"Looking good, JB," I said brightly, pulling the menus from between the napkin box and the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table and handing one to him and one to Tara. My hands were shaking, but I don't think they noticed.
JB smiled up at me. "Thanks, Sookie," he said in his pleasant baritone. JB was just beautiful, but really short on the brains. However, that gave him a charming simplicity. Tara and I had watched out for him in school, because once that simplicity was observed and targeted by other, less handsome boys, JB had been in for some rough patches...especially in junior high. Since Tara and I also both had huge flaws in our own popularity profiles, we'd tried to protect JB as much as we were able. In return, JB had squired me to a couple of dances I'd wanted to go to very badly, and his family had given Tara a place to stay a couple of times when I couldn't.
Tara had had sex with JB somewhere along this painful road. I hadn't. It didn't seem to make any difference to either relationship.
"JB has a new job," Tara said, smiling in a self-satisfied way. So that was why she'd come in. Our relationship had been uneasy for the past few months, but she knew I'd want to share in her pride at having done a good thing for JB.
That was great news. And it helped me not think about Selah Pumphrey and her load of anger.
"Whereabouts?" I asked JB, who was looking at the menu as if he'd never seen it before.
"At the health club in Clarice," he said. He looked up and smiled. "Two days a week, I sit at the desk wearing this." He waved a hand at his clean and tight-fitting golf shirt, striped burgundy and brown, and his pressed khakis. "I get the members to sign in, I make healthy shakes, and I clean the equipment and hand out towels. Three days a week, I wear workout clothes and I spot for all the ladies."
"That sounds great," I said, awestruck at the perfection of the job for JB's limited qualifications. JB was lovely: impressive muscles, handsome face, straight white teeth. He was an ad for physical health. Also, he was naturally good-natured and neat.
Tara looked at me, expecting her due praise. "Good work," I told her. We gave each other a high five.
"Now, Sookie, the only thing that would make life perfect is you calling me some night," JB said. No one could project a wholesome, simple lust like JB.
"Thanks so much, JB, but I'm seeing someone now," I said, not troubling to keep my voice down. After Selah's little exhibition, I felt the need to brag a little.
"Oooh, that Quinn?" Tara asked. I may have mentioned him to her once or twice. I nodded, and we did another high five. "Is he in town now?" she asked in a lower voice, and I said, "Left this morning," just as quietly.
"I want the Mexican cheeseburger," JB said.
"Then I'll get you one," I said, and after Tara had ordered, I marched to the kitchen. Not only was I delighted for JB, I was happy that Tara and I seemed to have mended our fences. I had needed a little upswing to my day, and I had gotten it.
When I reached home with a couple of bags of groceries, Amelia was back and my kitchen sparkled like an exhibit in a Southern Homes show. When she was feeling stressed or bored, Amelia cleaned, which was a fantastic habit to have in a housemate - especially when you're not used to having one at all. I like a neat house myself, and I get cleaning spurts from time to time, but next to Amelia I was a slob.
I looked at the clean windows. "Feeling guilty, huh?" I said.
Amelia's shoulders slumped. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of one of her weird teas, steam rising from the dark liquid.
"Yeah," she said glumly. "I saw the quilt was in the washing machine. I worked on the spot, and it's hanging out back on the line now."
Since I'd noted that when I came in, I just nodded. "Bob retaliated," I said.
"Yeah."
I started to ask her who she'd stayed with, then realized it was really none of my business. Besides, though I was very tired, Amelia was a broadcaster of the first order, and within seconds I knew she'd stayed with Calvin's cousin Derrick and the sex hadn't been good; also, Derrick's sheets had been very dirty and that had made her nuts. Plus, when Derrick had woken up this morning, he'd indicated that in his mind, a night together made them a couple. Amelia had had a hard time getting Derrick to give her a ride back to the house. He wanted her to stay with him, in Hotshot.
"Weirded out?" I asked, putting the hamburger meat in the refrigerator drawer. It was my week to cook, and we were going to have hamburger steak, baked potatoes, and green beans.
Amelia nodded, lifting her mug to take a sip. It was a homemade hangover restorative she'd concocted, and she shuddered as she experimented on herself. "Yeah, I am. Those Hotshot guys are a little strange," she said.
"Some of them." Amelia had adjusted better to my telepathy than anyone I'd ever encountered. Since she was frank and open anyway - sometimes way too much - I guess she never felt she had secrets to hide.
"What are you gonna do?" I asked. I sat down opposite her.
"See, it's not like I'd been dating Bob for a long time," she said, jumping right into the middle of the conversation without bothering with preliminaries. She knew I understood. "We'd only gotten together that one night. Believe me, it was great. He really got me. That's why we began, ah, experimenting."
I nodded, tried to look understanding. To me, experimenting was, well, licking a place you'd never licked before, or trying a position that gave you a cramp in your thigh. Like that. It did not involve turning your partner into an animal. I'd never worked up enough nerve to ask Amelia what their goal had been, and it was one thing her brain wasn't throwing out.
"I guess you like cats," I said, following my train of thought to its logical conclusion. "I mean, Bob is a cat, but a small one, and then you picked Derrick out of all the guys who would have been thrilled to spend the night with you."
"Oh?" Amelia said, perking up. She tried to sound casual. "More than one?"
Amelia did have the tendency to think way too well of herself as a witch, but not enough of herself as a woman.
"One or two," I said, trying not to laugh. Bob came in and wreathed himself around my legs, purring loudly. It could hardly have been more pointed, since he walked around Amelia as if she were a pile of dog poop.
Amelia sighed heavily. "Listen, Bob, you've gotta forgive me," she said to the cat. "I'm sorry. I just got carried away. A wedding, a few beers, dancing in the street, an exotic partner...I'm sorry. Really, really sorry. How about I promise to be celibate until I can figure out a way to turn you back into yourself?"