Crystal Ball

by Laney Kay

  That was it for me. I saw red. I told all of them to stay there and stalked around to the front of the house and out to the street. Bobby was leaning against a minivan, and I marched up to him, planted my feet, slammed my hands on my hips, and demanded, “Bobby, why are you here?”

  Bobby squared his jaw and straightened up, jabbing his finger in my chest. “I want a chance to talk to everyone face to face. You have turned all our friends against me and I’m tired of it.” He stepped forward and started crowding me backwards and his voice got louder. “They won’t even give me a chance because you told them they couldn’t see me.”

  He grabbed my arms and shook me a little, which infuriated me. “Get your hands off me, Bobby,” I hissed. I tried to pull loose, but he was pissed and a lot bigger than me, so I couldn’t get away. He wasn’t hurting me, but I was getting madder by the minute. “Look you stupid jackass, I never told them they couldn’t hang out with you, but get it through your head, they have no desire to hang out with you and your adolescent skank. Do you understand that when you chose to leave me, you chose to leave your old life, too, and that includes your old friends? That’s not my problem.”

  About that time, I felt someone come up behind me and heard a quiet voice above my head. Harrison, all 6’9” of him, was towering over both of us. He tapped Bobby’s shoulder, leaned over so they were eye to eye, and quietly said, “Bobby, you need to let her go. Now.”

  Bobby obviously didn’t like what he saw in Harrison’s face and immediately let go. I stepped back, rubbing my arms and suddenly Mark was also there and both Mark and Harrison moved slightly in front of me in case Bobby didn’t keep his distance. I stood between them, my fists clenched, and narrowed my eyes. “Bobby, it’s over. You made a choice and I sure as hell wasn’t it, so you have to live with the consequences.” I saw movement to my right, looked around Harrison and saw Mo, Sara, and Lola standing off to the side. “But you know what, if you have something to say to all of us, we’re all here, so go ahead and say your piece and then you can leave. And I don’t want you anywhere near me again.”

  He stepped back toward the minivan, opened the door, and leaned inside. He motioned for someone and all of a sudden, a small blonde woman who looked to be about seventy-two months pregnant climbed out to stand by him. I couldn’t help it. I gasped. Holy shit, I can’t believe he brought the baby skank here. Mark and Harrison moved aside as Mo and Sara came up next to me and Lola stepped up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders.

  It was just bizarre. The strangest thing was that she looked exactly like me when I was that age, except her face was a little thinner and she was a little taller and her hair was blonder, more of a white blonde like you see on little kids. Which, come to think of it made perfect sense since she looked like she was about fifteen. She had this enormous belly, which she hugged protectively as she stood in front of us staring at a spot on the ground in front of her. Bobby put his arm around her shoulders and casually introduced her as if we’d all run into each other at the mall, or something.

  “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Barbie.” He then started introducing her to each of us individually, explaining who was with whom and then how we’d known each other since college and had been friends ever since. All of us simply nodded once, too inherently Southern and polite not to acknowledge her, but not wanting to engage her in conversation.

  Bobby blathered on, pointing to me and introducing me as “Daisy, you know, my previous wife,” and I could feel my friends tense up even more. I patted Lola’s hand to keep her quiet and quickly smiled at Mo and Sara to let them know I was okay.

  And you know, it was weird, but, I swear I was totally okay. I realized that I really didn’t feel anything except relief that the confrontation was actually happening and that I was fine with it. I stepped forward and offered my hand to Barbie, which she took warily. I shook it firmly once and let her go and turned to Bobby, and with a sugary polite voice said, “Well, it has been so incredibly nice to see y’all, thanks so much for stopping by, but we have to get everything ready because we’ve got some people coming by later. Have a nice day.” I then turned away and started walking toward the house.

