The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

by Celeste Fletcher McHale

  I looked out the window again, checking to see if Laine had made it home from school, but no dice. Where was she? It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. I wanted her and Ella Rae to go to Shreveport with me to shop. The yearly Crawfish Boil at Whitfield Farms was that weekend, and I needed a new outfit. I knew Bethany Wilkes would be there in all her glory, and there was no way I was going to let that pasty-faced swizzle stick outshine me again. She would no doubt have her missiles on display and wearing God only knows what on her feet. I had to find something spectacular, although unlike Bethany, I was a fan of wearing my boobies inside my shirt. And I needed Ella Rae and Laine to help because they didn’t keep their opinions a secret. In fact, they would gag, laugh, and point if they didn’t like something. Good thing I wasn’t sensitive. I dialed Laine’s number again but still got no answer.

  I noticed a missed call on my phone. Romeo. His name wasn’t really Romeo, of course. That’s just what Ella Rae and I had dubbed him. It was a lot nicer than what Laine called him—Lucifer, Satan, Spawn of the Devil, and on one occasion, “the scuzzified homewrecker that can’t spell ball”—her precise words.

  Anyway, a month had passed since the night he’d shown up in the parking lot. I had only spoken to him once since then and that was to tell him not to call me any more. He finally seemed to be getting the hint.

  After our short-lived fling, I had come to the conclusion that sneaking around answering secret phone calls was much more exciting than actually being with him. He was, in fact, an idiot. Every phone call was exactly the same. He told me how beautiful and desirable I was for the first ten minutes, and how much he’d love to have me in his arms. At first I lapped it up like a thirsty Rottweiler, and after that . . . there was absolutely nothing to talk about. The last time I was with him, he spent a good fifteen minutes sharing the story of his high school toenail fungus.

  Toenail fungus. I kid you not.

  Truthfully, I loved hearing him go on and on about how much he wanted me, how beautiful I was, how we were meant to be together. It was fun to be chased again. It made my recently plummeting self-esteem race up the charts. But then one day he said God had made our paths cross . . . that God had brought us together.

  That was it. In that moment I felt as if God had a damp dish towel and slapped me across the face with it. I was no Bible scholar, but I was completely sure God wasn’t sitting on his throne with his notepad and pencil, smiling and saying, “Let’s get Carrigan Whitfield involved in a completely inappropriate relationship with a man she barely knows.”

  I wasn’t about to drag God into this toxic, twisted little indiscretion. Or be manipulated by someone who believed that God was in the business of endorsing infidelity, and that the Taj Mahal was just a hole at the local putt-putt golf establishment.

  He could step right on out of my life and take his toenail fungus with him.

  When I told Laine I had ended it, she was elated—for lack of a better word that conjures up images of moonwalking down the street from euphoria. She gave me the whole obligatory speech about not doing anything stupid like this any more, and how I could now concentrate on my marriage and maybe think about starting a family.

  Where did she come up with this stuff? Had she not been around for the last year? I started to remind her that sex had to be a part of that scenario, but instead I just let her talk. I shook my head in all the right places and hung it in very real embarrassment in others. I don’t think she enjoyed my shame, but I think she was very glad I felt it.

  What I really wanted wasn’t Cell Phone Romeo, but the life I used to have with Jack. It was a sobering thought. I had no idea how to get back what we’d lost. I wasn’t going to throw myself at a man who no longer wanted me. I was going to keep my pride intact, even if it killed me in the process.

  Laine finally popped in the door.

  “Where have you been?” I said. “I’ve been calling you for thirty minutes.”

  “Ugh, school.” She headed straight for my sofa and fell face-first into a pillow. “I am exhausted.”

  “From what?” I said. “You were there forty-five seconds!”

  “I’m still tired,” she said. “I was up half the night.” She rolled over and put her arm over her forehead.

  That was odd. Laine was a ten o’clock girl most nights. “Why?”

  “The Way We Were was on.”

