High Cotton Read online

  “Yes, I do know that.”

  “He still can’t talk.”

  I tilt my head as I try my best to give her a reassuring look. “I think it’s pretty normal for the baby of the family to be a late talker.”

  Mama stares at her empty plate, then she looks up at me with sadness in her eyes. “And she’s never home in the mornings.”

  My throat constricts. “I’m sure she has places to go.” Puddin’ sure has put me in a predicament with my family. I wish she hadn’t told me about her job.

  “Like where?” Mama asks.

  “The grocery store?” I think hard to come up with more. “The bank?” I shove a bite of meatloaf into my mouth.

  “I don’t know about that. There’s only so much grocery shopping and banking a person can do. I would think she’d want to go home and putter around the house, like I did when you and Digger were little.” A beatific look washes over her face as she sighs. “Those were the days. Your daddy was still alive, and I had the house to myself to do whatever I wanted. And then you all came home, and we sat down to dinner together. I want that for Digger.”

  “Puddin’ always cooks and has dinner waiting for him when he gets home.”

  Mama tips her head forward and gives me one of her looks. “Maybe so, but she doesn’t cook everything from scratch like she used to.”

  I snort. “I’m sure everything is fine with them.”

  “I’m not.” Mama sniffles. “Do you think . . . I mean, you don’t think she’s seeing another man, do you?”

  “No, of course not. This is Puddin’ we’re talking about, not some hussy.”

  Mama shrugs. “Sometimes things happen. Puddin’ might have put on a few pounds since she had Jeremy, but she’s still a pretty woman.”

  “I know she’s pretty, but that has nothing to do with it. She loves Digger, and she’d never . . .” My voice trails off as I think about Puddin’s job. It’s tempting to tell Mama, but if I do, my sister-in-law will never trust me again. She and I need to have another chat so I can talk some sense into her. I hate having to keep this secret that seems senseless to me and keeps me on edge.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Mama looks around the table and points. “Can you pass me the peas?” Before I have a chance to say another word, she blurts, “I hear you ran into Elliot at the Winn-Dixie. Is it true?”

  “Yes, Mama, it’s true.”

  “I hope you don’t go gettin’ all mixed up with him.” She makes a sad-mama face. “That boy is way too charmin’ for his own good, and I don’t want my baby girl getting hurt. I love you too much to sit back and watch your heart get broken.” She pauses before adding, “He’s a divorced man, you know.”

  “I never thought we’d go condo.”

  Sara rolls her eyes. “Go condo? That’s something Daddy would say.”

  “I know.” I look at the real estate listings on my computer screen and pull up one that looks interesting. “Look at this one. It overlooks the pool and has soft-close drawers in the kitchen.”

  “What’s that?” Sara leans over and glances at the pictures.

  “I have no idea, but it sounds good.” I read some more of the listing. “It also has dimmable canned lighting and a subway-tile backsplash.”

  “I know what dimmable is, and I’m pretty sure I know what a backsplash is.” Sara backs up and makes a face. “But I don’t understand the canned part of the lighting or the subway tile.”

  I try to envision it, but I’m not sure either. “It’s probably a really good thing to have, or they wouldn’t list it here.”

  Sara buries her face in her hands for a few seconds before lifting her head and looking at me with frustration. “I’m not sure we’re ready for this.”

  “You were the one who wanted to buy a house.”

  “Yeah, but this is a condo. It’s different. A house is something I understand.”

  “But you said it first, and the more I think about it, the more I see the value of having a place we own.”

  She makes a face. “I know.”

  “We need to do something. After I thought about it, I realized I’m getting sick of living in a warehouse. If we find a condo or house that has a third bedroom, we’ll get our dining room back. And if we buy instead of rent, we’ll start building equity.” As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I think back to the fact that buying our own place started out being Sara’s idea.

  “That does sound good.”

  I click on the contact button to request a viewing of the condo. After I press Send, I turn to my sister. “We’ll probably get a call in a few days, so—”

  My cell phone rings before I finish my sentence. Since it’s a number I don’t recognize, I answer in my most businesslike voice. It’s the Realtor I just contacted.

  “Just a minute,” I say. “I need to find out when we’re available.” I cover the mouthpiece and ask my sister if she’d like to look at the condo tomorrow.

  Her eyes bug out. “Are you kidding? Already?”

  I nod. “Yeah, just answer me, please. Can we look tomorrow?”

  She makes a face and nods. “I guess so.”

  After I make arrangements with the Realtor to see the condo, I spin around in my chair and grin at Sara. “Can you believe this? We’re actually going to look at a condo.” I squeal. “To buy!”

  “Isn’t that what we want?”

  “I guess. I mean, absolutely. Like I said just a little while ago, we have to do something, or one or both of us might lose our minds.”

  Sara lets out a snicker. “You’d have to find yours to lose it.”

  “Stop talking like that, or I might have to smack you upside the head.”

  She feigns fear. “I wouldn’t want you to do that.”

  We both turn away from each other, smiling. That’s how we express our love, but a lot of people don’t understand. Being twins, we can say whatever’s on our minds because, more likely than not, the other one is thinking pretty close to the same thing.

