I said as I entered Hollis’s real-estate office on East Wayne. The white clapboard bungalow sported green shutters, neat gables, a brick sidewalk, and window boxes filled with wilted pansies. IdaMae had never married, and she’d been with Hollis since the day he opened the agency, twenty years ago. She was more family than secretary, and I swear the woman could make anything grow in those window boxes. This year Cupcake commandeered the job. “Well, bless my soul. Reagan, is it really you?” IdaMae’s brown eyes widened, and she put her hand to her bosom in pure delight. “How are you, honey? And how is your mamma getting on these days? I trust she’s doing right well.” IdaMae rose from behind her neat desk, her yellow-and-blue cotton-print dress flowing around her like an attractive tent, topped with a white sweater. If Hollis set the AC any lower in the place, it would snow. She hugged me and kissed the air behind my left ear. “I haven’t seen you in ages and ages.” It had been about a month, but between friends in Savannah, that was an age.
