According to Lucy, the Lutherans had abandoned the tiny country church sometime in the 1960s. A pair of arched windows bracketed the double front doors. The key turned easily in the lock. The inside was musty, the air hot from the day. When she’d last visited, the interior had been washed in sunlight, but now the darkness reminded her of every horror movie she’d ever seen. She fumbled for a switch, hoping the electricity was turned on. Magically, two white wall globes sprang to life. She couldn’t leave them on long for fear someone would see—just long enough to explore. She dropped her suitcase and locked the door behind her.
The pews were gone, leaving an empty, echoing space. The founding fathers hadn’t believed in ornamentation. No stained-glass windows, soaring vaults, or stone columns for these stern Lutherans. The room was narrow, not even thirty feet wide, with scrubbed pine floors and a pair of ceiling fans hanging from a simple stamped-metal ceiling. Five long transom windows lined each wall. An austere staircase led to a small wooden choir loft at the rear, the church’s only extravagance.
Lucy had said that Ted had lived in the church for a few months while his house was being built, but whatever furniture he’d brought here was gone. Only an ugly easy chair with stuffing showing through a corner of its brown upholstery remained, along with a black metal futon she discovered in the choir loft. Lucy had planned to furnish the space with cozy seating areas, painted tables, and folk art. All Meg cared about right now was the possibility of running water.
Her sneakers squeaked on the old pine floor as she made her way toward the small door positioned to the right of what had once been the altar. Beyond it lay a room barely ten feet deep that served as both kitchen and storage space. An ancient, silent refrigerator, the kind with rounded corners, rested next to a small side window. The kitchen also held an old-fashioned four-burner enameled stove, a metal cupboard, and a porcelain sink. Perpendicular to the back door another door led to a bathroom more modern than the rest of the church with a toilet, white pedestal sink, and shower stall. She gazed at the X-shaped porcelain faucets and slowly, hopefully, twisted one handle.
Fresh water gushed from the spout. So basic. So luxurious.
She didn’t care that there was no hot water. Within minutes, she’d retrieved her suitcase, peeled off her clothes, grabbed the shampoo and soap she’d pilfered from the inn, and stepped inside. She gasped as the cold splashed over her. Never again would she take this luxury for granted.
After she dried off, she tied the silk wrap she’d worn to the rehearsal dinner under her arms. She’d just located an unopened box of saltines and six cans of tomato soup in the metal cupboard when her phone rang. She picked it up and heard a familiar voice.
“Meg?”
She set the soup can aside. “Luce? Honey, are you all right?” It had been almost two weeks since the night Lucy had run away, and that was the last time they’d spoken.
“I’m fine,” Lucy said.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because . . .” A pause. “Would I be . . . like . . . a total skank if I slept with another guy now? Like in about ten minutes?”
Meg stood straighter. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Do you like him?”
“Kind of. He’s no Ted Beaudine, but . . .”
“Then you should definitely sleep with him.” Meg spoke more forcefully than she’d intended, but Lucy didn’t pick up on it.
“I want to, but . . .”
“Be a skank, Luce. It’ll be good for you.”
“I guess if I’d seriously wanted to be talked out of this, I’d have called somebody else.”
“That tells you a lot, then.”
“You’re right.” Meg heard the sound of water being shut off in the background. “I have to go,” Lucy said in a rush. “I’ll call when I can. Love you.” She hung up.
Lucy sounded frazzled, but excited, too. Meg thought about the call as she finished a bowl of soup. Maybe this would all turn out okay in the end. At least for Lucy.
With a sigh, she washed the saucepan, then laundered her dirty clothes with some dishwashing detergent she found under the sink amid a scatter of mouse turds. Every morning, she’d have to wipe out the signs that she’d been here, pack her possessions, and stow them in her car in case Ted stopped by. But for now, she had food, shelter, and running water. She’d bought herself a little more time.
