Page 7 of An Overdue Match
I nodded, scrunching my nose. “Then why’d you—”
She’d waved off my question before I could even get the whole thing out. “A girl has to amuse herself somehow in a small town, doesn’t she?”
Kitty Purry headbutts my ankle before slinking herself in a figure eight between my slippers, pushing herself against my legs. She looks at me and lets out a plaintive meow.
Bending down, I pick her up and cradle her in my arms, scratching her under the chin. “Do you think they were playing me? Seeing if I’d go all ninja to save an open book beside a plate of pasta?” Which, I admit, isn’t too farfetched. I’d been half a second away from diving for the book and then primly letting Tai know he could have it back when I could trust him with it.
Kitty Purry meows again, caring less about the events of last night and more about the fact that I haven’t yet fed her breakfast. I set her down and scoop a portion of food into her bowl. Daintily, she lowers her elegant gray head into the dish and extracts exactly one piece of kibble, nibbling on it with the manners of a southern belle. I give her another scratch between the ears, then leave her to her meal.
Collecting my perfectly steeped cup of tea and my phone from the kitchen counter, I amble to the tufted settee in the living room and plop down, tucking my legs under me. My sister’s voicemail glares accusingly from the icon on the bottom corner of my screen, but I’m not ready to listen to her incrimination yet. Instead, I open my web browser and clickon the tab to theNew York Times, forgoing the news portion and heading straight for the word game. Six attempts to guess a five-letter word. Vocabulary with at least three vowels are always good starters, which proves to be true when I guess the day’s puzzle in three tries.
I set my empty teacup on the coffee table and sigh. No more procrastinating. Time to face the music. Bracing myself, I click on Penelope’s voicemail.
“Did you seriously hang up on me?” She sounds stunned. And angry. Stangry—if that was a real word. Her huffed-out breath creates static on the line. “Real mature, Evangeline. But don’t think you’re going to get out of this party by simply refusing to take any of my calls.”
She pauses, then sighs again, this time more gently. More compassionately. “Listen, I get why you don’t want to see Brett.Idon’t want to see Brett. What he did to you ... that’s unforgivable. My offer to slather him in honey and stake him to a fire anthill still stands. You just name the day. But we have to invite him to Granny and Grampie’s anniversary party if you continue to refuse to tell them the whole story. I know it sounds like I’m being the bad guy here, but you hold the cards, sister mine.” She sounds like she’s Smokey the Bear, but instead of telling me only I can prevent forest fires, she’s telling me I have the power to incinerate the last of my dignity and good will in my hands. “Just ... call me back so we can hash out the details and get the ball rolling, okay? I love you.”
I release my pent-up breath as soon as the call ends. She’s right. If I won’t tell Granny and Grampie the way that man hurt me, then they’ll definitely question his absence at their party. He’s been in attendance at our family’s events, big or small, since I can remember. It was over the course of those years that I slowly fell in love with him. He went from the annoying boy with the gap-toothed smile to the man who could coax a laugh out of me with his dry humor. He had,in hindsight, shown his true colors during high school when he’d spent more time trying to get the pretty, popular girls’ attention than studying chemistry, but I’d chalked that up to hormones and convinced myself that he’d grown out of that superficial stage. There were so many other good qualities to him, besides. He had a generous and hospitable nature ... or so I’d thought.
Anyway, it seems I have three options, two of which end in my sweet, innocent grandparents getting hurt and one with medealing with itfor a few hours. My head hangs in defeat. No matter how hard I’ve tried to run away from my past, it still manages to come back and haunt me.
I’d moved to Little Creek for a fresh start. No one knows me here. No one knows that I’m bald. No one stares at me in the produce section while I check to see if the kiwis are ripe. No one clucks their tongue in pity or mistakes me for a cancer patient, assuming my hair loss is from chemotherapy. No one hushes their kids or whispers in a too-loud voice to their offspring how it’s impolite to stare and point, but then won’t look me in the eye. No one knows my fiancé had stopped finding me attractive. Had stopped loving me. Had left me.
One would think it would be easier to disappear in a city than in a small hill town in the mountains, but even though Chattanooga is fairly large for Tennessee standards, my family’s personal circle is relatively small. Every time I’d turned around, I’d been met with a look that had changed with my relationship status. I’d been suffocated with“you poor thing”and“bless your heart”until I was afraid one day I’d lose control of my Southern upbringing and scream in public.
Now I have to go back. To the stares and thinly veiled pleasantries masking curiosity as polite concern. Not that I haven’t been back to Chattanooga since I moved. I have. But I’ve always planned my visits at times when I know I won’t run intoanyone I don’t want to see. Which is basically everyone beside Grampie, Granny, and Penelope.
To ensure such results, I make a casserole and bring it with me so we eat at home instead of going out to a restaurant. I show up after church with an excuse about how I have to be back before my own congregation’s evening service to help with the youth so I’m not wrangled into attending vespers with my grandparents. A carefully laid out plan can save a person from heartache.
Except I can’t plan my way out of this one. Not if I want to spare my grandparents’ feelings.
I tap open the camera roll on my phone and scroll back to the picture I took the last time I’d been home for a visit. Grampie had hooked his arm around Granny’s hips as she’d made to pass him, tugging her down onto his lap. I’d snapped the picture as she’d lovingly called him an old coot and swatted his shoulder playfully. He’d responded by saying he still found her as irresistible almost fifty years later as he had on the day they’d met.
For them, I’d do anything. Sacrifice anything. After all, they’ve been doing just that for Penelope and me since before I can remember. After our parents tragically died in a plane accident, they took us in and raised us. While their friends retired and traveled the world in their golden years, Granny and Grampie were going through a second round of elementary school plays, dance recitals, and sleepover parties. I owe them so much. Much more than enduring my ex-fiancé’s presence for an evening.
Kitty Purry slinks her way into the living room, primly sitting by the fiddle-leaf ficus soaking up the early morning rays by the window, then raising a paw to her face before giving it a few good swipes of her tongue. She looks at me with impatience in her yellow eyes.
“Okay, Your Highness. Let’s go.” I stand and so does she,following me down a short hallway to the single bedroom of my little cabin. She jumps on my bed as if it’s her throne and she’s presiding over court.
I rummage in my closet and pull out a bright red pencil skirt, holding it in front of me. “This one?”
She bats the air with her right paw.
Her Highness has spoken. Red it is. I lay the skirt on the bed and turn to the other side of the closet. I pull the fadedReading Rainbowtee I usually wear with that skirt off the hanger and toss it on the bed. Kitty Purry bats at it until it falls to the ground in a crumpled heap.
“What? You don’t think they go together?”
She stares at me, unblinking.
“Okay, okay. Sheesh. I’ll pick something else.” I collect the offending garment and rehang it, choosing a black tee with white lettering along the chest that saysBookmarks are for Quitters. “Is this better?”
Kitty Purry lifts her paw like the maneki-neko cat that sits beside the register at my favorite sushi restaurant. I guess she approves.
Before my hair started falling out, I wasn’t much of a skirt or dress girl. Overalls were more my thing. But when I no longer had what people call “a woman’s crowning glory,” I also started to no longer feel very feminine. A bald head is so inherently masculine. Add the loss of eyebrows and eyelashes ... yeah, I started searching for other ways to feel my femininity.
Enter the pencil skirt.
Stretchy enough to still be comfortable but with distinct lines that enhance the female form. I feel womanlier in a pencil skirt, so I wear them every day, paired with a bookish graphic tee and a pair of high-tops for comfort and practicality. Heels may be fundamentally feminine, but I’m likely to twist an ankle if I try to balance on them, and there is nothing graceful or ladylike about limping.