  “Sister gal,” I said, “you need to step out of la-la land and find you a man. You can have your own real-life romance. But you can’t start today. Today I need you to go home, change clothes, and splash some water on your face. We’re going to Shreveport for new clothes. Woo-hoo!”

  “No,” she said, “not today.”

  “Yes, today,” I said. “There are only three shopping days left till the Crawfish Boil. I’m under incredible pressure. There is no telling what the Vampire Bethany will have on, and I have to look stunning.”

  “Noooooo.” She buried her head in the pillow again.

  “Now, go on, scoot!” I tugged at her arm until she sat up. “I’m not about to look like I just jumped off the cover of Popular Mechanics while Bethany Wilkes looks like she’s been rolling around on the red carpet.”

  “You are crazy,” Laine said. “Jack does not want Bethany Wilkes. And I do not want to go to Shreveport.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “We’re all going. Ella Rae is on her way. We’ll pick you up shortly.”

  “Crap.” She dragged herself off the sofa in dramatic Laine fashion and walked to the door muttering her favorite phrases. “I can’t believe y’all are making me go. I never get to stay home. It’s always something. I’ve been to a thousand places I never even wanted to go. I have to go shopping and I want to stay home . . .”

  “See you in a few!” I called after her as she closed the door.

  Laine could whine and moan all she wanted, but the truth was, if Ella Rae and I were going somewhere or doing something, she wanted to be there too. She might hate the activity, but she was going. She’d scream at us while we skinny-dipped in the creek. She’d frog hunt with us and keep her eyes closed. She ran yoyos in the river with us, so petrified of alligators she couldn’t move, and sat in Tiger Stadium with cotton in her ears. But she always showed up.

  I watched out the window as she walked home, saw her mouth moving, and knew she was still grumbling. It reminded me of a night years ago, the night of my twenty-first birthday. The memory always made me laugh out loud. It was probably the one night she really wished she’d stayed home.

  Jack and the girls threw me a big birthday bash at the country club in Natchitoches. All our friends were there and the party was a blast. But just before midnight, and after I’d had a little bit too much to drink, Lexi Carter had shown up, uninvited and unwelcome. Jack had been dating Lexi right before he and I had gotten together. Actually, Jack had dated just about everybody in town except Laine and Ella Rae before we got together, so the fact that he’d dated her wasn’t what bothered me. I couldn’t very well stay mad at half the women I knew.

  But he’d stayed with Lexi longer than he stayed with most girls. In fact, everyone in town assumed he would marry her, me included. The thing that really made me want to spit nails was a letter she’d written to Jack just after he and I got married. The letter had expressed her undying love and affection for him, and she’d promised to wait for him until he was over his infatuation with me. The last line of that letter was burned into my mind like a tattoo. “Call me when your little girl gets done playing house.”

  I was infuriated. Worse than infuriated. I couldn’t say her name without wanting to spit. Jack had assured me over and over again there was nothing left between them, that he’d never really loved her at all. He told me he didn’t w
ant secrets between us and that’s why he gave me the letter in the first place.

  Eventually I believed him. Nobody could fake a love like we had going on during the first few years of our marriage. We were solid. But seeing her at my birthday party had been like pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire. Jack and I had been married a little over three years by then, but the memory of that letter had never faded. Looking back, I might have let it go had she just made a brief appearance, said hello to me, and left the same way she came in. But as the evening wore on, she inched her way closer to Jack. Meanwhile, I had been sipping whiskey all night trying to feel like a grown-up. Not a good combination of events.

  “I’m going to talk to her,” I finally told Laine and Ella Rae.

  Ella Rae, always my biggest cheerleader, had been chomping at the bit for a confrontation all night. “Yeah, you’re going to talk to her,” she said. “And I’m gonna talk to her too.”

  “You’re not going to do any such thing!” Laine caught Ella Rae’s hand. “You are going to act like a lady, Carrigan, and you are going to shut up, Ella Rae!”

