“What?” Mama screeches. She’s sneaked up on us. “I thought you walked out with Myrtle!” She clutches her chest. “You’re living in sin with Devon?”
“Not enough sinning,” I mutter, and Aunt Clara titters, the feather in her hair bobbing.
“I thought he would have nailed you by now,” she says on a giggle.
“He hasn’t?” Topher asks. “I was sure Greg would push him over the edge.”
Mama slaps both their arms in one movement. “She’s a virgin! Didn’t you hear?”
“Bionic ears,” Elena tells me with a wry grin. “Rookie mistake, sis.” She pauses. “And when were you going to tell me you’re writing a romance?”
I’m sputtering for a reply when the band taps out a drumbeat, and Mama gets on one side of me, Elena on the other, and Jack and Topher behind me as they drag me toward the back door.
“That’s our cue,” Mama grouses, her eyes taking me in. “Act surprised.”
I dig my heels in. “I should fix my makeup first—”
“Stop that. Daisy Lady Gang is going to find your perfect match, dear,” Aunt Clara winks at me. “Mama invited every eligible bachelor in a fifty-mile radius. If Mike doesn’t work out, she’s got backups. Uncle Farly’s daughters are here, and they’re on the prowl. Up front, they are marginally attractive but hussies. You’ve got to beat them out of the first picks. I told Cynthia not to invite them.”
“They’re family,” Mama mutters. “Had no choice. And nobody is as pretty as my girl,” Mama adds. “Oh, I see your preschool crush, Jude. Looked him up on the internet. He’s not handsome—but single. Come on, dear.” She opens the door, and I grudgingly head down the steps with her.
They pull me under the tent to a mass of people amid pats on the shoulder and calls of “Happy birthday!” and “Good to see you!” Several are family, and the preacher and some of Mama’s church friends are there, along with a few cast members from Romeo and Juliet, and so many men—most I don’t know. One of them, an older man in his late forties, owns the Piggly Wiggly and keeps winking at me.
“Mama, why is Mr. Pig here?”
“Lance White, dear. Widower. Lost his wife in a car accident several years ago, bless her heart. Financially solid. Raised in Daisy, school board member, president of the Rotary Club, looking for his next girlfriend,” is her hissed reply as she shakes hands with another distant cousin on Daddy’s side.
“Likes to be tied up,” Aunt Clara says in my ear. “Pass.”
How do you know? my wide eyes ask.
She shakes her head. “Beauty shop talk.”
Mama darts a look at me. “A submissive man might be the right one.”
No, no, afraid not. It’s alpha for me all the way.
A few minutes later, after meeting two single guys I went to high school with but who never paid me any attention, I’ve got it down. Nod, smile, inquire how they are; then say I’m thirsty and drift off to grab a glass of champagne or nibble on the bounty of food. I’m sucking down my second glass, feeling better but light headed, when Mama and Aunt Clara and Elena steer me to the back of the tent, where a group of people are clustered. The band has started and is playing Bryan Adams’s “Summer Of ’69.”
Mama nudges her head at a tall broad man whose back is to me. She picks at my dress and fluffs my hair. “That’s Mike. Go do your thing.”
I inhale. “Mama, in case you don’t know, I have no game.”
Aunt Clara pulls on my arm, dragging me toward the group. Elena has the other arm. “I had a crush on him too,” Elena says, her eyes going dreamy. “Pitcher for the baseball team, those brown eyes . . .”
“When did you turn into one of them?” I say to her. “My own sister. Betrayed.”
She blushes. “They rub off on you. And I want you to be as happy as I am.”
I eye Mike from behind, taking in the snug gray slacks, the french-blue shirt tucked into his pants, the loafers on his big feet. He’s dressed nice. His hair is still that gorgeous chestnut color, messy with thick unruly waves that he keeps pushing off his face.
“Your cousin Cami is working him, and her boobs are big. You better go get him,” Topher says.
A statuesque redhead, Cami is thirtysomething, single, and gorgeous. Her dress is a green sheath that clings to every voluptuous curve. Older than Elena and me, she lives an hour away from Daisy, but we spent our summers together out on the farm.
“Remember the toad?” Elena hisses, giving Cami side-eye.
Do I? Oh, heck, yeah. When I was ten, Cami dared me to put a toad in my panties. I did; then she teased me that I’d get warts on my “hoo-ha”—her word, not mine. “Toads and warts are a myth, but they do have toxic glands, which could have poisoned me,” I say. “She’s lucky I didn’t give her a bloody nose and an anatomy lesson.”