Page 11 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
Bailey Rae made a beeline toward them. The familiar faces provided an obstacle course of greetings from a community where chatting without rushing was considered a commandment Moses must have forgotten to haul down from Mount Sinai. Right up there along withThou shalt not leave the saltshaker off the table.
“Mrs. Thea and Miss June,” Bailey Rae said, gripping the back of a chair, “do you mind if I join you?”
The two women bolted apart like they’d been discussing state secrets—or the ingredients to Thea’s lemon bars, something she shared with no one but her closest friends. Even Bailey Rae hadn’t been privy to the recipe.
“Please do.” Thea moved her purse from the chair to hang on the back of her own seat. “How did the rest of the day go at the market?”
June patted the empty chair. “You’ll have to forgive me if I hope the sale was a bust and you have to stay in Bent Oak.” She raised her hands. “I’m just telling it like it is.”
“So when you mis-tagged things with an extra digit in the price, it wasn’t an accident?” Bailey Rae asked wryly and received a teasing wink from June. “Thankfully, I corrected them after a customer questioned why a Mason jar full of peaches cost fifty dollars.”
Thea covered her hand. “Just know we love you and only want the best for you. I’ll be sure to keep a closer watch over June when we help you get ready for next Saturday’s sale.”
“Speaking of the inventory ...” Moving on to the real reason for seeking them out, Bailey Rae reached into her leather backpack and fished around for the cookbook she’d tucked away earlier. “What’s the deal with this?”
Their silence lasted a beat too long.
“Mrs. Thea? I know your hearing works just fine.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. It’s just local recipes.” Thea pressed her fingers to her chest. “All but my lemon bars, of course. Perhaps it’s time I shared it with you.”
Bailey Rae wasn’t diverted that easily. “But Aunt Winnie has so very many copies. Isn’t that strange?”
June smirked, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. “Maybe they weren’t very popular. Or she over-ordered. You know how Winnie could be with her collections.”
Reasonable explanations. Any other day she wouldn’t have thought twice. Something had changed, though, when that woman approachedher booth at the market, followed by Libby’s stranger-than-usual responses.
Now Thea and June’s evasiveness made her all the more suspicious. “There was a ruckus at the market earlier. A young mother showed up with a vintage version insisting there was some kind of hidden message directing her here for help.”
Both women across from her went silent. Longer than the silence over the cookbooks. Thea wiped a water spot on the table. June fidgeted with a fork, scraping the white gravy off her chicken-fried steak.
Bailey Rae leaned on her elbows, dropping her voice. “Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”
Thea returned her napkin to her lap. “Maybe she just needed some of Winnie’s special canned goods before they’re sold out. The cookbook does promote them.”
A logical assumption, except there was tension sprinkled as heavily as salt at a potluck. “She’s leaving her husband, and she is clearly afraid.”
An understatement.
June rested her fork on the edge of her plate. “That must have been so upsetting for you after all you and your mother went through.”
Bailey Rae would have applauded June’s pivot if it had been directed at anyone else. But neither woman had answered the question. “I’m fine. Thank you. Just curious. Libby seemed to understand what the woman meant, and I would have asked questions to clarify, but Keith rushed Libby away when he arrived to pick her up.”
Which was just as well, given Libby’s memory issues. Thea and June were the better choices to ask.
“Libby’s confused,” Thea said, shaking her head as she stabbed a fork into the middle of her chicken pot pie, pushing the crust into the soft insides. “That’s a sad reality of her Alzheimer’s disease.”
June pressed her fingers to the edges of her eyes and cleared her throat. “Um, what happened to the young woman? The one with the cookbook?”
A waitress angled in, placing a glass of sweet tea in front of Bailey Rae. Kinsley was a new hire, a teenager working evenings and weekends who hadn’t mastered the art of discerning when not to interrupt patrons. “Hey there, anybody need refills? Bailey Rae, can I get your order? We’re running low on the pot pie, but I can snag one for you if you want.”
“Nothing to eat,” Bailey Rae said. “Just the sweet tea.”
“Or napkins?” Kinsley pressed. “Does your dinner taste okay—”
Thea cut in. “We’re fine, dear.”
The teen also hadn’t found the balance of how too much attention could be just as bad as not enough. Bailey Rae remembered well from her own early days waitressing here at the Fill ’Er Up Café.
