The Dress My Neighbor Wore Saturday

“Vicki,” she said. “Where did you get this?”

Vicki was across the patio, laughing at something Tom had said. She looked over.

“That old thing? A flea market up in Glasgow. Isn’t it sweet?”

“It is,” Brenda said. She had the feeder tipped up now, looking at the bottom. “There’s a woman in Berea who makes these. She signs them underneath and numbers them. I ordered a set of four from her in April, for Roy’s sister. They never came.”

Nobody was really listening yet. A few people nearby had gone quiet.

“She sent me a picture before she mailed them,” Brenda said. She got her phone out of her pocket and put her reading glasses on. “Here. Number three of four has a chip in the leaf where her brush slipped. She apologized for it and took ten dollars off.”

She held the phone up next to the feeder. I was close enough to see both.

“This one says three of four,” Brenda said. “And there’s the chip.”

“Well, then somebody sold your feeders at a flea market,” Vicki said. “That’s awful, Brenda. That’s just what I’ve been saying about those kids.”

It was a good answer. I will give her that. It came out fast and smooth, and I watched half the patio accept it.

Brenda did not argue. She took off her glasses and sat back down in her lawn chair, and she did not take her eyes off Vicki after that.

I had not said one word. I picked up a deviled egg and ate it.

It was Gary who did the next thing, and he did it trying to be helpful.

“We’re out of cups,” Kim called.

“Got a whole sleeve in the garage,” Gary said. He wiped his hands on his apron and went in through the side door.

He came back out carrying a cardboard box, a big one, with a sleeve of red cups and two packs of napkins riding in the top of it. He set it down on the end of the table right in front of Jeff.

Jeff reached in for the cups. Then he stopped, with his hand in the box.

He was looking at the side of it. At the shipping label.

“Gary,” he said. “Why’s my name on your box?”

Gary laughed. “What?”

“That’s my name. That’s my house. 1411 Larkspur Court.” Jeff turned the box so the label faced out. “That’s the tracking sticker and everything.”

Gary came around the table and bent to read it. I watched him read it twice.

“I just grabbed it off the stack,” he said. “Vicki, this is one of your return boxes. Why’s it got Jeff’s name?”

“It must have come to us by mistake,” Vicki said. “I meant to run it over.”

Kim had come up beside her husband. She lifted the napkins out and looked underneath.

“Jeff,” she said quietly. “That’s my pressure canner. That’s the one I ordered in March for the green beans. I had to buy another.”

“March,” Jeff said.

“March the ninth. I remember because it was Mama’s birthday.”

It got quiet enough on that patio that I could hear the fat hiss in the smoker.

“Your return boxes,” Tom said to Gary. He is seventy, flew helicopters for the Army, and does not waste a syllable. “How many of those have you got in there?”