The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee

by Carolyn Brown

  Cathy was on the porch and the door had shut behind her before she could say a single word.

  ***

  Trixie parked her car beside Andy’s at the far end of the Walmart parking lot, threw her bags into the backseat, and got into the passenger’s seat.

  “I’ve got a surprise,” he whispered. Charm oozed out of him like filling from a Hostess chocolate cupcake. He leaned across the seat, tilted her chin up with his left fist, tangled his fingers in her hair with his right hand, and kissed her in a clash of hot passion that came close to fogging the car windows.

  He kissed his way to her neck and nuzzled there, inhaling her perfume. “God, I missed you. It’s been too damn long. I’m so glad that Anna Ruth went to her aunt’s after the meeting.”

  That’s where he went wrong the first time. He should have never brought up Anna Ruth, not when they were about to spend time in a motel room getting super satisfied with passionate sex. But if he was very, very good, she might forgive him one mistake.

  He drove for a while, made a few turns, and caught Highway 75 south. “We are going out to dinner, to a movie, and then to the motel.”

  “But…”

  “No buts.” Andy glanced over at her. “By the way, you look beautiful tonight, honey. I always did like you in that shade of blue.”

  She wore black slacks and a pale blue sweater set and black high heels. Gold hoop earrings dangled from her ears, and a silver clunky necklace with a silver heart pendant dropped just to the top of two inches of cleavage created by a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra.

  “No, we are not. We are going to a motel, having mind-boggling sex, and going home,” she said. “I’ve already eaten. I don’t want to sit in a movie. I want sex, and then I want to go home. I’m not going out on a date with you, Andy.”

  Andy’s mouth set in a firm, hard line, and his jaw worked like he was chewing gum.

  Trixie had seen that look before. Many, many times. So what had set him off this time? Then it dawned on her like a flash.

  Anna Ruth was pressuring him to get married. He wanted to be seen with Trixie so that it would get back to Anna Ruth and she’d break up with him. Of course it would all be that bitch Trixie’s fault.

  “Why?” Andy growled.

  “Because I might not like you, but I love the sex we have, and Marty will kill you dead if she finds out we are together,” she said.

  “Marty! You put her ahead of me?”

  That was his second mistake and three was his limit, so he was treading on thin ice.

  “So when does Anna Ruth want to get married?” she asked.

  The jaw worked harder, and his mouth disappeared. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Bleep!

  Number three! Andy was out.

  No sex for you tonight, feller.

  She pointed her finger at him. “You are lying.”

  He slapped her finger away.

  And that’s where Andy Johnson really went wrong.

  “Pull over in that parking lot right there. The one by the Big Lots store.”

  “I don’t see a motel or a restaurant,” he said as he stopped the car.

  She got out and stomped her way to the bench in front of the store with him scrambling to get the car perfectly into a parking spot with exactly the same amount of space on each side.

  He finally got it parked, got out, slammed the door, and sat down beside her. “What in the hell is the matter with you?”

  “You wanted someone to see us together, didn’t you? She’s pressuring you to get married because of that damned club shit, and you want her to be the one to break it off instead of you. How close am I?”

  He ran his finger up her thigh. “Come on, Trixie. Don’t be mad.”

  She slapped it away. “I’m mad because I didn’t want a damn date. I just wanted a motel room and to have sex on a Tuesday night because our Wednesday nights have been interrupted the past couple of weeks. I’m mad because nothing has changed and won’t change. Go home and leave me alone.” She took her cell phone out of her purse.

  Darla Jean answered on the first ring. “Trixie?”

  “I’m in Sherman on the bench in front of the Big Lots store. Will you please come get me?”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Darla Jean said.

  Andy threw up both palms. “What set you off tonight?”

