Alicia Pace - Simple Gone South

“Yeah, I know. She’s crazy right now. Not sleeping much. Living on coffee. I’ll be glad when this is over.”

“I’ll bet. I’ve got two big bags of hair stuff and a receipt for an amount you don’t want to know about. She said to bring it to her. Do you know where that would be?”

“Sort of, I guess.” He sighed. Harris Bragg sighed a lot—and for good reason. Missy’s All-American quarterback-turned-lawyer husband was the only man Brantley had ever known who came anywhere close to being able to handle Missy. God love him.

“She and Lucy were going to get their hair done at the mall somewhere. They’ve gone out there.”

“At the mall? At a chain?” It worried Brantley that he knew where Missy ordinarily got her hair done, which was at a shiny little shop downtown.

“You got me.” Harris sounded bewildered. “But that’s what she said. Do you want to bring that stuff to me and let me work it out?”

Tempting. “Don’t you have the kids?”

“They can go to the mall.” Harris’s tone was begging Brantley to say no. He pictured Harris gathering up bags of kid stuff, strollers, and messing with car seats. He didn’t have the heart. Plus, all that would take time, which might get him in trouble with Missy.

“I’ll find her,” he told Harris.

At the mall, it was pure luck that he found them as fast as he did. He went in through Dillard’s, thinking he’d ask someone in there about hair salons. It was when he rounded the corner, trying to get away from the lingerie department, that he heard laughter that rang out like schoolyard magic. He’d ended up in women’s accessories where Missy and Lucy were trying on hat after ugly hat, some large, some small, some with feathers, some plain, and all belonging on heads that answered to the name of Grandmother. He must have stood there a full minute watching them clutch about each other, swap hats, and wipe tears from their eyes. For a second he thought they might be drunk but then he remembered what Harris had said about the lack of sleep and living off coffee. Apparently Missy was enforcing her present lifestyle choices on Lucy because they were in the same giddy boat.

He hadn’t seen Lucy in a while. She’d been out of town the last several times he’d been in Merritt. Her hair was a little longer and she looked good. He let himself enjoy that. Truth was, Brantley loved the look of a girl in shorts and a sweatshirt. You saw that ensemble a lot in the fall and spring in the south when the weather just couldn’t make up its mind. Sweatshirt, khaki knee shorts, and Keds—it was practically a uniform, but one they didn’t like to be caught wearing. Pity.

Missy finally caught sight of him. “Brantley!” She threw herself at him, hat and all.

When he hugged her, he could practically feel her buzzing. “What are you doing at the mall, Missy?”

“We needed some necklaces for tonight and we have to get our hair done here so we were just waiting for you to call.”

“How was I going to do that?”

“What?” She put her hand in her pocket. “No phone?”

“No phone,” he confirmed.

“Then how?”

“I talked to Harris and I used my magic Missy locater.”

“You could have called Lucy’s phone,” she said.

That had never occurred to him. Maybe it should have.

“I have a phone.” Lucy nodded her head seriously and her dark curls bounced around her face. “But you don’t have my number. You’ve never had my number.” Then she burst out laughing. She had a wonderful laugh. Brantley remembered then that he’d always thought that, even when she was a gawky fifteen-year-old and he had been the eighteen-year-old King of Main Street. Not too silly, not too loud, just very easy on the ears. But she was giddy today and her laugh gave way to a giggle—better than most giggles, but still a giggle. Missy joined in.

And snorted.

Oh, man. “Are y’all drunk?”

“No!” they burst out together, and laughed some more.

“Well, I hope I haven’t made you late for your hair appointments.” He was no longer interested in why Missy had lowered herself to interacting with a mall chain hair salon. “I have your stuff.” He held out the bags.

“You are the best! And we have some time; you can buy us some coffee.”

“I think y’all have had enough coffee,” he said. “I’m tempted to take your money away so you can’t buy any either.”

Missy stuck her tongue out at him. “They will give us some while we’re getting our hair done.”

“No, they won’t,” Lucy said. “Not here.” Lucy might know a little bit more about chain beauty parlors than Missy was ever likely to.

“How about some food?” Brantley asked.

“Yes!” This came from Lucy. “I want some food. I want some cake. And I want it right now. Chocolate.”

“There will be no cake eating,” Missy said. “Not by you and not by me until this show is over. We have to lie down to zip those pants as it is.”

“Well.” Brantley had had enough. “I need to go see my dad and grandmother. And I’ll see you both tonight.” He waved and they went back to swapping hats.

Lucy had looked really good. Had he said anything to her directly? Surely he had. His mama had sent him to Junior Cotillion to see to it that he had good manners.

Of course, he hadn’t used those manners the one time when they might have made a difference.

Brantley’s grandmother, Caroline Eleanor Hurst Brantley, lived in the historic district in the same Queen Anne Victorian where Brantleys had been living and raising their offspring since it was built in 1889. Brantley loved that house—the turrets, the gingerbread, the nooks and crannies. He had no doubt that it was his happy childhood memories within those old walls that had shaped his passion for restoration and preservation architecture. But they never, as a family, ate a meal or celebrated a holiday in the dining room of that house anymore. Hadn’t in a long time.

For the most part, they had traded dining rooms for restaurants, with the occasional patio thrown in.

Today Brantley would be having lunch with his grandmother and father at the house where he had been born to Charles and Eva Brantley Kincaid—though the dining room was off limits there too. When he and his dad occasionally ate at that house it was always on TV trays in front of the television, but Big Mama was not the type to take a meal on a TV tray.

Sure enough, he found them on the back patio where Charles was grilling steaks and Big Mama was nursing a mint julep and gazing out at the golf course. The wrought iron table was set with a tablecloth and dishes in fall colors. There was even a centerpiece of gourds and Indian corn. That would be Big Mama’s doing. Pull out causal elegant. We can’t bear to eat at other tables, but the boy is coming home. We have to Do Right.

For a few seconds he watched them, thinking their separate lonely thoughts and living their separate lonely lives. He put on his happy Brantley mask before speaking.

“Hey,” he said. And he watched two faces swing toward him and morph into pure, unadulterated joy.

Being the recipient of such undeserved love could be a hard job.

Big Mama was the first to reach him. She was classy, tall, and gracefully thin with a white chin length bob. She hardly fit the connotation that Big Mama mustered up. She looked more like a Grandmere or Mimi, but Brantley women were always Big Mama to their grandchildren.

Brantley’s children, if he had any, would not have anyone to call Big Mama.

“Darling! You look wonderful.”

He kissed her cheek. “Not so good as you.”

Then he went from thin reaching arms to strong hands clasping his shoulders. “Let me get you a beer, Son.”