  Mama used to get all worked up when she heard us talking about smacking, pulling, pushing, or whatever else we threatened the other one with. And that just made us do it more because she was so funny when she worried about us. Her face would sweat and turn red, and she’d get this crazy, wild-eyed look. So funny it makes me chuckle to even think about it.

  “Are you thinking about Mama?” Sara asks.

  Oh yeah, we’re definitely twins. “Nah.”

  “Liar.”

  Again, we laugh. It might not be funny to anyone else, but we think we’re hilarious.

  I get off the real estate site and pull up our Etsy page. “Man, oh man, we just got a boatload of orders. Look at this, will ya?”

  “I’m looking, and do you know what I see?” She gives me a look of self-satisfaction. “Orange bows.” She clamps her mouth shut and gives me a head bob, causing her blond hair to shake around her face. “Most of those orders are for the orange bows we made with that new ribbon.” She gives me a gloating look. “And you said they wouldn’t sell.”

  “Not most of them.” I run my finger down the list of orders on the screen. “I only see a couple orders for orange. Most of them are pink.”

  “Whatever.” She twirls her chair around toward the rows of ribbon on the rod above our desk. “Let’s get these things done so we can go look at furniture for our new condo.”

  Even though I know she’s jumping the gun, I agree. We had a blast decorating our first apartment. Doing up a condo that we own will be even better.

  As we work on looping the bows and attaching them to clips, we talk about what colors we want to paint the walls. I tease her and say I’ll help her paint her bedroom orange.

  She lifts her face, curls her lip, and sniffs. “I’ll paint my own room, thank you very much.”

  “Orange?” I cast a sarcastic grin in her direction.

  She gives me the look right back, and we both laugh. “Maybe.”

  It takes us every bit of two hours to get
all of our bows made for the day. I still have to pinch myself when I think about how blessed we are to have such an easy business. Sure, it gets boring sometimes, but I’d much rather be bored silly than have to listen to all the drama that went on around the bank. Sara’s bank didn’t have as much drama, but she had a boss who didn’t allow employees to fraternize. That sounds even more boring than making hair bows, but as much as I hate to admit it, his policy probably prevented the drama that I dealt with.

  But, oh well, that’s not our problem now. The worst things we have to deal with are deciding what to put on our site and what colors to make our bows.

  “I’ve been thinking about adding charm bracelets to our lineup,” I say.

  “Not a bad idea. I think we’re close to being ready for expansion.” She looks at me over her shoulder and grins. “Once we have a third bedroom, we’ll have room to do that.”

  Sara’s cell phone rings. She glances at it then looks at me. “It’s Mama.”

  I tip my head in the direction of her phone. “Answer it.”

  She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Hey, Mama.”

  Her eyes roll as she gives me a look, and I stifle a laugh. She says a few words that let me know Mama’s still all worried about the fact that we haven’t purchased health insurance yet. But why should we? We work out and eat well, and we’re both healthy as a couple of horses.

  “Okay, Mama, we’ll be there at six . . . love you, too.” Sara presses the Off button, closes her eyes, and shakes her head.

  “We’re not goin’ there for supper.”

  Her eyes pop open. “Oh, yes, we are. You’re not getting off the hook that easy.”

  “I don’t get the big deal about health insurance. We had it at the banks, and as far as I’m concerned, it was a huge waste of money. Neither one of us ever went to the doctor.”

  “I know, right?” She pushes away from the desk and stands. “Let’s get these bows wrapped and in the mail so we don’t have to think about it.”

  “Work, work, work. That’s all we ever do.” I laugh. “Can you believe this? How can life get any better?”

  “Well, for one thing, I wouldn’t mind some Prince Charming riding up on his steed and sweeping me off my feet.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, right, as if that ever happens.”

  Sara frowns. “It does happen. I really want to find a nice man, settle down, and maybe have a couple of children.”

  “But why?” Every once in a while, when she says something like this, I get a crazy painful ache in my heart. If she’s off with some guy, who will I tease?

  Her expression droops. “Don’t you ever get lonely?”

  “How can I get lonely when you’re always around?” When I see that my attempt at a joke isn’t working, I just shake my head. “No, I really don’t get lonely. Do you?”

  She nods. “Yes. I think it might be my biological clock ticking. I want a husband and kids.”

  “What if you have twins?” I give my eyebrows a cartoon wiggle. “Remember the grief we gave Mama?”

  “I know, but I’ll know how to deal with that.” She makes a duck face and laughs.

  “And tell me, sweet sister, how would you deal with that?”

  “I’d call my evil twin.” Her expression lightens as she flashes a closed-mouth grin. “Where did you put the address labels?”

  My nerves are a jangled mess as I wait for Elliot to pick me up. I told him I could meet him somewhere, and he insisted on coming to my place. “I’m sort of old-fashioned that way,” he said. “My ex hated the fact that I like being a gentleman, and I expected her to act like a lady.”

  He shows up right on time. The evening is nice and very calm, after I get over my case of nerves. Elliot talks about normal things, like work and the weather. And then he brings up his ex. A lot. Once that conversation starts and goes on and on, I want to pound the table and insist on equal time with the woman who supposedly isn’t even in his life anymore.

