Loading up my plate, I saw D’Vora, from the beauty parlor, alone against the wall. She’d foregone any food at all, watching the crowd as she sipped a soft drink from a plastic bottle. I grabbed the chair next to hers.

“Fancy meeting you here,’’ I said.

She nodded hello, giving me a forced smile. So, even D’Vora was mad at me?

“Was it something I said?’’

“Sorry, Mace.’’ She balanced the plastic bottle on the seat between her knees. “I’m not myself this morning.’’

“Late night?’’

She shook her head.

“Trouble with Darryl?’’

“No more than usual.’’

Sal wandered up. “Why do gorgeous girls always gather together? Youse two are like pretty bluebirds in a garden.’’

I think I must have preened a little, but D’Vora just stared at her soda bottle.

“She’s not herself this morning,’’ I explained to Sal.

“Probably the murder.’’ He took a cigar from his top pocket, caressed it like a precious jewel, and put it back. “That’s got everybody on edge. It’s a hell of a thing. People are trying to make sense of it, and having trouble doing it. What do you suppose happened to her, Mace?’’

“Beats me. It’s too strange to even contemplate.’’

When Sal began talking about the murder, D’Vora had shifted her focus to the nutritional information on the soft drink’s paper label. She picked at the paper until the glue gave, and then peeled off the label in tiny strips. She was as intent on the task as a heart surgeon performing a bypass.

My eyes met Sal’s over D’Vora’s head, and I nodded slightly toward her. He shrugged a little, perhaps a sign he’d also noticed that the normally gossipy beautician was strangely uninterested.

The big man took a seat on D’Vora’s other side, lowering his body gingerly into one of the flimsy folding chairs. His voice, usually a Bronx blare, was surprisingly soft and gentle. “Sweetheart, is there something you want to talk about?”

He lifted her chin. Was Sal looking for evidence on her face that Darryl might have hit her? We all knew he liked his beer, hated work, and was as immature as a junior high school boy, but I’d never heard the slightest hint he was abusive.

She smiled at Sal, and shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong, y’all. I’m just not feeling great this morning.’’

Uh-oh. Morning sickness? A bawling infant was the last thing D’Vora and the chronically unemployed Darryl needed in that crowded trailer with those three Rottweiler dogs.

“D’Vora, you’re not …” I put my hands over my own belly.

“Lord, no! I’m already taking care of one baby who refuses to grow up.’’

“You’re sure you’re okay?’’ Sal aimed his interrogator eyes at her. She nodded, her gaze drifting back to the label she was shredding.

“I hope you’re feeling better in time for Kenny’s big party. It’s gonna be a blast,’’ he said. “Are you taking Darryl?’’

The plastic bottle tumbled off D’Vora’s lap, bouncing on the tiled floor. The last few swallows of the drink spayed out all over my dressiest flip-flops. My toes would be soda-sticky the rest of the morning.

“Sorry, Mace,’’ she mumbled. She bent to retrieve the dropped bottle, and her church program slid from the chair to the floor. She was trying to pick up that, when her shoulder purse fell off her arm. Sal scooped up the bottle, and I handed her the program and her purse.

“What in the world is wrong with you, D’Vora?’’ I asked.

“I told you I’m fine!’’ Her tone was sharp. “Quit hounding me. If I had anything to say to you, don’t you think I would have said it?’’

Clutching her church program and purse to her chest, she stormed out the door.

twelve

“Mace, honey, close your mouth. You’re gonna catch flies.’’

I was staring slack-jawed out the church-front window. I’d called to D’Vora as she left, but she ignored me, which was becoming a pattern. She was already at the curb, hoisting herself into the passenger seat of Darryl’s big truck. Gunning the engine, he darted into traffic on State Road 70, causing a Hawaiian-shirted tourist in a rental vehicle to screech to a stop. Cars swerved. Horns honked. Darryl flicked a cigarette butt out the window, lifted a beer from the cup holder in the console, and made an illegal U-turn across a double yellow line.

Where was a cop when you needed one?

“Mace!’’

I turned. “I heard you the first time, Mama. Catch Flies. Close Mouth.’’

“See? I told you. No respect!’’ She spoke to one of her fellow church ladies, who tsked-tsked at me in motherly empathy. “We were trying to get your opinion on whether the soprano in the choir and the music minister would make a nice couple.’’

“I suppose so, Mama. Not that it’s any of my business.’’ I glanced out the window again. The truck was gone, and Darryl and D’Vora with it.

“She hasn’t been the same since her husband passed away, poor thing. But it’s been a year. I think it’s time, and Phyllis agrees. Don’t you think so?’’

Both Mama and her pal Phyllis raised their brows, awaiting my answer.

“Everybody’s different, Mama. You can’t put a stopwatch on grief.’’ My focus shifted to the music minister, a middle-aged man with a slight paunch and a quick smile, despite an overbite. Someone standing next to him at the food table said something and his laugh boomed across the room.

“He’s got a heart as big as that laugh,’’ Mama said. “Too bad about those buck teeth, though. He could gnaw an ear of corn through a picket fence, bless his heart.’’

I watched as he scanned the rows of seats until he found the soprano. She studied an open hymn book in her lap. As if she could feel his gaze, she raised her face. Tucking a lock of hair behind an ear, she rewarded him with a radiant smile.

Darned if Mama wasn’t right about the two of them becoming a couple. She might have been unlucky in love, but Mama’s sense about other people’s relationships was uncanny. Of course, I’d rather chew glass than admit that to her.

She jabbed her elbow at her friend Phyllis. “Look at those two. I’m telling you, a musical romance is abloom.’’

She nodded, satisfied, and then turned her attention from the soprano to me. “Now, speaking of couples …”

Before I had a chance to escape, she said to Phyllis, “Have you heard Mace is engaged?’’

I showed her my ring. Her oohs and aahs brought a couple of other church members over to our little group.

“When’s the date?’’ one asked, picking up my hand to turn the ring this way and that.

“There’s no hurry,’’ I answered, extracting myself from her grasp.

“Oh, yes there is,’’ said another woman, as she too grabbed at my hand. “You’re not getting any younger.’’

“That’s certainly true,’’ Mama said.

Et tu?

“The bigger issue, though, is whether my daughter will stop this back-and-forth with her wonderful fiancé, Carlos. Now, y’all know Mace’s rocky history …”

“You do realize, Mama, I’m standing right here? Maybe your friends would like to hear a story about someone who drank too much pink wine and managed to misplace her own fancy ring?’’

She gave me a long look, and then continued. With an eager chorus chiming in, she narrated the highs and lows of my notorious love life. Mainly the lows.

“Remember when Mace spotted an ex-boyfriend on Cops, on TV? What was he in trouble for again, honey?’’

When I didn’t answer, one of the church ladies chimed in. “Wasn’t that the mo-ron who robbed the Booze ’n’ Breeze, only to have his old truck break down when he pulled out of the drive-thru to make his getaway?’’

“Yep,’’ another of the women said. “The sheriff’s deputies caught him when he ran off and jumped in a canal. Mo-ron forgot he couldn’t swim. And all of it caught by the TV camera, too.’’

I tuned out, and began to think about what Mama said about me going back and forth with Carlos. There was more truth in her accusation than I wanted to admit. What was my problem, anyway? With my thumb, I spun the engagement ring on my finger. I still wasn’t used to the heft of it on my hand, or the way the diamond on top poked into my pinky when the ring slipped off-center.