I frown. “Why?”
Tanner faces me. “Billy has this … thing he’s gotta tell her, but it kinda involves the McPhersons, and Mama isn’t gonna like it.”
“Oh, just add it to the list,” I let out. “She doesn’t like Bobby’s mama. She doesn’t like Bobby choosing his own family over ours. She doesn’t like my bein’ at school so far away. She doesn’t like—”
“If Mama isn’t the center of attention, she don’t like much of anything.”
I nod. “She said she was a wreck earlier. Do you know what’s goin’ on with her?”
Tanner shrugs. “Could be anything. She’s always a wreck.” He leans in closer. “To be honest, she’s gettin’ on Billy’s last nerve lately. She’s so determined to be Queen Gay of Spruce, I think it’s makin’ her lose her mind. Especially after Cissy and Marcy teamed up to give one of their gay brothers a giant extravaganza thing, Mama’s gotten even worse.”
I sigh and whip off my hat to scratch my head. “I thought she was done playin’ rivalry games with them years ago.”
“Tell me ‘bout it. Who knows. Maybe she’s just bored.” Tanner glances back at the house. “I swear, I think our mama’s gayer than me, Billy, Trey, and Cody combined.”
Now those are two names I haven’t heard in a while. I slap my hat back on my head. “You still hang out with them? Trey and Cody?”
“Sure, when they aren’t cooped up in their house or heading some church function. I tried church for a few months,” he adds as an aside. “It’s great and all, but it just isn’t my thing. Mama started goin’ every Sunday, but forgive me if I think it’s just another of her efforts to look good for the community and one-up all the other ladies in town. She’s stepped on more toes there than I can count. Even Trey himself came to me privately askin’ in his most polite voice how best to handle her ‘zealousness’, I think he called it.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to find a text from Bobby. Upon opening it, I find a sleepy-faced emoji with a bunch of Z’s, and a pair of eggplants. What’s that supposed to mean? He’s bored and thinking of dicks?
I snort privately to myself and start to type a response.
My brother’s next words stop me: “Camille was asking around about you.”
I look up at him, my half-written text forgotten. “I thought—”
“That she was still in Europe? Not this summer, apparently. She had a death in the family. Her uncle Juan Carlos, her mama’s brother. That was the bit of news I was tryin’ to tell you earlier.”
“Oh.” I glance down at my phone, but am not really seeing it.
Tanner smirks. “Is your heart goin’ all pit-pat now? Igniting an old flame in there someplace?”
“Nah, nothin’ like that.”
“You sure?” He pokes me in the ribs tauntingly. “You suuure?”
“Stop it.”
“Someone’s gonna get it on with his high school sweetheart this summer.” Tanner knows when he’s found a button, and he’s so irritatingly good at pushing it over and over. “Camille and Jim-Jim, sittin’ in a tree …”
He starts laughing when I shove him away. Then he’s got me in another headlock, and after three more maneuvers and a few playful shoves, all the guys are cheering us on with shouts, hoots, and whistles—even Mindy from the pool.
Everyone stays for supper, which my mama still serves with a smile on her face, her ire from earlier seemingly forgotten. Jacky-Ann joins us, too, as well as Billy who just finished a ten-hour shift at the T&S Shoppe, which was “downright hopping today”. He gives me a warm hug and sits across the table from me to chat about all my classes I took this semester. Everyone else is busy yakking about Robby and something big he’s planning with his girlfriend Vanessa Evans, whom he still hasn’t proposed to.
At the head of the table sits Papa, who came back from some errand he was running just in time for supper. Mama and her big hoop earrings sit right next to him, keeping up a conversation with Jacky-Ann. But even sitting halfway down the table from her, I can still tell when my mama’s gossiping. I’m sure poor Jacky-Ann is getting an earful about Patricia-this and Patricia-that.
I wonder if my mama has any real friends, or if every woman in town is some kind of sworn enemy of hers, one way or another.
And despite all the joy and chatter and general merriment all around me, I can’t help but obsess over the surprise news about Camille. The last time I saw her was two summers ago before I ran off with Bobby for our first year of college together. We weren’t really dating, since I was caught up in a tug-of-war between two other chicks who couldn’t take no for an answer. I wouldn’t even be able to say which one of them won, it’s all such a fog. By the time I got to school, I barely remembered either of their names.