Queen of Broken Hearts Read online

  Lex grins a wicked grin. “The divorce coach all of Fairhope is talking about. Anybody say anything to you?”

  “Well … I got a couple of calls.” I’m careful not to mention Rye, since Lex claims to be jealous of him, just to aggravate me. “And then someone told me about the other crazy thing, what Ernestine wrote about Dory and Son in her column. Did you see it?”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t make a damn bit of sense to me. Let me go wash up, then I want to hear everything that’s going on in this potty place. Fairhope Loco.” Replacing the baseball cap, Lex turns and heads toward the house, moving much slower than I did over the hot flagstones of the pathway. I tease him by saying his big old feet are callused and tough, while mine, like all Southern belles’, are delicate and tender.

  When he opens the screened door of the back porch, I call out to him. “Bring us a glass of wine, okay? I need one bad,” and he salutes me with his cap.

  I should go inside and change into something cooler, but I flop down in a willow chair instead. My outfit has wilted even more now, and even the long strand of flat turquoise stones around my neck feels hot and heavy. I pull it over my head and place it on a nearby table, along with the matching earrings. The hazards of early fall in the South. Although I’ve lived in it all my life, it still gets to me, saps my energy. “It’s the South, supposed to be hot,” my granddaddy used to say. “You want cold, move to New York City.” Granddaddy never set foot in the Big Apple but loved referring to it, always calling it New York City.

  Sprawled in the lounge chair, I watch Lex coming out the back door, pushing it open with his hip, a glass of wine in each hand. I study him for signs of fatigue or weakness, but he appears fine, the same old Lex. Having washed off the grime and sweat of the garden, he looks cooler now, thank goodness. It’s too early for our cocktail hour, but what the heck. As Lex is apt to say with a wink, it’s five o’clock somewhere. Cocktail hour in Fairhope is actually six o’clock; has been since I’ve lived here. Even though Fairhope is considered artsy and non-traditional compared to other places in the South, it’s as set in its rituals and customs as small towns everywhere. Not a native, Lex bristled at its conventions when he first moved here, but he soon adjusted his Northern ways to fit in. Like other transplants to the Fairhope way of life, he has become more of a Fairhoper than the rest of us.

  “Cheers.” Lex hands me a chilled glass of pinot grigio as he settles himself into the chair next to mine. Since he’s allowed only one glass of red wine now, he uses the largest goblet he can find and fills it to the brim with a hearty cabernet. “Tell it, sister,” he says, raising his glass to me. That phrase has become one of our buzzwords since I told him another story about my grandfather. When I was a child and visited my grandparents in the foothills of northern Alabama, he would always embarrass me in their country church. Whenever the minister said something Granddaddy liked, he’d thump his cane on the floor and cry out, “Tell it, brother!”

  I sip the sharp, icy wine, sighing. “Oh, God, that’s so good. I don’t know where to start. Things went pretty well this morning, considering I had two suicidal clients, a referral from the courts, and an abused wife whose husband is stalking her with a gun.”

  Lex takes a big gulp of his wine. “Another fun day in paradise, huh?”

  “Pretty typical. At precisely one o’clock, Etta pushed me out the door like she’d promised to do. She took her task literally.”

  “Etta pushed you?” he says with a chuckle. “I’d love to have seen that. I’ve about talked her into leaving R.J. and running off with me. I can tell she wants me.”

  “If anyone could straighten you out, it’d be Etta.”

  “Shows what you know. The other day I told her if she didn’t keep her hands off me, I’d be forced to tell R.J. how bad it’s gotten.”

  Struggling to keep a straight face, I say sternly, “You’d better quit messing with Etta like that! I’m surprised she hasn’t clobbered you, the way you pick at her. Etta’s of the old school. She’s in her sixties, a staunch Southern Baptist, and not used to your foolishness.”

  “So she got you out by one o’clock, huh? Damn. Guess that means I can’t marry her after all. Anyone who can get you away from that precious office of yours is too much woman for me.”

  “Would you be serious for once in your life? I’m trying to tell you how my day went.”

