Her newest book—Dixie Doodle a Southern Belle Poodle and the Disappearing Lights—called her name, but the noisy construction and whatever this thing was that she had going on with herself, this whole Mrs. Robinson fantasy, were too distracting. “I’m going to run down to Tippy Lou’s and pick up the okra for dinner tonight.”
“You frying it?” Clay asked, arching his eyebrows in an endearing way.
“I’m thinking about it. Josh and Ellery usually come out. Tippy Lou, too. You’re welcome to stay and eat if you want. Your brother, too. Probably the last time I’ll cook before you start on the kitchen renovation.” As soon as she issued the invitation, she wondered if she shouldn’t have. Dinners were for family, but then again, her family had been good at no-showing. Josh studied, her father played canasta tournaments, and Ellery sometimes picked up extra shifts. Last week her daughter had missed dinner to go to book club with Rex’s girlfriend, something she’d always blown off doing with her own mother. That had hurt a bit.
Calling Cindy Rutherford Rex’s girlfriend felt so weird. Cindy and her then-husband, Paul, had been the youngest couple in their Sunday school class. When Cindy split with Paul, Daphne had been there to lend a sympathetic shoulder. Daphne had also served on the Pioneer Center Centennial Celebration committee with the blonde, not to mention they’d lunched together, partnered for a tennis tournament, and even done a girls’ trip to Cabo together. So the thought of Cindy living with Rex, eating his half-charred burgers, and folding his boxers was . . . well, awkward.
It bugged the hell out of her that Ellery preferred to spend time with Cindy over her own mother. When Ellery had moved back, the silver lining to her daughter’s disappointment had been the opportunity to reconnect. But something sat stalwart and fat between them. Daphne wasn’t sure what it was—blame, anger, or just Ellery pulling away into being an independent adult. But it was there all the same in the way Ellery sometimes looked at her, the shortness of their conversations, and her daughter’s general lack of enthusiasm for going shopping or making brownies. Daphne was all aboard her new life plan, but the one thing she didn’t want to let go of was the closeness she’d once had with Ellery. Her career and Ellery going to college had been a roadblock, but Daphne had been determined to reestablish their close relationship.
She just wished Ellery had gotten that memo.
“Cool. I’ll ask Law, too. If I come, I’ll bring dessert,” Clay said.
“Now that I don’t need,” Daphne said, reminding herself that Clay was her contractor and a kid. He wasn’t looking at this as anything other than dinner, the same way he would have six or seven years ago when she had tons of teenagers staying over for dinner. Her crazy preoccupation with noticing Clay as a man was her problem, and she needed to get it under control.
With that in mind, Daphne climbed into her eight-year-old Acura and drove down the road to Tippy Lou’s ranch-style house. When she climbed out, a cat shot out from the porch to curl around her ankles.
“Hey, Butterbean,” Daphne said, reaching down to give the fat old tom a scratch behind his ragged ears. Butterbean was one of the tame cats. The ferals skulked about, eyeing her with suspicion. Many had been trapped, fixed, and rereleased. All were well fed and slept in the old barn.
“Howdy, Daphne,” Tippy Lou called from the swing on the deck she’d built beneath the shade of several pecan trees. She fanned the smoke and pinched the glowing end of the joint. “I’ll put ’er out.”
Daphne climbed the steps. “Thank you.”
“It’s medical,” Tippy Lou said, as she always did.
They smiled at each other and said in harmony, “No, it’s not.”
“But it helps,” Tippy Lou said, smoothing the seat beside her. Tippy Lou had been Daphne’s mother’s best friend, and the woman had stepped in as a mother figure when Daphne lost her mom. Daphne visited a few times a week for tea, advice, and much-needed laughter.
“Helps what?” Daphne said, wrinkling her nose at the potency of the pot. Tippy was also an old hippie who hadn’t bothered to surrender the Bohemian lifestyle she’d discovered in the late sixties. Her one concession was she didn’t drive her “groovy” van any longer and she’d settled down in her great-aunt Maude’s house. She still dressed in wild prints, wore her hair in a long braid, and listened