“And you thrived on it. Seems like that hasn’t changed.”
“Apparently not.”
I lifted my hands in supplication. “Okay, at least I can tell Emmadean I tried.” I put a hand on the table to stand, but Sophie grasped it.
“Wait.” She held my hand until I settled back into my chair, paused for a beat, and released it.
The tightness in my chest loosened. I reached out for Sophie’s right hand and lifted the ring finger encircled by a thin silver band I’d noticed the day before. We’d bought the rings at a local craft fair our senior year and exchanged them in a giggly ceremony where we vowed to be friends for life. Best friend necklaces with two sides of one heart were too trite for us. I’d worn my ring on my right middle finger; we didn’t want to give people the wrong idea. I met Sophie’s eyes again, and she smiled. “I never gave up hope.”
I smiled and released her hand. “I think Ray burned mine.”
“That’s over the top even for Ray.”
“There’s nothing left of me in my old room. Maybe Ray put it in the attic, but that would have been a lot of effort for his disgraceful daughter.”
“Bastard.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking of torching the house.”
“I’ll bring the marshmallows.”
My phone rang. Alima’s photo popped up. My finger instinctively moved to answer but hovered over the screen uncertainly. I glanced at Sophie, who seemed intent on the action on the court, said excuse me, walked off and answered.
“Did you survive?” I could hear the teasing in Alima Koshkam’s voice, and see her sitting in her office, leaned back in her chair, relaxed and confident. We’d had hundreds of conversations in her office, about work, history, politics, religion. The personal chats came years later, over a bottle of red wine, and through many tears. Alima was the first person I’d opened up to since I left Lynchfield, and Sophie, behind.
“Barely.”
“Are you on your way home?” Alima asked.
“No. The bastard left everything to me. Made me executor.”
“Why? Is that his effort at penance?”
“Emmadean says so. Mary seems to think he was getting back at me, one last time.”
“That sounds more like it. How long will you be there?”
“Not sure. I have an appointment with Charlie to talk about the will this afternoon.”
“The Charlie?”
“Yes. He’s gone bald, but he’s still pretty good-looking.”
“Hmm. And Sophie? Have you seen her?”
I glanced at Sophie, who shifted her head in a way that told me she’d been watching me.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“About what you would expect.”
“What I expected and you expected are two different things.”
“I can’t talk right now.”
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And, how does that make you feel?”
She didn’t want to know. “I’m giving you a dramatic eye roll right now.”
“No doubt.”
Alima was silent for a while, waiting for me to continue, to answer the question. I didn’t—couldn’t—and was surprised when she broke first. “Let me know if you need me to come down, help clean out his house, or whatever.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on my enemy, let alone my best friend.”
The thought of Alima seeing where I came from mortified me. She lived in an exquisitely decorated house in Chevy Chase with her husband. She’d never set foot in Texas, let alone small-town America. No, I preferred Alima to know the DC version of me, the real version, instead of the small-town me I’d outgrown years ago.
“Hmm. Hurry back. It’s boring here without you. Davoud is out of town, remember?”
I grimaced. I’d forgotten. “Montreal.”
“Oh, you do remember.”
It was one of Alima’s favorite cities, and she was excited to show me all of her favorite spots. With her husband away in Asia on a ten-day business trip, it seemed like the perfect weekend. And I’d completely forgotten about it.
“You aren’t coming,” she said.
“I didn’t say that. You know I want to come. I’ll know more this afternoon.”
“We’ve been planning this for months.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but I can’t help it that my father died.”
“Nora, that’s not the point, and you know it. I’ll cancel the reservation because you obviously have other priorities right now.”
“Alima...”
“I’ll let you get back to your friend.” She hung up.
I tapped the phone against my forehead. Damn it. I should have called her last night, but I was too busy wallowing in a six-pack of Shiner.
I sat back down at the table and laid my phone down on its face.
“Everything okay?” Sophie asked, keeping her eyes on the court.
“Work stuff.”
Sophie nodded slowly, and called out to her daughter, “Nice shot, Lo.” Logan ignored her. “One more year, one more year,” Sophie chanted.
“That bad?”
She nodded toward Logan and the boy. “They’re having sex.”
I watched the teens, glad to have something to think about besides my fight with Alima, though teenage sex wasn’t high on my list of interesting subjects. They were on the side of the court now, talking and laughing as if they’d known each other forever. “How do you know?”
Sophie side eyed me. “I was the master at sneaking around, remember?”
“Good point. Is Logan on birth control?”
“She will be soon.”
I meant the question to rattle Sophie, to put her on the defensive, to see if she’d turned into an ultraconservative protégé of her mother. It would have been understandable, living in Lynchfield where churches outnumbered gas stations by a four-to-one margin. In my youth, there had been two types of people: those who went to church and the heathens. Was there a middle ground in Lynchfield, finally? Or was Sophie playing the small-town game of pious in public, godless in private?
“What will Brenda think?”