"She's real fond of Bob," I said, not quite knowing whether I wanted to gag or laugh at the idea of the vet neutering Bob.
"You know that Amelia how?" Maxine asked.
"You remember my cousin Hadley?"
Everyone in the room nodded, except newcomer Halleigh and her mother.
"Well, when Hadley lived in New Orleans, she rented the upstairs of Amelia's house from her," I said. "And when Hadley passed away" - here there were solemn nods all around - "I went down to New Orleans to clean out Hadley's things. And I met Amelia, and we became friends, and she just decided she'd visit Bon Temps for a while."
All the ladies looked at me with the most expectant expressions, as if they couldn't wait to hear what would come next. Because there had to be more explanation, right?
There was indeed a lot more to the story, but I didn't think they were ready to hear that Amelia, after a night of great loving, had accidentally turned Bob into a cat during a sexual experiment. I'd never asked Amelia to describe the circumstances, because I was pretty sure I didn't want to get a visual on that scene. But they were all waiting for a little more explanation. Any explanation.
"Amelia had a bad breakup with her boyfriend," I said, keeping my tone low and confidential.
All the other ladies' faces were both titillated and sympathetic.
"He was a Mormon missionary," I told them. Well, Bob had looked like a Mormon missionary, in dark slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt, and he'd even arrived at Amelia's on a bicycle. He was actually a witch, like Amelia. "But he knocked on Amelia's door and they just fell in love." Actually, into bed. But you know - same thing, for the purposes of this story.
"Did his parents know?"
"Did his church find out?"
"Don't they get to have more than one wife?"
The questions crowded in too thick for me to deal with, and I waited until the attendees had subsided into their waiting mode again. I was not used to making up fabrications, and I was running out of truth to base the rest of the story on. "I really don't know much about the Mormon church," I told the last questioner, and that was the absolute truth. "Though I think modern Mormons aren't supposed to have more than one wife. But what happened to them was his relatives found out and got real mad because they didn't think Amelia was good enough for the man, and they snatched him away and made him go home. So she wanted to leave New Orleans to get a change of scene, forget about the past, you know."
They all nodded, absolutely fascinated by Amelia's big drama. I felt a twinge of guilt. For a minute or two, everyone gave her opinion about the sad story. Maxine Fortenberry summed it all up.
"Poor girl," said Maxine. "He should've stood up to them."
I passed Halleigh another present to open. "Halleigh, you know that won't happen to you," I said, diverting the conversation back to its proper topic. "Andy is just nuts about you; anyone can tell."
Halleigh blushed, and her mother said, "We all love Andy," and the shower was back on track. The rest of the conversation veered from the wedding to the meals each church was taking in turn to cook for the evacuees. The Catholics had tomorrow night, and Maxine sounded a little relieved when she said the number to cook for had dropped to twenty-five.
As I drove home afterward, I was feeling a little frazzled from the unaccustomed sociability. I also faced the prospect of telling Amelia about her new invented background. But when I saw the pickup standing in my yard, all such thoughts flew out of my head.
Quinn was here - Quinn the weretiger, who made his living arranging and producing special events for the world of the weird - Quinn, my honey. I pulled around back and practically leaped out of my car after an anxious glance in my rearview mirror to make sure my makeup was still good.
Quinn charged out of the back door as I hurried up to the steps, and I gave a little jump. He caught me and whirled me around, and when he put me down he was kissing me, his big hands framing my face.
"You look so beautiful," he said, coming up for air. A moment later, he gasped. "You smell so good." And then he was back into the kissing.
We finally broke it off.
"Oh, I haven't seen you in so long!" I said. "I'm so glad you're here!" I hadn't seen Quinn in weeks, and then I'd been with him only briefly as he'd passed through Shreveport on his way to Florida with a load of props for the coming-of-age ceremony for a packleader's daughter.
"I've missed you, babe," he said, his big white teeth gleaming. His shaved head shone in the sunlight, which was coming at quite an angle this late in the afternoon. "I had a little time to catch up with your roomie while you were at the shower. How'd it go?"
"Like showers usually do. Lots of presents and lots of gossip. This was the second shower I've been to for this gal, plus I gave them a plate in their everyday china for a wedding present, so I've done them proud."
"You can go to more than one shower for the same person?"
"In a small town like this, yeah. And she went home to have a shower and a dinner party in Mandeville during the summer. So I guess Andy and Halleigh are set up pretty well."
"I thought they were supposed to get married last April."
I explained about Caroline Bellefleur's heart attack. "By the time she was getting over that and they were talking wedding dates again, Miss Caroline fell and broke her hip."