“Well, they did a good job. I think it’s a good sort of compromise you’ve got going on there.”

“Well, now that I know I’m auditioning tonight for the possible role of father-in-law, I figured I’d better give it my best effort.”

Ted was coming for dinner. In a moment of near total insanity, Leslie invited Archie. The boys were at Maureen’s house. Against Momma’s complaints, I cleared off and set the dining room table. This was going to be a classy night if it killed me. I wanted us to show well to Ted. I cut flowers for the table, dahlias and roses mixed with rosemary and thyme, and they were so beautiful and fragrant, I could scarcely believe they were from our yard.

Leslie put potatoes in the oven to bake and I made a salad and a salad dressing with honey, remembering to shoot the bees a telepathic thanks. And Momma, deadly as she could be in the kitchen, blew the dust off her old copy of Charleston Receipts and very carefully followed the recipe for pickled shrimp.

“I think it’s important for Suzanne to think I can cook.”

“She’ll know better soon enough,” Leslie said, and we both giggled.

“She is the cat’s, um, wait . . . oh, forget it!”

Even the queen had a laugh.

“Don’t either of you bad girls tell her anything different, y’all hear me?”

We had wine to pour. Wine in bottles. Actually, good wine. I say this because Suzanne went to a real wine store and brought home six bottles. There were châteaus, not flip-flops, on the labels and I couldn’t pronounce the names, so it had to be pretty good stuff. And she brought a bottle of champagne that had to be for a toast, which was my clue that the ring would be on Momma’s finger that night and we would all be properly hydrated. This was not to be our normal dinner, to be sure.

Chapter 36: Bee Joyful

“We should be drinking mead!” I said after two glasses of wine.

Everyone stared at me and told me it was a ridiculous idea, except Ted.

“I think it would be fun to ferment honey,” Ted said. “Let’s try it!”

That’s just one reason why I love him.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Bee Joyful

We were not party-hosting people. In fact, the last party I could remember that took place under my mother’s roof was the one when everyone got sick when I was a child. So Leslie and I were not well versed in the hospitable ways of normal southern women. In addition to a copy of Southern Living, I had my hands on a copy of Southern Lady I picked up at Publix, which seemed focused on dinner parties and brunches and how they should look.