The Secret to Hummingbird Cake (6 page)

Then I woke up one morning and found a polite stranger in my bed. He was still kind, considerate, gentle, and generous, but the intimacy, both emotionally and physically, had disappeared overnight. At first I thought he was sick. I had asked him for weeks to see the doctor, but he assured me he felt fine. Then I thought maybe he was depressed. But he had none of the classic symptoms. He went to work at the Farm every day. He came home every night. He was cordial, he paid the bills—he gave me everything I needed.

Everything, that is, except himself.

The first few months it had almost driven me crazy. I tried everything I could think of to snap him out of whatever was wrong. When I asked questions, he always said he was fine. When I cooked elaborate meals (with Laine's help, of course) he ate, said thank you, and watched TV. Once I asked if there was someone else—it was the only time I got much of a response. He whipped his head around and said, “Certainly not.”

I worked out harder and longer in case it was my body he was tired of. Nothing worked. I was in the best physical shape of my life, but I was an emotional wreck.

Then at some point, I quit. I wasn't even sure when it happened. I was just too tired to try any more, and I threw in the towel.

I would love Jack Whitfield until the day I died. But my self-respect couldn't take the beating any more. I felt lonely and rejected, and regardless of what he told me, I was sure Jack was seeing another woman.

Not to be outdone, enter Cell Phone Romeo. What a huge mistake.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Summer was definitely upon us in Bon Dieu Falls. It was barely the end of May, but the temperatures had already soared to the upper nineties in the afternoons. The mosquitoes and humidity had made their appearance too. I smelled like mosquito repellent and Dolce and Gabanna all the time. I'd started the annual ritual of keeping my hair in a French braid because fixing it was useless in this steam room folks call Louisiana.

Most self-proclaimed Southern Belles of course stayed inside during the summer. They didn't want to look a mess, and the little bloodsuckers never took a day off. But you missed everything if you were always locked up, and I wasn't about to let a little frizz or a few bites keep me out of the action.

I filed these women away under “weak.” Weak women both annoyed and amused me.

School let out for the summer, and I was as excited about that as the students were. Laine was an English teacher at the high school, and I loved it when she was home every day
instead of working. It meant she, Ella Rae, and I could spend our days together. Ella Rae was a housewife and I was . . . well, a wife in a house.

Oh, I once had a job in the office at Whitfield Farms; I just didn't attend it regularly. It was a made-up job anyway, entering information on the cattle into the computer. It had been designed by Jack to keep me busy, I am sure. I had agreed to it briefly, but it had gotten really old, really fast. Even though I truly loved the Farm, sitting at a desk all day had made me feel like a caged animal. I think Jack had ultimately hoped I would turn into the domesticated Ella Rae, who kept a spotless house, had supper on the table at six p.m. sharp every night, and had a happy husband.

I guess one out of three wasn't bad. Juanita Winslow kept my house spic and span.

I looked out the window again, checking to see if Laine had made it home from school, but no dice. Where was she? It wasn't like she had anything else to do. I wanted her and Ella Rae to go to Shreveport with me to shop. The yearly Crawfish Boil at Whitfield Farms was that weekend, and I needed a new outfit. I knew Bethany Wilkes would be there in all her glory, and there was no way I was going to let that pasty-faced swizzle stick outshine me again. She would no doubt have her missiles on display and wearing God only knows what on her feet. I had to find something spectacular, although unlike Bethany, I was a fan of wearing my boobies inside my shirt. And I needed Ella Rae and Laine to help because they didn't keep their opinions a secret. In fact, they would gag, laugh,
and point if they didn't like something. Good thing I wasn't sensitive. I dialed Laine's number again but still got no answer.

I noticed a missed call on my phone. Romeo. His name wasn't really Romeo, of course. That's just what Ella Rae and I had dubbed him. It was a lot nicer than what Laine called him—Lucifer, Satan, Spawn of the Devil, and on one occasion, “the scuzzified homewrecker that can't spell
ball
”—her precise words.

Anyway, a month had passed since the night he'd shown up in the parking lot. I had only spoken to him once since then and that was to tell him not to call me any more. He finally seemed to be getting the hint.

After our short-lived fling, I had come to the conclusion that sneaking around answering secret phone calls was much more exciting than actually being with him. He was, in fact, an idiot. Every phone call was exactly the same. He told me how beautiful and desirable I was for the first ten minutes, and how much he'd love to have me in his arms. At first I lapped it up like a thirsty Rottweiler, and after that . . . there was absolutely nothing to talk about. The last time I was with him, he spent a good fifteen minutes sharing the story of his high school toenail fungus.

Toenail fungus. I kid you not.

Truthfully, I loved hearing him go on and on about how much he wanted me, how beautiful I was, how we were meant to be together. It was fun to be chased again. It made my recently plummeting self-esteem race up the charts. But then
one day he said God had made our paths cross . . . that God had brought us together.

That was it. In that moment I felt as if God had a damp dish towel and slapped me across the face with it. I was no Bible scholar, but I was completely sure God wasn't sitting on his throne with his notepad and pencil, smiling and saying, “Let's get Carrigan Whitfield involved in a completely inappropriate relationship with a man she barely knows.”

I wasn't about to drag God into this toxic, twisted little indiscretion. Or be manipulated by someone who believed that God was in the business of endorsing infidelity, and that the Taj Mahal was just a hole at the local putt-putt golf establishment.

He could step right on out of my life and take his toenail fungus with him.

