Page 90 of Building What's Meant to Be

“More importantly, have you looked in the mirror lately? I think she’s one of us.” Louella Belle slings her arm across my shoulders and smiles warmly.

I glance at the full-length mirror by the clothing display, wondering what they mean.

My hair is in a ponytail. I’m wearing a modest amount of makeup for a more natural look, and I have the T-shirt on. I guess I look more like a local than a trend-setting socialite who flies all over the world on the private jets of her rich and famous friends.

For a hot minute, I miss that life and the glamour, but these friendships seem to be made of more than passing trends and fleeting moments. And what I have with Aiden fills every hole in my life, my heart, and my world when he allowed me to love him.

All along, I wanted attention and sought validation when getting to the top wasn’t a climb at all. More like a falling...a falling in love.

I guess I have changed. “Do you mean I fit in here?”

“Sure, though you and Christina set the bar pretty high. I can’t just show up to work in a tank top and cutoffs,” Louella Belle says.

We both squint at her.

She looks down at her outfit. “Oh, right. I guess that is what I’m wearing.”

“What we mean is you’re like us because you’re in love,” Christina singsongs the last part at the same time as two of Tammy and Bubba’s kids bust through the door and rush over to Brave.

He’s equally happy to see them. The dog lives for attention. Sounds kind of familiar. At least it used to be true about me. Okay, who am I kidding, I’m definitely still an extrovert, but I also enjoy time alone now. The old me couldn’t spend a second by herself. I always had to be with people or plugged into my social media.

Before the ladybosses can grill me about being in love, I say goodbye and meet Tammy. She and I gab the entire way to her house. She mostly gushes about how lately Bubba comes home a new man. “He no longer slogs through the day at work. Don’t get me wrong, he loves his job.”

“And we love his ribs,” one of the kids says from the back of the minivan.

“Can we have wings for lunch?” another asks.

Tammy answers that they’re having sandwiches with Gramma before she continues. “But every day, something at the restaurant would break or go wrong, taking time away from cooking, smoking the meats, or giving his customers the family-style dining experience the BBQ joint had been known for. Quite honestly, he was in over his head.”

“I’m glad to hear my getting arrested and assigned community service helped,” I say with a laugh.

“I remember when Bubba came home that first day. He said you were like a deer in headlights. He didn’t think you’d survive the week,” she says with a warm laugh.

“And here we are. The project is just about done.”

“Thanks for helping, truly. I don’t just mean with Bubba. Beatrice missed those bees. Without someone to take over for her, I guess she gave up.”

Unlike when I’d audition for a role, play an extra in a movie, or show up at an event all gussied up, a great sense of meaning fills me because I realize I get by living and giving. This is my life and not a performance or film set.

“I’m happy to help,” I say and mean it. Even if it took me losing everything, I’ve gained so much. A sense of purpose, humility matched with pride, and relationships with people who aren’t gauging what they can get from me in terms of popularity—or vice versa. It’s refreshing. It’s real.

After we have lunch, Beatrice and I sit in the rocking chairs on her low front porch. She has arthritis and doesn’t get around much, but knows more about bees, their life cycle, honey production, and troubleshooting than I’ve found online or in books. I fill a binder with notes.

“I always wanted to produce enough honey to provide to Bubba’s, but also jar and sell. Never got around to it. I even made up a design for a label. Let me go find it.” With great effort, Beatrice gets up from her chair and goes inside.

Brave plays on the lawn with the family dog when the kids come out and turn on the sprinkler. They run through it and squeal with delight. Brave jumps and tries to bite the spray of water.

The screen door opens and closes. Beatrice chuckles. “They’re such a delight. But you’ve been smiling since you got here. I know that look. Been a while since I wore it. My Bubba, not my son, and I met at a barn dance in Texas.”

“In Texas?” I ask, my voice lifting a few octaves. “That’s where my mother was from. We visited my grandparents there once. Don’t know the name of the town though.” I should call my mother and ask, but I can’t remember the last time we spoke.

She pats my knee, acknowledging my comment. When I don’t say more, she continues her story, “He was there with his father, uncles, brothers, a whole crew. Us girls were from a smalltown nearby and having an influx of handsome young men was like Christmas morning. Bubba asked me to dance that night. I fell in love with him the next day when he bought me a soda. At the time, I had a suitor. He was a bit of a bully and would do things like bump into me so I spilled my soda then make a fuss about how it was an accident then try to help clean me up.” She rolls her eyes.

“Sounds like a backward way to get a girl to like you.”

“Oh, Benjamin Bullock was as backward as they come. He once ran his brother over with a tractor.”

I tuck my head back.

---