  With a twinkle in his eyes, Lex grins at me over the rim of his wineglass. “You think you’ve had a tough day? Ha. I get here at two o’clock—when you said you’d be home, if you recall—but no sign of the esteemed doctor lady. I decide to read the paper while I wait. Bad idea. I find out that the woman I thought was a highly respected therapist is in truth nothing but a homewrecker. Does this mean she’s going to have to give back her Citizen of the Month plaque? I wonder. She’ll be devastated.”

  “The award didn’t come with a plaque,” I remind him.

  “Minor detail. They can demand that you rescind the title.” He pauses to take another gulp of his cabernet. “After the shy, demure, and sane inhabitants of our quiet little town read the paper, your phone started ringing. So I spent the rest of the afternoon answering it and doing damage control.”

  “Answering my phone! You did not.”

  “Naw, I’m teasing.” His look is pure mischief. “I’d never answer anyone else’s phone.”

  “You’re such a shameless liar, Lex Yarbrough. You’ve answered mine plenty of times. Remember the rector’s secretary called last month, when they were updating the church directory?”

  At least he has the grace to look sheepish. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. You accused me of shocking her.”

  “You told her I hadn’t been to church in so long that I couldn’t pick out Father Gibbs in a police lineup! Of course she was shocked.”

  “So you’ve told me a hundred times, which really hurts my feelings.”

  “Bull. It’s impossible to hurt your feelings.”

  “This time it wasn’t the secretary, it was the big man himself.”

  “God called me? I’d never have allowed Father Gibbs to have my home number if I’d known he’d give it to just anybody.”

  “Not that big. Go a step down. It was the good Father himself. When I heard his voice, I picked up and told him I was waiting here to comfort you once you saw the paper.”

  “And you’ve done such a great job, too, Lex. Next time I need comfort, I know where to find it.”

  He ignores my sarcastic tone and goes on blithely. “Father Gibbs said that since you were a member of St. John’s—though not a very active one, ha ha—he was calling to tell you that the old fruitcake who wrote the letter was a well-known crackpot. He assured me that he knew you were doing the Lord’s work with your retreats. I couldn’t let him get by with that.”

  “Oh, no. Please tell me you’re making this up. You didn’t really say anything to him, did you?”

  He tries his best to look innocent. “He added that he also knew you believed in the sanctity of marriage.”

  “And how did you respond? she asks with dread.”

  “Here’s all I said, and I quote: ‘On the contrary, Father. Clare doesn’t believe in the sanctity of marriage at all. If everybody got married and lived happily ever after, she’d be out of business.’”

  “Lex! Poor Father Gibbs. Bless his meddling old heart.”

  The look he gives me over the rim of his glass is a sly one. “Bless his heart, my ass. You’re such a hypocrite.”

  “Guess that’s why we’re such good friends, then. I’m a hypocrite, and you’re incorrigible.” We click our wineglasses together, then I say, “Listen, do you want to hear this or not? I was getting to the thing in the gossip column about Son and Dory.”

  Lex raises his eyebrows. “You told me they’d gotten back together, and Son took her all the way to Europe to get her away from you.”

  “I’m sure that’s what he’s telling everyone,” I say glumly.

  “Now that I’ve s
een the paper, I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want my wife palling around with a divorce coach, either.”

  I rub my eyes wearily and sigh. “I got really nervous when I saw Son at the coffee shop, but thank God he didn’t see me. As I was telling Rye when I ran into him—”

  It slipped out, and Lex pounces on it. “Rye? Where’d you run into him, at the beauty parlor? Was he having his hair or his nails done?”

  I glare at him and say huffily, “Not funny. I ran into him downtown, right after lunch.”

  He tries to glare back but can’t quite pull it off. “Yeah, sure. If you had lunch with another man, just tell me. My heart will be broken, but I’ll survive. I still have Etta.”

  Rather sheepishly, I confess that Rye was the one to tell me about the pukey item in the society column, then add, “It’s such an obvious ploy on Son’s part, letting everyone know he and Dory are back together.”

  Lex jerks his head up. “Forgot to tell you. A couple of your calls were from Son.”

  “That can only mean trouble,” I groan. “Guess you talked to him, too.”

