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“What do you think, Atticus? I could stand a little time out of this place, couldn’t I? Maybe they’ll let me bring you a nibble back. I know how much you love a mean brisket.”
Atticus cocked his head to one side and meowed, as if he understood what I was offering him. Obviously, he didn’t. I’d had a rough few days, but I hadn’t completely lost my shit enough to think a cat was communicating with me. At least not in English. I knelt and scratched his ears, listening to him purr, then brought Scout in from wherever she’d been lurking to get her fair share of attention.
“All right, I’m going to go shower. I’ll get y’all a snack first though. I know how you two love your snacks.” I grabbed them a couple of cat sticks and then left them to devour them while I got cleaned up.
By the time I arrived at Glenn’s, it was already packed with people. He and his wife, Angie, had only the one son, Donnie, but their extended family was huge. Glenn came from a family of eight boys and two girls, while Angie had four sisters. Most were either married or divorced, with children, and there were always strays, like me, who joined in on their family gatherings.
“There’s the man!” Angie shouted happily as I arrived in the kitchen, a bottle of wine I had grabbed from my cupboard in hand. “Ooh, and you brought the cook a present. Good boy!”
I leaned down for her to give me a hug. At four-foot-eleven, she was almost childlike beside my six-foot-two frame.
“Well, come on, let’s get you out on the back deck where all the excitement is happening. I’ve got to get out there and turn the meat anyway, and I can’t leave you in here with my wife. I know what a charmer you are.” Glenn laughed.
The deck was packed with people. I let Glenn work on his food while I chatted with old friends I hadn’t seen in a while. It felt good to be out and about again.
“You’re Jon Rayburn, right?” a quiet voice asked as I moved around the deck.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“You used to. My name’s Sasha Turner. I went to high school with you, but I was like three grades below you.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” I replied, still without a clue who she was.
“You’re a terrible liar. It’s OK. I was a nerd. No one really knew I was there most of the time.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right,” I said, shrugging.
“It’s all right. Anyway, it’s good to see you again. You don’t usually come to these things.”
“I take it that you do?”
“Yeah. Angie’s cousin, Penny, always drags me to them. She keeps trying to fix me up with one of the many Dunelm boys in this family, but there ain’t no way I’d have any of these idgits.”
“I’m sure they’d be disappointed to hear that.” I laughed.
I don’t know what Sasha Turner looked like in high school. I truly couldn’t remember ever having seen her, even once. The girl standing in front of me though was hot, with long blonde hair, full lips, and curves in all the right places. She was built for speed, as my friends used to say, though not a damned one of them really knew what that meant. I wasn’t sure that I truly knew what it meant, other than she was a woman men would fight over.
“Now, you, on the other hand,” she continued, batting her long eyelashes at me, “are a different story.”
“How’s that?” I asked, finding myself looking around for an escape route.
“Do I really need to explain it to you?” she said seductively.
It was as if, for her, no one else existed on this deck but me. She had zeroed in on me and was hitting me with everything she had to get my attention. I took her in for a moment, the button-down blouse opened a bit more down the front than most townsfolk would consider decent. Her jeans were skintight and topped off with a pair of high heels. Her red lips matched her long red nails.
“I’m sorry, Sasha. Will you excuse me?”
“Oh, uh. Yeah, sure,” she said, looking confused.
“Thanks,” I told her, turning to make my way as far from her as possible. I found Glenn handing out plates and told him I had to go, that something had come up.
“Are you sure, man? You’re going to miss out on some good food. Here, take a plate and make it to go. Angie will give you some plastic wrap in the kitchen.”
“No, no. That’s OK.”
“I insist.”
I gave in and let him throw me together a plate, then added a few things from the long table of fixins’ set up nearby. In the kitchen, I found Angie laughing with a couple of her sisters. She wrapped the plate for me and told me she hated to see me go so quickly but didn’t ask questions. I thanked her and said goodbye before hurrying out to my car and heading home.