The next few weeks were the worst of her life. As Arlis made her days increasingly miserable, Meg dreamed of returning to L.A., but even if she could have gotten back, she had nowhere to stay. Not with her parents, whose tough-love speech was seared into her brain. Not with her friends, all of whom had families, which was fine for an overnight stay, but not for an extended visit. When Birdie grudgingly informed her that she’d finally worked off her debt, Meg felt nothing but despair. She couldn’t quit the inn until she had another source of income, and she couldn’t move as long as Lucy’s church was her only shelter. She needed to find another job, one in Wynette. Preferably a job that provided immediate tip money.
She applied to wait tables at the Roustabout, the honky-tonk that served as the town’s gathering place. “You screwed up Ted’s wedding,” the owner said, “and you tried to stiff Birdie. Why would I hire you?”
So much for the Roustabout.
Over the next several days, she stopped at every bar and restaurant in town, but none was hiring. Or at least they weren’t hiring her. Her food supply was nonexistent, she was purchasing gas three gallons at a time, and she had to buy Tampax soon. She needed cash, and she needed it fast.
As she removed still another revolting hair plug from still another crusty bathtub, she thought about how many times she’d forgotten to tip the housekeepers who cleaned the hotel rooms after her. So far, all she’d picked up in tips was a measly twenty-eight bucks. It would have been more, but Arlis had an uncanny ability to spot the guests most likely to be generous and make sure she checked their rooms first. The upcoming weekend might be lucrative if Meg could figure out how to outsmart her.
Ted’s former best man, Kenny Traveler, was hosting a golf outing for his friends who were flying in from all over the country and staying at the inn. Meg might regard the sport with contempt for the way it gobbled up natural resources, but money was to be made from its disciples, and all day Thursday, she thought about how she could profit from the weekend. By evening, she had a plan. It involved an expenditure she could ill afford, but she made herself stop at the grocery after work and turn over twenty dollars from her meager paycheck as an investment in her immediate future.
The next day she waited until the golfers began trickling in from their Friday afternoon rounds. When Arlis wasn’t looking, she grabbed some towels and started knocking on doors. “Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels.” She plastered on a big smile for the gray-haired man who answered. “I thought you might like some extra towels. Sure is hot out there.” She set one of the precious candy bars she’d bought the night before on top. “I hope you had a good round, but here’s a little sugar in case you didn’t. My compliments.”
“Thanks, honey. That’s real thoughtful.” Mr. Samuels pulled out his money clip and peeled off a five-dollar bill.
By the time she left the inn that night, she’d made forty dollars. She was as proud of herself as if she’d made her first million. But if she intended to repeat her scheme on Saturday afternoon, she needed a new twist, and that was going to involve another small expenditure.
“Damn. I haven’t had one of those in years,” Mr. Samuels said when he answered the door on Saturday afternoon.
“Homemade.” She gave him her biggest, most winning smile and handed over the fresh towels, along with one of the individually wrapped Rice Krispies treats she’d stayed up until well past midnight last night making. Cookies would have been better, but her culinary skills were limited. “I only wish it were a cold beer,” she said. “We sure appreciate you gentlemen staying here.”
/> This time he gave her a ten.
Arlis, already suspicious over their dwindling towel inventory, nearly caught her twice, but Meg managed to dodge her, and as she approached the third-floor suite, registered to a Dexter O’Connor, her uniform pocket held a comfortable weight. Mr. O’Connor had been out yesterday when she’d stopped, but today a tall, strikingly beautiful woman wrapped in one of the inn’s white terry robes answered the door. Even just out of the shower, with her face scrubbed free of makeup and strands of inky hair clinging to her neck, she was flawless—tall and thin with bold green eyes and iceberg-size diamond studs in her ears. She didn’t look like a Dexter. And neither did the man Meg glimpsed over her shoulder.
Ted Beaudine sat in the room’s easy chair, his shoes kicked off, a beer in hand. Something clicked, and Meg recognized the brunette as the woman Ted had kissed at the gas station a few weeks ago.