  “Who you talking to?” Ella Rae said. She also tried to feel like a grown-up on this night.

  Laine put her arm around Ella Rae and tried to explain to her why ladies didn’t confront people and how she was going to make ladies out of both of us one day. I knew that discussion could last for a month, and I took the opportunity to escape. By the time they realized I was gone, I was standing right in front of Lexi Carter.

  Jack must’ve seen it coming because he was by my side in an instant. “How’s my birthday girl?” He slid an arm around my waist.

  I shoved his hand. “Get off me, Jack,” I said.

  “Why are you here?” I asked her. I felt Laine’s hand on one arm and Ella Rae’s on the other. Didn’t take them long to show up. Lexi smiled at me, and if I hadn’t been furious and my adrenaline wasn’t pumping at a hundred miles per hour, the red lipstick on her caps would’ve been hilarious. “Now, Carri,” she said. “Haven’t we buried the hatchet, sweetheart?”

  Two problems with that answer, actually. One, she’d called me Carri, which was reserved only for those closest to me. And two, she’d been condescending. Sweetheart? Seriously? She might as well have thrown a drink in my face. I was tipsy, I was mad, and I was twenty-one. In other words, the self-created drama was intense, all-consuming, and ridiculous. But at the time, I felt more than justified.

  “I tell you what we can bury, Lexi,” I said. “We can bury the hatchet in your—”

  Jack had caught me around the waist again and was trying to pull me away. Laine walked over to Lexi and was telling her something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to make a difference.

  “If Carri wants me to leave, she can ask me to leave,” Lexi said to Laine. Then she looked at me.

  I assumed that was an invitation to insult her. I obliged. “I want you to leave. You weren’t invited, I don’t want you here, and good-bye.”

  There . . . that oughta cover it. Jack released his hold a little.

  “What’s wrong, Carri?” She smiled and looked Jack up and down. “You afraid of a little competition?”

  I felt Jack’s arm stiffen, but I handled it like a champ. “I might be,” I said. “If I saw any.”

  “Lexi,” Jack said, “get out of here. Now!”

  “Still can’t control her, Jack?” Lexi said. “This is what happens when you get involved with a child.”

  I didn’t have time to react, and neither did Jack. All I heard was Ella Rae’s protest, “Oh, hell, no she didn’t,” and the pop of a fist connecting with a jaw. Only Lexi ducked, and Ella Rae landed an impressive right hook square on Laine’s cheek.

  “Mmmmmm! Mmmmmm!” Laine danced around holding her cheek.

  “Oops! Oh no! Oh, Laine, I’m so sorry!” Ella Rae said. She tried to assess the damage, but Laine wouldn’t have it. She wouldn’t let Ella Rae or me anywhere near her. She just danced around and held her face and stomped her foot.

  Jack took over in an instant. “Lexi, I told you once to get out, now leave. Tommy, please take Carrigan with you and Ella Rae. I’m taking Laine home.”

  Jack ushered Laine out the door while the rest of us stood there a little sheepishly. Tommy handled that situation in his laid-back, country boy way. “Come on, y’all. It ain’t a party till somebody gets a black eye. Nice jab, baby.” He patted Ella Rae on her backside. The crowd rippled a little nervous laughter, and the music started again.

  I thanked everyone at the party as fast as I could, and we left ten minutes behind Jack and Laine. When we got to her house, she refused to talk to Ella Rae or me. In fact, she wouldn’t even look in our direction. Jack had put a bag of frozen peas on her eye, and she was already in her robe on the sofa.

  Ella Rae tried to adjust the pillow behind her and knocked a vase off the end table instead. I snickered a little and Ella Rae laughed out loud. Laine never moved and never spoke. She just pointed at the door with her peas stuck to her face. We tucked our tails and left, bursting into spontaneous laughter as we closed the door. She yelled at us from inside, “I can still hear you!” Which actually made it funnier.

