Saylor said. I was sitting at a back table, poking at a chicken sandwich. Saylor paused at my side with a pitcher of water in her hand. She looked at me carefully. “It’s the heat,” I told her. She set the pitcher down and sat across from me. “You’re full of it. It’s always hot. Except for a few weeks in January when we all get to pull our jackets out from underneath the bed and pretend we live somewhere manageable. After that the blistering heat returns.” I cut the chicken sandwich in half. That didn’t make it look any more appetizing. It seemed the quality of Cluck This dining was on a downward spiral. Or else I was. “Perhaps the older I become the more easily I wilt.” My friend stared at me, her green eyes serious. She absently played with the silver ring on her left hand. Cord had given it to her; a symbol of their love and their future. We hadn’t spoken again about my crazy sex encounter with Creed Gentry. I didn’t ask about him and, mercifully, I hadn’t seen him around. I would have been utterly mortified if anyone besides Dolly knew that every night I was compelled to pick up Creed’s abandoned shirt and inhale the lingering scent of him as every important nerve in my body convulsed. Saylor had apparently decided not to press me. She tossed her head in the direction of the latest waitressing addition. Her name was Julie and she was tall, blonde and, from what I could tell, a vicious phony. “She’s making me look bad,”