  “We got a divorce because you were bonkin’ Anna Ruth. I took the blame because if I’d picked up the damn towels or made sure there were no wrinkles in the sheets when I folded them and put them in the drawer, maybe you wouldn’t have gone out and screwed another woman. But when you slapped my fingers, it hit me. Dammit all to hell, I didn’t bonk another man because you made me so damn mad with your freakin’ OCD, so you had no damn right to screw around on me then or to slap my fingers tonight. Go home or I’m callin’ the cops and havin’ you arrested for harassment.”

  “I won’t leave you on a park bench at night,” he said through clenched teeth.

  She poked three numbers into her phone and waited.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” he said.

  She looked him right in the eye and said into the phone, “My emergency is that I’m sitting on a park bench in front of Big Lots and my ex-husband is harassing me. He already slapped me once tonight, and I need a police officer to come down here.”

  “Put that damn phone away,” Andy seethed.

  “No, ma’am, he’s not threatening me. It’s not me that you need to come down here and save. It’s him. I’ve got a .38 in my purse, I’ve got a license to carry a concealed weapon, and I intend to shoot him in the balls if you don’t send someone to get him away from me. No, ma’am, I will not stay on the phone. You’ve got five minutes and his cute little balls are going to be hamburger meat. And FYI, I’m a damn fine shot.”

  She flipped the phone over in her purse and waited.

  “You did not just do that!” Andy said.

  “I hear the faint sound of sirens. You better get on out to your car and head north. It wouldn’t look too good for you to have your name in the paper for sexual harassment of your ex-wife. But then maybe that would be a good thing. Anna Ruth would leave you and you’d be free to sleep with someone else,” she told him.

  Andy jogged out to his car and had already pulled out onto the highway when her phone rang. One look said that it was Darla Jean so she answered it.

  “Where are you?” Trixie asked.

  “On the way to get you. What happened?”

  “It all came to a boiling head tonight and I just now called 911 and threatened to shoot Andy’s balls off if they don’t come make him leave me alone,” Trixie said.

  “I told you that you was messin’ with fire. Did you really call 911?”

  “Hell no, but he thinks I did.”

  “What set you off anyway? I thought that man was so good in bed that you’d walk through hot coals to have sex with him. But you told me after the shotgun thing that you were finished with him,” Darla Jean said.

  “Tonight the coals were hot and the weather is hot and my feet are tender and I figured out he was using me to break up with Anna Ruth, and anyway, I’m right here on the bench waiting and he’s on his way home.”

  Darla Jean didn’t say anything.

  “No lecture?” Trixie asked.

  “No, you just sit there and simmer awhile. We’ll talk when I get there.”

  “I’ll simmer away, but I’m already over my mad spell.”

  “Don’t sound to me like you’re over nothing. I’m on my way. Don’t be lettin’ anybody pick you up. Just sit right there and fight off the Johns.”

  “Why? I could be a hooker,” Trixie said.

  “If you ain’t sittin’ on that seat when I get there, I’ll turn around and come back home and you can walk.” Darla Jean hung up.

  Trixie looked at the phone a long time before she put it back in her purse. It barely hit the bottom before it rang again. She groaned and hoped to hell i
t wasn’t Cathy or Marty. She couldn’t tell them that she’d gone out with Andy, not on the phone. She’d have to come clean about it eventually, but definitely not on the phone.

  It stopped ringing when she finally got her fingers around the thing but started again when she dropped it. That time she fished it out and answered without looking at the ID.

  “Are you ready to talk about this?” Andy said tersely.

  “Are you ready to drop dead?”

  He hung up.

  She stuffed the phone in her bra.

  Thirty seconds later he called again.

  “This is ridiculous, Trix. Hell, you didn’t act this bad when I admitted I was having a fling with Anna Ruth.”

  She hung up.

  A minute went by and she checked to make sure the phone didn’t need recharging. Another minute and it rang again.

  “I’m not staying in town forever,” he said.

  “Go home.”

  “I’m not leaving you stranded, Trix. Shit! Cathy and Marty were ready to kill me when I cheated. They’d really do it if I left you sitting on a damn park bench after dark this far from home.”

