Beautiful Day(73)

“Terrible,” Jethro said.

“Plus, I wanted to make you all breakfast,” Ann said. She opened the refrigerator, hoping her bluff hadn’t just been called, and exhaled when she saw eggs and milk and butter and a hunk of aged cheddar (Ryan and Jethro must have done the shopping) and a container of blueberries and a half gallon of orange juice.

“I’m hungry!” Autumn said.

Ann took out a mixing bowl and cracked all the eggs; she added milk, salt and pepper, a handful of grated cheddar. She melted butter in a frying pan. She thought, Where the hell is Jim? It’s the morning of Stuart’s wedding, for God’s sake. Ann felt her temper smoking and sizzling like the hot pan. And yet how could she be angry when she had asked him to leave? She had told him to get out.

A Quaalude would be nice right now, she thought.

She poured the egg mixture into the pan, popped a couple of pieces of seeded whole-grain bread into the rusty toaster, and got to work on the coffee. Starbucks, in the freezer. Thank God for small blessings.

Ryan said, “Mom, you do not have to do this. I’m sure you’d rather be having breakfast at your hotel.”

“I’m fine!” Ann sang out. “It’s the last morning I’ll ever be able to do this for Stuart. Tomorrow, he’ll belong to Jenna.”

“Whoa!” Ryan said. “Sappy alert.”

“Where is Stuart, anyway?” Ann asked.

Ryan said, “The door to his room is closed. I knocked earlier, fearing he had been asphyxiated by the synthetic bed linens, and he told me to go away.” Ryan lowered his voice. “I guess he and Jenna had a spat last night concerning She Who Shall Not Be Named.”

“A spat?” Ann said. A spat the night before the wedding wasn’t good. A spat about She Who Shall Not Be Named wasn’t good at all. Why must love be so agonizing? Ann wondered. She moved the eggs around the pan, slowly, over low heat, so they would be nice and creamy. “This reminds me of when we used to visit Stuart at the Sig Ep house. Remember when we used to do that?”

“The Sig Ep house was nicer,” Ryan said.

“The Sig Ep house was nicer,” Ann agreed, and they both laughed.

A few minutes later, Ann had managed to plate, on mismatched Fiesta ware, scrambled eggs, toast, juice, coffee, and blueberries with a little sugar. They crowded around the sad Formica table: H.W., Ryan, Jethro, Chance, and Autumn.

“We need Stuart,” Ann said. “This is supposed to be for him.”

“I just knocked on his door,” Chance said. “He told me he’d be down in a minute.”

“It’ll all be gone in a minute,” H.W. said, helping himself to a second piece of toast. “No grits?”

“Grits?” Ryan said. “Please don’t tell me you still eat grits.”

“Every day,” H.W. said.

“Oh, my God,” Ryan said. “My twin brother is Jeff Foxworthy.”

“Well, your boyfriend is André Leon Talley,” H.W. said. He grinned at Jethro. “No disrespect, man.”

“None taken,” Jethro said. “Love ALT.”

Autumn pointed her fork at H.W. “I’m impressed you know who André Leon Talley is.”

“What?” H.W. said. “I have been known to read the occasional issue of Vogue.”

“Oh, come on,” Ryan said.

“Hot women half dressed,” H.W. said. He hooted and gave Chance a high five.

Ryan said, “Mom, aren’t you eating?”

“Oh, no,” Ann said. “I couldn’t possibly.”

She left the kitchen to retrieve her purse from the scratchy green sofa and to check her phone. No new messages, 3 percent battery. She stepped outside to use the last bit of juice to call Jim’s cell phone. She should have called him from the taxi, but she had been sure he would be here, with the kids.

The phone rang and rang and rang. She got Jim’s voice mail, but before Ann could leave a message, her battery died.

Where are you? Ann thought. Where the hell did you go?

Ann and Jim had joined the wine-tasting group in 1992. The invitation had come from a woman named Shell Phillips, who had recently moved to Durham from Philadelphia when her husband took a job in the physics department at Duke. Shell Phillips was a northerner, which—although the Civil War was 125 years in the past—still marked her as a potential enemy. She was from the Main Line, she said, Haverford, she said, and Ann bobbed her head, pretending to know what this meant. Shell Phillips had introduced herself to Ann at the Kroger. Hello, Senator Graham, I’ve been so wanting to meet you, someone pointed you out to me the other night at the Washington Duke.