‘Thank you.’
‘Sick people are workin’ me to death, two of my book club members are sick as cats, not to mention Miz Hendrick’s funeral.’
‘Why, Esther Bolick. Baking this impossibly difficult and extraordinary cake is your passion. This is your life’s mission. Think about it—the merest sight of you with this cake carrier lifts the human spirit.’
‘At forty-five bucks a pop, I could be a lot happier doin’ somethin’ else for th’ human spirit.’
He looked her in the eye. ‘You can’t fool me.’
Esther burst into laughter. ‘I never could. Gene used to say to me, You can’t fool th’ father.’
‘Does that mean you tried?’
They had a laugh.
‘So Ray’s gone to Charlotte with two of his girls to fetch Esther,’ he said. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
‘Deliver it to th’ Cunninghams this evenin’, if you don’t mind.’
‘Can’t you deliver it to the Cunninghams?’
‘I cannot. I’m goin’ down th’ mountain here in a minute to spend the night with a friend, and tomorrow I am finally goin’ shoppin’. I am truly goin’ to shop ’til I drop, I have not bought a stitch since Gene passed. Two dresses, if I can find a dress in this pagan world. New shoes, one pair with two-inch heels to be worn only when sittin’ down. And a hat.’
‘You don’t wear hats. I have never seen you in a hat.’
‘You most certainly have seen me in a hat,’ she said. ‘I wore a hat to your wedding, don’t you remember? Besides, times change, Father; people change. Not everybody is stuck in their ways. Don’t you know that?’
• • •
‘CONGRATULATIONS,’ said Puny, who dropped by soon after he arrived home. ‘I voted for you three times an’ th’ girls voted for you six times.’
‘People could vote more than once?’
‘There weren’t any rules in that contest, which is my kind of contest. An’ take this with you, if you don’t mind.’
She handed him a large bowl with a snap-on lid of a smiley face.
‘What is it?’
‘Potato salad for Mamaw Cunningham.’
‘How did you know I was going over there?’
‘I saw Esther Bolick pumpin’ gas at Lew’s, she said you were takin’ her OMC over this evenin’.’
‘What am I, the new food service in town? Why can’t you take it over?’
‘I’m goin’ to a PTA meetin’ that will last ’til eight o’clock. Then I have to finish bakin’ for th’ swearin’-in. Plus I’d like to run up a set of curtains for Joe Joe’s new office.’
‘Curtains in the police chief’s office?’
‘They’re not tiebacks.’
‘Anyway, Esther cannot have this potato salad.’
‘Who says?’
‘Her doctor. It contains mayonnaise and bacon. Esther is on a diet of glazed carrots.’
Puny was thunderstruck. ‘Glazed carrots?’
‘Have you ever glazed a carrot?’
‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you?’
‘Puny, Puny. Would I kid you?’
• • •
SINCE HE WASN’T RUNNING these days, he was determined to walk to the Cunninghams’. His wife wanted to drive him up, but no, he could do this.
‘Well, then, I’m slipping something in your jacket pocket, okay? My editor sent chocolate truffles today; I’m sharing two with Esther. Try not to mash them.’
And there he went, a pack mule in a fleece hoodie, into the winter gloom.
• • •
HE ARRIVED AT THE CUNNINGHAMS’ at six-thirty, feeling grumpy. Kavanagh’s Schlep and Haul. Ray was overjoyed with the provender, though the entire delivery was a no-no in the new diet plan.
‘We’re happy to have you home,’ he told Esther, who was sitting in a wing chair in the Cunningham den.
‘The girls took my recliner and stuck it in the fur . . . r . . . nace room, can you believe it? They said a new study shows older people spend too . . . o . . . . o much time in their recliners and lose th’ use of their legs! Too . . . o . . . k it right out from under me, and Ray Cunnin’ham did nothin’ to stop it.’
‘I’m tryin’ to look after you, Sugar.’
She gave her husband a dark look. ‘Just wa . . . ait’ll they haul yours out of here!’