  It took Laine an entire week to speak to us at all. And you couldn’t really call it speaking. She ranted. She raved. She lectured. All Ella Rae and I could do was take it. Ella Rae had given Laine her first shiner, and I had started the whole mess. Not to mention that Laine was always mortified of being a part of any sort of scandal. What was she supposed to tell her students? Miss Landry was in a drunken brawl at the country club?

  That had made Ella Rae and me laugh and really started some fallout. She told us it was time to put away childish things. I was pretty sure the preacher had said the same thing from the pulpit Sunday, but if Laine wanted to preach, who was I to stop her? She lectured for at least thirty minutes before Ella Rae or I got a word in. It was hard to look at her too. I had never had a black eye like that, and I had played some type of sport my entire life. I wanted to tell her how impressed I was, and then thought I should just leave that alone. But anytime she turned her back Ella Rae would whisper, “Did you see her eye? I didn’t know I could do that!” Ella Rae really did feel awful about hitting her, but she was like me. We’d both had knee surgeries, broken fingers, busted lips, stitches, you name it. All this commotion over a black eye seemed ridiculous. But this was Laine we were talking about, and she was a girlie girl.

  By the time the fight story had circulated Bon Dieu Falls a time or two, I had broken Lexi’s arm, cracked two of her ribs, and rearranged her face enough that she needed plastic surgery. My parents even came to my house to question me about it. So many rumors, and I never even got to touch her. Ahhh . . . life in a small town.

  Lexi left the parish shortly after that. I never knew exactly where she went, but I heard she moved to New Orleans. Then a few months ago I saw her again. I drove up to the post office one morning and there she was. I sat in my car and watched as she got into hers.

  Why was she here? Had she moved back? I called Ella Rae immediately. She had heard nothing about Lexi Carter. I texted Laine at school. She didn’t know anything either. I called Jack at the Farm next. I played it casual, asked how his day was going. Finally I mentioned I had seen Lexi and asked him if he knew she was in town.

  “Yeah, somebody told me she had moved back,” he said.

  It didn’t take me long to put two and two together. That night I felt a distance between us. Eventually I asked him if he’d been seeing her. Of course he denied it. And of course I didn’t believe him.

  Sometimes I followed him. I went through his wallet, his phone, his truck, his receipts. And every time I did it, I loathed myself. I’d always d
espised women who did stuff like that, and then I became one. I never found any evidence, but there was something wrong at my house, and I was crushed.

  Then she’d disappeared just as quickly as she’d shown up. I was elated, hoping against hope her absence would bring Jack back to me. But he was still withdrawn and reserved, even more so now. Strangely enough, it was only when we were alone. Out there, I was still the love of his life. I supposed he needed to keep up appearances—after all, we had to keep that Whitfield name shiny.

  And that made me sadder than anything. Hurt me with the truth, but don’t comfort me with a lie.

  The sound of Ella Rae’s screeching tires yanked me from my trip down memory lane. I shook my head. The girl knew two speeds, wide open and dead stop. I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The morning of the Crawfish Boil broke bright and beautiful. I was going to the Farm early, and the girls were going with me. Jack had left around six that morning and kissed my forehead while I faked sleep. Where had this come from? And what did it mean?

  He was becoming a little more affectionate lately and it annoyed, pleased, and confused me. Why now, when I had clearly crossed a line in the marriage? Why now, when I had all but given up?

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and wondered, not for the first time, how my life had gotten this complicated. I was thirty years old and married to the love of my life. It shouldn’t be this way.

  But should or not, it was. And even if I felt ready to quit, I had to keep going. For the sake of my marriage. For the sake of my sanity.

  At least my new outfit was perfect. We’ll see who wins this round, Count Bethany.

  When we arrived around ten, the Farm was already buzzing with life. The party didn’t officially start until four that afternoon, but that never stopped anybody from showing up early. It was always like this. People started arriving before noon and left after midnight.