Chapter 14
Late May
Sunday – Moon in Scorpio, Waning Gibbous
I’m not a time traveler, but staring at the oak-paneled walls straight out of the 1970s makes me feel like one. The Magnolia Restaurant may be the fanciest in town, but that isn’t saying much. The structure itself is older than my mom’s farmhouse, but it’s been refurbished at least once in the past generation and still looks as old as her own décor. Sadly, the now-trendy mid-century American style furniture hasn’t moved since it was first purchased and installed early in my own lifetime, which technically makes it antique.
The Magnolia has been around for as long as I can remember, just an old, converted farmhouse on the edge of town. During the week, they serve mostly barbecue pork sandwiches or fried chicken. Saturday and Sunday mornings are buffets, the healthiest of which is a salad bar—and how Oreo cookies always end up between the big bowl of iceberg lettuce and raw carrot sticks, I don’t know. Friday nights and Saturday nights are all-you-can-eat seafood buffets, but Sunday night is menu-only, but with banquet tables for salads and desserts, and reserved for dates and special occasions for locals who don’t spend their Sunday evenings at church services or choir practice.
Dix’s white cafeteria-quality plate overflows with a grilled T-bone steak and about a dozen shrimp poppers like I used to make for the kids when they were in elementary school. My plate is no less impressive with roasted chicken and Southern-style dressing, mushroom-gizzard-and-boiled-egg-white-gravy, and a large slice of cranberry sauce, jiggly and cold and still imprinted with the curve of the can it was floofed out of. Between his oversized glass of real-sugar-sweetened iced tea and mine are several overflowing side dishes: fried okra, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows and pecans on top, strawberry and cream cheese salad on a base of pretzels, at least twelve layers of some kind of salad, and traditional Southern delicacies of freshly baked pecan pie, thin slices of coconut cake wider than the dessert plate itself, and thick slices of Lane Cake, Hummingbird Cake, and Lemon-Pineapple Cake.
From across the red and white gingham plastic tablecloth, Dixon laughs. “Are you going to eat all of that?” He waves his hand in a circle around my plate and all of its entourage of goodies.
I smile back at him. He’s handsome enough tonight in his white button-down shirt, patterned tie, and jeans that he probably bought in the next town over. If I look hard enough, I can see the boy I knew in high school behind the crinkles around his eyes and beneath the gray fringe around his face.
“I don’t think I could eat all of this if I had a week to do it.”
Dix shrugs. “So just eat dessert. Or just what you want. Anything else, we can pack up, and you can take it home to your mom.”
My heart swells with gratitude. He and Virgil have been so good to my mom.
“Thanks for bringing the barbecue chicken around for her yesterday for lunch while I was at the dentist’s office. She adores you, you know? She and I had leftovers this morning instead of diving into my grocery haul from yesterday.”
Plus, we still had leftovers from last night. I’d felt so bad about my fight with Mama that, even though she didn’t remember it at all, I asked her to get gussied up so I could take her out to the nicest place in town, which is, of course, the only place in town for dinner: the Magnolia Restaurant. She’d been overjoyed and, for an old woman as frail as she is, she’d surprised me by how much she can still eat in one sitting. I would have taken home her leftovers, too, but she’d finished everything on her plate as if she had been starving for months. She had loved the outing and especially showing me off to people who recognized her and came by our table to speak to her. She’d relished every second, and I’d relished being able to give her that kind of joy.
Afterward, we’d taken home my leftovers, which will either go into the freezer or be lunch tomorrow. In less than forty-eight hours, I’ve eaten more food than in the previous week, and definitely more fried food and Southern cooking than in the last four and a half months.
“You know, Laurie,” Dix says, “I really do like your mom. And I’m glad she likes me, too. I never really dreamed that she would think favorably of me back when we were kids. She thought I was the devil himself.”
“You were! You were definitely a bad boy, and maybe that’s why all the girls were attracted to you.”
He shrugs. “I’ve grown up a little since then. At least, I hope you’ll think so.” Leaning forward over his plate, he smacks his lips playfully at me and sinks his fork into the thin point of the triangle of pecan pie on the dessert plate between us. Closing his eyes, he savors the mouthful, then swallows and grins at me. “I’ve made it a habit most of my life to eat dessert first or at least early. And to never order the same dish twice at the same restaurant. There’s a lot to be said for always seeking new experiences. My life has been full of first times.” He frowns suddenly. “Except for weddings. I’ve done those four times now.”
I force my mouth into a smile. “Twice for me.”
“You think you’ll ever do it again?”
“Are you proposing?” I tease, but he immediately blushes.
“No. I mean, um, that’s not what I was asking. I was just curious because, um, you know, um, as hard as I tried, I could never make it work. Women love me. Maybe too much. And I really did love all four of my wives. I just… got bored. They did everything they could to make it right, and I wanted it to work every time but, I just lost interest. I kept thinking when I dated around some and met somebody new that this time it would be different. But it’s like I married the same woman over and over.” He shrugs again. “None of them were like you. I still remember kissing you at my house the night before my mom decided we needed to move to Nashville.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. “I remember that, too.”
“You were so innocent and so shy. Even if my mom hadn’t caught us, I wouldn’t have let it go beyond that kiss. Everybody knew what a player I was, even before I was old enough to drive. And I knew if I hung out with you too much, you would be guilty by association. People already thought you were a little, um, eccentric, but if you and I had dated, it would have ruined your reputation, even if nothing ever happened between us physically.” He stares at the slice of coconut cake, stabs it with his fork, and lets the dessert melt on his tongue.
“Honestly, Dix, I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again.”
Lady Zephyr, a talented psychic who had once been a member of the Dragon Hart Grand Coven, had told me on the night of my Initiation that I would have three husbands. My best friend, Jan Duley, had said the same the last time I saw her, three years ago.
