I hesitated. “I’m afraid she’ll fall into the wrong hands. I caught Jake holding her under the pond with a stick.”

She cocked her head to one side and regarded me like a vulture sizing up a carcass. “I told him to drown her,” she said. “Got too many cats around here. Didn’t think he’d mind.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” I agreed, “but I did.”

“You fixing to take it home with you?”

“I guess I’d better.”

She laughed at that and edged her walker closer to the table. I dropped the kitten into a large cardboard box marked “Bread Rolls.” She scuttled around from side to side, clawing at the cardboard. Miss Agnes handed me a wet wipe and placed her food order.

She pulled her gum out, stuck it on the edge of the plate, and dug in. For a woman with no teeth she managed to eat an astonishing number of chewy foods—a slice of ham, a chicken breast, macaroni salad, and a rock hard biscuit courtesy of Aunt Alice, the kitchen terror. I had a ham sandwich but decided to avoid anything with mayonnaise in it, as the temperature had crept up to ninety degrees.

I pulled a chair up next to great-grandma’s and played with the kitten. On closer inspection, I could see that it was older than I’d thought. It might even have been fully grown, just small and malformed. Its face was long and pointy, and its eyes were crossed.

“Probably retarded,” I said.

“Her mother’s a moron,” Miss Agnes agreed, pronouncing moron with a long O. “Had fourteen litters. I used to drown ’em in a bucket, but they’ve gotten too hard for me to catch.”

“It’s like The Grapes of Wrath out here, isn’t it?” I said.

She laughed.

“You’ve read The Grapes of Wrath?”

“Of course,” she said. “I used to read a lot, before my eyes got too bad. Pearl reads to me now. She reads better than she cooks.”

“It can’t be easy to cook for the blender. What sort of books do you like?”

She pulled the wad of chewing gum off her plate and stuck it back in her mouth. “Some of everything,” she said. “History, romance, biography. We just finished one by Kitty Kelley about Elizabeth Taylor. She was no better than a common whore.”

“I suppose not.”

“Where’s your grandfather? He hasn’t wished me a happy birthday.”

The last time I’d seen Hunter, he was drinking something out of a paper bag. I decided the conversation was too interesting for a pointless lie, so I told her so.

Miss Agnes nodded. “I always said that if I’d been a man, I’d have been a drunk.”

This surprised me. I said, “Why would you have to be a man?”

“Because women always have work to do,” she said.

By five o’clock, only the die-hards remained. Fred, Allard, Oscar, and Howard sat in lawn chairs at the edge of the pond, drinking out in the open now. Linda had taken Jake and Nancy, who looked like she’d been in possession of something a lot harder than pot, back to the Holiday Inn. She informed us that they had tickets to hear the North Carolina Symphony perform Beethoven’s Ninth.

“As if she could tell the difference between the Ninth and a fifth,” my mother hissed. She had finished her Harlequin and was flipping through a battered copy of Chariots of the Gods. “What are you planning to do with that kitten?”

“I thought I’d name her Jezebel.”

“She looks more like Boo Radley.” She reached over and picked the kitten up off my lap. “We might not be able to find an apartment that allows pets.”

I didn’t want to have this conversation with my mother now anymore than I had two weeks ago. “If Jezebel stays out here, you know how she’ll end up, knocked down or knocked up. I’m going to rescue her. I’ll find her a home.”

My mother pursed her lips. “We’ll see. When Fonzie died, I told you that was it. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years cleaning out a litter box.”

“Look at her. Do you think she’ll live to be twenty?”

“You’d be surprised,” my mother said. “I brought a kitten home from this place in 1946. She lived until the year your father and I got married. I’m about ready to go home. Any sign of Hunter?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s right over there, laughing like a hyena.”

“Great.” She looked at her watch. “He’s got till six o’clock. Then, I’m taking us home, and he can stay here with his mother.”

“I don’t want him,” Miss Agnes said. She lowered herself onto the padded wing chair Lucy had transported from the house to act as a birthday throne. “I told Myrtle when she married him that she’d have to keep him.”

Nana pulled up another lawn chair. “I believe your exact words were ‘You’ve made your bed and now you’ll have to lie in it.’ I should’ve taken that as a warning.”

As if on cue, Hunter wandered over.

“Uncle Robert was a sorry son of a bitch,” he said.

“Stop it, Hunter,” my grandmother said.

Miss Agnes stared off into the distance, her hands folded primly on her lap. I thought it was about time for someone to take her home. The mosquito coils had burned down to nothing, and the flies had long since taken over the buffet table.

“He was tighter than a bull’s ass in fly time,” Hunter went on. “A worthless cheating bastard in a shiny two-dollar suit.”

Nana put her head in her hands. I couldn’t tell if she was miserable or just tired. My mother closed her book and retreated to the car.

Hunter flung his head back and wailed, “Why did you do it, mother?”

Jezebel, who’d been asleep in my lap, opened one crossed eye.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Miss Agnes said.

“I saw you through the kitchen window,” Hunter wailed. “Daddy was gone, and I was riding my tricycle on the side porch. I saw you letting Uncle Robert play with your titties.” He knelt beside her chair and ran his hands through his hair several times.

Miss Agnes shook her head. “You’re only saying this to hurt me, Hunter.”

“Uncle Robert, your baby sister’s husband,” he went on mournfully. “You ruined my life. My entire goddamned life. I hope Daddy never knew.”

I looked at my great-grandmother. The titties Uncle Robert had apparently been so fond of were tucked somewhere beneath the waistband of her flowered dress. Had she been good-looking once upon a time? She’d been a redhead, and like as not, the blue eyes weren’t always watery. She wanted Hunter to shut up and stop wrecking her birthday. So did I.

“You should have kept the kittens and drowned him in a bucket,” I said.

She didn’t disagree with me.

Chapter Twenty

Mr. Chisholm, the Vocational Ed teacher, also served as the lunchroom monitor. He didn’t like GT students. He’d written several letters to the Raleigh paper saying that the Magnet program was a waste of taxpayer money. He stopped Abby and me at the doorway to the cafeteria.

“Five per table,” he said, glowering at us. “No more.” The hand he held up to demonstrate this number had only three fingers and half a thumb.

“Those who can’t do, teach,” I whispered to Abby. She laughed so hard she swallowed her gum.

We waited in line for our helpings of Salisbury steak and industrial strength mashed potatoes. A tired woman in a white coat and hairnet slapped the potatoes onto a tray. “Gravy?”

Abby hesitated.

“Go on,” I urged. “You’re holding up the line.”

“Gravy?” the woman asked again.

“Let’s find Dave,” Abby suggested. “His dad owns the Hardee’s on New Bern Avenue. Maybe he’ll extend us some credit.”