I flicked a crumb off my smart black linen jacket. It was the top to the designer outfit that cost me more than I would care to admit.
“And for your information, it’s a pantsuit. I wore it to keep you from looking up my dress like you used to when I was a little girl.”
“Too bad! It would be a lot more fun now.”
Joe Tom was the only child of William’s first cousin. He was a pain in the butt when we were twelve years old and I was sure thirty years hadn’t changed him a bit. He peered wickedly over his little John Lennon glasses and looked me up and down. Joe Tom must have thought he looked sexy. I thought he looked overheated and myopic. I hated married men on the make, especially sweaty, bald, married men. It was time to remind him of that little fact.
“How is your wife? Did she pick out your tie? I just adore purple dinosaurs.”
He straightened up and quit trying to look down the front of my blouse.
“My little girl gave it to me. She picked it out herself. Caitlin was three last week. She loves your Bartholomew the Blue-eyed Cricket books. I bought her every last one of them.”
He smiled and I warmed up a bit. After all, what author wouldn’t be pleased to hear that?
Joe Tom pulled a plastic sleeve of photographs out of his pocket and proudly showed me pictures of an overweight toddler with his eyes. She was stuffing birthday cake into her greedy little mouth. Our other childhood friend whom he had married straight out of high school was not in any of the pictures.
“What happened to Missy?”
Joe Tom’s face took on a mottled flush. An oversized chameleon trying to hide on a plaid tablecloth came to mind.
“Missy left me,” he mumbled. “Good riddance, I say. She was always jawing at me to quit the liquor store and go back to college. But Daddy wouldn’t let me. He’d always planned for me to take over so he could retire; then he died. Left me no choice. Damn place makes too much money, Paisley. I woulda’ been a fool to let it go. Missy was a fool to let me go. She’ll really be mad when she finds out Cousin William is gone and I’ll inherit this little hovel. She always wanted to move her mother into town so the old lady could be closer to us. She used to say this place would be perfect.”
He guffawed loudly. A soggy piece of chewing tobacco shot out of his mouth and landed on my buffet plate. My appetite vanished abruptly as I stared at the little brown chunk on my potato salad.
“Fixed up, of course,” he continued. “A hog wouldn’t live in a pen looking like this. But then, her mother was a hog.”
Joe Tom grabbed a slice of buttermilk chess pie with his fingers and took three enormous bites. As he swallowed in one big noisy gulp, my stomach gave a decidedly nervous turn and I began to deeply regret my own gluttony.
He flipped through his little plastic packet and pulled out a bathing beauty shot of a blonde with a terrific figure and a greedy little mouth.
“Things always turn out for the best,” he assured me. “Look at the little honey I got waitin’ at home for me now.”
I dutifully studied the photo for a moment and then looked up to see my own beautiful daughter angling over to join me. She was just a little younger than Joe Tom’s new trophy wife. His jaw dropped as he caught sight of Cassie. I was not going to let this small town Lothario lust over my baby. I put my unfinished lunch on the table and handed him a plate of deviled eggs.
“Here, try some of these. They’re great.”
I stuffed an egg in his mouth. The squinty little eyes above his red bulbous nose widened in surprise. With enormous restraint, I resisted the impulse to laugh at his clownish appearance and bid him a polite farewell. Mother would have been proud of me.
Cassie was headed toward the dining room but I got to her first. I pulled her out of the side door onto the little back porch.
“Mom, I’m starving. Why did you bring me out here? I’ve been trying to get away from that dreadful Mrs. Dibber for the last forty minutes. Please let me have one of those deviled eggs at least.”
“Ugh, you definitely won’t like them. That food has been sitting out for hours. All kinds of strange people have picked over it. No telling how many germs.…”
I put a hand over my mouth and tried to stifle the sound, but she heard.
She laughed with delight. “You burped! You little pig. You’ve been stuffing your own face and now you won’t let me eat because that old letch is grazing at the buffet.”
“Just wait till he’s gone,” I begged. “It won’t be long. He’s William’s heir apparent. I imagine he came just to see if there’s anything he wants among William’s sorry little belongings. He’ll be gone soon. There’s nothing of value to keep him here.”
Cassie looked down from her height, a good four inches above my own meager five feet six.
“You’re going to have to get used to the idea that I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself. You must think I’ve never handled his type before.”
She sneered at Joe Tom’s wide backside through the open door and went back into the house without another word. She was right. Things were changing. I had better get used to it even if I didn’t like it. I guess I would always miss a tiny little hand grasping for mine and the warm feel of chubby arms around my neck. Once a mommy, always a mommy.
The fresh air outside felt good after the stuffy confines of the run down little house where William and his wife, my cousin Abigail, had lived for the last forty years. From the outside, the tiny cottage already looked abandoned and forlorn. The clapboard siding was in dire need of scraping and painting, and the gutters were full to the brim with dead leaves and twigs. The windows were so dirty on the outside they were opaque, like cataracts in old eyes.
Abigail had died suddenly six months ago, and William “passed away” two days ago. Both events had taken us by surprise. William was in his eighties and had two minor heart attacks in the past, but he was doing quite well. Abigail was fifteen years younger than her husband and had never been sick a day in her life.
Abigail was my mother’s first cousin and her best friend. Each girl was the only child of older parents and had been like a sister to the other. I knew that Mother missed Abigail terribly. I missed them both. They were the only “aunt and uncle” I had ever known.
William’s next-door neighbor was Ernest Dibber. He lived with his wife and five children in a house as small as my cousin’s little cottage. The children were grown now and lived away from home, but it must have been a zoo when they were young and constantly under foot. Abigail told me once that the kids fought so much she was afraid they would kill each other.
Ernest and Sue Dibber had been quite visible all day. The couple reminded me of the nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat, but in reverse. Ernest was tall and bulky with a broad, fleshy face and squinty little eyes that almost met at the bridge of his nose. His wife was also tall, but definitely not bulky. Her cheap flowered dress hung loosely over a bony frame, her rough-skinned elbows poking out like knobs below the short sleeves. Her long, faded-blond hair was arranged in tight little constipated knots over each ear, accentuating the flatness of her plain and colorless face. I avoided looking into her eyes. There was something dark and shifting behind the pupils that made me shudder.
When we arrived that morning, Sue stiffly informed us that she and her husband had taken care of everything. They had arranged the funeral service, selected the coffin, and planned the splendid feast I had just enjoyed. I had to thank them for that, but I was somewhat surprised at their involvement in William’s affairs. They were, after all, only neighbors, whereas William was survived by two cousins besides Joe Tom, and then there was Mother. She and William had always been close and after Abigail died Mother was his only emotional support. It was unfortunate that she had been visiting a college friend