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

he said, leaning over the counter. “Everything looks so good.”
    “Well, everything is good,” Lavonne said. “I can vouch for that.”
    He grinned. He was about forty-five, Lavonne was guessing; not tall, but the kind of man who kept himself in good shape. He wore no wedding ring. “Let me have a dozen of the dinner rolls,” he said. “And a loaf of the sourdough bread, sliced.”
    Little Moses stuck his head out of the swinging door and said, “I'll get it.” She wiped down the counter while Little Moses went in the back to slice a sourdough loaf.
    The man watched her work, still smiling. He had laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. Lavonne liked that. A man with laugh lines in his face couldn't be all bad. “Lavonne,” he said, reading her name tag. “That doesn't sound Jewish.”
    “I'm not Jewish,” she said. “But my partner is.”
    He stuck his hand across the counter. “Joe Solomon,” he said.
    Lavonne shook hands with him. “Lavonne Zibolsky.”
    “You don't sound like a native.”
    “Neither do you.”
    He laughed and dropped his hand. “I'm from New York originally. Upstate. I got transferred down here about six months ago.”
    “I'm from Cleveland. Originally. But I've been here almost twenty years.”
    “Wow. You must like it.”
    “I'm getting used to it. I've learned to
mash
a button and
carry
someone to the store, if you know what I mean.”
    “Very impressive.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her as if he were trying to read something in her face. “Let me guess,” he said. “You followed a husband down here and you both liked it so much you refused a transfer to Minneapolis or Chicago or Buffalo or someplace else where it snows twelve feet a year.”
    “I followed him,” Lavonne said. “He left. I stayed.”
    Little Moses came out with the sliced sourdough loaf and Lavonne pointed Joe toward the register. He followed her, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.
    “I don't know how you do it,” he said, as she rang him up.
    “Do what?”
    “Stay so slim. If I worked here I'd weigh three hundred pounds.”
    Lavonne was dismayed to find herself blushing. She stuffed the loaf of bread and the rolls quickly into a bag. “I hope your family enjoys the bread,” she said, handing it to him.
    “My family?” He grinned, taking the bag from her and shoving it down the front of his rain jacket. “It's just me,” he said.
    Lavonne smiled and went back to wiping down the counter.
    At the door, he turned around and looked at her. “Same time next week?” he said.
    “I'll be here,” she said.
    He grinned and went out, the door closing softly on his heels.
    V IRGINIA HAD BEEN TRYING FOR WEEKS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO wrangle an invitation to Nita's wedding, so it was a special bit of luck when she ran into Nita at the grocery store the Wednesday before the ceremony. She had not seen Nita in months, and Virginia almost didn't recognize her. She looked so young and fresh, not like she had looked when she was married to Charles. Then she had looked pale and worn. Virginia supposedNita's new look probably had something to do with the young handyman she was marrying. In Virginia's day, of course, such a thing would have been scandalous, but it was a sign of the times, she supposed, that everything seemed to be changing. Even here in the Bible Belt, a woman could run off and leave her husband of sixteen years just because she wasn't
happy
. She could take up with a man thirteen years her junior and no one thought anything of it.
    “Yoo-hoo, Nita!” Virginia said, smiling and waving her hand. She pushed her cart in front of Nita's, effectively blocking any escape.
    Nita, startled, put down a grapefruit and smiled bravely at her ex-mother-in-law. “Virginia,” she said calmly. “How are you?”
    Virginia smiled, showing a line of tiny white teeth. “Oh, I'm fine,” she said. Nita's eyes slid past her to the grapefruits. “And how are the children? I had hoped