he wakes up.”
Josie said, “I’ll be back. I just need to grab a few things.”
“Oh? Do you have money to shop?” I asked pleasantly.
Her eyes locked with mine from across the table, and we managed to slice through all the noise around us—Reginald’s lip smacking, Valencia’s discussion with Alice about if it was a Sunday or Monday (even though it was neither), and Charles’s heavy breathing, which was more than likely a snore.
She shrugged. “I’ll manage. I didn’t get a chance to hit the store on the way here.”
“What for? Here we have food, drink, and your dear peepaw. What more does a girl need?”
“Just stuff.”
“Name it.”
“No.”
“I can’t imagine what you might need.” The nicety in my voice fell away, and I added under my breath, “But if you’re here freeloading while you have the means to go off shopping, then, God help me, I’m going to—”
“Tampons,” she barked. “I need tampons.”
Alice stopped midsentence and put a hand to her chest. “Oh dear.”
My jaw, which I’d unlocked to unleash a threat I had no power to enforce, hung open.
“Because I’m on the rag,” Josie added, as if there were any confusion. She said to Alice and Valencia, “Do either of you have any feminine hygiene products I can use?”
Alice glanced at me without a word, though the steady red hue marching up her neck and into her cheeks said it all.
Valencia peeked over the rim of her glasses at the men before whispering at a decibel even Anderson could’ve heard from inside the kitchen, “Oh, sweetheart, it’s been thirty-five years.”
“I’m sure they have diapers in the supply room,” Reginald offered.
“Oh, good,” Josie said. “Problem solved.”
Everyone chuckled and turned to me, probably wondering what harm there was in having her come with us. How could I even begin to explain?
“Leave a note for Carl,” Reginald said in his deepest bass.
Damn him, forever fouling up conversations by blowing his hot air into them. All those curious eyes turned critical, and the very last thing I needed right now was a scene. Especially involving a hormonal woman, which if I recalled correctly was best dealt with by rolling over and playing dead.
I opened my arms to Josie. “Join us, please.”
With this said, the older women, free from having to talk any more about their atrophied wombs, did their best to gracefully exit. Valencia declared she needed to get on her walking shoes, and Alice said that was a good idea indeed. Reginald shuffled away too, muttering something about his wallet, and Charles, true to form, slept. Drool had already collected near the breast pocket of his gigantic T-shirt.
Josie and I appraised each other in everyone’s absence.
I said, “Say I pay you a hundred dollars to leave and never come back, and another fifty to promise Carl on your way out that you’ll visit him soon.”
She met my eyes, blank-faced.
The chilly reception prompted me to do some quick accounting of my rawboned bank account. “Fine. One hundred to go, and another hundred to lie, but not a penny more. And at that price, you need to tell him that you love—”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Would you rather have Carl’s? Is that what you’re after?”
She paused, then reached for a string hanging from her cutoff jeans and ripped it away with a violent tug. “My mom’s been sending that shit back to him for years.”
“Perhaps you’re more reasonable.”
She tore another thread away and chucked it to the ground. “Perhaps you don’t get it.”
“I understand that she was upset with him.”
“You don’t understand anything,” Josie said, genuinely affronted. “You probably had a dad who taught you how to throw the football in the front yard or whatever.”
I made a noncommittal noise. She wasn’t exactly right. Not all wrong either. My father hadn’t been the nurturing type, but he did teach me how to a shoot a rifle. In the backyard, not the front.