She’s suggesting dates for me now? This is new, and bizarre, behavior for Mom.

“Uh, Thorpe plays for the other team,” I tell her.

“Well, I hardly think his sports allegiances matter,” she says. “He’s always had lovely manners.”

“He’s been out of the closet since middle school, Mom.”

She blinks rapidly, absorbing this. “Oh. Oh. Well, then.”

Her cell phone rings, loud in the quiet air. “Hi, honey.” Mom tucks the phone to her shoulder, fluffing her hair even though Clay’s not present.

“When? Okay, I’ll turn it on right now. Call you back after!”

She reaches for the clicker, neatly contained in a wicker basket on her bedside table. “Channel Seven covered my speech at the Tapping Reeve House. Tell me what you think, Samantha.”

I wonder if the children of movie stars get this weird sense of disconnect I have now. The person on-screen looks like the woman who makes lemonade in our kitchen, but the words coming out of her mouth are alien. She’s never had a problem with immigrants before. Or g*y marriage. She’s always been conservative in a moderate way. I listen to her, I look at her excited face next to me, and I don’t know what to say. Is this Clay? Whatever it is, it makes me squirm.

Chapter Seventeen

When Mom isn’t out campaigning, busier than ever, Clay’s at our house. This takes getting used to. As I saw from the start, Clay’s different. He spreads himself out, taking off his tie and tossing his jacket down on the sofa, kicking his shoes any which way, thinking nothing of opening the refrigerator, taking out leftovers and eating them straight from the Tupperware. Things Mom would never allow Tracy or me to do. But Clay gets a free pass. I walk into the kitchen some mornings to find him cooking breakfast for Mom, mysterious breakfasts full of things she’s never eaten, like grits and home fries. While Mom studies the schedule of the day, Clay fills up her coffee cup, her plate, planting a kiss on her head as he does so.

The morning after we choose clothes, he’s in the kitchen in an apron (!) when I come downstairs. “Your mama’s just gone out to get the papers, Samantha. Would you like some biscuits with sausage gravy?”

Yuck, no. He is wielding the frying pan with the same easy confidence he seems to bring to everything. It’s odd to have a man feeling comfortable in our house.

Then I realize, this is the first time I’ve seen him alone since I ran into him on Main Street. It’s my chance to ask him what’s up with that woman, but I have no idea how to begin.

“Here. Try this,” he says, setting a plate in front of me. It looks like someone’s thrown up on a biscuit, but it actually smells really good.

“C’mon,” he says. “Don’t be one of those girls who’s afraid to put a little meat on her bones.”

His hair is flopping boyishly on his forehead and his eyes smile. I want to like him. He makes Mom so happy. And he did stand up for me about curfew. I shift uncomfortably.

“Thanks, by the way. For helping me out the other night,” I finally say, poking at the lumpy gravy with my fork.

Clay chuckles. “I was young once too, honey.”

You still are, I think, wondering suddenly if he’s closer to my own age than Mom’s.

“C’mon, Samantha. You’re no coward. Take a bite.”

All right, I think. I won’t be a coward. I look him in the eyes.

“So who was that woman I saw you with?”

I expect him to tell me it’s none of my business. Or say he has no clue what I’m talking about. But he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Downtown? Have you been fussin’ about that?”

I shrug. “I’ve been wondering. If I should say something to my mom.”

He plants his hands on the counter, looking me in the eye. “Because you saw me having lunch with an old friend?”

The air has shifted a little. He’s smiling, but I’m not sure he means it now. “You did seem pretty friendly,” I say.

Clay studies me, still leaning casually against the counter. I meet his eyes. After a moment, he suddenly seems to relax. “She’s just a pal, Samantha. She was a girlfriend, a while back, but that’s history. I’m with your mama now.”

I make little indentations in the gravy with my fork. “So Mom knows about her?”

“We haven’t sat down and talked about our pasts much. Too much goin’ on right here and now. But your mama has no call to be concerned about Marcie. Any more than I would fret about your daddy. Want some OJ?” He pours me a glass before I can answer. “We’re grown-ups, sugar. We all have pasts. I bet even you do. But those don’t much matter compared to the present, right?”

Well…right, I guess. I mean, I can barely remember what I saw in Michael or Charley.

“We all have presents too,” he adds, “that we don’t tell even the people we love every little thing about.”

I look at him sharply. But no, that’s crazy. He’s here even less often than Mom. He couldn’t possibly know about Jase. But wait, does that mean…

“Like I said, Marcie’s the past. She’s not my present, Samantha. And you know me well enough to know I’m a heckuva lot more concerned with the future than the past.”

I’m polishing off the surprisingly good biscuit when Mom comes in, flushed from the heat, with a large stack of newspapers. Clay scoops them out of her hands, gives her a big kiss, pulls out a stool for her.

“I’ve been working on making a Southerner out of your daughter, Gracie. Hope you’ve got no objection to that.”

“Of course not, sweetie.” She slides onto the stool next to me. “That looks delicious. I’m famished!”

Clay gives her two biscuits and ladles on the gravy, and Mom tucks into it like a lumberjack. So much for her usual breakfast of cantaloupe and rye toast.

And so it goes. He’s in our lives, in our house, everywhere now.

That feels like the last I see of Mom for a while. She dashes out the door every morning with her change of clothes for the evening hanging off the backseat hook in her car. The longest conversations I have with her are by text, as she lets me know she’s at a cookout, clam broil, ribbon cutting, fund-raising harbor cruise, union meeting…whatever. She even falls behind on vacuuming, leaving Post-it notes directing me to pick up the slack. When she is home for dinner, Clay’s there too, and halfway into the meal he shoves aside his plate, pulling out a pad to scribble notes on, absently reaching for his fork from time to time, fishing a piece of meat or a bite of tomato off whatever plate he lands on—his own, mine, Mom’s.