Stuttering was his other tell. My bullshit meter was spiking in the red. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to call him out, Archie Bell slammed his glass down on the mahogany bar top, indicating he wanted another. We both knew if we ignored him, he’d just slam it down harder. Cash took the opportunity to exit the conversation and turned to pour him another pint.
“Saved by the bell,” I said under my breath. “Literally.”
My friend had sidestepped this conversation but I was definitely going to be revisiting it real soon.
“That Cheyenne sure did turn out to be one fine lady,” Ray observed as he set a bucket of dirty glasses he’d collected next to the sink behind the bar. On busy nights, Ray rolled up his sleeves and pitched in. He wasn’t technically a bus boy, but in his words, “I do whatever needs doin’.”
“Yes, she did,” I agreed. And one that Cash needed to stay the hell away from.
“She looks just like her mama.”
All night people had been saying the same thing, that Cheyenne was the spitting image of our mom. Once they said it, I saw the resemblance but I hadn’t noticed it at first. Then again, I hadn’t looked at pictures of my mama in years. Pop had put all the pictures we had around the house and all of her clothes and belongings up in the attic right after the funeral. He broke down every time he saw anything of hers.
I’d had one picture of the two of us sharing an ice cream cone on the pier that Hank had taken a few weeks before she died. When I first lost her, I looked at it all the time. Every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed. But after a while it just hurt too much, so I stopped. I put the picture in a box and stuffed it in my closet.
“And that friend of hers,” Ray spoke, snapping me back to the present, “that Reagan isn’t too shabby herself.”
Just hearing Reagan’s name centered me. It was like I was on a boat in choppy waters and her name was the lighthouse.
“I saw you makin’ eyes at her,” Ray called me out.
His comment had every protective instinct I had shooting up like a spouting fire hydrant. Something about that girl made me want to shield her from…everything. I’d never had that impulse before and now it seemed I couldn’t shut it off. I didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea about her, or thinking that she was just one more visitor in the revolving door of my social life.
I began doing the dishes, hoping to mask what I was feeling. “She’s our lawyer. She’s handling Pop’s will.”
“You don’t say?” Ray’s eyebrows lifted and I knew that he already had the information I’d just shared about Reagan. He shook his head as he let out a slow breath. “Beauty and brains. That’s a lethal combination. You add that quick wit of hers to the equation and she’s damn near the perfect woman.”
I’d seen Ray dancing with Reagan earlier in the night. She must’ve made quite an impression on him. He didn’t comment on most people, because in his words, “If I ain’t got nothin’ nice to say, it’s best I don’t say nothin’ at all.” So, for him to speak so highly of her said something.
I’d also seen her dancing with Mark Lyons, who’d been the captain of the football team my freshman year and his senior. And Jerry Clemons, who’d been a second-round draft pick and played one year in the NFL before flunking one too many drug tests and coming back home to Firefly.
Both men had laid it on thick and brought their ‘A’ game. Mark had flashed his dimples so much his cheeks had to be sore. And Jerry, who’d won every breakdancing contest we’d had in middle school, had spun and dipped her so many times I was surprised she didn’t toss her cookies right there on the dance floor. Thankfully, she hadn’t seemed to return their interest. From what I’d been able to see they’d both struck out.
That didn’t make it any easier for me to watch their time at the plate. It had taken every fiber of self-control I possessed not to stalk over to them and pull her out of their arms.
The last time I’d had a visit from the green-eyed monster was my senior year Homecoming game. I was voted to Homecoming court and I’d watched as the other six princes’ mamas came onto the field and pinned a flower onto their sons’ lapels. My flower was pinned on by Mrs. Lambert, the vice-principal.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still love Mrs. Lambert. We developed a close relationship thanks to the amount of times I’d been sent to her office. But she wasn’t my mama.
I’d been so jealous that my friends all had their moms and I didn’t, it ruined the whole entire senior year for me. After I graduated, I decided I wasn’t going to waste any time feeling mad, or sad, or jealous. I didn’t want to spend a second more of my life letting negative feelings, things that served no purpose, affect me.
It’d made sense at the time, but I was starting to see that I’d ended up not feeling anything at all. I’d spent a good portion of my life feeling nothing. I was numb.
That is, until I’d walked into a conference room and laid eyes on Reagan. Now I couldn’t seem to stop feeling things. And I didn’t know how I felt about that.