The Secret to Hummingbird Cake Read online

  I was bone tired by the time the last game rolled around. There were only about thirty people left at the park, and most of them were asleep in their cars waiting for their players. When it was just about time to go home, my phone vibrated for what seemed like the one hundredth time. It was Romeo. Again. He’d been blowing up my phone all day, even though I had made it clear to him I couldn’t talk. But that hadn’t deterred him in the least. Not even the text I sent in big, bold letters that said, DO NOT CALL ME TODAY. PLEASE.

  I had even turned off my phone for a while, but when I powered up again I had eight more messages from him. I winced as I read each one. He wasn’t going to win the third-grade spelling bee anytime soon. Not that I’m the grammar police exactly, but surely everybody understood the difference between to, too, and two.

  “I need two talk two you.”

  Clearly, this one wasn’t a brain surgeon. The only messages I sent back were asking him not to text again, which he obviously either didn’t understand or didn’t adhere to. So why was I surprised when I saw his car pull up in the parking lot at near midnight?

  As only she could, Ella Rae summed up the situation with her usual finesse. “Well, this ain’t good.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Jack, will you take Ella Rae home?” Cell Phone Romeo’s unexpected appearance threw me into panic, and appearing normal was hard work. “She rode with me, but I’m gonna help Laine pack all her stuff up after the game.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “Whenever she’s ready.” If he suspected anything, he hid it well.

  Ella Rae caught on immediately. “Look at the time.” She glanced at an imaginary watch on her wrist. “I had no idea it was this late! I should’ve been gone hours ago. Here, Jack, take this for me.”

  She was talking fast and moving faster, piling anything she could find in his arms—bats, bags, pillows, even the one I was sitting on. Ripped it out from under me so fast my butt bounced on the ground. Jack could barely see over the top of the heap in his arms.

  I scanned the parking lot for Romeo. He was still sitting in his car, but staring intently at the little scene developing under the tent. Surely he would stay put until Jack was gone. He couldn’t be that stupid.

  “Good night, girls.” Ella Rae herded Jack toward his truck. “Jack, I just love your truck. I wish you’d sell it to Tommy when you get ready for a new one. I don’t know why he wants to buy a Ford. I just love a Chevy. What do you think about a Ford? Not too much, huh?”

  “Good night, Laine,” Jack called over his shoulder. “I’ll see you shortly, Carrigan?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “Soon as we can leave.”

  “Anyway, I do love a Chevy, and I think I want a gray truck next time. I guess the color really doesn’t matter, but I sure do like gray. Do you like gray? Well, you must like gray ’cause you have a gray truck!” Even when they drove away, I could still see Ella Rae’s lips moving ninety to nothing. Talk about a wingman.

  Laine hadn’t said a word during the whole scene except to tell Jack good night. She finally looked at me and said, “You wanna tell me what all that was about?”

  I grimaced. “Look in the parking lot to your left.”

  “Oh my God!” she shouted loud enough that several men nearby whipped their heads around.

  I screamed and began dancing around the quilt. “Snake! Snake!”

  Big mistake. Every man still standing rushed to our rescue. Laine put her feet up in her chair while they stomped and shook the quilt. And she stared at me the whole time the snake hunt lasted.

  There was much discussion among the men about the species of the snake they’d successfully saved us from. Some said rattlesnake, some said cottonmouth. I thanked them profusely.

  “You are one lie away from a fiery hell, Carrigan,” Laine said when the snake chasers walked away.

  “Still?” I asked, trying to make her laugh. Didn’t work.

  “Why is that man in the parking lot?” She calmly added another run to her scorebook.

  “I don’t know. I have texted him fifty times and told him to leave me alone today.”

  “So you’re still assuming he can read,” she said. “Did you think he was going to abide by that? If you told him not to text but didn’t tell him not to come, what did you think he was gonna do? I am not going to help fix this, you hear me? This is your baby to rock, your wagon to pull, your cup of tea.”

  Great. Laine was multilingual, fluent in cliché, guilt, and Bible. Once she started speaking in cliché, I might never get her to stop. “I am texting him again now,” I said. “I have it all under control.”

  “Let me count the times I have heard that statement come from your lips.” She scribbled in her scorebook. “I hope you really do have it under control this time, because these are your eggs and your basket.”

  I made a face. What did that even mean? I started to point out that it made no sense, but I let her have it. “Okay,” I said. I pushed the Send button on my phone. “I sent him a message that said to go home, I couldn’t talk, and that I would call him tomorrow. You happy?”

  “I’m sure it will take him ten minutes to read it,” she said. She began tapping her pencil on the scorebook in her lap. “I hope you also told him to start the car and put it in reverse. I don’t think he’s bright enough to figure it out.”

  “Funny,” I said.

  “What do you always say? I call ’em like I see ’em.”

  I ignored that. “He’s reading it. I can tell.”

  “It was two sentences, Carrigan,” she said. “How long could it take? I hope you aren’t planning on having children with this man.”

  “Did you really just say that?”

