“Nothing,” Mom said.
I crossed my arms. “I’m twenty-three years old. You can’t ‘nothing’ me anymore and think I’m going to buy it.”
Right then, my phone beeped. I looked down expectantly, hoping it was something sweet from my husband. Instead, I sighed and rolled my eyes, setting my phone on the table.
“What’s up, buttercup?” Mom asked.
“Holden is what’s up. He won’t freaking leave me alone.”
As Mom said, “You know I hate that word,” Sally burst into tears like I had just announced that I had received a text from my oncologist. I looked at Mom, stupefied. Sally had always been sensitive, sure. But Holden texting me here and there wasn’t anything to cry about.
I took a sip of my tea, told the mystified waiter that we might need a minute and said, “Okay. Now ‘nothing’ definitely isn’t going to cut it.”
“Don’t you dare get involved with him, Annabelle,” Sally sobbed. “If it means changing your phone number and closing your e-mail and moving to a new house, you get away from him.” She pointed her finger at me. “Don’t let him get in your head.”
I shook my head, feeling my eyes widen. “I’m not,” I said. “I promise. At first I was being mean, but that didn’t work, so now I’m just ignoring him.”
Sally shook her head. “That’s what I should have done with Kyle.”
“Kyle?” I mouthed to Mom.
Then I nodded, remembering Kyle Jenkins, the absurdly handsome man who was always eyeing Sally at the Shoals Club. We all knew that, for him, she was the one that got away, the reason he never married or had a family.
“Lauren is dating Kyle,” Mom explained.
I took another sip of my tea, still feeling a little bit confused.
“No, no,” Sally said, sitting up taller and composing herself. “She should know. Someone should learn from my mistakes.”
The waiter reappeared, and, at what seemed like a very inconvenient time, we ordered our food. I was literally on the edge of my seat, waiting for these random ingredients to mix in the cocktail shaker and become something cohesive.
“People like Holden, they get in your head,” Sally said. “You think it’s all well and good, but they wear you down over time.”
Mom pushed her hair behind her ear and said, “No, Sally. Holden was never like Kyle. If anything, Kyle was more like Ben.”
That made my breath catch in my throat. I still wasn’t sure how the frames of this film were going to fit together, but I knew unequivocally that I didn’t want Ben to be like Kyle when, as I was starting to see, these tears my aunt was crying were over him.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m so confused. Why is Kyle like Ben?”
“Kyle was the absolute love of my life,” Sally said. “We had that instant, burning passionate love that you dream about all your life.” She shrugged. “And then he just dumped me.”
“And so you married Doug,” I said. Doug certainly wasn’t ahead-turner like Kyle, but he was a good man. He was always there for all of us and the first one to make a joke or lift you up when you were feeling down. I had always thought that Sally and Doug’s marriage was as solid as it got.
“And Kyle decided he wanted me back. He wrote me letters, called me at work. A time or two, he even showed up at my office.”
My mom shook her head.
I leaned back the slightest bit, so the waiter could put those black-eyed-pea cakes I’d been so excited for in front of me. And I wondered again why we would be in the midst of such an emotional crisis in the middle of a restaurant.
“And then what?” I asked, popping my fork into my mouth, thinking through my anxiety that the food really was tasty.
“He wore me down,” she whispered.
“You had an affair?” I whispered back, wide-eyed.
Mom laughed quietly. “More like a marriage.”
I glared at her. “That’s mean, Mom. And what does that mean?”