  It turns out that Lola was not so nice. She was furious. Mo later told me that she completely ignored Barbie and walked up to Bobby. She held out her hand and when he automatically took it, she pulled him in close and glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Bobby, I want you to hear what I’m saying. Don’t ever try this shit again. Don’t ever show up uninvited anywhere near us. You and your skank are not welcome at any function we have, at any of our houses, or at any event we are attending. If you show up, I will have you both arrested for trespassing, I’ll get a restraining order, and your baby mama can have your baby in the Fulton County jail.” She then stepped back and poked her finger in his chest. “And if you ever do anything to hurt or embarrass Daisy again, I’ll take care of the problem myself. Are we clear?” She stood back so she could see his face, which was pale and his eyes were wide. Bobby immediately nodded, because he knew she wasn’t kidding. Lola nodded once, and she, Mo and Sara turned and headed back to the house.

  Mark told me later that, as soon as we women left, Bobby looked at him and Harrison and quietly asked if that went for them, too. Harrison and Mark apparently told him, in as nice a way as possible, that he was about to have a very different life and that this was probably a good time for all of them to go their separate ways. He would have very little free time and the time he did have would be spent on play dates with other parents and other little kids, so he would meet a totally new group of people he could hang around. After that, Bobby just turned away, silently helped Barbie back into the van, got in the driver’s seat and drove away.

  By the time the guys rejoined us, Mo and Sara were telling me what happened after I left. “Did you see his face? Damn, Lola, you scared the shit out of him.”

  Lola laughed. “I just wanted to make sure he understood that it would probably be best if he found other people to hang around with so I politely suggested that.”

  I snorted and looked at her. “Yeah right. I’m sure that’s exactly what you said, so that’s why Bobby is probably wetting himself right now.”

  She shrugged and laughed, and then put her hand on my arm. “I don’t care what he thinks. Are you really okay?”

  I smiled reassuringly at all of them. “I’m fine. I have to say that seeing her was very weird at first, especially because she looked so much like me at that age,” and all of them nodded in agreement. “Can you imagine how awkward it would be running into any of our other friends from college who didn’t know what was going on? They would totally assume that she is our pregnant daughter, and Bobby will have to explain that, ‘no, this is my current wife, who, by the way, looks exactly like Daisy did in college’. How creepy is that?”

  Truthfully, the emotions I was feeling the most were a lot of happiness and relief mixed with maybe just a touch of nastiness. I’m happy because apparently I really have moved on from Bobby. It was kind of freakish seeing the skank, mainly because it was like looking into a very forgiving mirror, but I wasn’t upset seeing them together, which I think really does say something about mine and Bobby’s relationship.

  The guys grabbed some beer from the fridge and headed back out to the grill. Sara started assigning duties to us. Apparently, I was to get started on my “famous baked beans,” which, by the way, should be famous, even though they’re just doctored Bush’s beans. Add some tomato paste, onions, a little dried mustard, brown sugar and molasses, some finely chopped cooked thick bacon and splash in some bourbon. Stick all that in a crock pot and let it cook for a few hours. Try it sometime, it’s delicious.

  Lola was assigned to be the bartender because she’s great with drinks. The only thing you have to worry about with Lola is that her drinks are crippling. Trust me, you can’t drive after Lola’s been bartending. Or walk, if you’re not careful. Fortunately, all of Sara’s kids will be here for dinner and
three out of the four are old enough to drive, but not old enough to drink, so if things get out of hand we have built in designated drivers, which is great. We call them our KUBERS (Kid Ubers). Even though Sara always tells us not to, we pay the kids for the rides, so they don’t mind doing it. It’s a great system.

  Mo and Sara were washing potatoes for the potato salad and I was putting the last ingredient in the crock pot when the doorbell rang. I said I’d get the door. When I opened it, Luke was standing on the other side with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a twelve pack of beer in the other.

  I’ll have to admit, Luke looked great, relaxed, and happy. He was in the typical summer uniform of a middle-aged Southern guy, including cargo shorts, a faded vintage Allman Brothers t-shirt, sunglasses, and flip flops. His hair was a windblown mess and his nose and forehead were a little pink. I saw a bright yellow, jacked-up Jeep with a bikini top and no doors parked at the top of the driveway, which explained the hair and the pink, so I smiled and said, “Nice Jeep.”