When I told Laine I had ended it, she was elated—for lack of a better word that conjures up images of moonwalking down the street from euphoria. She gave me the whole obligatory speech about not doing anything stupid like this any more, and how I could now concentrate on my marriage and maybe think about starting a family.

Where did she come up with this stuff? Had she not been around for the last year? I started to remind her that sex had to be a part of that scenario, but instead I just let her talk. I shook my head in all the right places and hung it in very real embarrassment in others. I don't think she enjoyed my shame, but I think she was very glad I felt it.

What I really wanted wasn't Cell Phone Romeo, but the life
I used to have with Jack. It was a sobering thought. I had no idea how to get back what we'd lost. I wasn't going to throw myself at a man who no longer wanted me. I was going to keep my pride intact, even if it killed me in the process.

Laine finally popped in the door.

“Where have you been?” I said. “I've been calling you for thirty minutes.”

“Ugh, school.” She headed straight for my sofa and fell face-first into a pillow. “I am exhausted.”

“From what?” I said. “You were there forty-five seconds!”

“I'm still tired,” she said. “I was up half the night.” She rolled over and put her arm over her forehead.

That was odd. Laine was a ten o'clock girl most nights. “Why?”

“
The Way We Were
was on.”

“Sister gal,” I said, “you need to step out of la-la land and find you a man. You can have your own real-life romance. But you can't start today. Today I need you to go home, change clothes, and splash some water on your face. We're going to Shreveport for new clothes. Woo-hoo!”

“No,” she said, “not today.”

“Yes, today,” I said. “There are only three shopping days left till the Crawfish Boil. I'm under incredible pressure. There is no telling what the Vampire Bethany will have on, and I have to look stunning.”

“Noooooo.” She buried her head in the pillow again.

“Now, go on, scoot!” I tugged at her arm until she sat up. “I'm not about to look like I just jumped off the cover of
Popular Mechanics
while Bethany Wilkes looks like she's been rolling around on the red carpet.”

“You are crazy,” Laine said. “Jack does not want Bethany Wilkes. And I do not want to go to Shreveport.”

“Too bad,” I said. “We're all going. Ella Rae is on her way. We'll pick you up shortly.”

“Crap.” She dragged herself off the sofa in dramatic Laine fashion and walked to the door muttering her favorite phrases. “I can't believe y'all are making me go. I never get to stay home. It's always something. I've been to a thousand places I never even wanted to go. I have to go shopping and I want to stay home . . .”

“See you in a few!” I called after her as she closed the door.

Laine could whine and moan all she wanted, but the truth was, if Ella Rae and I were going somewhere or doing something, she wanted to be there too. She might hate the activity, but she was going. She'd scream at us while we skinny-dipped in the creek. She'd frog hunt with us and keep her eyes closed. She ran yoyos in the river with us, so petrified of alligators she couldn't move, and sat in Tiger Stadium with cotton in her ears. But she always showed up.

I watched out the window as she walked home, saw her mouth moving, and knew she was still grumbling. It reminded me of a night years ago, the night of my twenty-first birthday. The memory always made me laugh out loud. It was probably the one night she really wished she'd stayed home.

Jack and the girls threw me a big birthday bash at the country club in Natchitoches. All our friends were there and the party was a blast. But just before midnight, and after I'd had a little bit too much to drink, Lexi Carter had shown up, uninvited and unwelcome. Jack had been dating Lexi right before he and I had gotten together. Actually, Jack had dated just about everybody in town except Laine and Ella Rae before we got together, so the fact that he'd dated her wasn't what bothered me. I couldn't very well stay mad at half the women I knew.

But he'd stayed with Lexi longer than he stayed with most girls. In fact, everyone in town assumed he would marry her, me included. The thing that really made me want to spit nails was a letter she'd written to Jack just after he and I got married. The letter had expressed her undying love and affection for him, and she'd promised to wait for him until he was over his infatuation with me. The last line of that letter was burned into my mind like a tattoo. “Call me when your little girl gets done playing house.”

I was infuriated. Worse than infuriated. I couldn't say her name without wanting to spit. Jack had assured me over and over again there was nothing left between them, that he'd never really loved her at all. He told me he didn't want secrets between us and that's why he gave me the letter in the first place.

Eventually I believed him. Nobody could fake a love like we had going on during the first few years of our marriage. We were solid. But seeing her at my birthday party had been like pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire. Jack and I had
been married a little over three years by then, but the memory of that letter had never faded. Looking back, I might have let it go had she just made a brief appearance, said hello to me, and left the same way she came in. But as the evening wore on, she inched her way closer to Jack. Meanwhile, I had been sipping whiskey all night trying to feel like a grown-up. Not a good combination of events.

“I'm going to talk to her,” I finally told Laine and Ella Rae.

Ella Rae, always my biggest cheerleader, had been chomping at the bit for a confrontation all night. “Yeah, you're going to talk to her,” she said. “And I'm gonna talk to her too.”

“You're not going to do any such thing!” Laine caught Ella Rae's hand. “You are going to act like a lady, Carrigan, and you are going to shut up, Ella Rae!”

“Who you talking to?” Ella Rae said. She also tried to feel like a grown-up on this night.

Laine put her arm around Ella Rae and tried to explain to her why ladies didn't confront people and how she was going to make ladies out of both of us one day. I knew that discussion could last for a month, and I took the opportunity to escape. By the time they realized I was gone, I was standing right in front of Lexi Carter.

Jack must've seen it coming because he was by my side in an instant. “How's my birthday girl?” He slid an arm around my waist.