Wedding Bell Blues - [26]

“Well, I stopped by the big house on the way over here. Jeanie said that ever since you moved out,Mordecai’s stayed up all night howling for you. He won’t eat, neither. Just sleeps all day and howls allnight. Big Ben said he reckoned if Mordecai loved you that much, he orta go live with you. He’s too oldto be much of a guard dog anyway.”

Lily looked into the big dog’s adoring, chocolate-brown eyes. “Well, I don’t know what Ben willthink of this —”

“Benny Jack’s mother and daddy write him a check for five thousand dollars every month eventhough he don’t do a lick of work for the company. I figure five thousand a month’s enough to cover thecare and feeding of a dog.”

“Well, I guess it is,” Lily said. “Come on, Mordecai. The backyard’s fenced in. I guess we can putyou out there for the time being.”

Mordecai jumped out of the bed of the truck, delighted.

“So, Mimi,” Lily asked, “do you want Mordecai to be your doggie?”

Mimi wrapped her arms around Mordecai’s bull neck and cooed, “Big doggie. My doggie.”

Well, they were cute together. Lily didn’t know how she and Mimi would handle having such abig dog when they moved back to the city, but then a terrifying but familiar image flashed in her mind:She might not have Mimi when she moved back to the city.

“You okay, honey?” Granny McGilly asked.

“Yeah... just kinda stressed out.”

Granny patted her shoulder. “You’re a high-strung little thing, ain’tcha? I told you not to worryabout nothin’. This ugliness in court’ll be settled soon enough, and then you and Benny Jack can get backto being a normal married couple.”

A normal married couple. Yeah, right. Lily watched Granny climb into her truck and drive off,noticing for the first time the rifle in the gun rack of the truck’s back window. Lily had no troublepicturing Granny using that gun, firing away at squirrels or rabbits or the Maycombs. Now, that lastimage was one she could enjoy.

That afternoon, Ben came in the door, humming. When Mimi announced his presence with asqueal of “B-Jack,” instead of correcting her, he picked her up and swung her like an airplane.

“B-Jack funny,” Mimi laughed.

Ben smiled the kind of smile someone in a Walt Disney cartoon might when a bluebird alights onhis shoulder. “B-Jack certainly is.” He focused for a second on the guardian angel picture Lily had justfinished hanging over the couch. “Say, isn’t that picture from Granny’s house?”

“Yeah, she brought it over this morning. She brought something else, too, which might not makeyou too happy.”

“Mordecai? Yeah, I saw him as I drove up. That’s okay. He’s not so bad, as quadrupeds go.”

Lily looked at Ben in amazement. “So... what happened to that adorable, perpetually kvetchinghomosexual that I married?”

Ben sat down in the armchair, hugging his knees. “I had a good day, that’s all.”

“Do tell. It’s the first good day you’ve had since we moved to Versailles, so I think that makes it anewsworthy event.”

“Well, this morning when I was dropping those papers off at Buzz Dobson’s office, I kind of raninto somebody from my past.”

“Your past?” Lily teased. “I didn’t know you had a past.”

“F u-c-k y-o-u,” Ben said, spelling his profanity so Mimi wouldn’t parrot it. “It was this guy, Ken,I went to high school with. And god, I was obsessed with him back then ... he was a nerdy little gay boy’swet dream: a National Merit Scholar, president of the Beta Club, and with these big, brown eyes to diefor. Have you ever known anybody like that? Somebody you just can’t stop thinking about?”

“Just Charlotte. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go five minutes without thinking of her.” Sheshook off her pain. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get maudlin. So you ran into this guy today?”

“Sure did. Now he’s a chemistry professor over at Faulkner County Community College. I waskind of surprised that he’s teaching there, but the academic market’s tough these days. He’s still gorgeous,and ...” Ben paused dramatically. “He’s never married.”

“So do you think —”

“I think he might be. I mean, he dated girls in high school, but hell, I even dated a girl or two inhigh school. He really set my gaydar off today, but it could just be wishful thinking.”

“Shame on you!” Lily laughed. “A married man!” Ben flashed another Walt Disney grin. “OnSaturday, he and I are playing golf at the country club.”

Lily felt a sudden tingle of fear. “Now, Ben, you have to be discreet about this —”

“Do you honestly think there’s anybody in this town who would think of two men — one of themmarried — playing golf together at the country club as a date?”

“No, I guess not. Excuse my paranoia — it’s just that I know for a fact that there are people out toget me.”

“I promise to be discreet. Hell, there’s probably not even going to be anything to be discreet about.

I don’t even know if this is a date.” He tried to fight the smile creeping across his lips. “But I hope it is.”

CHAPTER 10

Lily was trying to work. She sat at the kitchen table, with a spiral notebook and a sketch pad infront of her. When she was starting a new children’s book, she never knew which would come to her first: