I smiled at my aunt. She was the peacemaker in our family. I motioned for her to sit.
My mother looked me up and down. “Why are you dressed like a slob? I hope you’re not letting yourself go now that you and Jay seem to be working out your problems.”
“Dixie, would you shut up?” Trixie said. “You’ve done nothing but badger Kate since we walked through the door.”
My mother gaped at her. It was seldom that Aunt Trixie took her to task. Finally, my mother sucked in a deep breath. “Where
is
Jay, by the way?” she asked.
I joined my aunt on the sofa. “He’s headed south to help with the wildfire,” I said.
She looked surprised. “Do you think he’s up to it?”
“He seems to have healed nicely.” I had no intention of telling her about our argument.
“I heard they were calling in additional firemen,” Aunt Trixie said. “Everybody is terrified that it’s going to be as bad as the one in 2007. They’re saying somebody’s camp-fire got out of hand and started it.”
“I can’t believe you let Jay go,” my mother said.
I looked at her. “Since when have I had any control over his decisions?”
My aunt suddenly snapped her fingers. “Oh, goodness gracious, Dixie,” she said. “We haven’t told Kate our exciting news.” She looked at me. “We bought an old trunk at an estate sale last week,” she said. “And guess what? While we were cleaning it yesterday we found a secret compartment. Guess what was in it?”
“Money?” I asked.
“Love letters!” she said.
“Written during World War Two,” my mother added. “The man, John Smith, was a young naval officer at the time, and the young lady was a schoolteacher. Her name was Lenore Brown. Their last names are so common that it would take forever to locate them in the Atlanta phone book, even if they’re still alive. Arnell is trying to find out what he can on his computer.”
“If anybody can get information about them, Arnell can,” Aunt Trixie said. “You should see him on that computer. Why, there’s nothing he can’t do.”
I nodded. Arnell, real name Arnie Decker, was a patient of mine with a gender identity disorder. He’d spent his entire life feeling trapped in a man’s body. When he had decided to pursue sexual reassignment surgery, his family had disowned him. My mother and aunt had taken him under their wings, and he’d moved in with them. They got along surprisingly well in the oversized apartment above the studio.
“Finding those letters was like going back in time,” Aunt Trixie said. “It’s so romantic.”
“You didn’t tell Kate why the letters were hidden in the trunk,” my mother said. She looked at me. “Miss Brown was engaged to a wealthy young man from a so-called
good
family, and her parents were outraged when she fell in love with an enlisted man and called off the wedding. They forbade her to correspond with Mr. Smith, so Miss Brown opened a post office box, and the two wrote in secret. She promised to wait for him.”
“They would be quite elderly by now if they were still alive,” I said. “Maybe you should check out a few nursing homes.”
My mother and aunt looked at each other. “Why didn’t we think of that?” Aunt Trixie said.
My mother sniffed. “I would have thought of it eventually.”
“Hey, who wants ice cream?” I said.
Trixie’s hand shot up in the air.
“That would be nice,” my mother said. “Do you have pistachio?”
It was just like my mother to ask for pistachio. I didn’t know a person in the world who liked the stuff, certainly not me. “Sorry, but I only keep chocolate in the house.” I stood and led the way to my kitchen. I pulled out three separate pints of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge. Some women spent money on shoes; I bought Ben & Jerry’s. I put the cartons on the table and went for spoons.
“We’re supposed to eat out of the containers?” my mother asked.
“Yep.” I grinned.
She opened the lid. “This is a lot of ice cream. I can’t possibly eat all of this.”
“I plan to eat every last drop of mine,” Trixie said, digging in with gusto. “If you can’t finish yours, Kate and I will take turns with it.”
The doorbell rang. I headed for the living room and found Mike’s vet, Jeff Henry, standing on the other side. I threw open the door. “I don’t believe it!” I said. “My mother, my aunt, and I are having an ice cream party. You must be psychic.” I stepped back so he could come in.
“Actually, I just stopped by to make sure you’re okay. I read about your ordeal in the newspaper. That was very brave of you, Kate. Thank God you weren’t injured!”