  “Naw. Maybe I should’ve, found out what he’s up to. All he said was for you to call him as soon as you got in. I deleted his messages, by the way. Didn’t want them to put you in a bad mood.”

  “I hope he doesn’t hold his breath until I return his call,” I say in disgust.

  “Me, too. Might cause brain damage.”

  “Yeah, right. Not a chance of that.” I take a sip of my wine and stare absently at the garden, hot and heavy with hundreds of blossoms. “You know, when Dory left me a message saying she’d taken Son back because she truly believed he was a changed man, it surprised me how bad I wanted to believe it.”

  Lex eyes me skeptically. “How long have you known Son?”

  I count silently, squinting in the glare of the late-afternoon sun. “Hmm, let’s see. I met him and Mack and Dory at the same time, the second semester of my freshman year at Bama. God, that was over twenty-eight years ago. Long time, huh?”

  “And didn’t you tell me it took you a while to see through him, but he’s the same guy now that he was then?”

  “I believe the way I put it was, he’s the same cocky, overbearing, arrogant jerk he’s always been. Your point is well taken. But in my business, I have to believe that everyone is capable of change, and that includes Son Rodgers. With him, however, it will happen only if someone perfects the science of brain transplants, evidently.”

  Lex chuckles, then regards me with a puzzled expression. “So if Son knows how you feel about him, why does he bother calling you? Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “This is Son we’re talking about. The operative word is sense.”

  For some reason, this strikes Lex as funny, and he lets out one of his great big infectious laughs. I lean back in my chair and laugh, too. Somehow I knew that once I got home, Lex would be able to make me forget about the letter and Dory and all my other concerns. It’s impossible to stay gloomy around Lex. Dory’s the only other person I know who has a laugh as irrepressible as his, and hers used to have the same effect on me. I always felt good, happy and carefree and lighthearted, when I was with Dory. I reach into the pocket of my skirt for a tissue to wipe my eyes and wonder for the umpteenth time what Dory will say when I see her tomorrow, the first time in over a month.

  “You’re not crying, are you?” Lex asks in surprise.

  I shake my head. “Just wiping my eyes. Lex, what on earth is on that table?”

  One of the small willow tables holds a copper watering can with a surprisingly artful arrangement of flowers, pink zinnias, and purplish-blue hydrangeas mixed in with stalks of lavender. “I believe they’re called flowers,” he says dryly.

  I look at him in wonder. “You arranged those?”

  Even though he scowls, it’s obvious that he’s pleased with himself. “Me putting pink and purple flowers together. If my old navy buddies could see me now.”

  “You did good.” The sprinklers make a hypnotic noise as they whir round and round, throwing out silver droplets of water in ever widening circles, a sound that’s oddly comforting. “Oh, look,” I say, pointing, and he turns his head to watch a pair of yellow-and-black butterflies stagger among the daylilies, drunk with nectar.

  Lex is quiet, savoring his wine and watching the butterflies, and I study him a minute before asking, “Hey, you’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”

  His eyes are playful as he turns toward me. Lex has great eyes, green as grass, a startling contrast to his sun-baked skin and dark hair. His craggy face reminds me of the maritime maps hanging on the walls of his marina, full of many lines and markings but simple to read and follow, if you make the effort.

  “With everything else going on, I didn’t want to worry you,” he says, “but …” With a dramatic cry, he clutches his chest and drops his head forward, face contorted in apparent agony.

  I grab a cushion from the chair next to me and throw it at him. “Stop it! That’s not funny, you idiot.”

  Catching the cushion midair before it hits his coveted glass of wine, Lex grabs it, laughing. In spite of my aggravation with him, I smile and shake my head. “God, you’re awful! I don’t know why I put up with you.”

  “Can’t accuse me of being heartless, though,” he says with a grin. “It may be broken, but at least we’ve seen proof that I have one.”

  “I really don’t like you joking like this. Just as I got used to having you around, it looked like I was going to lose you.” I resist adding that I’m dead serious.

  His expression is playful, impish. “Aw, Clare, how sweet. Would you miss me if I croaked?”

