Page 26 of Hello, Summer
“I didn’t know you’d played football.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Skelly said.
“So when do you think you’ll be getting together with good ol’ Popps to throw back some brewskis?” she asked.
“Hmmm. I’d say never-ish.”
10
“Sarah! Sarah Conley. Sarah. Conley. Hawkins.” The voice in her ear was soft but persistent. “Come on now. Wake up.”
She rolled onto her stomach, but now someone was tapping her shoulder. Tap. “Sarah.” Tap. “Wake up.” Tap. “I’m not going away, so you’d best just get up so we can all get going.”
Conley groaned and sat up. Winnie stood by her bed with a steaming mug of coffee in her outstretched hand.
“That’s better. If you don’t get dressed and get downstairs right this minute, I swear your grandmother is going to finish loading the car and drive herself out to the beach, and ain’t nobody wants that,” Winnie said.
“What time is it?”
“It’s quarter ’til nine. Lorraine called me at seven, told me to get myself over here no later than eight.”
Conley took a sip of coffee and yawned.
“Late night?” Winnie raised an eyebrow.
“Too late,” Conley said as she headed toward the bathroom. “You can tell G’mama I said to hold her horses. I’m already packed. I’ll be downstairs in fifteen minutes, and then we can get started.”
Winnie was dragging the potted fern out the front door just as Conley reached the hallway.
“For Pete’s sake, Winnie. I’ll get that.” She sat her suitcase near the bottom step. “Where’s G’mama?”
“Been setting out in the car for ten minutes. You didn’t hear her honking the horn?”
“I was in the shower,” Conley said. She picked up the fern and steered her rolling suitcase out onto the front step and was greeted by a long blast from the Wagoneer’s horn.
Lorraine sat in the front seat, arms crossed over her chest, Opie draped across her lap.
Conley raised the Wagoneer’s hatch. Suitcases, coolers, garment bags, the television, and Opie’s dog bed took up the entire cargo area. She managed to shove the fern inside the dog bed, but there was not another spare inch in the car as far as she could see.
She sighed and shook her head, then turned back toward the house.
G’mama rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “Where do you think you’re going? It’s blazing hot in this car, and I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
Conley didn’t bother to answer. When she got back to the car, she used a pair of bungee cords to strap her own suitcase to the Wagoneer’s roof.
Lorraine sulked in silence for the first ten minutes of the drive.
Conley decided to ignore her grandmother and instead engaged in a friendly conversation with the housekeeper.
“How’re your nephews doing, Winnie?”
“Real good. Jesse, the youngest, got out of the army, and he’s back working at the auto body shop and driving their tow truck, says he’s fixing to buy the shop from old man Widener. Jason’s down in Tampa, working as a longshoreman at the port authority. And Jerry just got promoted to head teller at the bank. Everybody says he’ll be the next branch manager.”
“That’s amazing,” Conley said. “I know Nedra would be so proud of them, and grateful to you, for raising them into such successful young men.”
“Those boys gave me a run for my money, that’s for sure,” Winnie said.
“Not to mention a lot of gray hair,” Lorraine put in. “Same as you did me, staying out all hours of the night last night.”
