The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee

by Carolyn Brown

  She pulled out a chair and sat down. She pushed the sleeves of her baby blue sweater up to the elbows, reached in her purse for her phone, and poked in some numbers. “I’ve got to call Beulah before y’all tell me the story. She thinks Jack is lyin’ over here dead, and she’s frettin’ about whether his black suit is goin’ to be too tight.”

  “That’s Beulah,” Trixie said.

  Cathy finished her call and looked up. “I smell mothballs.”

  “Agnes called in the troops when she thought she saw someone molesting me. I had candles lit and the shades drawn. Who knows what she saw. Probably me putting on or taking off my big chenille robe, and she came over here smelling like rat piss and mothballs,” Trixie said.

  “Smelling like what?”

  “You heard me. You should have seen her, Cathy. She pulled her husband’s old clothes out of a mothball trunk and put them on so the rapist would think she was the Cadillac police.” Trixie reached for the whiskey to refill her glass. “Sure you don’t want one?”

  “After tonight it looks tempting, but no thanks,” Cathy said.

  “Agnes would drive a holiness preacher to whiskey. Want me to see if Andy can fix that hole in the ceiling over the weekend?”

  Cathy grabbed the whiskey from her hands and put it back in the cabinet. “You stay away from that man! He cheated on you and broke your heart. I won’t let him drive you into alcoholism. I mean it, Trixie!”

  Darla Jean snorted when she giggled.

  Trixie shot her a look that said the night wasn’t over and the shotgun had not gone home yet. “Hey, don’t punish me because you couldn’t get me into your club shit. I wouldn’t have gone to the meetings anyway, even if they had voted me in. Why in the hell would I put myself into a situation where I had to be in the same room with Anna Ruth?”

  “But if you’d won, she wouldn’t be there.” Cathy rolled her big blue-green eyes toward the ceiling.

  Trixie changed the subject. “So did you and Ethan finally get in the horizontal position tonight?”

  “I told you Ethan is a gentleman. We are saving sex until our wedding night when I fully well intend to get pregnant with a son, Ethan Prescott the fifth. Doesn’t that sound classy? Ethan’s middle name is Edward so we’ll probably call him that and he’s going to have blond hair and big blue eyes. “

  “It’ll be a girl and look and act just like Marty. One of those McCleary genes might surface and she’ll have red hair and look like Agnes,” Trixie whispered. She could hear better and her hands weren’t shaking anymore. Thank God for Jack Daniels.

  “I’ve waited…” Cathy hesitated before she spit out anymore.

  “Waited for what?” Darla Jean asked.

  “A man I can trust. Someone who loves me and won’t cheat on me.”

  Trixie held up the glass with only a few drops of whiskey in the bottom. “Touché, Cathy.”

  “I’m sorry, that was mean. I’m tired and cranky. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I don’t want to be in a club with Anna Ruth.”

  Trixie nodded. “You are forgiven, darlin’. I’d be pissy if I had to go out to that museum called the Prescott house and spend time with Violet every week and had to face off with Anna Ruth once a month.”

  Cathy fidgeted in the chair. “Violet’s not so bad. She just wants the very best for her son. As bad as I want a baby, I can almost understand her, but I’m tellin’ you, I’ll be glad when Ethan and I are married, have our own place, and don’t have to deal with her every time we are together.”

  “You are a pushover, girl.” Trixie removed her arm.

  “No I’m not. I just try to be fair.”

  “And do you understand Anna Ruth too?” Trixie asked.

  “She is enough to drive me to the whiskey bottle with you.”

  “And Andy? Do you feel sorry for him?” Trixie pushed.

  “He doesn’t deserve to be understood. He cheated on you, and I’m not going to like him. I don’t want to talk about him or Agnes anymore. You promised to help me plan this wedding even though you aren’t fond of Ethan. I helped you plan yours, and I didn’t care much for Andy even then. At least I don’t have to worry about Ethan cheating on me.”

  “Bravo,” Darla Jean said.

  “I’m so sorry. That was ugly. What is the matter with me tonight?” Cathy groaned.

  “But it was true. Your mamma and y’all girls did help with my wedding. Besides, Ethan will have his hands full with two women. He wouldn’t cheat on you, because that would involve a third woman in his life. He’d stroke out if he tried three,” Trixie said.

