Southern Playboy (North Carolina Highlands 4)

My face crumples.

Because grandmothers have a sixth sense for when the offspring of their offspring is in distress, Grandma Rose appears two seconds later at my elbow. She frowns when she sees me crying. An apron is tied around her neck and waist; she’s almost a foot shorter than me, five-one on a good day, so the white marble private parts of Michalengelo’s David printed on the apron—a souvenir from her recent month-long trip to Italy—hang comically by her knees.

“Oh, lovie.” She wraps me in a hug. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You heard.”

“I did.” Grandma Rose also taught at Woodward for the fifteen-some-odd years my mom ran the school. “Nuria called me a few hours ago. I ran over to the grocery store as soon as we hung up and started a potpie. I thought you’d be here sooner.” She pulls back and studies my face again, like the answer to her unspoken question—where have you been?—is hidden somewhere in my expression.

And you know what, it just might be. Because, for a split second, I think about Rhett and the roughed-up sound of his voice when he said, I want the best for my kid, and my cheeks burn, and my tears dry up.

“Thank you for making my favorite meal,” I deflect. “How can I help?”

Grandma Rose puts her hand on the small of my back and guides me toward the kitchen. “How about you open some wine? I’ve got a bottle of that Riesling Emma recommended chilling in the fridge.”

I open the wine, and my grandmother opens the oven to check on her famous vegetable potpie, releasing a waft of rich, buttery goodness.

Closing the oven, she turns to me. That’s when I notice the funny gleam in her eyes. “I made two pies, just in case we were especially hungry.”

She pats her stomach, her fingers dancing over David’s curly marble pubic hair, and she giggles when she looks down at it. I patiently unwind the cork from the copper corkscrew.

“Rose,” I say. “Are you high?”

She crosses the kitchen and stands at the counter, scooping onion skins into the trash can. “Of course I am. Why? Are you?”

My grandmother, being the eternal hippie she is, recently rediscovered “the wonders of herbal refreshment.” I’m happy for her. I also think she’s kind of adorable when she’s stoned. She laughs and talks, talks and laughs, the spark I remember so well in my mother very much alive in her too.

“No,” I say glumly, dropping the cork on top of the onion skins in the trash. “I am a little drunk, though.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you now? May I ask who you were drinking with?”

“You won’t believe this, but I ran into Rhett Beauregard at the liquor store. He invited me up to the farm for a cocktail.”

“On a Tuesday afternoon? Isn’t he some big basketball player now? I thought he’d have things to do. Like throw baseballs or do the footballing thing and . . . stuff.”

She’s smiling, and now so am I. “Thanks for the joke. I needed it.”

“I know you do. How many of his games did you and I go to? I remember him running up and down that football field, arms up.” She demonstrates his pose, lifting a leg Heisman-style. I smile harder. “Those were fun times.”

“They were.” I grab a pair of antique wineglasses from the shelf and fill each with a heavy pour of ice-cold Riesling, keeping my eyes trained on the wine. “Rhett’s having a bad day too. I think we both needed some company. And some hard liquor.”

“Y’all were thick as thieves when you were younger.” She accepts the wine I hold out to her. Taps her glass to mine. “Cheers. To being single.”

I drink my wine, eyes watering all over again. “Why the hell would we cheers to that right now?”

“Because being single is far preferable to being with a cheating son of a bitch like Jim.”

I consider this for a minute, crossing one arm over my torso. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll toast to that.” We clink glasses again. I look down, toeing at the multicolored braided rug in front of the sink. “I really wanted Jim and me to work out.”

“I know you did, lovie. But I’ll be honest, sometimes I wondered if you liked Jim for Jim, or if you liked him for his family. The kids.”

“I never even got to meet his kids,” I say, scoffing. “I saw his son Michael at school every so often. But I never got to hang out with him.”

Rose shakes her head. “You know what I’m getting at. You’re still young, Amelia. You have plenty of time to have children.”

“Mom didn’t,” I say, and immediately wish I could take the words back. I see the way my grandmother’s expression contracts, like she’s flinching but doesn’t want me to see it. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just . . . I miss her.”