  “Are you going to keep this . . . thing . . . going with him?”

  I ignored that too. “See, he’s leaving.”

  “Good. I hope he never comes back!”

  She might as well have thrown a bucket of scalding water on me. “What is your problem?” I said, probably a little louder and harsher than I had intended. “Why don’t you want me to be happy?”

  Laine locked eyes with me for a second, then shook her head slowly. “Carrigan,” she said, her voice softer now. “We’ve been over and over this. All I have ever wanted was for you to be happy. This man . . . is not going to make you happy. You shove happiness away with both hands, and you can never see what is right in front of you.”

  “What I can see is how unhappy Jack is making me.”

  My eyes burned hot with tears, which usually didn’t happen unless I was physically wounded, and even then I had to be holding my spleen in my hand. I blinked hard in an effort to keep anyone, especially Laine, from noticing.

  Laine opened her mouth again to respond and then promptly shut up. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

  Finally we agreed on something. I began packing our things since the final game was almost over. “I’m gonna take your stuff to your car,” I told her.

  “Thank you.” The words were terse, and she concentrated on the scorebook to keep from looking at me.

  I shouldn’t have bitten her head off, I guess, but I was so sick of the lectures, the blind loyalty to Jack, and her constant disapproval of the way I handled my marriage. The operative word here being my.

  Why wasn’t she ever on my side? She’d defend me in front of the devil himself, but when it came to Jack she was a brick wall. For one thing, why did she think she was in a position to give me or anybody else relationship advice? She might as well have been lecturing on open-heart surgery, for all she knew about it. If I wanted advice about my love life, I would ask somebody who ha
d one. Not seek advice from a woman who always, always found something wrong with any man she finally agreed to go out with.

  I was about one conversation away from telling her just that. But I couldn’t do it.

  Laine was kind and gentle and loving. I was loud and suspicious and headstrong. In my heart, Laine was my sister, in every sense of the word. The only thing missing was the mutual blood. So I didn’t speak to her the same way I spoke to the rest of the world. Even Ella Rae. Ella Rae could take whatever I dished out and give it right back to me.

  Laine, on the other hand, was sensitive, and her feelings could get hurt quite easily. I had to handle things differently with her. But I couldn’t let this go on much longer. I didn’t want our differences about Jack to drive a permanent wedge between us, and my resentment grew every time we had a conversation about it.

  I didn’t expect her to endorse my poor decisions, whatever they might be. But what I did expect was her loyalty. She would forever have mine.

  I didn’t want Laine to hold back her feelings—we’d never done that in all the years we’d known each other. I just wanted her to tell me why. Why she insisted that my life was so much better in a marriage that had turned into passionless tolerance. But the only response I ever got was, “Jack loves you and you love him. Don’t screw this up.”

  That was no answer. It was an opinion. I needed evidence. Laine couldn’t produce it, and Jack wouldn’t produce it.

  In many ways, Laine’s words hurt me more than anything Jack could say or do. My relationships with Laine and Ella Rae were the only constants in my life, save for my family. I expected to be loved unconditionally by her and Ella Rae, just as I was by my blood family.

  Besides that, I didn’t want to hear logic. I wanted to hear approval or, at least, permission. Ella Rae gave it freely. Laine . . . not a chance.

  The tournament finally ended, and we packed the rest of our things and headed to our cars. After a few brief “good nights” to the folks still there, we headed home. I watched her turn into her driveway. She entered the side door and waved.

  Jack’s truck was home so I knew he was inside. At least he wasn’t in confrontation mode tonight. Hopefully. I sometimes grew weary of being “on” all the time. Always braced for the next round. Always ready to spar. Wouldn’t I ever just get to relax?

  I stood on the porch for a few minutes, peering in the window. Jack was on the sofa asleep.

  Not good. This was a new development. No matter how bad things had gotten between us, we’d always slept together—clinging to the edges, maybe, but still in the same bed. My heart sank a little. Maybe spending half the day with Bethany had made me unappealing to him. Dear Lord, where had that thought come from? I had never been insecure before and I didn’t care for the way it made me feel. I didn’t want to be that wife . . . You know the ones. Always wondering where their man was, who he was talking to, what he was doing. Clingy. Dependent. Anxious. I couldn’t be that girl; no way could I be that girl. This marriage had begun turning me into her, and I hated it and I resented it.

  I sat down in the porch swing and laid my head on the pillow. I couldn’t bring myself to go inside yet. I didn’t want to wake up Jack. Didn’t want a conversation or a confrontation about sleeping arrangements, Bethany, me, him, any of it. I just wanted to be still for a little while. This certainly wasn’t what I had envisioned my life would be like at thirty. What a mess.

