Page 81 of Lemon Pound Cake Club

"This woman has known me since I wore pigtails."

Miss Evelyn smiled.

"And she was just as bossy back then."

Bernice rolled her eyes. The two of them laughed again.

Watching them together felt like seeing two sisters continue a conversation that had never really ended.

Bernice poured Evelyn a glass of sweet tea. Miss Evelyn took it and sat down on one of the barstools.

"I swear," Bernice said, "you've got a sixth sense."

"For what?"

"For showing up when somebody's cooking."

Miss Evelyn laughed.

"I've been following the smell of your food for thirty years."

"Forty."

"Don't age me."

Bernice slid a bowl of sliced tomatoes across the counter.

"You already there."

The two women laughed, as if they had shared that joke a hundred times. I leaned on the counter and smiled, watching them.

"I feel like I'm missing about fifty years of inside jokes."

"You are," Miss Evelyn said. Bernice shook her head.

"Half our stories aren't fit for company."

"They're perfectly fit."

"They're absolutely not."

Miss Evelyn reached over and stole a slice of tomato.

"I remember when this whole street wasn't nothing but open land." Bernice nodded.

"There wasn't a single house over here."

"Just dirt."

"My daddy used to say you could bury almost anything in this soil and it'd find a way to grow."

Miss Evelyn's smile lingered.

"He wasn't wrong."

The room grew quiet. Sometimes I think Miss Evelyn talks in code. I wonder what she’s waiting for. She always seems to know something but keeps it to herself, waiting for the right moment.

The doorbell rang. We all turned to look at the foyer. Bernice frowned.