I tried to wave it off as though it was no big deal. I didn’t want my mother to go on another rampage. “Hey, there’s a carton of B & J with your name on it.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Jeff followed me into the kitchen, where he was greeted by my mother and aunt. Jeff was in his midthirties and handsome. He was also gay, but we never discussed it, so I had no idea if he knew we were all aware of it. I felt it was none of our business.
I served Jeff and reclaimed my chair. He gave us a brief rundown on his day and asked about Jay.
“He’s gone to Tallahassee to help with the fire,” I said.
“Do you think he’s physically up to it?” Jeff asked, echoing my mother’s concerns.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody—including me—was going to talk him out of it.”
Aunt Trixie finished her ice cream, and my mother, despite her protests that she could never eat a full pint, was scraping the cardboard container clean.
“That was delicious!” Trixie said. “Too bad Arnell couldn’t be here.”
“You know he’s staying away from dessert,” my mother told her. She looked at me. “Arnell has been on a diet. He claims he has gained eight pounds living with us, thanks to my fried chicken and biscuits.”
Trixie nodded soberly. “He can’t fit into his little black dress.”
“He doesn’t look good in that dress anyway,” my mother said. “It’s too formfitting, and he doesn’t have curves.”
“He’ll have curves once they start giving him those female hormone injections,” Trixie said.
“I hope they sew a butt on him when he has that surgery,” my mother said. “Men don’t have much of a butt, and Arnell is no exception. I wouldn’t mind donating part of mine.”
I burst into laughter at the thought of a surgeon sewing my mother’s butt on Arnell. Jeff joined me. We were still laughing when the phone rang. I jumped from my chair and ran for it, hoping it was Jay.
Mona spoke from the other end. “I’m in the ER,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“My hives got worse. My face is covered with welts!”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
chapter 4
My mother and
aunt insisted on going with me to the hospital. The three of us piled into the junk-filled monster pickup truck and took off as Jeff headed back to his office to check on his surgical patients.
We arrived at the hospital in record time. I glanced about the ER but didn’t see Mona. “I’m going to check at the reception desk,” I said, and headed in that direction.
“Kate!”
I turned at the sound of Mona’s voice. Her head and part of her face were draped in a shawl, so it was no surprise I hadn’t recognized her. “Let me see,” I said as my mother and aunt joined me.
Mona led us to a corner of the room where the hard plastic chairs sat empty and nobody was waiting. She pulled the shawl aside. “It’s hideous!” she said.
I couldn’t hide my surprise. The rash, what there was of it, was barely noticeable. “Mona, it’s not bad at all,” I said.
My mother grunted. “You’re overreacting.”
Mona quickly put the shawl in place. “You’re both just saying that to make me feel better.”
I shook my head. “Seriously, Mona, I can barely see anything.”
“Does it itch, honey?” Aunt Trixie asked.
“Constantly,” Mona said, “but I know if I scratch it, I’ll have horrible scars. I’ll have to spend the rest of my life wearing this . . . this . . . Shroud of Turin.” She gave a huge sigh. “Lord only knows when I’ll be seen by a doctor.”
“Be glad it’s not the weekend,” my mother said. “That’s when people get drunk and knife each other.”
The four of us sat. An hour passed, and my mother and aunt went for coffee.
Finally, Mona’s name was called. “Would you come with me?” she asked. “I can’t bear to go through this alone.”
“Of course.” I followed her to a pair of metal doors. A buzzer sounded, and the doors opened. A nurse met us on the other side and led us into a treatment room. Mona had to be coaxed into removing her shawl.
“I know it looks awful,” Mona said.
The nurse turned to me. “Is she serious?”
“My friend is afraid it will get worse,” I said. “Plus, she needs something to stop the itching.”
The woman shook her head and left the room.
Mona covered herself once more. “Did you see the expression on her face?” she hissed the moment we were alone. “I repulsed her.”
“Mona, I think you’re letting fear get the best of you.” I was feeling a little fearful myself. If Mona didn’t get a grip very soon, the rash would probably get worse, and she would go off the deep end.