  “I thought the affair was my fault because I’m messy. I was pissed but I didn’t even know what anger was until right now. Guess I hit the next step in the process of getting over a cheatin’, lyin’ son-of-a-bitch of a husband. How many were there before Anna Ruth?”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Why? Because you can’t count that far without taking off your shoes?”

  It was the pause that sent her to the totally pissed off stage. She hadn’t even thought about there being other women until that minute. He’d said that it was a midlife crisis thing and she’d believed him.

  “Who was the first, Andy? And how soon did it happen after we got married?” she hissed.

  He hung up and she called him right back.

  “Got that name ready for me? When you do, we’ll talk. Oh, and tell Anna Ruth we can make her wedding invitations at scrapbook class. I wish Marty had killed you,” she said.

  “Well, if she hadn’t voted for Anna Ruth to be in that damn club I wouldn’t be in this position,” Andy said coldly. “Now that she’s in the damned almighty social club, she’s scared to death they’ll kick her out if we don’t get married.”

  “Marty did not vote for her!” Trixie yelled.

  “Oh, honey, she did. This is all her fault so blame her, not me.”

  He hung up again and she heard the screech of tires as he pulled out from the end of the building and headed back north.

  She didn’t have a thing sorted out and she was still severely pissed when Darla Jean parked right in front of her and honked.

  “You simmered long enough?” Darla Jean asked when she got into the car.

  “I’ve never been mad like this. Did you know that Anna Ruth wasn’t the first?”

  Darla Jean drove to the nearest McDonald’s and got out. “I didn’t know anything, but I’m not surprised. Andy is who he is and he’s always looking around at the women in the room.”

  Trixie followed her across the parking lot. “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s just say that I know men,” she said.

  They ordered and carried their food to the back of the café.

  “Talk to me,” Darla Jean said.

  “We might be here until morning.”

  “I ain’t got to be nowhere tonight.” Darla Jean popped a hot fry into her mouth and fanned her lips with her hand. “Hot, hot, hot. Right out of the grease.”

  “I wish my ex-husband was boiling in that grease right now. I hope he does marry Anna Ruth. That’s the best damn revenge on her I could ever get.” Any man that would cheat on his wife would lie about her friends, too. There was no way in hell that Marty would have voted for Anna Ruth.

  Darla Jean nodded and mumbled, “I hope you mean it, Trixie. I’ve been prayin’ that you’d come to your senses and see that sorry man for what he is.”

  ***

  Agnes meant to slip inside the house, do a snatch and grab of the roast that had been on the special that day, and tote it over to her house for a late night snack. But she heard music and laughter in the garage on the back of the property and kept going that way instead.

  Jack had his head under the hood and Marty was sitting in a white plastic lawn chair with her feet propped up on a wooden box. She had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  “Put that out this minute. You promised your sister that you would quit,” Agnes yelled from the doorway.

  Marty dropped it so fast that the red tip didn’t even dim. Agnes beat a path across the garage floor and stomped on it like it was an evil spider. “I catch you with one more and I’m telling Cathy.”

  “It was the first one in months, I promise. I’m so angry about the way Violet is treating Cathy that I could just spit. I had to have something to calm my nerves. It was either that or picking up a cowboy on the side of the road and having sex with him in the nearest hayloft. Which one do you think is worse?”

  Agnes didn’t even bat an eye when she slapped Marty on the shoulder. “You don’t talk like that in front of Jack!”

  “Jack is my best friend, next to Trixie. He knows I like cowboys.”

  Agnes drew back her hand. “Then don’t talk like that in front of me.”

  Agnes knew exactly how Marty felt. That blasted Violet looked so smug at church every Sunday morning, sitting there between Cathy and Ethan like she was afraid they’d have sex right there on the church pew and ruin his chance at election. Agnes had thought about standing up in the middle of the sermon and dropping the F-bomb on Violet just so God would send down lightning streaks. She would hide under the pew, and the lightning could fry Violet right there in church. It would be death by natural causes and not murder, so Agnes wouldn’t have to spend a single day in jail.