  My phone suddenly vibrated and I jumped. If it was Romeo again, I was going to kill him myself. But it was Ella Rae, dying to know what had happened after she’d left with Jack. She was texting me from the bathroom closet so Tommy wouldn’t hear her. That made me laugh. I knew her husband loved me. Like the rest of us, we’d known each other our entire lives. But I also knew that my indiscretion bothered him. And I knew Ella Rae had told him about Romeo. She told Tommy everything. She even told us she was going to. She was so in love with Tommy. I swear they breathed in unison. And Tommy was just as bad. I don’t know how he’d function if she wasn’t right beside him. They had started liking each other when we were in the eighth grade and Tommy was a freshman. They’d been together ever since. I had wished a thousand times my own marriage was like theirs. My phone buzzed again. I sent her a thumbs-up icon. I’d call her tomorrow. Finally I slipped my key in the lock and tried to walk in quietly. But the only place I was ever graceful was on the softball field. Just when I thought I was home free, I dropped my bat bag and spilled my purse.

  Jack sat up and looked at me. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Sorry ’bout that.” I began picking up the contents of my purse.

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. “Just had my eyes closed. Who won the tournament?”

  “St. Paul’s Catholic,” I said. “I think God was on their side.”

  “That’ll do it.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “Well, I think I’ll go wash the ball field off of me.” I headed toward our bedroom.

  “Hey, Carrigan—”

  I peered around the door and looked at him.

  “You looked good out there today.” He smiled. “You haven’t lost a step.”

  Something flickered inside me. Was that . . . hope? I smiled back at him. “Thanks.”

  I hurried to the bathroom and got in the shower. I could’ve kicked myself for running away after he’d tried to make a little gesture, but I didn’t know what to say. And that brief glimmer of hope I felt inside my belly had scared me. I couldn’t allow myself to get all soft and giddy just because my husband threw me a crumb from the table. It was too little, and nearly too late.

  I stood in one place and let the water pound down on my body. For what seemed like the millionth time in the last year, I tried to think of a reason—any reason—that made Jack pull away from me like he did. Nothing had happened. We were happy. We’d been happy since the day we got married. We almost never argued, and when we did it was about something ridiculous. A football game, a bad call by a referee, my complete lack of domestication. Even then he’d laugh at the burned pot roast or the wrinkled shirt I did my best to iron.

  He finally threw up his hands and hired a maid.

  We enjoyed each other. We still “courted,” held hands, laughed all the time. We had no issues. None. My life had been perfect.

  Then I woke up one morning and found a polite stranger in my bed. He was still kind, considerate, gentle, and generous, but the intimacy, both emotionally and physically, had disappeared overnight. At first I thought he was sick. I had asked him for weeks to see the doctor, but he assured me he felt fine. Then I thought maybe he was depressed. But he had none of the classic symptoms. He went to work at the Farm every day. He came home every night. He was cordial, he paid the bills—he gave me everything I needed.

  Everything, that is, except himself.

  The first few months it had almost driven me crazy. I tried everything I could think of to snap him out of whatever was wrong. When I asked questions, he always said he was fine. When I cooked elaborate meals (with Laine’s help, of course) he ate, said thank you, and watched TV. Once I asked if there was someone else—it was the only time I got much of a response. He whipped his head around and said, “Certainly not.”

  I worked out harder and longer in case it was my body he was tired of. Nothing worked. I was in the best physical shape of my life, but I was an emotional wreck.

  Then at some point, I quit. I wasn’t even sure when it happened. I was just too tired to try any more, and I threw in the towel.

  I would love Jack Whitfield until the day I died. But my self-respect couldn’t take the beating any more. I felt lonely and rejected, and regardless of what he told me, I was sure Jack was seeing another
woman.

  Not to be outdone, enter Cell Phone Romeo. What a huge mistake.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Summer was definitely upon us in Bon Dieu Falls. It was barely the end of May, but the temperatures had already soared to the upper nineties in the afternoons. The mosquitoes and humidity had made their appearance too. I smelled like mosquito repellent and Dolce and Gabanna all the time. I’d started the annual ritual of keeping my hair in a French braid because fixing it was useless in this steam room folks call Louisiana.

  Most self-proclaimed Southern Belles of course stayed inside during the summer. They didn’t want to look a mess, and the little bloodsuckers never took a day off. But you missed everything if you were always locked up, and I wasn’t about to let a little frizz or a few bites keep me out of the action.

  I filed these women away under “weak.” Weak women both annoyed and amused me.

  School let out for the summer, and I was as excited about that as the students were. Laine was an English teacher at the high school, and I loved it when she was home every day instead of working. It meant she, Ella Rae, and I could spend our days together. Ella Rae was a housewife and I was . . . well, a wife in a house.

  Oh, I once had a job in the office at Whitfield Farms; I just didn’t attend it regularly. It was a made-up job anyway, entering information on the cattle into the computer. It had been designed by Jack to keep me busy, I am sure. I had agreed to it briefly, but it had gotten really old, really fast. Even though I truly loved the Farm, sitting at a desk all day had made me feel like a caged animal. I think Jack had ultimately hoped I would turn into the domesticated Ella Rae, who kept a spotless house, had supper on the table at six p.m. sharp every night, and had a happy husband.

  I guess one out of three wasn’t bad. Juanita Winslow kept my house spic and span.