,” I said.

It was five o’clock. Ted and Archie were expected at six. I took the Jarlsberg out of the refrigerator, so it wouldn’t be as hard as a brick, and put it on a cutting board with a box of crackers. Then I lined up the wine bottles and a half dozen wineglasses and remembered I couldn’t find a corkscrew the last time I looked for one.

“Leslie? Please see if you can find a corkscrew, and if you can’t, ask the Scarecrow to bring one. Please? I’m going to go and change.”

The Scarecrow was the guy in The Wizard of Oz without a brain.

“Good one,” Momma said.

I stopped in my tracks and looked back. She gave me a thumbs-up.

I got to my room and stopped again. Something had changed in the house. I wondered what it was and finally, I realized what was different. Everyone was happy. That may seem to be an overly simplistic way to state the very complicated facts, but it was the truth. That happiness was so hard won. I had scars to prove it. We all did.

I took off my dirty gardening clothes, rinsed off in a fast shower, and put on a clean sundress and sandals. I couldn’t wait to see Ted. I could’ve waited a long time before I saw Archie, but if I guessed correctly, he was going to be here a lot, sniffing around for Leslie like an old hound dog. What can I say? It had always been this way. She was Brigitte Bardot to my Tammy Tell Me True. She was wired in a way that was the complete opposite of me. And did it really matter to me if Archie wanted Leslie and not me? Well, there was a smidgen of a sting to it, but I had Ted, and I didn’t have to change myself for him to like me. In the cool of the afternoon, that matters just a whole lot more to me.

Ted and Archie were prompt. Leslie answered the door and I remembered she had not really been introduced to Ted. Although Ted knew Archie, because of Sharon’s hysteria and, ultimately, her death. So I hurried out to meet them to make sure that Ted was introduced to Suzanne as well.

“Hey!” I said to Ted. “Don’t you look nice? Hey, Archie.”

“Hi, Holly. It’s nice of y’all to have me.”

Leslie smiled at Archie like a large, slinky, satisfied feline. Archie gave her kind of a lascivious look. Ted caught it, raised his eyebrows, looked at me, and handed me his Ella Fitzgerald album.

“There you go!” I said. “Y’all come on in!”

All at once the physical differences between Archie and Ted were crystal clear. Ted was a younger man, muscular and fit. His hair was close cropped and he was tanned. Ted was a well-made specimen. Archie’s posture wasn’t as sturdy as Ted’s and he looked pale and unkempt instead of like the Sexy Professor. And he had a little belly I’d never noticed before. The truth was that Archie was a lot less appealing, to me, anyway. Leslie seemed to be less picky.

Archie, who had brought his corkscrew, shook hands with Suzanne and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

Suzanne said, “I’m just the proverbial boy named Sue. Me and Johnny Cash.”

“That’s funny,” Archie said. “Miss Katherine? I heard you were under the weather? I hope you’re feeling better now.”

“I’ve never felt better,” Momma said. “Thank you.”