  He smiled back and thanked me. “It was the first thing I bought when I moved back.” I stepped back and he came in. He smelled great, like sun, a little sweat, and oddly enough, barbeque. When I mentioned it, he started to laugh. “Yeah, I got stuck at the light by the barbeque restaurant up the street and they had a smoker and a grill going in the parking lot. Apparently, I’ve picked up the smell.”

  I leaned in and sniffed him appreciatively. “You smell delicious. Watch my hound dogs, because they’re going to think you’re a walking buffet.”

  He laughed and followed me to the back of the house. When we got to the kitchen, Sara had turned up the music and I heard one of her favorite Toby Keith songs blasting from the hidden speakers. She and Mo were singing along while they peeled what looked like a mountain of potatoes, and Lola was hollering that she needed some bourbon to finish off her punch.

  Luke smiled and walked over to Lola with the bourbon in hand. “Just ask and you shall receive, Ms. Lola.” She politely thanked him and grabbed the bottle, knowing he looked familiar, but not really sure who he was. Before she could figure it out, Sara squealed and ran over to Luke and jumped into his arms. He managed to catch her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and locked her legs around his waist. “Hot damn, my favorite cousin!” She kissed him on the cheek and hugged him until he begged her to let go before she choked him. She turned him loose and grabbed his hand to drag him over to the middle of us. “Y’all remember my cousin Luke from Georgia?”

  Lola smiled at him. “Now I recognize you. Great to see you again, Luke.”

  Mo laughed at Sara still dancing around him with excitement. “Luke, it is great to see you.” Mo handed Sara a potato peeler. “Sara, turn that poor man loose and let him get a beer.”

  Sara squeezed his hand again, then grabbed the peeler and used it to point to the back yard. “Go take your warm beer outside and put it in the cooler, and you grab yourself a cold one.”

  He smiled at all of us, and waved the beer in our direction as he headed toward the door. As he passed me, he winked as I opened the door for him, and I winked back. After I shut the door, Lola looked at me speculatively. “Hmmm.”

  I was confused. “’Hmmm’ what?”

  Lola squinted her eyes at me. “He winked at you, and you winked back.”

  “So what? I saw him last week when I was out, and then today. He was just being friendly.”

  Lola looked at me and slowly smiled. “Hmmm.”

  I shook my head. “You’re such a dork. We’re just friends. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m recently divorced and I’m not even slightly interested in any man.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “Okay. If you say so.”

  Seriously, I wasn’t interested. Not just in Luke, but anyone. Men were not on my list. I turned around to look out the window and saw Luke with a beer in his hand, standing there with Harrison and Mark. My dogs came running over to him, deliriously barking and jumping on him, so he put the beer down so he could pet them all. I smiled as Diego abandoned him to try to get a sip of his beer, knocking it all over in the process. As the beer spilled on the table, chair, and onto the patio, Diego started lapping it up, which I knew was his intention the entire time. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and headed out to clean up the mess with Lola’s laughter following me out the door.

  As soon as I got outside, I pulled off a bunch of towels and started cleaning up the mess on the table. I wasn’t worried about the patio, whatever Diego didn’t take care of, we could hose it off later, but I wanted to be able to use the tables without them being all sticky. Luke took the roll from me and tore off a few towels to clean beer off the chair while I cleaned the table. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to get your pup drunk.”

  I laughed. “Trust me, it wasn’t you. I should’ve warned you that Diego has a slight problem with alcohol. Every time we all get together, he tries to knock over any unattended drinks so he can have some.” I bent over to wipe off the chair leg. “Last time, he had part of five people’s beer. By the end of the night, I found his little drunk ass passed out on a pool float with a half-eaten hot dog under his head.”

  Luke and I were both laughing by that point, and he pointed out that Diego had already managed to lick up all the beer that had spilled onto the flagstone patio. I shook my head. “Here we go again.” I bent over to pick up the used paper towels and warned him to watch his beer because Diego was very sneaky and now he knew Luke was an easy target.

  I threw the paper towels in the trash and went back into the kitchen. Everyone stopped and looked at me and smiled. I stopped in the doorway. “What?”

  Lola smirked. “So y’all seem to be pretty friendly.”

