was too warm for comfort.
I slipped on a light robe and stepped out on the second-story brick veranda that runs the length of the house. The rain had stopped around midnight but nothing had dried off. The bricks were still slick with water and Hambone’s paws almost skidded out from under him as he came bounding up the steps to greet me with his coat damp from dew and fog. The morning air was so heavy and humid, I felt I could almost squeeze it like a sponge.
Downstairs, I poured myself a glass of juice and watched live shots of falling snow on Aunt Zell’s kitchen television. Colorado had already had a blizzard or two this year and now a strip of the country from the Blue Ridge right up through northern New York was getting snow today. According to the weatherman, though, Colleton County, along with the rest of eastern North Carolina, was going to remain under the influence of this humid offshore southern breeze.
“Such unhealthy feeling weather,” said Aunt Zell, as she does every November when the shorter days make us think of winter but the warm humidity of Indian summer hangs on and on.
The table held half a dozen small crystal bowls of pansies that she’d just picked from a border that lines the brick patio out back. She handed me one for my sitting room and clustered three more on the window ledge over the sink where they would catch the sun if it ever broke through the morning fog. The rest would be placed around the house for the weekend.
I sat down at the table and Hambone jumped up in my lap. Though not yet fully grown, the young beagle was almost too big to hold anymore. He laid his head on the edge of the table and stared soulfully at Aunt Zell.
“A friend told me that the French call November
“Maybe things die back in France,” she said wistfully. “Here, they all seem to be catching their second breath. I saw a gardenia bud on that bush in the back corner. My spirea’s starting to bloom again and the hydrangea leaves are just as green as they were in August. Camellias are going to be blooming before the pecans finish dropping. And that reminds me.”
She crushed the stem tips of yellow, pink, scarlet, and white roses and arranged the mixed bouquet in a silver vase. “If you’re going out to the farm today, Kezzie said he’d send me a quart of pecans he’s picked out if I wanted to start on my fruitcakes.”
I’m probably one of only fifty people in the whole country who really like fruitcakes, especially Aunt Zell’s. Daddy’s one of the other forty-nine. Much as I wanted her to get started, too, I had plans for the weekend and they did not include a trip out to the farm. We were going to head over to Durham and do town things for a change.
“Sorry” I said, “but Kidd and I are—”
At that precise instant, the phone rang. Aunt Zell answered, smiled at me, and said, “Yes, she’s right here. We were just fixing to start talking about you.”
I made a face and pushed Hambone off my lap. Kidd knows I like to sleep in on Saturday morning and he would have dialed my private number upstairs before trying Aunt Zell’s. The only reason he’d be tracking me down this early was to say he was going to be late, right?
Wrong.
“I’m really sorry, Deborah, but you remember what it’s like to be fourteen, don’t you?”
If he hadn’t sounded so torn between duty and desire, I might’ve told him that I certainly did remember. That, yes, fourteen’s about the time when a girl figures out how to blend guilt and charm to get what she wants. And that what Amber Chapin wants is no other female in Kidd’s life.
Instead, speaking as graciously as I could between clenched teeth, I assured him that I could survive the weekend without him if his daughter needed his companionship more. “It’s okay. Honest.”
As I hung up, Aunt Zell and Hambone both gave me an inquiring look.
“So, Hambone,” I said. “How would you like to go for a ride in the country?”
His stubby little tail wagged furiously.
Nice that one of us was happy.
10
« ^ »
By the time I finished running errands around Dobbs, it was after lunch before I got out to the farm.
Adam’s rental car was parked out back, but Daddy’s ancient red Chevy pickup was nowhere in sight. Neither of them was in the house either, so Hambone and I walked on down the lane to Maidie and Cletus’s little house.
“Adam’s out somewhere with the dogs and Mr. Kezzie went off this morning to get a haircut,” said Maidie, who was gathering dried marigold seeds from her dooryard flower garden. “I expect he’ll be back any time now.”
She tried to get me to sit on her porch swing and wait for Daddy, but Hambone was going crazy with all the smells and sights, and I decided to see if we could find Adam.
“Well, he might be burning some brush over by the creek,” said Maidie. “Seems like I smelled smoke coming from that way. Don’t know who else it’d be less’n that Gray Talbert’s burning off his weeds again.”
She chuckled at her own joke and her gold tooth flashed in the weak sunshine that was trying to break through the gray clouds.
Maidie came to the farm as a teenager to help Mother when I was just a child. It was supposed to be a temporary thing till the woman we called Aunt Essie came back from attending the birth of her first grandchild up in
