right on. “When I was in elementary, you were in middle. When I was in middle, you were in high. When I was in high, you were gone. You never brought friends home.”
No, I hadn’t brought friends home. My mother worked, and although I helped out, dinners were an effort, making an extra mouth an added imposition. Once I got to college, friends usually lived in another state, which would have meant spending the night with us, which would have been just as unwelcome. My father liked his evenings quiet.
Liam rolled on. “You had friends at the wedding, but we didn’t know them, and anyway, they were different from the ones tonight.”
“Artists,” I said with a smile. “Artists are unique.”
“Your friends were just bizarre.”
“They were not. Their artistry was just different from yours, and you weren’t an artist back then, so you had nothing to say to my friends. Devonites are diverse,” I added, returning to the present as Liam’s phone dinged. “They’re good people.”
He glanced at the phone but set it down again.
“Edward,” I muttered.
“Oh-ho, no. Edward’s past texting me. He’d text you directly.”
“Then who?”
“The guy is totally hung up on you, Maggie. He was with you more than not. Didn’t you notice?”
To answer him, I’d either have had to acknowledge it or lie, but I didn’t want to discuss Edward at all. “Okay, so who’s texting—uh, oops, calling you?” I asked as his phone jangled in a different way. I had heard both of his ringtones enough by now to tell them apart.
Liam glanced at the screen and, this time, gave a sharp grunt before setting it aside unanswered.
“Someone you met tonight?” I asked. “Someone you liked? Didn’t like? Butted heads with?” I couldn’t imagine who that might be—actually, I could. “Oh, cripes. Lizzie Steele?”
Liam made a face. “What is the problem with that woman?”
“Loneliness. She’s thirty, give or take, moved from Pittsburgh—”
“—to Devon two years ago to market organic breakfast muffins in a smaller, more upscale community, blah, blah, blah.” He had clearly heard the same story the rest of us had. “Is she self-absorbed or what?”
“She’s self-absorbed.”
“How are her muffins?” asked the chef.
“They’re fine.”
“As good as Mom’s?”
“No.” Hex sauntered over, so I scratched his scruff lightly enough to make him purr. I didn’t want to think of Mom again. But then I thought of Liam’s phone. “Does she call you?”
“Mom? She did when I first left. I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, so she could actually hear the noise of it. I told her I’d be traveling up the East Coast. I said it was a research trip. I said I had to broaden my perspective on food.”
“Sounds lofty.”
“It’s true,” he defended himself. “Culinary artists can’t live in a vacuum.”
“I believe you, Liam.”
“Please do,” he said, momentarily appeased. “Anyway, I told her I needed to see different restaurants before I found a place to live—not technically a lie, just the omission of a couple of details.”
“Like Edward.”
“You didn’t want me leading her here, did you?”
“She’ll worry until she knows you have a job.”
“You’d think. But the calls have slowed down. We haven’t talked since before I got to Devon.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Not particularly,” he said and yawned. “Margaret McGowan Reid can take care of herself just fine.”
I might have argued that my mother valued family, having always professed to wanting five children before age and miscarriage got in the way. I might have argued that she had grown her career to take the place of the children she had lost, that she had lost my father and now Liam. And me before that.
But she knew where I lived, I reasoned, letting my open palm absorb the vibration of Hex’s purr as a palliative to upset. My return address was clearly displayed on the cards I had sent. More than once, I had considered adding my new cell number, very small and unobtrusive, maybe on the back of the card along with the artist’s information—the cards I sent were originals, usually done by someone I knew—so that if she was interested she could call. But I always decided against it. I hadn’t wanted to wait for a call that might not come.
Not wanting to fall further into the quicksand of all that, I said, “Okay, then, if it isn’t Mom calling, and I assume it wasn’t Lizzie, because I saw that dumb smile on your face—”
“Dumb smile?”
“Bored to death but not knowing how to get rid of her. You wouldn’t give her your number.”