Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(63)

“Yes,” she said.

“Okay,” I said and thought, Now I’ve heard it all.





“Don’t ever eat bananas around a beehive,” I said.

“Why not?” they said.

“Because the smell of them might cause the bees to swarm.”


Chapter Twenty-One



Splash!

Momma was out shopping for luxury fabrics with Leslie. That whole situation still boggled my mind. If you’d told me a year ago my momma would get out of bed, I’d have said, fat chance. And if you’d told me she’d be designing and making evening gowns for her son-in-law’s lip-sync competitions, I’d have thought you’d lost your damn mind. But then, Momma would do anything for Leslie. And it turned out that Leslie would do just about anything for Charlie.

So I was on my own to take up a small problem with Archie. His car was in the driveway. He must not have had classes that afternoon. I walked across the street and rang their doorbell.

Archie answered after a few moments.

“Hi, Holly! What’s going on?”

“Archie? Is there a place we can talk without being overheard?”

“Sure,” he said and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind him quietly. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure where to start. Tyler is a popular kid, but I assume you know that. Hunter is as well.”

“I assume they have friends at school,” he said.

I thought, The thing to say would’ve been, I know they have a lot of nice friends. They used to come here all the time. But the waters had been sullied and all the rules had changed. Now, maybe they had friends at school. And they were no longer welcome.

“Yes. They have a lot of them, good kids from nice families. Anyway, there’s a new child, Matthew, who’s just moved here from Tennessee. His dad works for Boeing. His momma’s name is Maureen Thomas. Maureen inherited a big house on the beach over at Station Twenty-seven from her grandmother. In an effort to make friends for her son, she planned a birthday party for Tyler.”

“When is this party supposed to take place?”

“This afternoon.”

“Well, Tyler’s in lockdown.”

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

“So I suppose Maureen went to great effort?”

“Yes.” I was quiet and just stared at him for a few minutes. “Balloons, a lifeguard, twenty kids . . .”

“Well, this is a dilemma.” He stared at me, seeming lost.

“I know,” I said. “Look, Archie. This will be the first time in his life he hasn’t had a birthday celebration with his friends. And I know it’s none of my business, but does the punishment fit the crime?”

He paused before answering me.

“Between us? I thought being grounded for a week was too harsh. But I have to back up Sharon, even when she’s over the top, or else it undermines our relationship. You understand that, don’t you?”

I chose my words carefully.

“What I understand is that it’s a little boy’s birthday today, who barely a year ago lost his mother, who’s got to be on his mind, especially today, and that he’s got a stepmother that may not be the perfect fit. And no matter what he did or said, this punishment isn’t going to make him love Sharon. It’s only going to make him miss his own mother even more.”

“Did you ever think about becoming a child psychologist?”

“I’ve toyed with a lot of different ideas about my future. But do you see what I’m talking about?”

“I’ll call Sharon and see if I can get him some time off for good behavior. Maybe even get the whole sentence commuted.”

“There you go! Great! Thanks, Archie.”

“It would be a shame for Tyler to miss his own party.” He looked at me in such a funny way, and then he said something so stupid, I almost fell off the porch. He said, “Why do you care so much?”

I wanted to say, Why don’t you care more?

“Because I really love Hunter and Tyler, that’s why. I have since you and Carin brought them home from the hospital.”

Archie stood there on the porch, reminiscing.

“I miss her, you know?” he said.

“I know. Everyone does, but I think your boys might miss her the most.”

Archie nodded his head.

“Thanks, Holly. Somehow I always find myself thanking you for something. What can I do to make up for all you do for us?”

Well, I thought, you could toss Sharon off the top of the Ravenel Bridge into the Cooper River and let the sharks eat her. That would take care of it.

“You know, before you got married, I had a conversation with the boys. They both said they didn’t want another mother, that they liked things just as they were. Y’all had a boys’ club, in their mind anyway. Just you and them against the world, and together, nothing would ever hurt them again. With Sharon on the scene, they lost that, too. Do you see what I mean?”

“Do you think I made a mistake marrying Sharon?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Well, then . . . good.” I looked at the ground as my face got red and hot. “Maybe, if you wanted to do something, just try to temper Sharon’s rules and regulations. There might be a few that could be loosened up a bit.”