Love Me for Me(29)

Mabel carefully hoisted herself up, steadying her legs by holding on to the table. Then she ambled over. Watching her mother’s ease of conversation there only made Libby wish again for her old life in New York. She didn’t feel comfortable at all. People there didn’t seem as driven as they did in New York, their pace was slower. It had never worked for her as a kid, and it still didn’t work. In her small town there was nothing. And there never would be anything. Just the same thing, day in and day out.

A waitress appeared, transported Mabel’s lemonade over to Libby’s table, and filled their water glasses with a pitcher of iced water. “Can I take your order?” she asked. “Or do you need a minute?”

“I’m ready,” Mabel said, still wriggling herself into a comfortable position. “I’ll just have the southern fried steak and potatoes.” She looked over at Libby and Celia. “I get the same thing every time I come!” she chuckled. She pulled off the paper band from the silverware and draped the napkin in her lap.

“I think we’re probably ready too,” Celia said, smiling in Libby’s direction. “I’ll just have a salad. Do you have Ranch dressing?” The waitress nodded, and Celia turned toward Libby who, until that very moment, hadn’t given a second thought to what she was going to eat. She scanned her menu quickly. What should she get? The choices seemed almost foreign to her now: Chicken and Dumplings, Fried Catfish, Pulled Pork Barbeque. “I’ll have the same, please.” she said in defeat.

“Libby, it’s good to see you,” Mabel said, squeezing the juice of the complimentary lemon wedge into her lemonade and stirring it with a spoon. “You’re living in the Roberts’ place, right?”

She nodded.

“It has a lovely view of the bay from the screened porch. Anne and I used to sit out there all the time. I just don’t get that kind of breeze on my porch.”

“You’ve known Anne a long time, haven’t you?” Libby asked. Had Mabel been at the dinner with Anne and Mitchell that night, she wondered? If Anne had feelings for Mitchell, might she have shared them with Mabel?

“I’ve known her all my life. We lived next door to each other growing up, and we went all the way through school together.” She moved around in her chair, her face showing discomfort as if her sitting position were giving her pain. “We didn’t go away to a fancy college like you, Miss Libby,” she smiled.

Libby broke eye contact and looked down at her lap, but she could feel that her mother and Mabel were both still looking at her. She didn’t want to make things uncomfortable so she pretended to notice something on the napkin in her lap. Heat rose up her neck and onto her face. She hoped they couldn’t see it. Did Mabel think she thought herself high and mighty like Pete had? Did she think Libby was just like her mother, too? Libby offered a counterfeit smile and then took a sip of her water to alleviate her drying mouth.

“I’m glad we stayed here, got married here, and lived out our years here… It gave me more time with my best friend,” Mabel said, her expression thoughtful. “I remember when Anne and Hugh bought that cottage of yours.”

“You do?”

Mabel nodded.

As a kid, Libby hadn’t ever considered the lives of Pop and Nana as young people; she’d only seen the end result of their young choices. From her perspective, they seemed happy, settled. They enjoyed their family and each other. What must it have been like for Nana when she’d decided to spend her life with Pop and move into a home they’d bought together?

“She’d spent the whole first month decorating,” Mabel smiled. “I wasn’t married yet, but I longed to be as happy as she was. I helped her sew the curtains for every one of the rooms. She and Hugh barely had enough money to scrape by, but Anne hadn’t let that discourage her. She wanted to make the little cottage into a home, and she certainly did,” Mabel chuckled. “Anne had wanted an oriental rug in the living room, I remember—that was the only thing she couldn’t make herself—but she never complained that she didn’t have it. Never once. We’d look at them at the furniture store in town. Whenever she’d admit that she wanted it, she’d always follow with, ‘Ah, it’s just a thing. Things don’t make us happy; people do.’ She and I made table cloths, draperies, and linens… everything we could. Hugh built a lot of the furniture himself.

“Then Hugh’s sales picked up and he started making a good living. A great living, actually. Anne and I had gone out to lunch one day, and when we returned, sitting under her living room furniture was the oriental rug that she’d always wanted.”