“Aww, come on, Dee. I had my once-in-a-lifetime with Bobby. I don’t get another.”
She lets out a long sigh. “I’m not talking about a love like that. I’m just talking about some fun. You need a man.”
I frown and shake my head. “I already have three men in my life.”
“What? Who?”
I count on my fingers, “Elijah. Tanner. And…ol’ Billy.”
Diedre throws back her head and lets out a full belly laugh. At that moment Big Tom comes inside, and I see what I’ve known for a while now. Big Tom is madly, deeply, and unrequitedly in love with Diedre.
Unfortunately, he has the scruffy, bearded face of a hungry groundhog and is as shy as a sinner in church on Sunday. Neither scruffy faces nor quiet blushes catch Diedre’s attention. She prefers bombast and flash pasted on pretty men. So as far as I can see, Big Tom doesn’t have a chance.
“Oh there you are,” Diedre says, throwing Tom an off-handed glance. She puts her hands on her hips and taps her foot. In heels, she’s at least three inches taller than Big Tom. “Why do they call you Big Tom anyway? Never could figure it out.”
Tom’s face blazes carnelian red, and he ducks his head. But Diedre’s already turned from him to inspect my sculpture. “It really is a beauty. I wish you’d let me set you up online.”
I gesture for Tom to come over. “Thanks for helping out.”
He nods, which in Big Tom speak means, “you’re welcome, glad to do it.”
“Don’t say much, do you?” Diedre asks.
Tom looks at Diedre, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face. This is the usual expression he wears whenever she speaks directly to him, but I think he’s also stunned because she’s still wearing her photoshoot outfit. The butt-hugging jean shorts and flannel crop top show off her lush curves for those horndog, repressed city boys. The scent of vanilla floats around her like sugar cookies left out to lure in naughty boys. Her words, not mine. But, by the look on Tom’s face, Diedre’s magic is working.
She waits a full five seconds for him to respond, but when he doesn’t she shrugs and looks at her nails. Then she glances at me. “Did you show this to Granny Allwright before boxing it up?”
Diedre loves my Gran, mostly because Granny’s a character with a capital C. Granny was born during the Great Depression, she grew up in Hollow Creek, and she loves to play the crazy mountain lady for any hikers or unsuspecting outsiders that come through.
“I showed her last night.”
Diedre’s eyes light with interest. “What’d she say?”
A lot. Too much. Mostly about how I’m plum wasting my life and if she had talent like me she’d have gone and left instead of squatting on a mountain top.
I told her I had kids to raise, bills to pay, jobs to do.
She said, “Can’t never could do nothing!”
Which since I was five years old has always made me grind my teeth, because it’s her way of saying my negative attitude and excuses are the only thing stopping me from succeeding.
I narrow my eyes. But what did she say about my sculpture? Oh, right. “She said”—I put on her accent, which Diedre loves—“this here’s making me grin like a mule with a mouth full of briars. You done it, Jamie girl. I asked the Lord, me and him are real good friends, I asked him to make you an artist, and he done it. For a minute there, I thought he wouldn’t, but I don’t chew my cabbage twice, so I waited, and there it was.”
I smile at Diedre. Gran was real proud of me.
“Um, cabbage?” Diedre stares at the glass sculpture. “What’s this have to do with cabbage?”
“It means she doesn’t repeat herself, that’s all.”
Big Tom grunts, which means, “that’s right.”
Diedre lifts an eyebrow at him.
“Ready?” I ask.
They are.
We move the four-hundred-and-twenty-three-pound sculpture very, very, carefully to the art table Gavin ordered specifically for this piece. It’s positioned in the center of the room so that his fiancée can see it as soon as she walks in.