Monet Talks by Tamar Myers Page B

and put him in a drawer in for safekeeping. Now she can’t remember which one.”
    â€œDrawer? Like a dresser drawer?”
    â€œYup, or maybe it was a cupboard. I just hope we can find the poor thing before he starves.”
    He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, but I refused to look away or add to my story. Do you see what I mean about silence being a powerful weapon?
    â€œI think you’re both nuts,” he finally said.
    â€œAnd with you, we’d make a nice bridge mix,” I said, and bolted for the second time that morning.
    Â 
    When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and the weak ones, like myself, head right for food. I had several hours to kill before lunch, so I headed across the street to my shop, where I keep a stash of chocolate bars in case of an emergency. It’s anybody’s guess when the next big earthquake will hit Charleston, but if it’s anything like the killer quake of 1889, at the very least the roof will collapse and I could be buried in the rubble for days. Much better to be buried with Mounds bars than without.
    C.J. must have seen me coming, because she flung open the door to the Den of Antiquityjust as I was about to push. As a result, I went sailing through the air as if I’d leapt off a bridge while bungee-jumping, but of course I didn’t have as far to fall. And a floor is much less forgiving than an elastic cord.
    Two pairs of hands helped me to my feet. “Abby, are you all okay?”
    â€œWynnell! What are you doing here?”
    â€œI heard about Mozella. I came to help.”
    â€œHow did you hear about Mama?”
    â€œBob called me, and then I called C.J., but she didn’t know where you were—”
    â€œAbby,” C.J. said, her big gray eyes brimming with tears, “I thought we were friends.”
    â€œWe are!”
    She shook her leonine head. “Friends confide in each other. Besides, Abby, Mozella was my best friend. You should have told me.”
    â€œShe’s right,” Wynnell said, as the hedgerows above her eyes met.
    â€œOkay, okay, I’m sorry. But I didn’t want to worry y’all, and anyway, it’s not like there is any proof she’s been kidnapped. I haven’t even told the children yet. For all we really know, Mama’s off discovering herself again.”
    Susan and Charlie are my college-age offspring. The man who supplied the ingredient necessary for their conception was my first husband, Buford Timberlake. I used to hate Buford, but after he finally apologized for his mistreatment of me, and having learned that there isnothing to be gained by hate—except for a sour stomach—I let go of that crippling emotion.
    â€œYour mama does do some strange things from time to time,” Wynnell agreed, “like that time she ran off to Cincinnati to join a convent.”
    â€œAnd got kicked out for wearing curlers under her wimple and singing on the stairs.”
    â€œCousin Sister Leviticus Ledbetter had a pimple under her wimple,” C.J. said, absolutely deadpan. Wynnell and I both sighed, a fact that the big galoot must have interpreted as encouragement. “And it wasn’t just an ordinary pimple, either. It looked exactly like St. John the Baptist—before he lost his head, of course. It even had his dimples.”
    â€œHold it right there,” I said. “Nobody knows what John the Baptist looked like.”
    The enormous gray eyes, now dry of tears, held me in a steady gaze. “Are you calling the Vatican a liar?”
    â€œNo. And just so you know, C.J., the Vatican isn’t a person, but an institution.”
    Her gaze shifted as those eyes executed a quarter turn. “I know that, silly. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, so anyway, folks for miles around came to see Cousin Sister’s pimply pate—she had to keep her head shaved, you see—but it got to itching really bad, so the convent doctor gave her