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encourage me to go to that party tonight because you knew Zarah Mitchell would be there?”
    Mamm pulled her reading glasses off her nose and let them dangle by the bejeweled chain around her neck. “You’ve only been back in town three days. I told you that the reason I thought you should go was because you would see people there you already knew.”
    “I thought you meant Patrick Macdonald and the few other people I went to high school with who are still around.” Unable to resist it any longer, he reached for the sugar bowl, extracted a cube, and put it in his mouth, where he held it between his back teeth as it dissolved.
    “If I knew of any specific reason why you would not want to see Zarah, then I might not have encouraged you to go. But since no one will tell me anything more than that you and she knew each other when you were stationed at White Sands, I had no way of knowing you wouldn’t enjoy seeing her again after all that time. Did I?”
    Bobby scrubbed his hands over his face, then leaned his elbows on the table. “Well, some things are better left in the past.”
    “See? That’s exactly why I didn’t know any better than to send you to one of Zarah’s parties. Because there’s not a lot about your past—at least the years you’ve been gone—that you’re willing to share with anybody.”
    He had to hand it to her—she had a point. Though he and Zarah had clandestinely dated for more than six months, he could only remember once mentioning to his parents he’d gone out with someone while he was stationed in New Mexico. He had not mentioned her name. And he had never told them he intended to ask her to marry him, because they would have tried to talk him out of it. And they would have been right. Twenty and eighteen were too young to get married. Not that he’d even had the chance to ask.
    “Suffice it to say, Zarah and I knew each other well for a briefperiod of time, but it ended with some hard feelings.” Bobby picked up another sugar cube, but this one he held between his thumb and forefinger. “What do you know about her?”
    “I know she came here to attend Vanderbilt. She studied history, and I believe she has her PhD.” Mamm tapped her pen against her chin. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember Kiki and Victor feting her when she received her doctorate.”
    He supposed it was nice to know she had gone on and accomplished the dream she had left him for. “And what does she do now?”
    “She works for a local history museum or historical society or something.” Mamm shrugged. “I’m not certain precisely what she does or where she works. All I know is it has something to do with history.”
    Preservation of historic sites had been something of a passion of hers back when he’d known her.
    “So does this mean you aren’t going to go to church with us Sunday? I’ve been telling everyone you’re going to be there.” Mamm looked so crestfallen, so sad, he couldn’t bear to disappoint her.
    “No. I’ll go with you Sunday. I’m not going to let some…trivial incident from the past interfere with my getting involved in what seems like a great group of people.” Between the way the younger single women had checked him out tonight and the presence of a few of his high school classmates he’d like to reconnect with, becoming an active member of Acklen Avenue Fellowship—the church he grew up in—would be a great way to create the opportunity he’d wished for since leaving New Mexico: to show Zarah he’d moved on, had made something of his life.
    Mamm patted his hand, reminding him of the sugar cube he still held. He put it in his mouth. Yes, showing Zarah he had far exceeded her father’s dire predictions for this juvenile delinquent’s future would be sweet.
    He stood, then bent over to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Evade.”
    “Do what?”
    “A five-letter word for slip past: evade.” He grinned. He’d missed hearing people say Do what? instead of Sorry? or