"Um, Miss Penny, I was wondering..."
She looked up. "Yes, Jimmy?"
"Want to go out with me sometime?"
Suddenly the room fell dead quiet—conversation halted, the smoothie machine stopped, and in a moment of what could only be described as unfortunate timing, the sounds of the nature CD on the overhead speakers played crickets chirping. Penny glanced around, and everyone stared at her, wide-eyed, mouths twitching. Heat scalded her neck as she cast around for a polite way to turn down the man's pass.
"I'm very flattered, Jimmy, but I'd rather keep our relationship professional."
"Oh." His shoulders fell.
She gave him a cajoling smile. "What would I do if I lost one of my best suppliers?"
He seemed unconvinced of her sincerity, but he didn't argue.
"Um, Guy," she said quickly, tearing the sheet of paper from the notebook, "would you cut a check for Jimmy, please?"
"Sure thing," Guy said, although he and Jimmy moved around each other like repelling magnets as they made their way toward Guy's cubicle inside the stockroom.
Penny carried the bag of truffles to her office and glanced around for a secure place to store them. Her gaze dropped to the locked bottom desk drawer, but she quickly dismissed it as a temporary stash. The drawer, after all, was her survival kit behind glass—to be breached only in an emergency.
Instead she located a lockable file cabinet drawer that was half empty. Penny opened the bag in her hand and stared at the dozens of valuable little lumps of fungus that sent chefs around the world into fits of orgasmic pleasure. She tucked the bag into the drawer, then slid it back into place and locked it.
When she emerged, she saw that Jimmy and Guy were still in his office. She waited on a mousy woman dressed in running clothes who was a regular customer, but whose name always slipped Penny's mind. After the woman purchased a box of energy bars and left, Penny turned to Marie, who was studiously ignoring Steve Chasen while he finished his smoothie. "Why can't I remember that woman's name?"
"It's Diane," Steve offered. "Diane Davidson."
Penny nodded. "Oh, right. She's a teacher at the high school."
Marie leaned on the counter. "Was a teacher—I heard she was fired."
"Yeah," Steve said thickly, then swallowed. "For being a witch."
Marie rolled her eyes. "She's Wiccan—that doesn't mean she's a practicing witch. And even if she is, that's religious discrimination."
"She wanted Deke to file a lawsuit against the school system for wrongful dismissal," Steve said, "but he didn't take the case."
Penny straightened, loath to discuss anything having to do with Deke.
But Marie had no such qualms. "Why not?"
"I don't think—" Penny began.
"Deke said he was afraid of her," Steve said, his voice low and expressive.
Penny frowned. Deke was the least superstitious person she knew.
Marie put her hand to her mouth. "I asked her to stop by the party tonight—I hope that's alright."
Penny shrugged. "I don't mind, although I don't know her very well."
Marie looked embarrassed. "There weren't a lot of people to invite."
Penny's skin tingled with humiliation. Deke had gotten most of their friends. Deke and Sheena. The more she said their names together, the more it sounded like the title of a redneck Tarzan movie.
"Kirk was going to fly in for the festival and the party," Marie said, "but he was called to Canada on business at the last minute."
Of course he was, Penny thought wryly.
"Who's Kirk?" Steve asked.
"My rich, older boyfriend," Marie said emphatically.
Steve's mouth turned down. "Oh. What party?"
"We're having a divorce party for Penny tonight at Caskey's," Marie said, then picked a piece of lint off her apron. "You can come if you want."
Steve straightened. "Really? Okay."
"Bring a gag gift," Marie said.
"That's not necessary," Penny said with a frown. She considered calling her friend Liz in New Orleans and inviting her, but something stopped her...embarrassment maybe. Despite their proximity, she hadn't seen her friend in ages—Liz didn't even know that Penny had used her divorce attorney. Liz had gone to school with her and Deke and had never approved of Penny's being with Deke. Since the breakup, Penny had wondered if Deke had cheated on her in college and Liz had known about it. That would explain a lot....
Marie nudged Penny playfully. "Want me to invite Mountain Man?"
Penny looked over her shoulder in the direction of Jimmy and Guy, then looked back to Marie. "I don't think that would be a good idea."
Marie angled her head. "He might not be too bad if he had a bath."
Penny ignored the others' chuckles, then retrieved three pieces of mail for the museum that had been misdelivered. "I think I'll drop off Hazel's mail."
"Good excuse to leave," Marie murmured.
"Hey, Penny," Steve said as she was leaving. "What do you think about the color Deke's having the house painted?"
His eyes seemed cool, almost mocking. Again Penny was assailed by the feeling that she didn't trust him. And the thought that Steve would report to her ex-husband that her best prospect for a postdivorce affair was with a man who could find water with a forked stick made her shrivel inside. But Penny managed to feign a look of disinterest. "Is he painting the house? I hadn't noticed."
Marie gave her an approving smile. Penny turned and strode to the front door of the store and out, underneath the hood-shaped red canopy that welcomed customers to The Charm Farm, and into the small parking lot in the breezy sunshine. It was a perfect fall day—blue sky, drifting white clouds that made one want to look for animal shapes, and just a hint of crispness to the air.
In the parking lot sat Marie's red bicycle with its wire basket, leaning benignly on its kickstand. Locks were unnecessary in Mojo. Steve Chasen's white BMW sat next to Guy's impeccable black Lexus and Jimmy's battered blue Chevy pickup. Jimmy's bloodhound, Henry—the mighty truffle hunter—stood up on his hind legs in the bed of the truck, whining for attention. Penny walked over and scratched his elephantine ears. He closed his eyes, and one leg started to jerk spasmodically. Penny laughed; maybe she should get a pet. Deke had a bizarre aversion to animals—she'd bet it had something to do with having Mona the Stone for a mother. Remembering her errand, she gave the dog a final pat.