  After an hour of that, he finally stops and shakes his head. “I am so sorry, Shay. It’s just still so fresh, and it’s hard for me to forget what I just went through.”

  “How fresh?” I tilt my head forward and narrow my eyes. Please, Lord, let his divorce be final. It didn’t dawn on me to ask if all the paperwork had been signed. If it hasn’t, this is the last time I’ll go anywhere with him until it’s final.

  He clears his throat. “It was just final a couple months ago.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Well, I’m sure it’ll just take time for you to get over her.”

  “Oh, trust me, I’m over her.”

  “Then why do you talk about her so much?”

  He makes a face. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know that you’re ready to go out with someone else yet.” It pains me to continue, but I have to protect my own heart. “Regardless of what happened, I don’t want to be your sounding board about all the things that happened in your marriage, all the things that went wrong.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right, but I don’t want to take any chances on losing you again.”

  Losing me? Again? What on earth is he talking about? I give him a curious look.

  He grins. “I’ve wanted to ask you out since high school, but you always seemed so smart and sure of yourself. I think I did ask you out once, but you turned me down, and I don’t think you took me seriously.”

  “If that’s the case, why didn’t you try again and let me know you meant it?”

  He shrugs. “I was afraid of rejection.”

  I tilt my head forward in disbelief. “You were afraid of rejection?”

  With a smile, he nods. “I can handle it now, but back in high school, that would have destroyed my ego.”

  “So you didn’t really lose me,” I remind him.

  “True.” He chuckles. “You can’t lose what you don’t have, right?”

  He manages to stay off the subject of his ex for the remainder of dinner, but he keeps starting sentences that he doesn’t finish. I can tell it’s a conscious effort. In some weird way, I’m flattered that he’d go to that much trouble for me.

  After dinner, he pulls up in front of my condo. “I’m glad you agreed to go out with me. You’re everything I ever dreamed you’d be.”

  “Really?” I smile at him. The evening was nothing special, but since my life is so boring, it was one of my better nights—unlike most of his, I’m sure.

  He nods. “And on top of everything else, you’re even smarter and prettier than you were back in high school.”

  Heat rises to my face. “You’re very sweet, Elliot.”

  “Now I’m hoping you’ll go out with me again.” He clears his throat. “I’ll understand if you say no since I acted like such an idiot about my ex, but please give me another chance.”

  I sigh. “I want to see you again, but why don’t we wait until you’re ready?”

  “I think I am ready. Or at least I can be.”

  “Maybe so, but it won’t hurt to wait just a tad longer.” I’m proud of the fact that my head is winning this battle with my heart.

  He sucks in a bunch of air and slowly blows it out as he nods. “I understand. Maybe in a couple of weeks?”

  “Do you think that’s long enough?”

  “I do. It’s not my ex I have to get over. It’s my habit of talking about her.” He glances away as if deep in thought before turning back to me. “Can we at least meet for coffee sometime?”

  Before I respond, he gets out of the car, comes around to my side, and opens the door. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  I feel like I’m living my high school fantasy, complete with the nerves about the goodnight kiss. Will he or won’t he? I giggle at the silly girlish thought.

  Before I have a chance to pull out my house key, he places his hands on my shoulders and slowly turns me around to face him. I lick my lips in anticipation of a kiss. He smiles and slowly closes the distance between us before dropping a kiss—a very
brief kiss—on my lips.

  And then he tweaks my nose with his fingertip. “Good night, Shay. I’ll call you soon.”

  “Before you leave . . .”

  He stops and turns to face me. “Did you need something?”

  “We can meet for coffee, if you want to.”

  He smiles and gives me a thumbs-up. Then he turns and walks quickly to his car.

  As I let myself into the condo, I try to block out the massive quaking going on inside my body. Between my belly doing that roller-coaster thing and my pounding heart, I’m sure I look absolutely ridiculous.

  I can’t believe my twin cousins are looking at a condo across the lake from mine. Sally called late last night and said they have an appointment today. When she asked if they could stop by my place afterward, I reminded her that I have a job.

  Now I’m sitting here at my desk at work, trying to come up with a reason to knock off early. I’ve finished everything important, and there’s nothing pressing on my afternoon schedule. But I don’t want to set a bad example for the office staff. They all work so hard, and if I leave, they might resent me. Folks have always told me I worry too much about what other people think, and they’re right. But it’s how I’m wired.

  I press a key on my computer to bring it back to life. Since I’m here, I might as well do some busywork. There are a few vendors that need to be prodded every month to send their shipments, so I write a generic email, copy it, and paste it into emails to each of them. After I send it to all of them, I pull up the shipment docket. Even when I’m caught up, there’s always something else I can do.

  Half an hour before I can leave without raising eyebrows, my phone rings. It’s Sara.

  Before I can say a word, she starts talking. “We absolutely love the floor plan, but it seriously needs some work. I mean, how on earth can people live like that?”

  “Live like what?” I envision holes in the walls, ripped—or worse, burned—carpet, appliances that don’t work, and broken or dirty windows.