  Cathy raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Three?”

  “You and Mommy Dearest are about all he’ll be able to handle, especially with his campaign going on. No way would he bring in a mistress.” Trixie’s hearing was almost normal and the whiskey was mellowing her out. “And honey, even if I do think he’s a stuffy old fart, I intend for you to have one helluva wedding. Three months from now you will have the biggest splash Cadillac, Texas, has ever seen. We’ll even hire guards to keep the paparazzi back. It’ll be bigger than the Christmas Ho-Ho-Ho. I mean, after all, you are marrying Ethan Prescott the fourth, the richest bastard in Cadillac, Texas.”

  Cathy smiled. “Not the richest and not a bastard. His mamma and poppa were married.”

  ***

  Marty looked over the top of her laptop computer at the students in her Adult Basic Education class. She only had to lean a little to the left and there he was in the flesh: Derek, the young cowboy who was the hero in her newest work in progress. His hair was dark, his chest was broad, and those biceps were made to hold a woman. She shut her eyes just long enough to get a good solid image of him naked and then she opened them and began to type.

  It had begun as an outlet while she was still teaching full time. Nowadays, she used the time she was monitoring her ABE class to catch up on writing. Her students were all full-grown adults brushing up their skills to take the GED test.

  That required little actual teaching. She stacked booklets on the end of her desk, and her students picked them up at the beginning of class. They worked at their own speed and raised a hand when they needed one-on-one help. If they finished early, they put their name on the front of the booklet and gave it back to her to grade. If they didn’t get it done by the time class ended, they put their name on the front and left it on the other end of her desk so they could work on it again the next week. Eight weeks to complete the class and then they took their GED test. If they passed, she never saw them again. If they didn’t need a lot of help, she could get the biggest part of a rough draft done in that time.

  When her first book sold and her editor asked her if she was going to write under her name or an assumed one, she made the decision to use the pseudonym Candy Parker. She didn’t intend for anyone in Cadillac ever to know that she was writing erotic romance. She’d never do anything to embarrass her sister. So Candy Parker, the erotic romance writer, was her second secret. The first being keeping Aunt Agnes out of the social club, no matter what the cost.

  Class had ended, and she was standing on the sidewalk outside the college classroom building, watching Derek’s cute little butt get into his truck when her phone rang. If she was ten years younger she might have a little sample of that cowboy. She didn’t mind if her flings were slightly younger, but nineteen was just too damned young.

  She answered the phone on the fourth ring just before it went to voice mail. “Hello.”

  “Marty, I just passed Clawdy’s, and something has happened. There’s police cars and the ambulance and the fire truck all there,” said Christopher Green, a regular at the café.

  “Thanks, Christopher. I’m on my way home,” she said.

  “Sure thing. Hope everything is all right.”

  “You sure it was my place or Aunt Agnes’s? She lives right across the street.”

  “No, it was yours. They were leading Agnes back across the street. I had to stop and wait for the officer to ge
t her across. Wouldn’t have known the old girl, but that red hair can’t be missed. She was wearing some kind of weird getup. Reckon she’s gone off the deep end?”

  “I don’t have any idea, but I’m going home to see about it,” Marty said.

  Dammit! Agnes had never liked Trixie or Janie. Had the old girl snuck in the café and killed Trixie in her sleep? Marty didn’t need a second speeding ticket in the same night so she kept a close watch on the speedometer. But when she left the main highway and entered the Cadillac city limits, she stepped on the gas. Andy or any of his town policemen wouldn’t stop Marty. Most of them had lunch at Clawdy’s on a regular basis and she was the cook. They’d be afraid to give her a ticket.

  She hit the back door in a dead run. “What in the hell happened here? I got a call that there was an ambulance here.”

  “You done missed the excitement,” Darla Jean said.

  Marty looked at Trixie.

  Trixie shrugged. “Aunt Agnes.”

  “Dammit, Cathy! We ought to put her in a nursing home. What’d she do—get mad as hell over that stupid club vote and come over here to start a fight with Trixie?” Marty asked.

