“Then you’re better off without him. You really busy Friday, or you telling me that so you can slink away without giving me your number?”
There was a time she would’ve slunk home and gossiped with Neil about the crazy chick who married her grandfather, but Kaci was growing on her. “I promised a friend we’d go do karaoke.”
“Y’all aren’t planning on doingLove Shack, are you? Some Journey? You can do better than that.”
“Grease. With her new brother-in-law. I kind of owe her a favor.” And between the high schoolers filtering in to report on their progress with the physics-themed scavenger hunt Kaci had sent them on while she waited for losers like Anna looking for friends, Anna’s story came tumbling out.
An hour later, she had her second phone number of the night, but this one she intended to use. Kaci had anointed herself Anna’s guardian divorce angel, and Anna was smart enough not to argue with a woman who kept instructions for a divorce survival kit in her purse at all times.
Plus, as Kaci said, a friend who made you laugh was worth ten ex-husbands, and Anna needed all the laughter she could get.
After Jackson gaveLouisa an earful about how to use the Jetta’s new vegetable oil engine and made sure Radish, his old spaniel, was fed and watered and happy, he made himself scarce before Momma got hold of him and made him stay for dinner. He had a date at the bowling alley. Didn’t take long to find Mamie and her crew. Only had to look for the gray-hairs with the highest scores.
“Gimme a minute to get this here strike, sugarplum,” Mamie called as he approached. “I got me a game to win.”
When she grinned big like that, her face exploded in wrinkles, but she was still near about the prettiest thing he’d seen today. Near about. “Go on and make me proud, Mamie.”
He settled in with her normal crowd, asking after Miss Flo’s great-grandbabies and Miss Dolly’s poodle while Mamie cleaned up the lane. Miss Ophelia must’ve seen him coming, because she walked into the pit with a big old cup of root beer like she used to when he was shoulder-high to an armadillo. “You’re sweet as ever, Miss O. How’re them boyfriends treating you?”
“Ain’t you a sugar-pie, worrying over little old me,” she said with a pinch to his cheek.
“Aw, shucks, ma’am, it ain’t nothing. Just making sure you’re keeping Mamie stocked with ideas for those books of hers.”
The ladies tittered. Down the lane, ten pins exploded against the back wall. Mamie pumped her fist in the air. “Eat my ashes, you old biddies,” she called.
Jackson gave her a high five, then helped her off the lane. Not that she needed it. She’d probably be handing him his own cane someday, rate she was going. “Ain’t you a little young to be trash-talking like that?” he said.
She gave him a squeeze. “Such a charmer, you. Go on and fetch me my phone. I gotta Tweet the score.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After Mamie updated her Twitter and Facebook accounts, and after Miss Dolly and Miss Flo got on their phones and fired back some gently bred insults of their own, Jackson followed the ladies up to the snack bar and treated them to a pizza party.
“You planning on sticking around awhile this time?” Mamie asked over the normal din of the bowling alley. “Us girls could use a strong handsome man to fetch our balls.”
“What’s wrong with my Cletus?” Miss Ophelia said. “Ithought he done a right good job of ball-fetching.”
“But he ain’t the looker Jackson here is.” Miss Dolly wiggled her penciled-in eyebrows. “He grew up right pretty, he did.”
“Right perfect,” Mamie corrected.
Jackson grinned. These sweet old gals could show a Yankee girl how to flatter a man. “I ain’t got nothing on you fine ladies, and you know it.”
“You keep sweet-talking, I’m gonna start thinking you’re here looking for something,” Mamie said.
“Just looking for time with my favorite gals,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Miss Dolly said. Miss Flo stretched her neck out and peered at him over her glasses.
Miss Ophelia adjusted her hair. “What’s her name, and how far along is she?”
Jackson choked on his root beer.
“Now why would you think that about my sweet Jackson?” Mamie demanded. “He might could have a couple other things bothering him.” She dropped her voice and leaned into him. “It ain’t a girl, is it, sugarplum?”
Jackson wiped his mouth. “No girl,” he assured her.
She pinned him with the same stare his daddy’d always used. “You getting out of the service?”