He removed his jacket, made himself at home. ‘Did you see the piece in the Muse about your homecoming?’
‘I’m too doped up to read. What else is goin’ on?’
He felt like a schoolboy reporting to the principal. ‘We got the bag down!’
‘What bag?’
‘The plastic bag that drove you nuts. On the awning at the Woolen Shop.’
‘Why’d you bother yourself with such aggravation? Don’t you have more important things to do . . . o . . . o?’
‘Esther, you asked me to do it.’
‘I was pre-stroke, Father, pre-stroke. I don’t care if th’ blo . . . o . . . oomin’ thing hangs there ’til th’ cows come home.’
‘Really!’
‘A nuisance, all of it. Let this town run itself. I always thought I was runnin’ it, but it was r . . . r . . . runnin’ me. I’m done.’
‘I’ve heard that before.’
Esther gave him one of her rare smiles, she was practically beaming. ‘This time I mean it. If I ever say I’m goin’ to run for office again, you can have me committed. Send me straight to Br . . . r . . . oughton.’
‘So, would you ride with me in the parade next July?’
‘Is th’ Pope Ca . . . a . . . ath’lic?’ she said.
• • •
HIS WIFE ENCOURAGED HIM to wear the ribbon thing, which he did. ‘The dignitaries will be there!’ she said, pinning it on his lapel. She took a picture with her cell phone, thoroughly amusing herself.
It was a spread fit for a tent meeting.
Ray Cunningham indicated the two tables, fully loaded. ‘Right there is what fuels this town. Premium high-test octane.’
He eyed the vast bowl of Snickers bars. There was hardly a bite in view that he could put on his blue-for-MPD paper plate. Given his morning blood sugar reading, he couldn’t drink the sweet tea or the hot cider or have even a forkful of his wife’s lemon squares. He took a cheese wafer and a bottled water.
‘Lord help,’ said Avette Harris, scornful of such meager refreshment.
He considered the swarm of notables.
Chief Hamp Floyd of the Mitford Fire Department, known also as the Worm. Mayor Gregory and his gorgeous Italian wife who not-so-vaguely resembled the actress whose name he couldn’t remember, the one who said she owed it all to pasta.
Lew Boyd and his Tennessee bride, Earlene, who allowed that the swearing-in was, as her grandmother would have said, ‘more fun than a corn-shuckin’.’
His buddy Bill Sprouse, of First Baptist. Percy and Velma Mosely, former proprietors of the Main Street Grill, wearing natural tans with no walnut extract called for.
Two stray dogs foraged through the crowd.
Chief Guthrie’s mother, Marcie, in a mother-of-the-bride lace dress with corsage, attended on every side by Guthrie and Cunningham kin as numerous as Abraham’s stars. And over there was Abe Edelman with his wife, Sylvia, and here was his old friend Buck . . .
‘Buck!’ He loved this big guy who, in a drunken rage, had once thrown a couple of chairs at him but was now as peaceable as the proverbial lamb.
‘Lord bless you, Father. And congratulations.’
An embrace, hard and warm, from the man married to Dooley’s mother. He and Buck had gone down the mountain a couple of years ago, following an elusive trail that led to Sammy.
‘Feeling better?’
‘A whole lot, but now Pauline has whatever it was. How’s Sammy?’
‘He’s . . . all right.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Maybe take him to the construction site with you one day. He has a curious mind, and is pretty savvy about the way things work.’
‘I’d like to do that. An’ Kenny?’
‘A wonderful young man. We’ll miss him greatly when he leaves in January.’ A Barlowe gained, only to be lost—though not for good, as it once seemed.
Buck nodded, sobered by the way of things.
‘Time,’ he said to Buck. ‘It does heal.’
And there was Doc Wilson in his running gear, and J.C. with his Nikon and fancy photographer’s jacket, and Olivia Harper talking with Cynthia, who was decked out in a dress the color of cornflowers.