“Oh, good. Extra towels.” Her splashy diamond wedding ring sparkled as she grabbed the package on top. “And a homemade Rice Krispies treat! Look, Teddy! How long has it been since you’ve had a Rice Krispies treat?”
“Can’t say as I recall,” Teddy replied.
The woman tucked the towels under her arm and pulled at the plastic wrap. “I love these things. Give her a ten, will you?”
He didn’t move. “I’m fresh out of tens. Or any other currency.”
“Hold on.” The woman turned, presumably to get her purse, only to whip back around. “Holy Jesus!” She dropped the towels. “You’re the wedding wrecker! I didn’t recognize you in your uniform.”
Ted unwound from the chair and approached the door. “Selling baked goods without a license, Meg? That’s a direct violation of city code.”
“These are gifts, Mr. Mayor.”
“Do Birdie and Arlis know about your gifts?”
The brunette pushed in front of him. “Never mind that.” Her green eyes glittered with excitement. “The wedding wrecker. I can’t believe it. Come on in. I have some questions for you.” She shoved the door fully open and tugged on Meg’s arm. “I want to hear exactly why you thought What’s-Her-Name was so wrong for Teddy.”
Meg had finally met someone other than Haley Kittle who didn’t hate her for what she’d done. It wasn’t exactly shocking that this person would be Ted’s apparently married lover.
Ted stepped in front of the woman and disconnected her hand from Meg’s arm. “Best for you to get back to work, Meg. I’ll be sure to let Birdie know how diligent you are.”
Meg gritted her teeth, but Ted wasn’t quite done. “The next time you talk to Lucy, be sure to tell her how much I miss her?” With a flick of his finger, he tugged open the loose knot on the front of the woman’s robe, pulled her against him, and kissed her hard.
Moments later, the door slammed in Meg’s face.
Meg hated hypocrisy, and knowing everybody in town regarded Ted as a model of decency when he was banging a married woman made her crazy. She’d bet anything the affair had been going on while he and Lucy were engaged.
She pulled up to the church that evening and began the laborious process of dragging all her possessions back inside—her suitcase, towels, food, the bed linens she’d borrowed from the inn and intended to return as soon as she could. She refused to spend another second thinking about Ted Beaudine. Better to concentrate on the positive. Thanks to the golfers, she had money for gas, Tampax, and some groceries. Not a huge accomplishment, but enough so she could postpone making any humiliating phone calls to her friends.
But her relief was short-lived. On Sunday, the very next evening, as she was about to leave work, she discovered that one of the golfers—and it didn’t take any great detective skills to figure out which one—had complained to Birdie about a maid trolling for tips. Birdie called Meg to her office and, with a great deal of satisfaction, fired her on the spot.
The library rebuilding committee sat in Birdie’s living room enjoying a pitcher of her famous pineapple mojitos. “Haley’s mad at me again.” Their hostess leaned back into the streamlined midcentury armchair she’d just had reupholstered in vanilla linen, a fabric that wouldn’t have lasted a day at Emma’s house. “Because I fired Meg Koranda, of all things. She says Meg won’t be able to find another job. I pay my maids more than a fair wage, and Miss Hollywood shouldn’t have been deliberately soliciting tips.”
The women exchanged glances. They all knew Birdie had paid Meg three dollars less an hour than she was paying everybody else, something that had never sat quite right with Emma, even though Ted had come up with the idea.
Zoey toyed with a glittery pink pasta shell that had dropped off the pin she’d stuck to the collar of her sleeveless white blouse. “Haley’s always had a soft heart. I’ll bet Meg took advantage of it.”
“A soft head is more like it,” Birdie said. “I know y’all have noticed the way she’s been dressing lately, and I appreciate that none of you have mentioned it. She thinks lettin’ her boobs hang out will make Kyle Bascom notice her.”
“I had him when I taught sixth grade,” Zoey said. “And let me just say that Haley is way too smart for that boy.”
“Try telling her that.” Birdie drummed her fingers on the chair arm.
