Glancing sideways, she was convinced the guard to her left was listening. He’d done it before. He practically had an antenna on the top of his head, craning his neck toward Todd and herself as far as it could physically stretch.
“But Mom… I’m not talking about what happened to Julie…”
“Didn’t you hear me tell you last time to shut up… these walls have ears… are you blind?” Again, Tish jerked her head toward the guards at the door.
“Mom, I’m not talking about Julie now, I’m talking about Cynthia.”
His mom stared at him blankly. “Cynthia, Mom… Cindy. Remember her from high school? She was in the baton corps? Remember before every football game they’d run out on the field… one time she had a baton with fire on the ends and she…”
“Stop it! For Pete’s sake… stop it! Yes, I remember the baton with fire on the ends. And yes of course I remember her, Wallace and Helen Gresham’s daughter from the Country Club. She would have been a much better match for you than Julie Love. I tried to tell you Julie was all wrong for you. Yes… what about Cynthia? She always wore that little royal blue sequined short set for the dance routines. Too tight and too short, I always told your father that… but still. But what does she have to do with anything?”
“I mean Mom, they won’t bring that up will they?”
“Who? Will who bring up what?” Her eyes furrowed together so closely they nearly created a single brow over her eyes.
“Mom…” Todd Adams looked uncomfortably around the tiny room, then past his mom and back toward the guards. “You know… that we were, uh, friends.”
“Who were friends? You and Cynthia? Of course you were, you knew each other from high school. You had lots of friends, dozens of friends, of course you did. You were the most popular boy in school as I recall.”
“No Mom, I don’t mean that… I mean do you think they will bring up that we were… um, dating?”
The look on his mother’s face was unreadable, like a mask. Not a single nerve moved, she didn’t even blink. Not once. She stared straight at him as if she were actually looking through his head at the wall behind him.
“Dating? Cynthia? You dated Cynthia in high school. Yes. I know that. What would that have to do with anything at all?”
“I mean, they could argue it was motive, Mom…”
“But that was years ago. That’s hardly motive, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Mom, it wasn’t years ago. It was last year…” Adams looked down and to the side, his voice lowered to a whisper.
“Last year? And now you tell me? And is the expression ‘dating’ your word for holing up at some out-of-the-way motel? You let another girl drag you into her problems? The Cynthia girl is divorced from a pool guy and has three kids. Is that the same Cynthia?”
“He’s not a pool guy. He owns his own pool company, Mom…”
“Like that makes it better?” She spat it out in a whisper but with the venom of a snakebite. “If you keep your mouth shut, they’ll never know.”
Why did her son keep getting duped by women who were only after one thing? The Adams money. The Cynthia girl rearing her ugly head now. And on the heels of the flood of Julie Love headlines.
Everyone in town had known it… Julie Love was a “catch” at the time the two had gotten engaged. She was the golden girl who made all As, worked at a food bank, and attended church every Sunday with her parents. Little witch was even a Girl Scout. And she was the homecoming queen, which apparently meant something even though it was at the public school. A drama queen as well, always making a big production over her brother. He was handicapped since birth, confined to a wheelchair. Julie Love insisted on carrying him to nearly every major event she attended.
Most groom’s mothers did not have a starring role in their son’s weddings, which seemed so unfair to Tish. She took it upon herself to plan the whole thing for poor Julie. The girl was hopeless at event planning. Julie had actually started with what she called an “intimate gathering of family and friends.” Ridiculous. Why even bother to get married? “Intimate gatherings” were not picked up by the Savannah Chronicle. Fat chance. The couple wouldn’t be able to buy their way into the wedding or engagement announcements. Of course, Julie Love insisted that didn’t matter.
An “intimate gathering” screamed “shabby and cheap” to Tish. Once Julie was confronted with the Adams guest list, things began to look up. Not another single body could’ve fit into the sanctuary of the Savannah First United Methodist Church. By the time all the Adams guests were tallied, Julie tearfully announced, at an Adams family dinner no less, that her family couldn’t afford a big reception. Tish could still remember the moment even now, when Julie conjured fat tears to roll down her cheeks into the linen napkin in her lap. Her voice trembling, she said her mom and dad simply couldn’t swing it financially.
What a little liar. Tish and her husband ended up footing half the bill for the party. Tish was still stewing over it. The papers-yes, Tish called in a favor and got the wedding details in the Chronicle after all-the papers said Julie Love was a beautiful bride… a beautiful fake as far as Tish was concerned.
In fact, if only the world could see through Julie Love’s façade, they’d realize this whole mess was actually Julie’s fault. She was so simpering, so mealymouthed, so saccharine sweet. Tish had watched it for years. In her own mind, she often called it “The Julie Love Show.” Everything about the girl was a put-on. Even using her handicapped brother as a prop. Pushing him around at public events, fussing over him as if she really cared. It was a ploy. A ploy to get people to notice her, to love her, to get on all their good sides.
Julie never, not for one second, fooled Tish. She could see through that the first time Todd had brought her over to the house to meet his mother. She had taken Todd away, put on that spectacle of a wedding where Tish was a nothing. Julie never let Todd spend time with his family anymore. Then she tried to lock him into a loveless marriage with a baby of all things… and now, this!
Anybody in their right mind could see what kind of boy Todd really was. Why, he had it all… good looks, charm, education, manners, a good job… everything!
The truth was, Todd had always been too good for Julie Love. Tish knew it and so did the whole neighborhood. And here they were, all lined up in court and siding against Todd! With friends like these…
“But Mom…”
“No ‘buts.’ Everything will work out, you’ll see, my precious boy. Now… let’s talk about what you should wear tomorrow for court. That’s all you have to worry about. Do you understand?”
He nodded, shutting up so his mom could talk, like always. It was easier that way.
“It’s all going to be OK. You just wait and see. You’ve got the best lawyer money can buy. Listen to me… listen to your mother. Now I’m going to get those photos for you to put up in your room.”
“It’s not a room, Mother, it’s a cell. A jail cell.”