Page 9

Her laugh comes out bigger than I expect, and the woman at the next table turns to see what she missed.

"There we go," I tell her. "Now everybody wants in."

She laughs again, and I point through the window. "Look at that little guy."

A rabbit hops along the edge of the trees beyond the parking lot, pauses, then disappears into a clump of palmettos.

The woman leans closer to the glass. "Oh, I see him."

"Probably here for the punch."

She gives me another smile, and I stay beside her for a moment as she watches for him to come back.

Mom has a clipboard she keeps setting down on the table. She'll write something, put it down, drift off to fix the napkins, then circle back and pick it up again. Nobody's in charge here, her whole body says. I catch her eye and raise an eyebrow, and she pretends she doesn't see me.

"This one's my daughter," she tells a knot of families by the cake table. That's my cue to shake hands and learn names. Dolores, Ruth with a son named Greg who drove up from Naples. I've got eleven of them now, filed away.

The volunteer with the guitar works through "Silent Night" and lands somewhere south of the note.

"He's flat," Hildie announces from her chair, loud and clear.

She's right. He is. She's having a good afternoon, and it's made her merciless, and God, I love her for it.

"A little," I say.

"A lot." She smooths her light blue cardigan. "Somebody should tell him."

"You just did."

I wheel a man closer to the table so he can reach the cake, then go back for a second chair. That's when I clock hot cowboy nephew.

It's the second time today. At seven this morning, I took my coffee down to the water, and there he was at the tide line in a gray T-shirt, bent over the shell hash like he'd dropped something valuable in it. He straightened up when he saw me, said "Morning, Mackie" like we did this every day, and kept walking south with his fist closed around whatever he'd found. I watched him walk away, admiring his broad shoulders and tight little ass.

He hasn't sat down or gotten a cup of the punch. He's near Hildie but not on top of her, close enough to matter and far enough to let her be a person. And while everyone else is talking, he's picking up empty cups that aren't his and refilling ones that are running low.

Dolores stands up too fast, and her knee gives. Carson's hand is under her elbow before I've even finished the thought that she's going down. He didn't look like he was watching, but he must have been. He steadies her, waits, keeps his hand there until her feet are sure, then lets go and steps back.

A pang hits me in my chest as I watch how attentive he is to everyone in here, all the people who have no one here with them this afternoon. I didn't even know men were capable of that. It isn't the boots or the dimple that gets me all hot and bothered this time, although they are nice packaging.

I reach for another cup, and my phone buzzes in my back pocket.

It's a text from my best friend, Shipley, who got herself cornered by a black bear and then had a tree come down on her rental cabin, all in the same week. Some hot mountain man who lives out there pulled her out of both. Jesus Christ, this girl.

you around?

I push through the doors as the party shuts off behind me. Out here it's the hum of the AC units and a bird I can't name chirping in the hedge. The heat's gone soft with the sun sliding down.

I sit on the low wall by the entrance. Two fingers still have frosting on them from Earl's cake, so I lick them and put the phone to my ear. Shipley answers on the first ring.

"Ship," I start. "What new catastrophe has struck? Don't tell me you got locked out in a blizzard barefoot."

"No catastrophe. I'm trying to escape the noise from my mom's Christmas Eve party⁠—"

"You texted me in the middle of your family's Christmas party? Do better."

A breath. A door clicks on her end, and her party drops away the same as mine did.

"I want your advice."