  “She threw a fit about the club, but that wasn’t the problem. And she ain’t never goin’ to a nursing home,” Cathy said. “Mamma made me promise after Daddy died so sudden that if she went like that, we’d take care of Aunt Agnes.”

  Marty pulled a cold beer from the refrigerator. She’d promised her mother something about Aunt Agnes too and had gotten a speeding ticket that night, so she knew something about promises, but she damn sure didn’t have to like them.

  “And you’re marrying Mr. Hoity Toity and leaving me with the job. I didn’t make a promise, so my way of putting up with her is to poison the old witch and then shed a fake tear at her funeral. What’d she do?” Marty leaned against the counter and looked at Trixie. “You look like hell rained down on you.”

  ***

  Trixie told the story for the third time while Marty drank two beers and swore the whole time.

  Trixie pointed to the cabinet. “Cathy won’t let me have another two fingers of Jack and I deserve it. It rained plaster dust, insulation, and who knows what from the attic. I might die from some kind of antique dust mite poisoning unless I wash all the stuff out of my system with whiskey.”

  Marty melted into the last chair around the table. “When you start telling jokes that aren’t funny, you’ve had enough. I hope Aunt Agnes is constipated all day tomorrow and can’t even come over here. I don’t want to see her for a week.”

  “Marty! She was protecting Trixie. I’d say she gets a gold star for that because she doesn’t even like Trixie,” Cathy exclaimed.

  “Oh, stop being so nice. You know she’s a meddling old woman,” Marty said.

  “I’m tired of this whole thing. I’m going to bed,” Cathy said.

  Before she could stand up, the kitchen door flew open without even a knock and Anna Ruth blew into the room like a whirlwind. She grabbed Cathy around the neck and hugged her so tightly that Cathy’s eyes bugged out and then she headed toward Marty.

  “I was so excited that we’re going to be club sisters that I had to rush over here and tell you. Isn’t it just the most exciting thing ever?” She beamed.

  Trixie and Marty locked gazes somewhere between the table and cabinet. It was one of those times when two lifetime friends could speak without using a single word. Marty would help Trixie mop up Main Street with Anna Ruth. All Trixie had to do was nod.

  “Anna Ruth, I hardly think it’s appropriate for you to be—”

  Anna Ruth interrupted before Cathy could finish the sentence. “Oh, don’t be silly. Trixie knows that she never had a chance at the club, don’t you?”

  Marty stepped to one side. “What she’s saying is that Clawdy’s is closed.”

  “But we are club sisters now. I have the right to come in the kitchen and talk to my sisters,” Anna Ruth protested.

  “No, you don’t,” Trixie said.

  “Tell her, Cathy. She’s just mad because I won and she lost.”

  “Well, there is something about breaking up my marriage. Of course, it’s a little thing,” Trixie said.

  Anna Ruth shrugged. “That doesn’t count. This is about the club, for God’s sake.”

  “I’m going back to the church. Anna Ruth, I’ll walk you out.” Darla looped an arm around Anna Ruth’s shoulders. The small woman had no choice but to let herself be led outside. “Y’all remember to lock the door,” Darla Jean said over her shoulder. “We’ve had enough excitement for one night on our block.”

  “Now I’m really going up to my room.” Cathy disappeared up the stairs.

  “Lord, have mercy! How many times did she shoot the ceiling? It’s a mess up here,” she yelled in a few seconds.

  “I’ll clean it up,” Trixie called up the stairs.

  “Go on to bed. You fended off Aunt Agnes and didn’t pick up a butcher knife and kill Anna Ruth. I’ll do the clean-up,” Marty said.

  Trixie covered a yawn with the back of her hand. “Guess I’m off to bed.”

  Marty nodded. When she was alone, she retrieved her laptop from her truck and opened it at the kitchen table. She only had another five thousand words and she’d have the rough draft done, but nothing came to mind without her sexy cowboy muse.

  She sat there another ten minutes before she shut the laptop. It was all Agnes’s fault. She was a busybody who spied on everything that went on in the whole town of Cadillac and especially at Clawdy’s. But if Agnes said she saw two people in that bedroom, then she probably did. So who in the hell was Trixie having sex with?

