Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes Read Online Free PDF Page A

frame, an alarm clock, and a magazine. Each time he ducked and advanced closer to the bed, grinning.
    “I've been trying to reach you for six hours,” he said. “Why don't you answer your cell phone? Or the house phone, for that matter?”
    She looked around, trying to figure out what else she could throw. “I thought you were calling to tell me you weren't coming home.”
    “Well, actually, sweetheart, I was calling to see if you wanted to go out to dinner tonight. But I can see you have other plans for this evening.”
    “You flatter yourself.”
    He grinned. “I don't think so,” he said.
    “I've been alone for four days, peckerhead,” she said. “Shut up in this big old house while you were off doing God knows what.”
    “Is a Georgia Homecoming Queen allowed to call her husband a peckerhead? Because I'm thinking, no. I'm thinking that might be grounds for impeachment or crown recall or whatever it is they do to bad homecoming queens.” He pulled his shirt over his head and stepped out of his shoes.
    “And I don't much like what you did to Milton,” Eadie said. She leaned over on her stomach to reach for another picture frame, but Trevor, taking advantage of a lull in the action, grabbed her by the feet and pulled her toward him.
    “Did you miss me?” he said.
    She flipped over on her back and aimed another kick at his head but he caught her feet easily and held them with one hand while he deftly pulled her yoga pants over her hips with the other. Eadie, who was ticklish, giggled.
    “I'm going to take that as a yes,” he said. He stood up and unbuckled his belt. Eadie, released, scrambled up against the headboard. “Don't think it's going to be that easy,” she said, trying to sound bored. She wasn't fooling anyone. Looking at her husband, she could see why women threw themselves at him at cocktail parties.
    “It's a good thing I got home when I did,” he said, shaking his head like a doctor diagnosing a serious condition. “It looks like I got here just in time.”
    “Just in time for what?” she said, and aimed another kick at his head.
    “Just in time for this.” He grinned and grabbed her ankles and pulled her toward him. He said, “You know I can do things Milton can't.”
    Of course he was right. After awhile there was no denying the truth of this statement. Eadie didn't even try.
    ————
    F OUR DAYS BEFORE HER WEDDING , N ITA ARRIVED HOME TO FIND Jimmy Lee and Whitney in the yard playing ball with Otis, the black Labrador. Jimmy Lee was holding the ball over his head and Whitney was leaning against his chest, trying to take it from him. Otis bounced around their feet, barking. Nita was amazed at how much Whitney had grown. She was tall for twelve. Almost as tall as Jimmy Lee. A few more inches and she wouldn't have any trouble taking the ball away from him.
    He saw Nita and waved, flinging the ball toward the lake. Otis dutifully went after it. Whitney glanced over her shoulder and, seeing her mother, frowned and punched Jimmy Lee in the shoulder with her fist. Nita tried not to read too much into the disappointment she saw on her daughter's face. Her relationship with Whitney had grown prickly over the past year, but surely that was normal. Nita and her own mother had never had an adversarial relationship, but Nita had read enough books on child-rearing to know that sullen teenage girls were as common as ticks on a hound dog.
    Whitney thumped Jimmy Lee on the head, and he began tickling her. It was an old game of theirs. Nita climbed slowly out of the car. She had left them in charge of stringing the wires the Japanese lanterns would hang from, but she could only see one lone wire running from the porch soffit to a distant pine tree. “I thought I told y'all to get those strung up,” she said, pointing.
    “We're taking a break,” Whitney screeched, in between her giggles.
    “Don't sass your mother,” Jimmy Lee said. He let go of her and walked toward Nita, smiling. A slight