A Bone To Pick

couple, who asked me about twenty questions as rapidly as they could so they’d have the whole scoop on the pastor’s honey.

I felt like I was flying under false colors-we’d only had one date. I began to wish I hadn’t come, but Aubrey’d asked me, and I had enjoyed the service. It seemed now I had to pay for it, since there was no quick exit. The crowd had bottle-necked around the church door, shaking hands and exchanging small talk with Aubrey.

“What a good sermon,” I told him warmly, when it was finally my turn. My hand was taken in both of his for a moment, pressed and released. A smooth gesture, in one quick turn showing me I was special, yet not presuming too much.

“Thanks, and thanks for coming,” he said. “If you’re going to be home this afternoon, I’ll give you a call.”

“If I’m not there, just leave a message on my machine and I’ll call you back. I may have to go over to the house.”

He understood I meant Jane’s house, and nodded, turning to the old lady behind me in line with a happy “Hi, Laura! How’s the arthritis?”

Leaving the church parking lot, I felt a distinct letdown. I guess I had hoped Aubrey would ask me to Sunday lunch, a big social event in Lawrenceton. My mother always had me over to lunch when she was home, and I wondered, not for the first time, if she’d still want me to come over when she and John Queensland got back from their honeymoon. John belonged to the country club. He might want to take Mother out there.

I was so dismal by the time I unlocked my back door that I was actually glad to see the message light blinking on the answering machine.

“Hi, Roe. It’s Sally Allison. Long time no see, kiddo! Listen, what’s this I heard about you inheriting a fortune? Come have lunch with me today if this catches you in time, or give me a call when you can, we’ll set up a time.”

I opened the book to them’s, looked up Sally’s number, and punched the right buttons.

“Hello!”

“Sally, I just got your message.”

“Great! You free for lunch since your mom is still out of town?”

Sally knew everything.

“Well, yes, I am. What do you have in mind?”

“Oh, come on over here. Out of sheer boredom, I have cooked a roast and baked potatoes and made a salad. I want to share it with someone.”

Sally was a woman on her own, like me. But she was divorced, and a good fifteen years older.

“Be there in twenty minutes, I need to change. My feet are killing me.”

“Well, wear whatever you see when you open your closet. I have on my oldest shorts.”

“Okay, bye.”

I shucked off the blue and white dress and those painful sandals. I pulled on olive drab shorts and a jungle print blouse and my huaraches and pounded back down the stairs. I made it to Sally’s in the twenty minutes.

Sally is a newspaper reporter, the veteran of an early runaway marriage that left her with a son to raise and a reputation to make. She was a good reporter, and she’d hoped (a little over a year ago) that reporting the multiple murders in Lawrenceton would net her a better job offer from Atlanta; but it hadn’t happened. Sally was insatiably curious and knew everyone in town, and everyone knew that, to get the straight story on anything, Sally was the person to see. We’d had our ups and downs as friends, the ups having been when we were both members of Real Murders, the downs having mostly been at the same time Sally was trying to make a national, or at least regional, name for herself. She’d sacrificed a lot in that bid for a life in the bigger picture, and, when the bid hadn’t been taken up, she’d had a hard time. But now Sally was mending her fences locally, and was as plugged in to the Lawrenceton power system as she ever had been. If her stories being picked up by the wire services hadn’t gotten her out of the town, it had certainly added to her power in it.

I had always seen Sally very well dressed, in expensive suits and shoes that lasted her a very long time. When I reached her house, I saw Sally was a woman who put her money on her back, as the saying goes. She had a little place not quite as nice as Jane’s, in a neighborhood where the lawns weren’t kept as well. Her car, which hadn’t been washed in weeks, sat in dusty splendor uncovered by carport or garage. Getting in it would be like climbing in an oven. But the house itself was cool enough, no central air but several window air conditioners sending out an icy stream that almost froze the sweat on my forehead.

Sally’s hair was as perfect as ever. It looked like it could be taken off and put on without one bronze curl being dislodged. But instead of her usual classic suits, Sally was wearing a pair of cutoffs and an old work shirt.

“Girl, it’s hot!” she exclaimed as she let me in. “I’m glad I don’t have to work today.”

“It’s a good day to stay inside,” I agreed, looking around me curiously. I’d never been in Sally’s house before. It was obvious she didn’t give a damn about decor. The couch and armchairs were covered by throws that looked very unfortunate, and the cheap coffee table had rings on top. My resident manager’s eye told me that the whole place needed painting. But the bookcase was wonderfully stuffed with Sally’s favorite Organized Crime books, and the smell coming from the kitchen was delicious. My mouth watered.

Of course I was going to have to pay for my dinner with information, but it just might be worth it.

“Boy, that smells good! When’s it going to be on the table?”

“I’m making the gravy now. Come on back and talk to me while I stir. Want a beer? I’ve got some ice cold.”

“Sure, I’ll take one. It’s the ‘ice cold’ that does it.”

“Here, drink some ice water first for your thirst. Then sip the beer for your pleasure.”

I gulped down the glass of ice water and twisted the cap off the beer. Sally had put out one of those round plastic grippers without my even having to ask. I closed my eyes to appreciate the beer going down my throat. I don’t drink beer any other time of the year, but summer in the South is what beer was made for. Very cold beer. “Ooo,” I murmured blissfully.

“I know. If I didn’t watch out, I could drink a whole six-pack while I cooked.”

“Can I set the table or anything?”

“No, I already got everything done, I think. Soon as this gravy is ready-whoa, let me look at the biscuits-yep, they’re nice and brown-we’ll be ready to eat. Did I get the butter out?”

I scanned the table, which at least was a few feet from the stove. Sally must have been burning up over there.

“It’s here,” I reassured her.

“Okay, here we go. Roast, biscuits, baked potatoes, a salad, and for desert”-Sally took off a cake cover with a flourish-“red velvet cake!”

“Sally, you’re inspired. I haven’t had red velvet cake in ten years.”

“My mama’s recipe.”

“Those are always the best. You’re so smart.” A good southern compliment that could mean almost anything, but this time I meant it quite sincerely. I am not a person who often cooks whole meals for herself. I know single people are supposed to cook full meals, lay the table, and act like they had company, really-but how many single people actually do it? like Sally, when I cook a big meal, I want someone else to appreciate it and enjoy it.

“So, what’s this about you and the man of the cloth?”

Closing in for the kill already. “Sally, you need to wait till I’ve eaten something,” I said. Was the roast worth it?

“What?”

“Oh Sally, it’s really nothing. I’ve have one date with Aubrey Scott, we went to the movies. We had a nice time, and he asked me to come to the church today, which I did.”

“Did you now? How was the sermon?”

“Real good. He’s got brains, no doubt about it.”

“You like him?”

“Yes, I like him, but that’s it. What about you, Sally, are you dating anyone in particular?”

Sally was always so busy asking other people questions, she hardly ever got asked any herself. She looked quite pleased.

“Well, since you ask, I am.”