  I shrugged. “Looks that way. But, hey, you know I’m a friendly girl.” I went over to Mo and Sara and grabbed a knife to help with the potatoes. I started peeling, hoping Lola would leave it alone.

  As if. “He looks great.”

  I focused on the potato. “Yeah, I guess he does. You should ask him out.”

  Lola snorted and took a big swallow from her drink. “He has no interest in me, and you know he’s not my type. I want someone who’s uncomplicated, young, energetic, and oversexed, but a little dumb. I don’t want a talker. I don’t need him for conversation. In fact, it might be better if he didn’t speak English at all except for a few phrases, like ‘Harder’. ‘Faster’. ‘Wait in the car’.”

  We all laughed at that, but Sara shook her head. “I’d also add, ‘Go get the car’ because sometimes it’s raining.” Lola agreed.

  I stopped peeling and pointed the peeler at Lola. “I don’t know where you’re getting this because Luke has never shown any interest in me before.”

  Sara disagreed. “Actually, that’s not true. When we were in college, he thought you were cute, but you were already with Bobby, then he met Glenda, so it never came up. But when he moved back, you were the first person he asked about.”

  I was skeptical. “Really?”

  She nodded. “Yep. I told him you were divorced and that you liked to hang out at Java Vino on Sunday mornings before eight and that he should go there if he wanted to see you. And apparently, that’s exactly what he did because he called me after he saw you and said that you’d invited him to come cook out with us.”

  “Sara, he just said he wanted to see all of us and hang out because he didn’t know anyone else in town. I was just convenient.”

  Lola shook her head. “Hey dumbass, he thinks you’re a cutie. You, not the rest of us.” She finished her drink and reached for the pitcher of punch, topping all of us off before she filled her glass. As I started to protest, she held up her hand to interrupt me. “Not that he didn’t want to connect with all of us. I’m sure he does want folks to hang out with, so we’re a great place to start. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’d like to hang out with you the ‘hard way,’” she said and made little air quotes with her fingers. She cracked herself up. “Get it? The ‘hard’ way.�
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  I rolled my eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

  She shrugged and took a swig of punch. “I’m rubber and you’re glue…”

  At that, I grabbed my drink and went outside to hang with the guys. They were much less annoying.

  Mark was sitting back down after checking the meat and Harrison and Luke were lazing in their chairs talking about the Falcons’ horrible Super Bowl loss to the Patriots.

  I pulled up a chair, put it between Mark and Luke and away from the smoke, and plopped down in it. “Seriously, we’re rehashing that awful game again?” I took a sip of my punch.

  Harrison raised an eyebrow. “Hey, that’s what we’re talking about out here. You don’t like it, you can go back inside and get to work on those potatoes.”

  Fine. I made the motion of zipping my lip and focused on my drink. After a few minutes, I felt like someone was staring at me and looked up to see Luke grinning at me. “Are you pouting?” he said.

  I really wasn’t pouting, but I guess I had gotten remarkably quiet, for me, anyway. I was actually thinking about the confrontation with Bobby and how weird it was that I wasn’t more upset. Harrison and Mark were now in deep discussion about whether college players should be paid, and I was completely zoned out, lost in my own thoughts. I must have made a face because Luke quietly asked if I was okay.

  I frowned. “I’m fine. I’m just not really in the mood to debate football right now…”

  Luke shook his head. “No, the guys told me that Bobby came by with a pregnant lookalike surprise, and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  I smiled at him and patted his arm. “I’m fine.” He looked skeptical and I shrugged. “Seriously, I’m fine. A little weirded out, but pretty good, considering.”

  He winced. “Yeah, the guys told me she looked just like you did at that age.”

  “She did. Isn’t that just freaky? The chicks all thought everyone would think she was our daughter.” I wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “Yuck. That is so freaking creepy.” I turned to face him. “What is it with guys our age and twenty-something-year-old girls? I just don’t get it!” I pointed to Mark. “He has kids in their late teens. I look at his kids and their friends and think, ‘Look how adorable those kids are. You know their mamas just want to eat them up with a spoon, they’re so cute!’ I can’t imagine looking at one of them and thinking, ‘Ooh Lawd, he’s hot…I’d love to get me a piece of that!’”