Page 25 of August Heat
It’s not so bad. You should meet new people. Maybe you’ll finally make some friends in this town.
“Chevelle, right?”
She realized Fleur was talking to her. “Siobhan,” she said. “The Gaelic name.”
“Ooh, I love Gaelic names! You must be Irish, with hair like that!”
And you must be one Nosy Nellie.Siobhan put on a fake smile and said, “My name isn’t O’Connor for nothing.”
She didn’t expect Krys to slam an arm around her shoulders. Yet before Siobhan could ask her what gave her the right, Krys said, “Take it easy on her, would you? She already probably thinks you lot are a bunch of dumbasses.”
“Stop projecting how you feel onto her!” Lorri called from the kitchen. “Sorry about that.” That quieter voice was a result of Lorri carrying a dish to the table closer to the living room. “Putting up with Krys means putting up with her big mouth.”
“You all have big mouths,” Joan muttered behind her partner. “Anyway, dinner’s ready.”
If Siobhan thought that food would shut up a few mouths, she was sorely mistaken. This was small town America, where old friends talked with their mouths open and every other mumbled word was either about college sports or professional athletes in trouble. That was spurred when Jalen made her girlfriend Fleur tell the whole table about an acquaintance of hers in Hollywood. Apparently, some baseball player keen to get into acting and had already botched it by getting caught with steroids.
“The steroids won’t cost him a career in acting,” Fleur explained, “but his inability to sit on a set long enough to film a few scenes will!”
For some reason, everyone thought that was hilarious.Are they laughing because she’s a celebrity? Because they like her? Or am I missing something about the story?Siobhan picked at her food, which was perfectly good. At least she hadn’t been lied to about that.
“You guys remember those cats I found at the Longfellows’ a while back?” Krys said during a small lull in conversation. She soon pointed to Siobhan, currently stuffing her face with noodles. “She’s the one I took them to. I showed y’all the pictures I took last time I was over there, right?”
Joan sighed into her glass of water. “I want kittens.”
“You’ve already got one,” her partner said, pointing to the growing stomach beneath Joan’s clothes. “That’s why we can’t have any.” To the table, Lorri explained, “We ain’t getting no pets until the kid’s old enough to mind its manners around animals.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me already.” Joan broke off a piece of bread and shoved it into her mouth.Pregnancy moodiness. See it all the time in animals.Horses got particularly moody when pregnant. There was one horse owner in the area who had a permanent shiner on his face from that time a horse was tired of him being all up in her business.You should probably back away, Lorri.
“It’s true that she brought me these little kittens out of nowhere,” Siobhan said, speaking up for the first time in a long while. “Imagine my surprise when I came home to find her standing in my driveway with a basket full of…” She almost did it. She almost made a crass joke in front ofstrangers.What was getting into her? Since when did Siobhan O’Connor, of all people, sink that low? “Cats.”
“Guess she has to be a softie sometimes.” Lorri almost choked on her dinner when she said that. “Go figure. The woman who wrenches people out of their cars and puts out the fire in my kitchen is a big ol’ softie.”
“Give me a reason to be soft, and I’ll be like that Downy bear from the nineties.” Krys turned to Siobhan. “Remember the Downy teddy bear? He was always makin’ love to those towels. Really messed me up as a kid.”
Siobhan really did not know what to say.
“Screw you, Krys,” Jalen said across the table. “Now I’ve got that Charmin song stuck in my head.”
“I know the guy who wrote that jingle,” Fleur said.
Every time the conversation started going one way, somebody had to go and redirect it. Siobhan could hardly follow what anyone said, but she knew one thing – they put their hearts and souls into whatever they shouted above the other person.It’s like a dysfunctional family dinner.When one wasn’t showing off a girlfriend, another was chiding someone else for not talking about the giant elephant in the room. Although Joan appreciated it if nobody referred to her as anelephant,thank you very much. She said the reason she wore such baggy clothes that summer was because she didn’t want people guessing she was pregnant until it was safer to announce it this time around.“She’s had a couple of miscarriages,”Krys explained at one point.“They’re really cautious about making announcements.”Now it was because she was embarrassed about how much weight she had already put on. Lorri proudly announced that it meant the baby was strong and healthy, obviously.
Siobhan merely wished she hadn’t been seated so closely to them. Rather awkward looking at a woman while her partner went on about strong, healthy babies.You hear it every day in the animal husbandry world… not so much with people.Siobhan kept her mouth preoccupied with food and drink. Joan couldn’t drink any alcohol, but the rest of the table was served with beer and cheap wine. Siobhan limited herself to one small beer since she had to drive later.
In all honesty, the evening wasn’t as bad or awkward as Siobhan anticipated. Nobody dug into her personal life once they had the basics in their heads. The cats only came up once more, when Krys told Jalen to “adopt some kitties, for God’s sake.”Is she doing this as a show for me?Or did Krys really care about the animals as much as she portrayed?
It didn’t feel like a date as much as it simply felt like hanging out with some people. For that, Siobhan was grateful. Krys’s lack of pretenses made relaxing a bit easier, although the “truth” forever tugged at Siobhan’s imagination. Was she willing to believe that Krys wasn’t a liar? That she really never knew Emily, let alone dated her? Maybe Siobhan could believe that Krys didn’t do it on purpose, knowing that Emily was already with someone. But that still left a lot of questions unanswered. Questions Siobhan continued to think about when she knew she needed to let go.
For her own sanity. And her own future.
“Thanks for dealing with those loons tonight,” Krys said at the end of Lorri and Joan’s path to the sidewalk. Fleur and Jalen had left ten minutes earlier, and it wasclearwhat those two were up to that fine weeknight. Siobhan kept a respectful distance from Krys as they stood beside the car at the curb. “They can be kinda loud and obnoxious. I always forget how much so until I bring somebody new to meet them.”
“If they’re good enough for a Hollywood starlet,” Siobhan opened her car door and remained standing between it and her seat, “then I’m sure they’re good enough for me. I’m just not used to a lot of people in general.”
“A lot of people?”
“Yes… that was a lot of people. Five strangers for me, anyway.”
