Nancy Bartholomew - Your Cheatin Heart

Weathers shrugged. "You may be right," he said, "but I don't take nothing for granted when it comes to ex-spouses. There's always an axe to grind somewhere, no matter how deep it's buried."

I looked over at Weathers, noting the tiny twitch back in his jaw. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that I had just gotten a glimpse of the man who lived behind the professional exterior.

I opened my mouth to ask the next question, to find out a little bit more about this man and his past, but he saw it coming.

"Gotta get back," he said, sliding out of the booth and heading for the trash can. "I got work to do, and you've got a daughter to look after."

I couldn't argue with that. I followed him out into the parking lot, the afternoon sun hitting me squarely in the eyes. He was on the cell phone once again when I climbed into the passenger seat. For a minute I wondered if he was really talking to anyone at all. Maybe hugging the phone was his way of avoiding questions from me. Still, I listened.

"Hey!" he said, his voice a bit rougher than it was when he spoke to me. "Listen, I been thinkin' and I got a different way to go on this here." He was watching the road, but for an instant he glanced over at me. "I want you to draw something up and get her to come in and sign it. I'm tired of fooling around."

He looked almost sad, his eyes dark blue wells. Couldn't be a professional call, I thought. There was nothing in his tone to give away sadness, but I had an urge to touch his knee, a sure sign that my womanly intuition was on alert and sending signals. Just like me to hone in on another wounded dog. Probably them bad picker genes leading me down one more dead-end road.

"Yeah, huh." He grunted. "I know it." He listened, making the turn onto Elm Street and preparing to pull back into Jack's parking lot. He sighed, a frown creasing his forehead.

"I ain't much for Monday morning quarter-backing," he said. "Let's just get on with it and see what you people can get accomplished." Then, an afterthought: "And keep it simple, y'hear? She started the whole mess, but that don't mean we gotta make it sting worse." He slammed the phone shut and threw it down on the seat between us.

"Lawyers," I sighed, shaking my head and taking a stab in the dark.

"Ain't that the truth," he said, before he could catch himself.

"Listen now," he said, turning to me, "you get up with Sheila, make sure she's all right. I'll be in touch."

I hopped out of the car and turned back to say good-bye. "Maybe you can tell me all about your divorce next time," I was going to say, leave him with the smart aleck comment this time. But he was already back on the phone, barking at someone. He lifted his hand up, a dismissive wave good-bye, and was gone.

I was left standing in the parking lot once again, my mouth hanging open and looking like a big dummy. Back when I was growing up, whenever Mama witnessed someone who had a particular talent for leaving others speechless and getting their own way, she'd stand back and admire the whole act for a few moments. Then she'd turn to us young'uns and say, "Now there goes a prize violin."

Weathers had played me like a fiddle all right, but the band was just tuning up and Maggie Reid was gonna have the last word.

I could hear the choir tuning up and the organ wailing as I stood outside the Ledbetter Greek Methodist Church, waiting on Bonnie. Churches made me nervous, ever since Daddy fell out drunk one time in our home church and the pastor thought God had struck him dead and tried to revive him in the sacred baptismal pool. After that, I decided to leave organized religion to them what do it best.

I was half hiding underneath the shade of a pin oak, tugging at my blue skirt and wishing it was a tad longer. It's one thing to be a Reba McIntyre look-alike on stage, but it is quite another to carry it to church. I had on a high-necked white shirt and prissy white shoes. Not a rhinestone in sight. And I must've passed, 'cause Bonnie almost walked right past me.

"Hey," I called softly.

Bonnie was taking one last drag on her cigarette and shooing three of the six children off toward Sunday School. She stopped, startled, and guiltily pitched her smoke in the bushes.

"Lord, honey, you liked to scared me to death! I thought you was one of the bazaar ladies." She took a deep breath and gave me a thorough onceover. "Dang, Maggie, you must want this'un bad to dress like that!" Not that Bonnie was the picture of conservatism. She was just used to looking like someone's mother.

"I got good news for you, though. I forgot, we're having a pinto bean supper after church today!"

"How's that good news? I don't like pinto beans and the last thing I want to do is-" Bonnie cut me off with a wave of her hand.

"His mother will be working the line, you idiot! We'll sit at her table!" Bonnie turned and started up the stairs to the sanctuary.

"Praise God," I whispered and followed her.

The church was relatively small and very old. Thick windowsills and whitewashed walls. Pretty stained-glass windows depicted the saints and Jesus, all having a time of it being Christians. Bonnie slipped into a pew halfway up the red carpeted aisle, tugging me in beside her. All the church members were old, or at least that's how it seemed to me. They smiled and waved to each other, but when the opening hymn began and the congregation stood, they became seriously devout.

Bonnie nudged me as I fumbled with my hymnal. "See her?" she whispered. "The lady two rows up, just in front of you, with the gray curly hair."

I looked. Bonnie's description fit just about every woman in the place, but I knew Marshall Weathers's mother instantly. When she turned to watch the choir approach our eyes met briefly. Electric blue lie detectors. She wasn't tiny, like some of the others, but taller and grandmotherly. The kind of woman who wears an apron around the house and forgets to take it off 'cause she's always in the kitchen. She looked tanned and happy, and I imagined her out in the garden picking beans for supper.

Bonnie raised an eyebrow at me, then winked. She was loving this. Intrigue came simple to a woman with six children.

I don't remember the pastor's sermon. He was a small, bland little fellow with cherry red cheeks and a look of surprised innocence about him. His voice came out in a hushed monotone that the ladies, Mrs. Weathers included, all seemed to strain to hear. I was too busy watching her and wondering about the mother of my detective to listen to the service.

When the choir started the last hymn, Bonnie gave me another nudge. "We gotta get straight on down to the fellowship hall if we want to sit with Flo and them. As soon as the preacher gives the benediction and people start to file out, you follow me."

The "Amen" had barely left the preacher's lips when Bonnie charged the aisle like a water buffalo. She cut past the ladies who waited to shake hands with the minister, plowed through little groups of chatters, and led me straight outside into the noontime sunshine and across the little churchyard to a low white building.

Bonnie didn't stop her single-minded pursuit until we were sitting at a table along the far left-hand side of the narrow fellowship hall, happily ensconced among five gray-haired women.

"Sit here," she'd said, placing me next to the one empty chair at the table, facing a blank wall with a colorful picture of Jesus at the Last Supper. "That's her chair there. You wait, as soon as the line gets started, she'll come around!"

But when Flo Weathers did appear, I found myself suddenly shy. What was I gonna do now?

"Well, hey there, ladies!" she cried, setting her plate of pinto beans, cornbread, and coleslaw down with a gentle thunk. "Bonnie," she said, looking at me, "who's your friend?" And before Bonnie could swallow her tea and answer, Flo took matters into her own hands. "Anybody ever tell you you look like Reba McIntyre?" she asked. "I got a son who just worships that woman!"