“I had a horrible marriage to a man who spent his free time figuring out new ways of putting me down. And then I had an amazing marriage to a man I deeply loved and who deeply loved me, but he was deeply plagued with spats of depression, and he tried to numb them with alcohol and drugs when they were at their worst. No matter how strong your love is for someone, it’s never strong enough to overcome certain things. You can’t love away anxiety or guilt or depression. Or addiction.”
Even a powerful witch doesn’t have enough powers to do that. When I had realized that, I hit my own rock bottom and clawed my way back out with the help of my best friend and my young protégé, Christabel.
“It’s weird,” I continue. “I was taught from the time I was a little girl to expect to be a bride and a wife and a mother. When I was grown up, I was taught more about the motherhood phase of life whether or not I was a mom. But no one ever really taught about… this stage of life.” I avoid using the word crone in front of my date. “There’s no template for it. At least, not for me. I look at happy women my age and they’re coupled up with their childhood sweethearts that they’ve been with for decades now and raised families with and become grandparents with. It’s been hard for me to find role models that look anything like me.”
Dix slides his hand across the table and covers my hand with his. “Do you ever wonder…? I mean, I’ve wondered a lot over the years how things might have been if, you know, I had married you instead of one of my four wives. I think you’re different enough and you would have been open enough to accept me as I am.”
All I can do is stare. There was a time when I would have killed to have heard such words, but now all I can do is tamp down my ambivalence.
“Dix, I—”
“Why, Dixxie Caine!” A blonde woman wriggles into his lap between the coconut cake and his fork. She slides one arm around his neck and plants a sloppy kiss on his cheek, leaving red lip prints on his cheek. Then she shoots me a broad smile.
She can’t be over forty-five. To my surprise, I’m immediately jealous of her perfect blonde highlights that hide her visible-only-if-you-look-for-them silver hairs. Everything about her says that she drives the five hours to Atlanta or over to Birmingham to buy her wardrobe as well as get her hair done and maybe a monthly spa day somewhere that requires round-trip airfare. No one in this little town or in the larger one an hour away offers such finery. Although Dixon stiffens at her touch, I can’t miss the familiarity between the two of them. Nor does she want me to.
“Why, Dixxie, why don’t you introduce me to your little friend here?”
If I’m jealous of how well put together she is, her syrupy tone tells me she’s jealous of me, if for no other reason, that I’m here tonight with a man who holds her interest.
Dixon ducks out from under her embrace and gently nudges her into a standing position. “Carol Ann,” he says nervously. “She’s an old friend.”
“I’m Lauren,” I offer, half-amused. No need to tell her about our teen hormones. I extend my hand, but she ignores it. “Lauren, who used to babysit for Dix’s little brother when he was in high school.”
Carol Ann studies me, her face frozen into a smile. She seems to shake off the fact that I’m sitting right in front of her. Instead, she turns back to Dix and drags one long, beautifully manicured, scarlet nail down the inside of her v-neckline to where her curves nearly hang out at the lowest point. “Dixxie? I know you’re in the middle of your supper, but could I steal you for a minute? There’s something I need to talk to you about.” She glances quickly at me and back. “And it can’t wait.”
If there’s such a thing as rolling your eyes too loudly, I do it.
Dix’s eyebrows crease with concern as his head whips around to search my face for an answer. I nod and motion for him to go ahead. After all, he’s the one who asked me on this date.
Empathically, I sense that he’s more vested in me than I am in him. He’s the one who’s been fantasizing about a life with me all these years while I haven’t thought much of him since I left high school.
Five minutes later, I am still nibbling at the chicken and dressing with a little bit of mushroom gravy and cranberry sauce mixed in as I watch the two of them argue on the other side of a six-foot tall fake plant. I can’t hear what she’s saying to him, but it’s definitely being said with great vigor. He rolls his eyes at her more than once, but he doesn’t walk away.
Inside my purse under the table, my phone chimes. I ignore it at first, but then it chimes again. And again. And again. I scoop a fork full of fried okra into my mouth before I reach for my phone. A text message blooms on the screen before I can unlock my screen.
Lisa. Ugh.
I don’t have time to deal with her. If she’s contacting me for any reason, it’s because she wants something because that’s the only reason she ever contacts me. A decade ago or more, she’d wanted to join my coven when I Initiated into Dragon Hart. She wanted whatever power I could pass to her and whatever knowledge, but without doing the actual work for it. She’d wanted to tell me how to be a High Priestess to her and always let me know what a disappointment I was because I wouldn’t serve her in how she desired to be served. At the end of my marriage to Jesse, when things were at their worst, she had kicked me when I was most down. More than once. I had already lost the healing center and was in fear of losing my house and everything I owned when she showed up to ask for money because the healing center couldn’t pay her, even though she herself had broken our contract.
“With friends like her, who needs enemies?” I mutter under my breath. I start to shove my phone back into my purse when another message materializes on the screen.
I’ve been gone for less than three days, and already she’s managed to track me down. Still, it could be important. Both my daughters and Christabel have long since left our old town, but I do still know plenty of people there, including Quent and his unhappy, young bride who calls herself Candy.
Could Lisa’s message have anything to do with Jesse?
No, I tell myself. Of course not. Jesse’s no longer there, Jan’s no longer there, the kids have grown and gone, the healing center has gone nationwide. Nothing is back there for me now. Nothing but memories, and it’s time to move on. Later, when I’m not in the middle of a date that’s been interrupted by a romantic rival, I’ll block Lisa’s number. I never need to deal with her again.
Before I can drop my phone back in my purse, a photo appears on the screen. I can’t stop staring. Some kind of destruction. Bricks? Rebar? Concrete? Then, in the far corner of the photo, I can barely make out the mailbox at my old house.
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