“Mom had the worst allergies,” she explains, licking one finger and then wiping it with a napkin. Who knew you could be envious of a paper product, but it got to touch her before I did. “She once said an ancestor must’ve been cursed by a druid because the tree pollen got to her every year. She’d start sneezing, and her eyes would itch anytime we got near a park. I would be the worst kind of daughter to insist on having a pet.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t gotten one now.”
She gives me a wry look. “The Abbott mansion doesn’t seem pet friendly.”
“That place is so big you could have a whole menagerie, and no one would know about it.”
“Maybe. My room is really large.”
“Marguerite looks like she’d hand over the world to you. I think a pet would be a non-issue.” The old woman stared at Paislee like she was the greatest thing in the world and would likely buy her the moon if she could.
“Getting a pet hadn’t really occurred to me. This is all”—she twirls her hand around—“real new for me. But what’s your excuse for not having a pet?”
“To be honest, Paislee, I have trouble keeping track of myself, let alone another person. I would need help taking care of a pet. Perhaps you know someone who might be interested in coownership of a small pup?” I leave it out there.
A gorgeous flush stains the base of her neck. “I don’t think that’s part of the auction package.”
“You refused it. How would you know? It could contain a dog, a pretty dress, a necklace, maybe even a new car.”
“Oh, please. I do not want a new car.”
“Noted. The rest is okay?”
“No. No.” She laughs. “Dinner is enough.”
“Hmmm.” I won’t commit to that. There’s something about Paislee’s smile that makes me want to keep seeing it, and if giving gifts draws it out, I can see showering her with a new package every day. “What all is exactly new here? No bachelor charity auctions back home?”
“I thought those were made up things for CW shows,” she admits. “We lived a quiet life back in Englewood.”
“Englewood? I don’t think I know of that place.”
“It’s small.” She smooths her hand along the napkin, trying to press out the wrinkles with her fingers. “I don’t know why Mom picked that place now that I’ve seen where she originally came from. It only has two stoplights in the entire town. We used to have a grocery store but when I was about ten, a Wal-Mart opened in the county, and that was the end of most of the stores around the town square. Mom said that it was a blessing, though, because we had more choices even if we had to drive a little farther for our staples.”
The light in her eyes dims slightly, and I remember belatedly the article mentioning her mother’s death.
“If it bothers you to talk about your mother, please let me know.”
“No. I think it would be worse to not talk about her, to forget her. That would be like losing her all over again.”
“Is that why you prefer to be called Paislee Rhodes?”
She bobs her head lightly. “Yes. That’s the name my mom gave me.”
“You two were very close.”
“Very. I miss her every day.”
I’ll have to ask my own mother about Paislee’s mother. “Tell me more about her.”
“She was beautiful and kind and really awesome at styling hair, but most of all she had a beautiful voice. She moved to Memphis to chase her dream of being a singer, but it didn’t pan out. She got pregnant with me and moved home.” Paislee pushes her potatoes around with a fork for a long, silent moment.
I clear my throat. “I’d love to hear a song of hers someday. Maybe you’ll share it with me?”
Paislee murmurs some kind of socially agreeable consent—the kind of sound you make when you don’t want to argue but you don’t want to agree either. I turn the conversation to what kind of pets I could own, throwing out increasingly ridiculous suggestions to lighten the mood.
“I heard some people keep chickens. I’ve got some space to put up a chicken coop and then every morning I could go and harvest the eggs.”
“No.” She wrinkles her nose. “You cannot be eating the children of your pet. That’s wrong.”
“But I’m not eating the chickens, and the eggs are meant to be consumed. They don’t grow into chicks. They just rot and die.”
“Can we not talk about chickens as pets while we’re eating fried chicken?” she wails.
“Good point.” That was a dumb suggestion by me. “How about fish? I think I could keep a fish alive.”
“Would you eat sushi in front of them?”
“I think animals are a bad idea. Maybe a rock? I could find a nice piece of granite and rub its stone nose every morning,” I suggest.