I flushed in confusion.
“It is not,” I hissed.
My heart contracted as I saw Jillian sitting at our usual table next to Cash.
“Look, there’s an open table right over there. And plenty of open seats at the bar.”
“Bugger off, bloke!” Tuppy said, shaking his dish towel at me. “We don’t need your kind here!”
Usually I was quite an even-tempered man, but this seriously pissed me off.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” I hissed. “Bugger off? Bloke? You’re such a fucking poser, man. You’re literally from Texas.”
There were gasps all along the bar as if I’d punched Tuppy in the face.
“Low blow,” some tourist I didn’t recognize said, and Jillian flicked her eyes over to see what was going on.
I could not bear that contemptuous, indifferent look in her eyes. How could a few days, a few mistakes, possibly bring that change?
I started toward her, passing by Bonnie and Ronnie, the owners of the Treasured Memories knickknack shop. They were a married couple in their 50s, Ronnie tall and Black with elegant braids, and Bonnie short and round and pale with a halo of flyaway yellow hair like a dandelion.
“Good evening, ladies,” I said automatically.
This was usually good for at least a smile in response and sometimes even some free Tater tots.
But not tonight. They both glared over their knitting at me.
“Not you, at your big age, thinking the grass is greener,” Bonnie said disapprovingly.
“I—“ I began awkwardly.
“You’re dead to us,” Bonnie said sharply, and Ronnie nodded her agreement.
That was unexpectedly gutting, but I guess since they were in the same knitting group as Jillian that maybe they’d take her side.
But not everyone. . .I mean surely. . . I needed someone on my side to help convince Jilly. . . but as I passed by all the tables on the way to my wife it was the same thing.
Mari, owner of the Pemberley B&B, even drew up her period-accurate skirts as I passed, and sniffed her nose at me.
“I see now why you were so anxious to get a room at the B&B. Jillian kicked you out. How could you have been such an idiot?”
“Riff-raff,” her boyfriend Dale, who ran the fish ‘n’ chips food truck, said shortly.
“I literally just expedited your business license and this is the thanks I get,” I hissed angrily at him, but I didn’t have time to stop and convince them all how sorry I was. I had to get to Jillian.
But every table I passed it was the same treatment. People who I had thought good friends sniffed and turned their heads away. I guess news traveled fast.
When I got to Jillian’s table, I noticed with a drop in my stomach that she wasn’t there.
“Can I help you?” Cash asked, sprawling across MY usual seat, looking like some Hollywood cowboy with his stubbled cheeks and tight jeans.
I smoothed my rather filthy pants.
“Just looking formywoman,” I said.
“I believe I saw her go in that direction,” Cash pointed out. “She was crying about her hair and needing to find a hairdresser.”
“No, not—Christabelle!” I cried. “That’s—she’s not my woman! I meant my wife!”
