Bloodline(47)

I grimace.

“I’m not saying that’s you,” she says, furrowing her brow. “You’ve got a man at home. I’m only telling you that it’s normal to have extra-strong urges when you’re pregnant.”

“I went to see the sheriff who handled Paulie’s case back in 1944,” I say, changing the subject.

“How old’s he?”

“Seventies.” I refrain from saying he’s a black man. I get the idea Regina wouldn’t care. Or maybe I don’t want to seem like I do. “He said Kris could be Paulie. He’s going to look into it.”

Regina polishes off her whiskey and reaches for more. “It must be exciting, being a reporter. You said you did that when you lived in Minneapolis. Did you cover your own mugging?”

She’s smiling, has no idea she echoed the same crazy thought I had while the man in a porkpie hat held a knife to my throat, and just like that, the whole story tumbles out. Not only the mugging, or the fact that I’d won Slow Henry out of it, but that I’d imagined I’d seen the mugger here, two different times, and the second time he’d looked dead as a doornail on the road.

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” I ask when I finish, positive that Regina is going to judge me as harshly as Ursula did, desperate for her not to. I need someone else to believe my stories, crave it.

Regina shakes her head. “It’s not silly; it’s this town. It was either a guy who looks like him, or it was him. Stranger things have happened.” She reaches across the Formica table and pokes my stomach right where it’s bulging. “You have to trust your gut.”

I want to weep with relief. “I haven’t told anyone about thinking I saw the mugger here. Not even Deck, or my best friend in Minneapolis.”

She paints an X over her heart. “Your secret dies with me.”

“You think I should go to the police?”

“You positive he was the one who got hit by the car?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know that anyone got hit by a car. I know a vehicle went off the road downtown and that a man who looked like the mugger was on the ground immediately after. Did you hear any buzz about it at the bar?”

She glances toward the ceiling, like she’s sorting through memories. “Not that I recall. But I tell you what. If it was me, I wouldn’t go to the police. First of all, I avoid them on principle. Had some run-ins. Second, it sounds like the situation sorted itself out one way or another. I think the real problem is that you don’t feel comfortable talking to your old man about it.”

I notice for the first time that she’s wearing a necklace, a tiny tooth-colored pearl on a gold chain, very much like the one I stole for my mom. I smile and take another tiny sip of the amber whiskey, its warmth rolling down my throat and unhitching my bones. “It’s not Deck I don’t trust,” I finally say. “It’s Lilydale, like you said. It makes me jumpy. I’ve never lived in a small town before. I always feel like I’m being watched.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Regina says. “Welcome to the fishbowl.”

It could be the whiskey, or the fact that she isn’t treating me like I’m mad, but I suddenly want to tell her everything about the Fathers and Mothers. I haven’t been sworn to secrecy, but I sense they wouldn’t want me to share.

To hell with them.

“You know that Johann Lily who founded the town? Well, he started a group, too. They’re called the Fathers and Mothers. Can you believe that? And they want me to join!”

I hoot, and Regina laughs along, exactly like I wanted Ursula to do. I’m beaming.

“Would you like more whiskey, Mother?” she asks.

Impossibly, my laughter doubles. “Yes, please, Mother. But we mustn’t tell Father.”

She can’t breathe, she’s laughing so hard.

“I think I am going to ball Kris,” she says.

I hold up my glass in a toast. “Go with God.”

She clinks her jelly jar to mine. “Not like there are a lot of men to choose from, with them all off at war. Why isn’t Deck?”

“War’s for uneducated men,” I say, before I realize I’m mirroring Deck’s own words, something he said to me back in Minneapolis.

Regina stiffens.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Her face seals like an envelope. “And waitressing is for uneducated women, I suppose?”

I grab her hand. “Please, Regina. My mom was a waitress, and she’s the best woman I’ve ever known. It was a stupid thing to say. I’m a jackass. Forgive me?”

A slow smile blows across her mouth. “Your Mother forgives you, child.”

And we start belly-laughing again. I’m desperate to stay connected to her, to remain in this easy, amber-colored girlfriend space.

“You have a scissors?” I ask.

She glances around the kitchen. “Somewhere. You wanna sew?”

“I want you to cut my hair.”

Her eyes go wide. “What?”

“Yep. Cut it all off. I’m turning into an old lady, Regina, fast-track dying right in front of your eyes.” I tug out my headband and bobby pins, shaking out my shoulder-length hair. I’ve used so much hairspray that it barely moves, even without anything holding it in place. “Save a gal, would ya?”