  “Of course I would, fool. You scared the daylights out of me.”

  “Ha. Didn’t scare you enough to get you to marry me, did it?”

  “Marry you?” Wary, I put down my wineglass to stare at him.

  “On my deathbed, I said I wanted us to get married, remember?”

  “You said a lot of crazy things in the emergency room.”

  “Like what?” He regards me suspiciously.

  I laugh. It’s my turn to tease him. “You cracked the nurses up. Actually, it was the head nurse you proposed to, not me. Remember her, the one with the mustache and shoulders like a linebacker?”

  He finishes off his wine and shakes his head. “Not true. I remember everything that happened, and I definitely remember asking you to marry me. I’ve gotten tired of our friendship, and the best way to end it is to get married. That way we’ll never have to be nice to each other again.”

  “Lord Jesus, you are one crazy man.” I sigh, then get to my feet and stretch widely. “Enough of this. I’m going inside and change into something cooler, then we have to go. George Johnson is meeting us in”—I look at my watch—“about half an hour.”

  Lex picks up the cushion I threw and places it behind his head, leaning back lazily. “We could have our wedding out here. I’ll do the flowers, and your priest can officiate. Prove to everybody once and for all that you do believe in marriage.”

  When passing his chair, I stop and look down at him, my hands on my hips as he grins up at me, as mischievous as a little boy. “Is this the same man who swore that he’d never get married again? Even if Miss Universe got on her knees and begged?”

  “Yeah, but that was before I realized how much you lust after my body.” He closes his eyes and turns his face to the sun. “I saw you looking at me when the nurses put me in that skimpy hospital gown.” He opens one eye to leer at me. “Got a glimpse of something that changed the way you feel about me, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, please.” I laugh, scampering across the flagstones to the back porch. “You wish.”

  “Hey, bring the binoculars when you come back, okay?”

  I stop suddenly and raise my voice so he can hear me over the sound of the sprinklers. “Lex? Seriously now, you sure you feel up to going? You don’t have to, you know.”

  In spite of our bantering, it’s hard to keep m
y voice light, but my anxiety is far from unwarranted. The weekend before last, when Lex didn’t show up for our first scheduled meeting with George Johnson, I went to his office at the marina and found him slumped over and clutching his chest, pale and gasping for breath. He was furious at me for calling 911, but the emergency crew said if I’d waited a few more minutes, he might not have survived. Getting him to the hospital so quickly allowed them to insert a stent before a full-fledged heart attack did irreparable damage. Since then I haven’t hesitated to remind him that I saved his sorry life.

  “I’m dying to go. Naw, that was last time. Hurry up with those binoculars, would you?” He points a finger toward the herb garden. “One of those ruby-throated hummingbirds in the pineapple sage.”

  I go into the house, shaking my head at Lex’s relentless foolishness. He’s such a crazy man that when we first met, I stayed confused, not sure how to take him. I later admitted to him that I had the absurd notion Yankee men were humorless, unlike the rowdy Southern boys I was raised with. His being a native of Maine only made it worse, because I pictured people from Maine as particularly austere and dour. Since relocating to Fairhope, Lex has become yet another of our many colorful characters, a distinction earned with his “Men of Maine” story. That story has become his trademark, so folks here refer to him as the Man of Maine. When he first moved to town, he told everyone about his great-great-grandfather, a survivor of one of the most famous battles of Gettysburg, where the legendary Men of Maine, a ragtag regiment of lumberjacks and fishermen, defeated the mighty 15th Alabama, a much more highly trained and skilled regiment. Although I recalled the battle from my American history class, I questioned Lex’s great-great-whatever being in it until he showed me the documentation. He goes around declaring that the Men of Maine could still beat the wimps of Alabama, over 140 years later. The first time I went with Lex to a local waterfront bar for a beer, he threw open the door and shouted, “Rednecks of Alabama, the Men of Maine have arrived!” I was petrified, imagining a brawl, until the patrons raised their beers in a salute, laughing. The locals love getting Lex to tell the Gettysburg story, cheering when they hear how the 15th Alabama, though defeated in the end, fought the 20th Maine until the last gray-clothed soldier was down.