  Chapter 3

  If Agnes really would have shot someone in Clawdy’s the night before, they would have had to hire another cook and two more waitresses. Thursday wasn’t usually a busy day at Clawdy’s, but that morning Marty couldn’t keep up with the orders. Cathy had to help in the kitchen, leaving Trixie to do all the waitressing and payouts at the cash register. A ruckus involving a shotgun would have been the talk of the town no matter where it happened, but Miss Clawdy’s Café offered a place to sit, damn fine food, and unlimited refills on coffee. And it also gave the folks in Cadillac the opportunity to weasel more information out of Trixie. Not a bad deal for less than five dollars.

  Rumor had it that Trixie and Agnes got into an argument over the voting at the social club and Agnes tried to kill her. Beulah said the cops and the ambulance were called out and that she feared that her precious son, Jack, had survived two tours of Iraq only to come home and be killed—and all because Agnes Flynn thought Trixie had gotten into the social club and she had gotten left behind for the twentieth time.

  That morning, Clawdy’s customers went through two extra pans of biscuits and a second gallon of sausage gravy, and Marty completely ran out of bacon and ham steaks. Everyone left full and unsatisfied, because all Trixie would say was that Agnes thought she saw someone hurting her and rushed across the street to protect her. Now that was a big crock of bullshit. Everyone knew there wasn’t a smidgen of love lost between Trixie and Agnes, and there was no way in hell she would protect Trixie from anything or anyone. No, sir, that was a lie, but never fear, the gossipmongers would ferret out the truth if it absolutely killed them.

  It was ten thirty when Trixie finally had time for a five-minute break and poured herself a cup of coffee. She sat down at the kitchen table with Cathy and Marty and buttered a leftover biscuit. She’d barely gotten the first bite when the back door slung open and the faint aroma of mothballs filled the room.

  “Good mornin’, Aunt Agnes,” Cathy said. “You had breakfast?”

  “Hell yes, I’ve had breakfast, but that was hours ago. I wish y’all had the buffet up and ready. Now I’m ready for fried chicken.”

  “It’s not ready, but I’ve got some leftovers from yesterday. You want me to pop them in the microwave?”

  “Got beans and greens?” Agnes asked.

  “Maybe a cup full o
f each.”

  “Two pieces of dark chicken and whatever beans and greens you’ve got with pepper jelly on the side for my cornbread,” she said.

  “You’re not mad at me? I figured you’d still be mad because you were wrong last night,” Trixie said.

  “I don’t like you enough to be mad at you and I wasn’t wrong. Somebody was in that room with you. I’m mad at Cathy,” Agnes declared.

  “What did I do?” Cathy asked.

  “You’re the one who put Trixie’s name in the pot for the social club. If you hadn’t done that fool thing, then there would have been the six votes for me that she got.”

  “And I didn’t even want to be in the damned old club,” Trixie said.

  “How did you vote?” Agnes pointed at Marty. “I figured Cathy wouldn’t betray me, but she did. I guess you did too.”

  Trixie waved to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, Agnes, how did you vote in the last presidential election?”

  “That is not one damn bit of your business,” Agnes huffed.

  “Point proven then,” Marty said. “Voting is private.”

  “And Beulah should not have told you how many votes went which way,” Cathy chimed in.

  Agnes shook her finger at the lot of them. “I’m going to be in that social club before I die. Speakin’ of which, Violet is about to put in a miserable year. It’d be in her best interest to shoot a member”—she looked right at Marty—“or find a way to make one move.”

  “Why don’t you shoot Violet? She’s the one who doesn’t want you to be a member,” Trixie said.

  “Because I want her to be alive and well the day she has to give me that little club pin to put on my lapel that says I’m a member. Put my food in a to-go box, Marty. I’ve had all of y’all I want for one day. It’s a cryin’ damn shame when a woman’s nieces treat her this way.”

  “You can have my pin,” Marty said.

  “Those are the gaudiest damn things I’ve ever seen! I don’t know why you’d want one of the ugly things,” Trixie said.

  “I know! Back when Violet and Mamma designed them, they were to show the Fannin County women’s club that they had bragging rights to the hottest jalapeños in the whole state. Did you know they only had twenty-one of them made and that’s the reason there can’t be any more members in the club than that?” Cathy said.