Page 28 of Unmistakably Us

Another soul who’d know the truth…she was a fucking wimp who was about to be married to a man she loathed. An idiot who signed contract after contract she had no business signing. Hell, ones her parents had no business drawing up in the first place. God, I’m fucking pathetic.

“Sorry, Francis. I guess I had my music too loud, and I was in the zone.” January made a twirl and twerk to emphasize her point. Francis shocked her by joining in. If there was one thing she thought she’d never see or possibly could’ve lived her life without witnessing, it was a sixty-plus-year-old proper southern lady twerking in her sister’s kitchen.

“Where’s Gus?” January asked. She hadn’t seen her since earlier, and there weren’t any sounds coming from the rest of the house. She figured Francis would know more than her.

“Oh, she’s at the store grabbing a few things for me. It’s just us, dear.” Yay, not, January almost said aloud. Alone with Francis and her voodoo was not where she wanted to end up today.

“Don’t look so worried. We’ll have a grand time. We can gab, and I can teach you how to make my famous pecan pie. It’s the best in the Panhandle, if I do say so myself. Now, put that thing away and let’s interact like normal people.”

“Oookay.” If Francis detected the hesitation in her zombie-like response, she didn’t react. She just started whistling a happy tune while preparing food. She appeared not to have a care in the world, but January knew better; she could see it in her eyes.

It became apparent Francis didn’t pull any punches; she just came right to the point. “So, dear, what’s the deal with our sweet Logan?”

“That’s the million-dollar question now, isn’t it? Wish I could answer it,” January mumbled under her breath. Not low enough, apparently.

“Well, dear, you’re the only one who can. That’s why I asked you. Of course, Logan can answer it too, but from his perspective. Should I just ask him then and extrapolate yours from the available data he provides?”

Francis smirked, actually smirked. That lady wasn’t unaware of her mojo; she seemed to embrace it.

January cautiously inquired, “And what is it you do with all this intel you acquire?” She attempted to make it casual, but she knew she failed miserably when Francis stopped what she was doing and took her by the biceps, looking her right in the eyes.

In the midst of all her inner turmoil, that amused January. She’d always regarded Francis at tiny but fierce, but she realized for the first time, they were the same height. Stacy and Gus were both vertically challenged too, but for some reason, she viewed Francis as larger somehow.

“I don’t tell anyone anything they don’t need to know, hell, I barely tell them what they do. I find things tend to stick better when people come to it all by themselves.”

“All by themselves, huh? You don’t lead them there or—”

Francis dropped her hands and lifted her apron to clean them with the hem. With a pish sound of dismissal, she turned back to her task. “A gentle nudge is hardly leading. Besides, sometimes we all need to know where to start, right?” The pointed look Francis sent her way was telling.

“Um hm.” January scoffed, hoping to put Francis off.

“Don’t sass me, young lady. Besides, you don’t call it leading to use a map, do you? I certainly don’t. I call it smarter. It beats wandering around the boondocks looking for a trailer in the woods. Just think of me as the phone voice lady. She tells you what you need to know and you don’t worry she’ll tell the next person who picks up the phone where all the bodies are buried.”

Finished with her weird mismatch statement, Francis resumed her humming and preparing, seemingly leaving the ball in January’s court. I know better, damn it. I’m gonna talk. No matter how hard I try to fight it, by the time we get to the pie, I’m going to talk.

Francis continued to buzz around the kitchen. The silence seemed companionable on the surface, but for January’s part, it was tense.

January laughed out loud when Francis turned toward her and she finally noticed her apron. JUST ‘CAUSE YOU SLAP BUTTER ON IT, DON’T MAKE IT A BISCUIT!

She returned to her previous activity before asking, “What’s so funny, sweetheart?”

Pointing, January answered, “That. I mean, I wasn’t raised that awful far from here, but this place is a world removed for me. The sayings y’all have are just…too much. What does that even mean, anyway?”

Francis looked down as if she needed to read it; her answer proved she didn’t. “Oh, I bought this for you, dear. It just spoke to me. I threw it on because I…well, I wanted to. I’ll wash it up for you to take home with you, when will that be, again?”

“Uh, I think I’ll head back in a week or so. I should’ve left already, but, I just can’t resist the hospitality. So, are you going to tell me what it means, or do I need to trust random strangers on the Internet to explain it to me?” January was caught completely off guard by Francis’ query at first, but speaking about an innocuous subject relaxed her.

“It means things are what they are and as much as you may want to, you can’t make them what they aren’t. So, if you’re craving a hot, flaky biscuit, putting butter on a piece of bologna just ain’t gonna cut it. I mean, have you noticed that some people go into a job or a relationship or whatnot, something they know isn’t right for them? They give it their all, but it ain’t no biscuit, and it never will be.”

Okay, wow and what the fuck? How did this conversation about a fucking apron turn into an analogy for my life? And also, gross. Buttered bologna, yuck. Thoughts churned in January’s head, making her damn near dizzy. They were being swirled around like sharks in a tornado.

“I’ve got to eat buttered bologna for a decade and pretend it’s a biscuit.” It was a thought that rocked her back.

“No you don’t, sweetheart. If you want biscuits, then have ‘em.” Francis’ words chilled her very soul, because that meant…

“Oh, that was…I mean.” January was flustered.

“You mean those words were for your pretty little head and not for me?”

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