Seven months later he was standing at the cemetery saying good-bye to his mother. Trinny, wearing a dress and a hat, was there with the Hendersons. She looked so silly he almost laughed, but it was hard to laugh when you were grieving for your mother. He raised his eyes to look across at his aunt Mitzi, his mother’s younger sister. He wished he could leap over the yawning hole in the ground and fall into her arms. Mitzi could always make things better. Suddenly he felt his father’s hand on his arm. He jerked it away. His eyes were still on Mitzi, who had lifted her black veil and shook her head slightly. That look meant he was to cool it.
When it was all over, and he could no longer stem the flow of tears, he made his way to Mitzi’s side. “Can I go home with you, Mitzi? I don’t want…I can’t…”
“No problem, kiddo. You better tell your father, though.”
“I’m not telling him anything. In case you haven’t noticed, he isn’t exactly grieving. And what in the damn hell is she doing here?”
Six different answers tickled Mitzi Granger’s lips, but she didn’t utter any of them. It wasn’t the day to stir up a hornet’s nest. “The whole town is here, Jake. Everyone loved your mother. It’s called paying your respects.”
Jake came out of his reverie and carried his beer bottle out to the kitchen. It was fully dark now. He walked around, turning lights on throughout the apartment. He craned his neck to see if Elway was still on the couch. He was. Before he forgot, he rummaged in a drawer for his digital camera and proceeded to take pictures of the old tomcat from every angle.
Sometimes things worked out really well. Other times, no matter what you did, things just went to hell.
“Where are you, Trinity Henderson? I wonder if you ever knew about the crush I had on you,” Jake muttered as he headed off to the shower.
Chapter 4
Jake Forrest groaned in his sleep and rolled over. Was that burned bacon and coffee he smelled? Since he lived alone with the exception of Elway’s temporary visit, he must be dreaming. He rolled back over when he realized he wasn’t dreaming. He groaned again, louder this time. Finally, he opened his eyes to see Elway sitting up on the bottom of the bed, staring at him. He supposed he was seeing some kind of miracle. Unless…Mitzi Granger was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. At four thirty in the morning! Mitzi Granger, coupon clipper extraordinaire, square dance queen of the South, fourth-richest woman in the country, thanks to her prescient investing during and after the dot-com boom and bust, matchmaker to the geriatric population of Crestwood, and the world’s worst cook. That Mitzi Granger. Feisty, opinionated, tell-it-like-it-is Mitzi, lover of all four-legged creatures, and his beloved aunt.
“Mitzi!” he roared.
“Yes, darlin’.” The ninety-pound, skinny stick of a woman wearing bib overalls and a flowered shirt, holding a spatula, appeared in the doorway.
“It’s four thirty in the morning, Mitzi!”
“I’ve been here since three. Your cat kept me company. I didn’t know you had a cat, Jacob. You should have told me you had a cat. I would have brought some catnip and a scratching post. By the time you brush your teeth, your breakfast will be ready.”
“Is the bacon burned, and will the eggs be rubbery? Is the coffee weak?”
“Yes to all of your questions. You know I can’t cook. Your mama was the cook in the family. Since I was the baby in the family, your grandmother understood my lust for life and let me do what I wanted. Cooking was not one of those things. Food is sustenance. That’s how you have to look at it. Someone has to look out for you, darlin’. I do wish you’d get married. Your cat likes me.” It was all said in one long swoosh of breath while the spatula waved back and forth.
“All right! All right! It’s four thirty! Why couldn’t you wait till six o’clock, when decent people get up to make breakfast?” Jake muttered on his way to the bathroom.
“Because I never sleep. I consider sleeping a waste of time. I have worlds to conquer, and as you can see, I’m not getting any younger. I like to get an early start on the day, unlike some people I know,” she said, jabbing the spatula in Jake’s direction. “For your information, I have an aerobics class at six thirty. Then I have my martial arts class at eight, and I do my yoga for an hour. No decent person eats breakfast at ten thirty. Ten thirty is time to start thinking about lunch,” Mitzi insisted as she made her way back to the kitchen, Elway hot on her trail.
“How stupid of me,” Jake continued to mutter as he stepped under the spray. Maybe if he stayed there long enough, Elway would eat the shitty breakfast his aunt was making. Had made. It sounded like it was just waiting for him to choke down.
When Jake trundled into the kitchen ten minutes later, he promised himself he would make a valiant effort to eat everything Mitzi made him, even if it killed him, because he adored his aunt and didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
Jake settled himself at the table but not before he looked around. Newspapers were everywhere. He raised a questioning eyebrow even though he already knew the answer.
“I was cutting out coupons to make the time go faster until it was time to wake you. I have eighteen dollars’ worth. You don’t mind, do you, darlin’?”
“Hell no! Just don’t buy me any more bargains. I have two hundred rolls of toilet paper jammed in my linen closet, sixty-four rolls of paper towels under the bed, forty-four cans of string beans sitting on top of my dishes, and sixteen tubes of Colgate toothpaste in my medicine cabinet. There’s no room for my aspirin bottle, and I don’t even like Colgate, I like Crest.”
“Get over it, darlin’. A bargain is a bargain. A penny saved is a penny earned.”
Why did he think he could win with Mitzi? “What’s on sale?”
“All kinds of good stuff. I heard about your dinner, or lack of it, with your father.”
Jake slapped at his forehead. “How do you do that, Mitzi? It was last night. Do you have some kind of pipeline that automatically feeds you information?” Jake asked as he picked up a piece of dry, burned toast.
Mitzi ignored the question. “He had a bad time on the golf course. That means something’s brewing with that…that woman. Tell me I’m wrong, darlin’.”
Jake jabbed his fork into the mound of rubbery eggs. There had to be at least six scrambled eggs on his plate. He shrugged. “I didn’t give him a chance to tell me whatever it was he wanted to talk about. I left and went to Burger King. He did say Sarabess Windsor wanted me to do some traveling for her. Yesterday was the anniversary of her daughter’s death. Miss Clara came in to change her will again and told me she saw Sarabess at the cemetery. Maybe there’s some kind of significance to the two things. That’s all I know, Mitzi. Do I really have to eat these eggs?”
“Of course not, just dump them in the disposal. I heard she was at the cemetery. I guess we can assume your father’s golf game had something to do with that visit.”
Jake dumped his breakfast into the sink before he slid his plate into the dishwasher. “Mitzi, do you remember Trinity Henderson?”
Mitzi’s cheeks puffed out. Jake thought she looked like a squirrel with flaming red hair. “Of course I remember her. I loved that girl as if she were my own. Time or her absence will never change my feelings for that young woman even though we don’t talk about her these days. You should know that. Why are we talking about Trinny? She ran away when she was fifteen. I remember it clear as if it was yesterday. I was the only one alarmed, but no one cared if I was concerned or not. They just let her go. I could never understand that. The Hendersons work for that woman, so what do you expect? As far as I know, the police weren’t even called in. I had the feeling back then that it was something like good riddance. The child never came back here as far as I know. I even