She reached for my hand. “Thank you for trying to make me feel better, Kate. You’re such a good friend.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about something else; otherwise, I’m going to get more depressed. I guess you know you made the newspaper and the six-o’clock news.”
“Jay might have mentioned it before he lashed out at me and hit the road.”
“Hit the road?”
“He’s gone to help with the wildfire.”
“I’m sorry.” She gave an enormous sigh. “And all this time I’ve been thinking about myself.”
“Plus, everybody thinks I hate Jesus, thanks to that weirdo, Sarah-Margaret. Naturally, Bitsy Stout felt inclined to pay me a visit.”
The door to the exam room opened. I recognized the doctor as soon as he stepped inside. It would have been impossible
not
to with his shock of red hair. Dr. Beau Bodine, nickname Bobo, was a friend of Jay’s and had performed minor surgery on my wrist when I’d fractured it after falling in the parking lot of my office. I’d been chasing a patient who was suffering a full-blown panic attack at the time.
“Kate, good to see you again,” Bobo said. “And this is—”
“Mona Epps.”
“Hi, Mona. What brings you here today?”
She parted the shawl so he could see her face.
Bobo stepped closer. “Is that a rash?”
“Hives,” she said. “I had them when I was young. Do you think I’ll be disfigured?”
Bobo looked at me. I shrugged.
He shook his head. “No, no, you’ll be fine. Have you been under stress?”
Bobo obviously hadn’t seen the news or read the paper. “We went through a harrowing event recently,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
“Is the rash confined to your face?” he asked Mona.
“No.” She pulled the shawl away so he could see her arms. “I’m broken out all over.”
“Show me where.”
She pointed to the top of her left hand. Bobo and I both leaned closer. “It itches,” she said.
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you an injection and a prescription to stop the itch and hopefully keep the rash from worsening. I can have the hospital pharmacy fill the prescription; that way you won’t have to stop off on your way home.”
The color seemed to drain from Mona’s face. “I’m terrified of needles,” she said.
Bobo nodded. “That makes two of us. I try to stay as far away from them as I can. By the way, the shot is liable to make you drowsy. Did you drive yourself here?”
Mona nodded. “My chauffeur had a hot date.”
Bobo grinned as though he thought Mona was making a joke. Of course, he had no way of knowing she really did have a chauffeur.
“I’ll drive her home,” I said.
“Okay, great.” He left the room.
“I’m going to tell my mother and aunt they can go,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I returned to the waiting room and filled them in.
“I’ve never seen anything so silly in my whole life,” my mother said. “All that fuss over a silly little rash that you can barely see.”
“She’s just scared,” I said, “but there’s no reason for the two of you to hang around.”
It was another hour before Mona and I left the hospital, with me behind the wheel of her Jaguar. Mona’s house was located in the ritzy Buckhead area. Her late husband had purchased it for her as a wedding gift.
I had lived with Mona for several weeks after I’d left Jay. Of course, I’d honestly thought he would follow me, beg me to come home, and that he’d look for another job. You could have knocked me over with dandelion fluff when he didn’t.
I should have known better. Jay came from a long line of firemen, and he had studied fire science in college. He quickly rose to the rank of captain. I don’t think I truly realized how important his work was to him until I gave him a choice: the job or me. Jay Rush was not a man who took well to ultimatums.
After four months of being separated, it hit me: My marriage was done for. I filed for divorce. Two weeks before it was to become final, Jay and I met up, and I lost my heart (not to mention my thong) to him all over again. But that was another story.
I tried to push it all from my mind as I helped a sleepy Mona out of the car and toward the house. Although she was presently without a full-time housekeeper, a team of cleaning women came in two or three times a week.
Inside, Mona sank onto one of the two matching white silk sofas in her massive living room. She reached into her handbag for her cell phone. “I’m calling Jimbo,” she said. “He needs to come home immediately.”
Jimbo was the chauffeur who lived in a spacious apartment over the multicar garage. “I thought he was on a date,” I said.
“This is an emergency. I want him to guard this place until my rash goes away. I can’t afford to let anyone see me like this.”