  Agnes had wanted to be invited to join the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society back when Jane Slidell died in 1960, but Violet wasn’t having any part of that idea. Then in 1972, Gladys Overton broke her hip and moved to Louisiana to live with her daughter. Before poor Gladys unpacked her knickknacks in her new bedroom at her daughter’s house, Violet had Lizzy Beechman’s name on the club roster. In 1980, Edith Walton suffered heat stroke and Agnes just knew when Edith passed on she’d be asked to join. Violet sponsored Inez Green that year. In 1991, Ruby Dantrell dropped dead from a heart attack and fell right into her rosebushes, and be damned if Violet didn’t sponsor the twins’ mother instead of Agnes, just to lord it over her even more. Then three years ago, Clovis Richman died, and the twins’ mother put her daughters’ names into the pot for consideration. Agnes heard later that Beulah had nominated her again, but she’d only gotten three votes. After that, everyone knew that as long as Violet had a breath left in her body, Agnes Flynn would never get into the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society.

  Agnes would far rather see Cathy hooking up with Jack as Ethan. At least Beulah had nominated her and didn’t act like God’s throne wasn’t good enough for her to park her fat ass on.

  “Hey, y’all. What’s going on with the Caddy?” Cathy asked.

  Agnes kicked the cigarette butt under the car. “They’re fixin’ it again but it’s goin’ slow. How did the club go?”

  “I told Ethan I didn’t want to live with his mother.”

  “Good for you. Your mamma’s pearls look nice,” Agnes said.

  The compliment startled Marty so bad that she dropped her beer and it sloshed on Cathy’s shoes. She jumped up, peeled off a fist full of paper towels, and dabbed at the shoes. “Dammit to hell! I’m sorry, Cathy. You just bought those shoes for that press shit this next weekend.”

  “They are knockoffs, and I didn’t spend that much. Besides, my whole outfit is wrong. I should wear a royal blue suit and a scarf because they are in fashion. The pearls aren’t the in thing, and by all means, I must have a flag on my lapel.”

  “I suppose that bitch told you to do that?” Agnes said.<
br />
  Cathy nodded. “She means well, Aunt Agnes. She wants everything to be perfect for Ethan. I guess that makes us working toward the same end, doesn’t it?”

  “She wants to be God, and honey, she does not mean well. She’s training you to obey her every whim and wish. Your life is going to be pure hell. Did Ethan say you could have your own place?” Agnes asked.

  Cathy shook her head slowly. “He didn’t, not really. But I might have persuaded him if Violet would have given us another few minutes alone.”

  “I can fix it so you can live your whole lives alone,” Marty said. “Soon as we get my Caddy fixed, I can pretend she’s my third tree to hit head-on.”

  Jack chuckled.

  Cathy hadn’t realized he was in the garage. “Hello, Jack. I thought you’d be at work this time of night.”

  “Mamma was at the club meeting, and I had some time I had to take or lose. So I took tonight off to help Marty, but we aren’t going to have this fixed in time for the Jubilee.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Cathy exclaimed. “If you did, she’d wreck it again to keep Andy from touching the door handle.”

  “Ah, Andy ain’t that bad. He’s a fine boss,” Jack said.

  “But he’s a horrible friend and a worse husband,” Marty said.

  Chapter 6

  Picking out the wedding cake was supposed to be joyous, second only to the day she’d chosen her dress, but Cathy was a nervous wreck from morning until Clawdy’s closed. Getting in her car and nonstop driving until she hit the ocean was getting more and more appealing by the second. East or west, it didn’t matter.

  Her gorgeous white dress hung on the door of her closet. Violet wasn’t going to like it. Ethan was going to be appalled when she came down the aisle toward him. She touched the plastic bag protecting the frothy confection of tulle over white silk, off the shoulder, fitted to the waist with a sewn-in bra and bones hidden away in the seams, and a billowing skirt.