Kayla put down her lip gloss and picked up her mojito. “Haley’s right about one thing. Nobody in this town is going to hire Meg Koranda, not if they want to look Ted Beaudine in the face.”
Emma had never liked bullying, and the town’s vindictiveness toward Meg was starting to make her uncomfortable. At the same time, she couldn’t forgive Meg for the part she’d played in hurting one of her favorite people.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Ted lately.” Shelby hooked one side of her blond bob behind her ear and gazed down at her new peep-toe ballerinas.
“Haven’t we all.” Kayla frowned and touched her pavé diamond star necklace.
“Way too much.” Zoey started to chew on her bottom lip.
Ted’s newly single status had once again raised their hopes. Emma wished they’d both accept the fact that he would never commit to either of them. Kayla was too high maintenance, and Zoey inspired his admiration but not his love.
It was time to draw the conversation back to the subject they’d been avoiding, how they were going to raise the rest of the money to repair the library. The town’s normal sources of big money, which included Emma and husband Kenny, still hadn’t recovered from the hits their portfolios had taken in the last economic downturn, and they’d already been tapped out by half a dozen other vital local charities in need of rescue. “Anyone have any new fund-raising idea?” Emma asked.
Shelby clicked her index finger against her front tooth. “I might.”
Birdie groaned. “No more bake sales. Last time, four people got food poisoning from Mollie Dodge’s coconut custard pie.”
“The quilt raffle was a dreadful embarrassment,” Emma couldn’t help but add, even though she didn’t like contributing to the general negativity.
“Who wants a dead squirrel staring back at them every time they go into their bedroom?” Kayla said.
“It was a kitten, not a dead squirrel,” Zoey declared.
“It sure looked like a dead squirrel to me,” Kayla retorted.
“Not a bake sale and not a quilt raffle.” Shelby had a faraway look in her eyes. “Something else. Something . . . bigger. More interesting.”
They all regarded her inquisitively, but Shelby shook her head. “I need to think about it first.”
No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get any more out of her.
,
Nobody would hire Meg. Not even at the ten-unit motel on the edge of town. “You got any idea how many permits it takes to keep this place open?” the ruddy-faced manager told her. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to piss off Ted Beaudine, not as long as he’s mayor. Hell, even if he wasn’t mayor . . .”
So Meg drove from one business to the next, her car guzzling gas like a construction worker gulping water on a summer aftern
oon. Three days passed, then four. By the fifth day, as she gazed across the desk at the newly hired assistant manager of Windmill Creek Country Club, her desperation had developed a bitter center. As soon as this interview fell through, she’d have to swallow her final shard of pride and call Georgie.
The assistant manager was an officious preppy type, thin, with glasses and a neatly trimmed beard he tugged on as he explained that, despite the club’s lowly status, being only semiprivate and not nearly as prestigious as his former place of employment, Windmill Creek was still the home of Dallas Beaudine and Kenny Traveler, two of the biggest legends in professional golf. As if she didn’t know.
Windmill Creek was also the home club of Ted Beaudine and his cronies, and she’d never have wasted gas coming here if she hadn’t seen the item in the Wynette Weekly announcing that the club’s newly hired assistant manager had last worked at a golf club in Waco, which made him a stranger in town. On the chance that he didn’t yet know she was the Voldemort of Wynette, she’d immediately picked up the phone and, to her shock, snagged this afternoon’s interview.
“The job’s eight to five,” he said, “with Mondays off.”
She’d gotten so used to rejection that she’d let her mind wander. She had no idea what job he was talking about, or if he’d actually offered it to her. “That’s—that’s perfect,” she said. “Eight to five is perfect.”
“The pay’s not much, but if you do your job right, the tips should be good, especially on weekends.”
Tips! “I’ll take it!”
He eyed her fictionalized résumé, then took in the outfit she’d pulled together from her desperately limited wardrobe—a gauzy petal skirt, white tank, studded black belt, gladiator sandals, and her Sung dynasty earrings. “Are you sure?” he said doubtfully. “Driving a drink cart isn’t much of a job.”
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