worse in the past couple of years (she’d even wondered if her tongue had gained weight). But it was a hard combination to say. Suddenly the bottle was in her hand.
‘I hope you enjoy it, uh…uh, ma’am,’ Purdy said kindly.
‘Yum,’ said C.C., setting the honey down close to her. Was he asking for her name again? It would be so embarrassing if she gave it to him, and it wasn’t what he was stuttering about. She felt like she was thirteen! But Purdy nodded and, if she wasn’t mistaken, gave a slight wink. Not in a flirty way, C.C. was sure. Just excited about his honey. She was glad she hadn’t blurted out her name.
He gestured toward the pan, still steaming on the table. ‘Lemme know what you think. That’s my own cornbread recipe. Secret ingredient.’
C.C. feigned adjusting the band of her watch.
‘Just wave if you need anything,’ said Purdy.
C.C. nodded without looking up, not until she heard the other two say thank you and Purdy’s footsteps heading off.
‘Well!’ exclaimed Shelly. ‘My, my. My, my, my, my, my!’ She lifted her mug toward C.C. ‘Ya still got it, babe!’ Meg giggled and lifted her mug too, clinking against Shelly’s. C.C. felt herself turning about four shades of red as the two intertwined arms and gave each other doe eyes, then sipped their drinks.
‘Oh, now, stop that. What!’ They were just being silly. What man would choose to flirt with her over the other two? Of course he wasn’t flirting. He was just…odd, frankly. And he just really believed in his honey. And cornbread. She shook her head dismissively and sipped her drink. ‘Wow! These puppies are strong,’ she said, desperate to change the subject. Shelly and Meg both set their mugs on the table, doe eyes gone, puzzlement in their place.
‘Mine sure isn’t. Is yours?’ Shelly asked Meg.
Meg shook her head. ‘No. In fact, I was just going to say that I’m not sure there’s any kick in there at all. It’s good coffee and all, but—’
C.C. shoved her mug across the table. ‘Here. Taste this.’
Meg took a sip, recoiled. ‘Holy cow!’ She handed it to Shelly.
Shelly sipped, then slapped the table. ‘Hee-heeee! Either he’s trying to get you drunk on your first date or he’s so distracted by your beauty that he poured all three shots of booze into your mug!’
‘Oh, please. You’re nuts, Shelly,’ said C.C., batting the air between them dismissively, and trying hard not to look as embarrassed as she felt.
‘No, I think she’s right,’ whispered Meg, leaning in, smiling. ‘The man is obviously smitten.’
‘And you’re the kitten with whom he’s smitten!’ said Shelly, too loudly.
‘Shhhh!’ hissed both Meg and C.C. Shelly slapped her hand over her mouth, but snickered underneath it. Removing her hand, she turned to Meg, whispering now, but with just as much animation. ‘Hey! I guess we each get our own bed tonight if Purdy makes his move on C.C.’
C.C. kicked her under the table, feeling Meg’s foot doing the same.
‘Ow! OWW!’ yelped Shelly.
‘I’m not you, Shelly,’ said C.C. ‘I don’t sleep with every Tom, Dick and Harry. Now, give me your mugs.’ She poured the three drinks back and forth from mug to mug, till they were mixed, giving the lion’s share to Meg and Shelly. She figured she was several sips ahead of them. She pushed their mugs across the table. ‘Besides, I’m sure it was just an accident. The booze, I mean.’
‘Of course it was,’ said Shelly. ‘An accident caused by your bewitching beauty.’ Grinning, Shelly served them each a thick slice of the cornbread.
C.C. couldn’t help the small smile that slipped across her own lips. Could it be? Really? She hadn’t had a man flirt with her in a long time, maybe even since…When? High school? Lenny had certainly not been the flirty type. She wondered if he had ever flirted with her. Surely he must have when they’d met. But for three years he was just the guy at Byrd and Franholz, doing her taxes. Unless asking if she had a receipt for the high-school band wreath she’d bought was flirting. Come to think of it, his laborious explanation had grown longer and more cumbersome each year: that she ‘could only deduct the amount over the cost of an average Christmas wreath because the wreath itself was considered a benefit of having bought the wreath and only the remainder could be considered a charitable deduction to the band’. Was that flirting? She’d thought at the time, and still thought, that if a tax guy wanted to impress a girl he probably shouldn’t even tell her that he was a tax guy, much less go on and on about the tax code. But from the beginning, Lenny was always polite, albeit quiet, and somewhat narrowly focused. If he was reading an article in a magazine, she could walk into the room naked, with a bowl of fruit on her head, and he would not notice. And that wasn’t just a guess; she had tried it. But when he was focused on her, it was all about her. And Len didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body, unlike her first husband, Billy, whose entire skeletal system was the lying bone connected to the deceitful bone connected to the cockamamie bone (Shelly would say ‘the bullshit’ bone). There had been something so fresh and clean and, all right, maybe boring, about Lenny. But thank God by the time he’d gathered his courage to ask her out, she’d gotten past the stage in her life when she found ‘bad boys’ attractive. (Kathryn was still in that phase, she thought morosely, picturing Jordan.) But C.C. had been much younger than Kathryn was now when she’d finally learned that hard-won lesson, that the other side of a dull, black piece of glass was the shiny, beautifully reflective mirror. The flip side of boring was sincerity. Right after Lenny’s third explanation about the band wreath, on his third year of doing her taxes, after he’d spent ten minutes telling her about 501Cs and benefit versus cost versus donation, he had nervously asked her out. Six months later, she’d become Mrs Leonard Byrd.
Now Billy, on the other hand, was a world-class flirt. He was a charmer, that boy. A constant flirt. And what good had come of that, in the end? None. None at all. Except Kathryn, of course. Who had Billy’s genes, but Lenny’s fathering.
C.C. finished her drink and took another slice of cornbread from Shelly, and the honey from Meg.
But this man–Purdy. Was it his first name, she wondered. He was just being kind to them. All of them. And even if he had sort of singled her out, and even if she did find him charming, jumpiness notwithstanding, what could possibly come of it? They’d be back on the road tomorrow, gone for good, heading south again.
She stared at her breasts. Heading south, indeed. Shelly and Meg must be wrong about Purdy. If he was looking for a woman to–well, date–he would certainly be more attracted to one of them, not her. Meg was almost eight years older than she was, but Meg was so trim and petite, an impeccable dresser, right out of J. Crew. And perky breasts, too. Even though she was too thin now, and her hair mostly gray. But it was an attractive silver on her. And Shelly, so funny and wild and seductive, with her sexy thick, red hair, though now with that troubling gray, unlike Meg’s attractive silvery hair. Back in the day, a man might have preferred C.C., when she was young, blonde and her body unaltered by either calories or gravity. But what man would be attracted to her now? Maybe a dairy farmer. She was a cow. She stared at her hands, her chubby fingers, especially her left ring finger. The indentation from her wedding ring still deep. She’d removed the ring not because she was a widow, or because it ‘was time’, but rather because she’d gained so much weight that she was worried they’d have to cut it off her.
She sighed, picked up the bottle, and squeezed a generous stream of cinnamon honey back and forth over her second slice of cornbread.
After they’d finished all the bread (they agreed, it was exceptional, deep and nutty-tasting, especially good with the honey), they’d decided to go ahead and order dinner, then get to bed early. C.C. stared at her menu: Meatloaf? Fried chicken? Maybe chicken fried steak.
‘Ahem.’
She