Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(17)

I’d gotten in the habit of saving coupons, buying whatever was on sale, and cooking more than we needed so that I could take a meal to the boys. If they couldn’t have a momma in their kitchen, they could have me bringing supper. One day, out of nowhere, Momma called me an idiot. After all, she could only be nice for so long. We argued.

“You’re making a fool out of yourself,” she said, “throwing yourself at that man.”

“I’m not throwing myself at anybody,” I said. “I’m doing something nice. This is what doing something nice looks like, Momma.”

“I’m telling you, Holly, I know men. At some point he’s going to feel insulted by all your casseroles and spaghettis. It will be like you think he needs charity or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. I honestly could not see Archie feeling like that.

“Just don’t be surprised.”

I told the bees what Momma said. I swear to you the pink hive buzzed in a way that sounded like they didn’t agree with Momma. It was like my pink hive had an opinion. I’m not exaggerating. Everyone who knows anything about bees knows that they know how to reach a consensus. For example, when it’s time for the older queen bee to be replaced, the worker bees know it. They build new queen cells, load them up with healthy pupae, and flood them with royal jelly. Or, they ball her, which is a term that does not have the naughty connotation that used to travel around with the expression. It’s more like a visit from the goon squad. To ball the queen, worker bees cluster all around her, causing her body temperature to rise to the point where she dies, which is bad enough. Anyway, crazy as it may sound, I felt as if my bees were on my side.

I was feeling pretty good about myself and my newfound culinary skills, maybe even a little superior, until the evening I brought them a chicken Divan casserole and Archie met me at the door.

“This has to stop,” he said.

“What?” I said and turned every color of red on the spectrum. I felt stung.

“It’s not like I can’t feed my children,” he said.

“Who said you couldn’t feed your children?” I said. Now my head broke a sweat.

“It’s just bad,” he said. “I’m sorry, Holly. It just doesn’t feel right to me for you to cook for us all the time. You’ve got to at least let me pay you, okay?”

“Wow,” I said. For once in my chatty life I was at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say.”

All at once my fantasy of being Tyler and Hunter’s stepmother seemed to lose its footing and fall off a cliff. And I was deeply mortified.

“But you do know how much we appreciate everything you do for us, don’t you?” he said, his tone softening somewhat.

“Sure,” I said.

“Why don’t I give you an allowance of sorts and you spend it. When you run out, I’ll give you some more. How does that sound? But only if you’re cooking anyway. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“Okay, I guess,” I said and still didn’t feel any better. There would be no putting the bubble back together again. “Anyway, here’s a chicken and broccoli casserole and some biscuits. Just warm it up in your microwave. I can take my Pyrex dish back another time.”

“Thanks so much!” he said. His normal chipper mood was back. “Can’t you join us?”

“I ate. But thanks.” I turned to go.

“You haven’t told me,” he said. “How’s your new job?”

“Chicken was on sale,” I said, apropos of nothing except a weak attempt to salvage my pride. “My job is ridiculous, endless entertainment. We’ve got like six people who rotate between the deli and the bakery. Today one of the younger guys in the bakery went to decorate a birthday cake and the instructions said, ‘Just say something nice for Joan.’ So he put that on the cake.”

“Literally?” He arched an eyebrow.

“Yes. Literally. The cake read ‘Just say something nice for Joan.’ I’m pretty sure he was stoned. I mean, who wouldn’t love this job? It’s so creative, it’s like the next best thing to restoring the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

I said this over my shoulder as I was leaving and inside of a minute I was back on my porch, taking another UPS package inside, leaving Archie to scratch his head, surely wondering what the world was coming to.

I dropped off the package in Momma’s room.

“Thanks,” she said.

I nearly fainted.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“I’m trying to be nice,” she said.

Nice? What’s next? Would she take up knitting and make me a sweater? Who are we kidding here?

I made myself a cup of hot tea with a big dollop of my honey. Since I’d added a teaspoon to my daily diet in one way or another, my allergies seemed improved. It was just another advantage of beekeeping. I started keeping bees because I loved the idea of other universes. Much like gardening, when you tend beehives, hours can pass without you realizing it. My gardens nourished my bees and my bees propagated my gardens and they both fed me in some spiritual way. I hadn’t yet figured out the process of fermenting honey to make mead, but at that moment I wished I had. A big mug of mead might have been just the thing I needed. Mead, by the way, is the oldest known alcoholic drink we know of.