“Um, yes. I asked you if . . . ” I stammered.
“I heard you,” she countered smoothly. “If you can’t bother to comply with my wishes, I can’t be bothered to answer you.”
“Right,” I muttered and wished the floor would open and swallow me. “I’m sorry, I meant Petra. Petra, is everything alright?”
“No, everything is not alright,” she hissed. “I have a plane to catch and I have no more time or patience to make chit chat with backward rednecks. It was wrong of you to ask me to be here.”
“Your mother died,” I said flatly. “This is her funeral and these people are here to pay their respects.”
“Oh for God’s sake, she was old and lived well past her time.”
I was speechless. Rare for me, but if anyone was capable of shocking me to silence, it was my mother.
“So, like I said, I have a plane to catch. I’ll be back next week.” She eyed me critically, grimacing at what she saw. “You need some lipstick. You’re lucky you got blessed with good genes because you certainly don’t do anything to help.”
With that loving little nugget, she turned on her stiletto heel and left. I glanced around to see if we’d been overheard and was mortified to see we had clearly been the center of attention.
“Jesus, she’s mean,” Gemma said, pulling me away from prying eyes and big ears.
“Do I look awful?” I whispered, feeling the heat crawl up my neck as the mourners looked on with pity. Not for my loss, but for my parentage.
“You’re beautiful,” Gemma said. “Inside and out.”
“I need to smoke,” I mumbled. “Can we leave yet?”
Gemma checked her watch. “Yep, we’re out of here.”
“I don’t want to go home yet,” I said, looking around for Bobby Joe Gimble, the funeral director. Where in the hell was he and did I need to tip him? Shit, I had no clue what funeral etiquette was. “Do I have to . . . ?”
“Already took care of everything,” Gemma told me. “Let’s go.”
“Where to?” I asked. Damn, I was grateful she was mine.
“Hattie’s.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
***
Hattie’s sold one thing and one thing only. Ice cream. Homemade, full of fat, heart attack inducing ice cream. It was probably my favorite place in the world.
“I’ll have a triple black raspberry chip in a cone cup,” I said as I eyed all the flavors. I didn’t know why I even looked at them. I was totally loyal to my black raspberry chip. My ice cream couldn’t talk back to me, break up with me or make me feel bad. Of course, my love could extend the size of my ass, but I wasn’t even remotely concerned about that today. Besides, I planned a very long run for later. I needed to clear my head and be alone.
“Sorry about your loss, Sugar,” Hattie said and I nodded. Her big fleshy arms wobbled as she scooped out my treat. “Do you want sprinkles and whipped cream on that, Baby?”
“Um . . . ” I glanced over at Gemma who grinned and gave me a thumbs up. “Yes, yes I do.”
“Me too,” Gemma added, “but I want mint chip, please.”
“You got it, Sugar Buns,” Hattie said and handed me a monstrous amount of ice cream. “It’s on me today, Astrid. I feel just terrible I couldn’t be at the funeral.”
“That’s okay, Hattie. You and Nana were such good friends. I want your memories to be of that.”
“Thank you for that, Darlin’. Ever since my Earl died from siphoning gasoline, I haven’t been able to set foot near that goddamn funeral parlor.”
I swallowed hard. Her late ex-husband Earl had siphoned gasoline since he was ten. His family owned the local gas station and apparently, as legend had it, he enjoyed the taste. But on the fateful day in question, he’d been smoking a cigar while he did it . . . and blew himself to kingdom come. It was U-G-L-Y. Earl was spread all over town. Literally. He and Hattie had been divorced for years and hated each other. It was no secret he had fornicated with over half the older women in town, but when he died like that, he became a saint in her eyes.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. Hard. Although it was beyond inappropriate, whenever anyone talked about Earl, I laughed.
“Astrid totally understands.” Gemma gave Hattie a quick hug and pushed me away from the counter before I said or did something unforgivable.
“Thanks,” I whispered. “That would have been bad.”
“Yep,” Gemma grinned and shoveled a huge spoon of ice cream in her mouth.
“Where in the hell do you put that?” I marveled at her appetite. “You’re tiny.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, Miss I Have the World’s Fastest Metabolism.”
“That’s the only good thing I inherited from the witch who spawned me,” I said and dug in to my drug of choice. I winced in pain as my frozen ice cream ass-extender went straight to the middle of my forehead.
“Are you okay?” Gemma asked.
I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. God, I hated brain freezes. “No, not right now, but I’ve decided to change some stuff. Nana would want me to.”
My best friend watched me silently over her ice cream.
“I’m going to stop smoking, get a real career, work out every day, date someone who has a job and not a parole officer, get married, have two point five kids and prove that I was adopted.”