But they both knew that’s not how it was done. Flowers were out. Most people didn’t understand that taking flowers, especially flowers that had to be arranged, to a festive occasion only made trouble for the hostess. Wine and chocolates would have been good choices, but Annelle had beat her to the draw on that.
So it had to be food. She had thought of sweet potato casserole. She made a good one, but so did everybody else and the likelihood of it already being on the menu was high. She could make a Coca-Cola cake but from what Brantley had said, his family was pretty committed to pie. Finally, she’d hit on curried fruit. It was pretty, festive, and southern, but not a given for Thanksgiving. If Miss Caroline did not want to serve it with lunch, it would be good cold with turkey sandwiches later.
And if curried fruit was already on the menu, there was nothing she could do about it. She’d tried.
She’d tried to dress correctly too, though who knew what “dressing down” meant. She would have liked to have worn a simple dress, but she was too afraid that Brantley had meant what he said about putting his hand up her skirt at the table. Also, a dress was not as conducive to lounging around and watching football, as Brantley expected her to do.
Finally she had settled on brown leggings and a knee length tunic in fall colors. Might as well admit it. She’d had that outfit overnighted too, from Nordstrom. And the belt, gold jewelry, and bronze flats that went with it.
She was so new she squeaked. If she’d been taller, thinner, and prettier someone might have taken her for a mannequin in a store window.
“Lucy Mead.”
She jumped. Brantley had snuck up behind her.
“I thought I heard you pull up. Let me have that.” He took the basket, set it on the porch steps, and pulled her to him. “Happy Turkey Day,” he said and kissed her full on the mouth. He tasted like beer and cinnamon.
“Have you been drinking beer and eating pumpkin pie already?”
“Would that I had. No pie cutting until after the turkey. I learned that the hard way one year. Though, in my defense, I don’t know what they thought was going to happen with the pies right there on the counter and a step stool behind the door. But anyway, Evelyn’s cinnamon rolls are almost as good.” He slid his hand up her tunic and let it rest on her bottom. “I like this getup you’ve got on. Accessible.”
She jerked away. What had made her think this outfit was safer than a dress? “We are in the front yard of your grandmother’s house!” she hissed.
“We could go out back, where my dad is watching the turkey. Or better yet—to the carriage house.”
Where that scrumptious bed was. “Or we could go inside and make merry.” But she couldn’t help but smile.
“Or that.” He gave an exaggerated sigh and picked up the basket with the casserole dish. His phone beeped. He pulled it from his pocket and checked. “My father summons. We need to check the turkey. Here.” He handed her the casserole, pulled his keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, and threw it open. “Go on in. They’re probably in the kitchen. I’ll see you in a minute.”
“But Brantley! I can’t just walk into Miss Caroline’s house!”
“Go on,” he said as he bounded down the steps and around the house. “She won’t care. I can’t let that turkey burn!”
Lucy almost closed the door and rang the bell but how stupid was that? She would simply explain that Brantley had opened the door and told her to go in. Miss Caroline wouldn’t hold it against her.
She stopped outside the kitchen door and wondered if Brantley had smeared her lipstick when he kissed her. She should put the curried fruit down and check that.
Then she heard her aunt’s voice. “Caroline, this must be very hard for you.”
After a pause, Miss Caroline said, “Yes, at turns. But I guess that’s been the story of our lives since the car wreck, even after seventeen years. People talk about premonitions before something happens or getting a bad feeling as it happens. There was never any of that for me. One minute I was weeding my flowerbeds and the next I was planning a funeral for my husband and my only child. Just that fast. But you move on, though it is a little poignant that Charles and Brantley are outside frying the turkey without Alden. I am so glad you and Lucy will be here. Setting those three places was so sad. But the hardest thing has been being in this kitchen without my daughter. I made tomato aspic yesterday and then remembered that Eva was the only one who liked it. I put it down the garbage disposal and indulged in some self-pity for a good long time.”
“I don’t believe anyone would say that was self-pity. I believe that is called grief,” Annelle said.
It was a shock to hear Aunt Annelle and Miss Caroline talking the way she and Missy, Lanie, and Tolly would have—though why she was surprised, she didn’t know. It wasn’t as if her generation had the monopoly on friendship.
“Grief—I suppose so,” Miss Caroline went on. “But even at that, none of this is as hard as traveling to some strange city where Brantley is working and sitting in a restaurant, trying to pretend. Or worse, when Brantley would have no part of the holiday and Charles and I went it alone at the kitchen table. We always had invitations, of course, but it never seemed the thing to do. So.” Her voice filled with steel. “I am determined that this will be a good day. I know better than to try to recreate the past, but I will make this a different day. Charles and I are of one mind on that. Our boy is home. That’s what matters.”
Annelle murmured something else, but Lucy didn’t stay to hear. She quietly went out the front door and rang the bell, redoubling her resolve to do what she could to help this family have a happy day.
Brantley sat at the Thanksgiving table and watched his father and grandmother fall in love with Lucy. He had never seen her so charming, so beautiful. She smiled, she asked the right questions, gave the right answers. Most of all, she looked at him adoringly and laughed when he said something funny. And he found himself trying harder and harder to win her laughter.
And miraculously, it wasn’t hard. This was a happy table—and it was Lucy who made the difference. It felt like family.
They had already finished with dessert, but they remained at the table. Charles circled and poured everyone another glass of wine. “Tell us how your family usually spends Thanksgiving, Lucy. Aren’t your parents in Tibet?”
“They are.” She nodded and took a sip of her wine. “Though they go somewhere every summer, this is the first time they have been on a year-long sabbatical since I was twelve. I assume you don’t want to hear about the Thanksgiving that year we were in China. It would be a very short story.”
“No turkey?” Brantley asked.
“Not in the village where we were, though to call it a village is an overstatement. Eller is more of a dog than that place was a village.”
Everyone laughed with delight—again.
“But usually it’s the three of us and Annelle. Sometimes we go to some cousins’ in Charleston, but usually it’s in Oxford. Mama makes a turkey and—you’re going to think this is odd—lasagna.”
“Really?” Big Mama said.
“Her mother was Italian and she taught Mama to make really good lasagna. My daddy loves it, so we always have that. She also makes dressing, some with oysters, some without. The oysters are the Charleston influence. I don’t like them. They are the only thing that swims that I can’t abide.”
“Now, Lucy,” Brantley said. “I ask you this—do oysters really swim so much as they lie around and make pearls?”