Liddie blew out a breath. So far today, she’d dealt with chair-slinging ninth graders, a tearful shrink appointment, and an overly perky checkout clerk at the Piggly Wiggly. She’d had quite enough public interaction, thank you very much. And to top it off, her uncles had invited her over for dinner, so she was going to have to do even more peopling later. Thank goodness Wednesdays were generally slow at The Backward Glance, because she was looking forward to spending three uninterrupted hours sorting through vintage glass.
She had just sat down with a large auction lot when the door chimed, alerting her to someone coming into the shop. She groaned and then immediately plastered her “friendly and knowledgeable vintage shop attendant” smile on her face and went to greet the customer.
“Hello, and welcome to The Backward Glan—oh my word, Em!”
Em, the kind woman she met at Tobias’s Cabbagetown gig had been standing in front of the high-end carnival glass display, clapping her hands with glee.
“Hey, Liddie! Oh, I’m so glad you’re working today!” She gave Liddie a hug and then stepped back. “This is such a cute shop! I can barely stand it.”
“Thank you. My uncles have worked so hard to build it up.” She looked around conspiratorially. “You know, we just got a box of carnival glass from an auction. A lot of it is Helios Green,” she sing-songed.
“Oh my Lord. I said I wasn’t going to buy any more glass, but . . .”
Liddie laughed. “Come on back.”
The next two hours were spent investigating the boxes of glass and chatting about glass and other vintage goods. Liddie had forgotten what it was like to have a girlfriend, or even someone to talk to who wasn’t related to her. Of course, those thoughts led her to thoughts of Tobias, and she sucked in a shaky breath.
Em smiled sympathetically. “Mick said Tobias has been having some issues.”
“Um, yeah, I guess—” Liddie smoothed a price tag down with her finger.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Liddie shook her head. “All I do is talk about it. With the shrink, and a group, and in forums on the internet.”
“Oh, okay. So this is a Big Bad, not just regular stuff.”
“That’s exactly what this is.” Liddie heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that Em didn’t push for further details, though for some reason, she felt compelled to make Em understand that while Tobias was directly involved, he was not the cause. “Tobias is involved, but really, he’s a victim, too. The whole situation has more to do with who our parents were than anything Tobias and I had or hadn’t done.”
“Hmm.”
“What was that sound and look for?” Liddie asked with a laugh.
“Mick and I—it took us forever to get together. He . . . didn’t have an easy time growing up, and then once he seemed to have it all, it was ripped away in the blink of an eye. I had to wait a long time before he was in a healthy enough mindset to have a functional relationship. I’m not going to lie—it was awful for a while. We weren’t communicating the way we should have been, and of course, there was baggage, so much baggage. But we finally got our heads out of our asses, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“I think we still have a lot of work to do individually.”
“I get it. I do.” Em’s lip curled up in a small grin. “But don’t be afraid to help each other with your individual work, because sometimes working together is the only way you can achieve that goal.” Em’s eyes popped wide in shock. “Oh Lordy, when did I become the sort of person who spews unsolicited relationship advice?”
Liddie didn’t know, but she sure was glad that Em was that sort of person.
´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´
Liddie suspected the uncles were up to something. She cut her eyes first to Ace and then to Bunny. They hadn’t nudged her about getting enough sleep, or eating, or getting out, or any of the things they’d been riding her butt to do the last couple of weeks. In fact, they were behaving completely normal, suspiciously normal.
“Liddiebug, how was your day?” Ace hadn’t called her Liddiebug since she was a little girl. The nickname, combined with a dinner of recently forbidden fried chicken—her favorite—and their sudden disinterest in being bossy, convinced her that they were definitely up to something.
She decided the best course of action was to play dumb, so she snapped a baby carrot between her teeth and tried to think of something outrageous to say. Unfortunately, “outrageous” wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse.
“I broke up a girl fight today. It was ugly—girls fighting over a boy.” Liddie plucked a drumstick off the platter and then helped herself to an extra-large serving of fried okra. “Oh, this looks so yummy. I haven’t had my fill of a table full of fried goodness in a long, long time.”
“Bunny decided we can have a full-on Southern meal once a month.” Ace got his own double serving of okra. “Isn’t that right, Bunny?”
“Say what now?” Bunny froze with a forkful of greens halfway between the serving bowl and his plate.
Ace’s smile grew strained. “You know what we talked about earlier—about us having a blowout supper one night a month.” Ace bugged his eyes out at his partner and rolled his head toward Liddie.
Smooth, Uncle Ace. Really, really smooth.
“What? I never—oh. Oh! Uh, yeah.” Bunny was glaring at Ace when he carefully added, “Of course, we’ll just have to play it by ear, depending on how everyone is feeling.”
Oh, this was going to be good. The uncles were going to hoist themselves with their own petard. Liddie, waiting for whatever ruse they were trying to pull off to implode, casually snacked on some of the okra on her plate.
“And by the way, Tobias says, ‘Hey.’ ”
Liddie aspirated a whole piece of okra, and it took Bunny’s pounding her on the back for her to begin breathing normally again.
“You saw Tobias?”
“Mm-hmm.” Bunny took a bite of a chicken leg.
“Where?”
“Well, at his home.”
“You went and saw him?” Liddie squeaked. The uncles nodded. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“To see if he was as torn up as you are,” Bunny blurted.
Liddie groaned and covered her face with her hands. “And?” She peeked through her fingers to witness her uncles silently conversing with eye rolls and head bobs and nods. “AND?” she repeated a little more forcefully.
“He is, with an extra helping of guilt and self-flagellation that you don’t have because you’re going to the headshrinker.” Ace took a deep breath. “He is completely torn up, but I’ll tell you what: he is hanging on. And he’s willing to work and to wait, because that man loves you.”
Liddie thought of what Em had said earlier that day, about her own husband being worth the wait and about how important it was for him to be mentally healthy enough for a relationship. And then she thought about all the things she’d been talking about with her psychiatrist. And in the back of her mind, the place where it was dark and warm and safe, she thought she saw a little light, a little glimmer there. That glimmer managed to sneak across her face, and both her uncles grinned back at her.
Ace leaned his elbows on the table. “I see that expression, Liddie Hopewell. Now the most important question: What are you going to do about it?”
“I . . . think I have to go, Uncles.” Liddie stood up from the table, gave her uncles each a kiss on the forehead, and practically ran out the front door, down the steps, and to her car.