Well, they were cute together. Lily didn’t know how she and Mimi would handle having such a big dog when they moved back to the city, but then a terrifying but familiar image flashed in her mind: She might not have Mimi when she moved back to the city.
“You okay, honey?” Granny McGilly asked.
“Yeah... just kinda stressed out.”
Granny patted her shoulder. “You’re a high-strung little thing, ain’tcha? I told you not to worry about nothin’. This ugliness in court’ll be settled soon enough, and then you and Benny Jack can get back to being a normal married couple.”
A normal married couple. Yeah, right. Lily watched Granny climb into her truck and drive off, noticing for the first time the rifle in the gun rack of the truck’s back window. Lily had no trouble picturing Granny using that gun, firing away at squirrels or rabbits or the Maycombs. Now, that last image was one she could enjoy.
That afternoon, Ben came in the door, humming. When Mimi announced his presence with a squeal of “B-Jack,” instead of correcting her, he picked her up and swung her like an airplane.
“B-Jack funny,” Mimi laughed.
Ben smiled the kind of smile someone in a Walt Disney cartoon might when a bluebird alights on his shoulder. “B-Jack certainly is.” He focused for a second on the guardian angel picture Lily had just finished hanging over the couch. “Say, isn’t that picture from Granny’s house?”
“Yeah, she brought it over this morning. She brought something else, too, which might not make you too happy.”
“Mordecai? Yeah, I saw him as I drove up. That’s okay. He’s not so bad, as quadrupeds go.”
Lily looked at Ben in amazement. “So... what happened to that adorable, perpetually kvetching homosexual that I married?”
Ben sat down in the armchair, hugging his knees. “I had a good day, that’s all.”
“Do tell. It’s the first good day you’ve had since we moved to Versailles, so I think that makes it a newsworthy event.”
“Well, this morning when I was dropping those papers off at Buzz Dobson’s office, I kind of ran into somebody from my past.”
“Your past?” Lily teased. “I didn’t know you had a past.”
“F u-c-k y-o-u,” Ben said, spelling his profanity so Mimi wouldn’t parrot it. “It was this guy, Ken, I went to high school with. And god, I was obsessed with him back then ... he was a nerdy little gay boy’s wet dream: a National Merit Scholar, president of the Beta Club, and with these big, brown eyes to die for. Have you ever known anybody like that? Somebody you just can’t stop thinking about?”
“Just Charlotte. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go five minutes without thinking of her.” She shook off her pain. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get maudlin. So you ran into this guy today?”
“Sure did. Now he’s a chemistry professor over at Faulkner County Community College. I was kind of surprised that he’s teaching there, but the academic market’s tough these days. He’s still gorgeous, and ...” Ben paused dramatically. “He’s never married.”