In the distance to her left, the steeply pitched roof of the hulking three-story Archambault mansion that housed the Instruments of Death and Voodoo Museum was barely visible through the trees. Penny checked her watch—ten minutes before eleven. Hazel Means, the manager of the museum, wouldn't be in yet, so Penny would just drop the mail through the door chute. Hazel wouldn't have time to chat anyway, not with readying the museum for tourists, the number of which would balloon for the weeklong festival and remain steady through Halloween.
Which would, in turn, be good for her own business.
The house she had renovated for The Charm Farm faced east, toward downtown Mojo, with her former house to the right, facing the side of her business. She held off looking at it, instead staring out over the small town where she'd lived for the past eight years. Nestled in a little bowl the size of six city blocks by six city blocks, Mojo was the perfect town for a Disney movie...or a horror flick.
Once populated by families with long, peculiar lineages (like Deke's), the brick-sidewalk community with matching streetlights and little nylon banners that changed with the seasons (and now heralded the festival) had been gentrified by New Orleans upper-class, double-income couples who gladly traded the thirty-minute commute for safer, smaller classrooms for their children and safer, larger homes for themselves. Vintage houses in town had been gobbled up, sending property values skyrocketing and displacing locals who could no longer afford the taxes. Storerooms and attics over businesses had been turned into pricey apartments.
The one-bedroom hovel she leased over Benny's Beignet shop
in the center of town three blocks away was easy to spot because of the giant spinning brownish square speckled with white paint that was supposed to resemble a beignet—a gob of fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar...a French doughnut. She lifted her sleeve for a sniff and grimaced—the sickeningly sweet scent had permeated the rugs and the curtains of her apartment, and now her clothing. Even if someday doughnuts were miraculously declared to be healthy, she would never eat another one the rest of her life.
The rest of her life. The phrase sounded so benign, but the rest of her life was going to be so different now, she thought with a twinge of sentimentality. Deke...
A sudden gust of cold wind blew over her, raising a chill. Penny hugged herself and lifted her gaze to the new subdivisions carved into the hills around Mojo proper. The palatial, modern homes stared down at her and the town like predators with huge glass eyes. Even in the daylight, the creepy feeling of being watched was inescapable.
Penny inhaled deeply to calm her frayed nerves with clean, pumpkin-scented air, but instead she got a head full of paint fumes. Unable to deny her curiosity any longer, Penny pivoted to her right and gasped at the sight of her beloved home, now almost completely covered in the dreadful pink color, like the stomach being coated in the Pepto-Bismol commercial. She covered her mouth with her hand to smother the choking noise that erupted from her throat. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes.
"Ain't it something?"
Penny blinked. Her feet had carried her to the sidewalk on their own volition. And to her horror, Sheena Linder stood across the narrow two-lane road, dressed in tight jeans and a tighter sweater, sporting a white neck brace and smirking at Penny behind enormous gold sunglasses.
Penny's tongue lodged against the roof of her mouth. She'd seen the woman come and go from the tanning salon on the square, but the last time she'd seen her face-to-face (so to speak) had been when Penny had caught her having sex with Deke. She'd relived that scene a thousand times, wishing she had done or said something so profound that both of them would have begged for forgiveness—or at least disengaged from each other. Instead, they had paused to stare at her stupidly only long enough to curse before resuming their slapping, heaving screw. She had heard them climax as she had stumbled out into the hall, their squeals and moans mingling to create a noise as unnerving and unforgettable as the screech of a computer connecting to a modem. It was the single most degrading moment of her life.
During the divorce, Penny had somehow managed to avoid the woman's company, although she had secretly fantasized about writing something nasty on the windows of the Forever Sun tanning salon or running into Sheena at the grocery store and saying something wicked and clever over the public address system.
But whatever clever words she had dreamed up escaped her now as the woman looked both ways and teetered across the street on hooker high heels. Penny could not have been more terrified if a car had been careening toward her. Her feet were rooted to the spot as she estimated the distance back to the front door of her store. And yet some small, realistic part of her knew she was going to have to deal with the woman sooner or later.
Although later was definitely more appealing.
Traffic literally stopped for the curvaceous woman as she crossed the two lanes. Catcalls ensued as Sheena beamed and waved at the male drivers in both directions, stroking the brace around her neck, managing to look sexy and sympathetic at the same time. Penny watched in stupefied awe, taking a couple of steps backward as Sheena joined her on the sidewalk. The woman's skin was the color of a scorched sweet potato, her hair platinum blond. Next to Sheena's trendy, tight clothing, Penny felt like a plain, pale pioneer woman in her wrinkled denim overalls, flat, chunky-heeled sandals, and long-sleeve hemp shirt.
"I wanted to see the house from over here while the painters were taking a break," Sheena said with a toss of her head. Indeed, the workers and the van were gone. She peeled off the sunglasses, stared at the house, and sighed. "It's perfect."
Penny straightened. "Pardon me, I was just leaving."
"You don't like it?" Sheena asked with an innocent smile.
Penny set her jaw. "It's none of my concern. It's Deke's house."
"And mine, soon," Sheena said, holding out her left hand. On her ring finger, a huge, dazzling diamond nearly lasered Penny's corneas. "I thought you should know that Deke and I are getting married." She grinned, meanly. "No hard feelin's."
Hurt and rage rose in Penny's chest like a tide, overwhelming her. Scenes from the past several months swam in her brain—the betrayal, the heartbreak, the attorneys, the arguments, the upheaval, the loneliness, the VD tests. She had found Deke's fumbling foreplay amusing, his back hair endearing. She had loved him despite his faults, yet he had exposed her to ridicule and speculation. The mail in her left hand rattled as her arm began to shake. It was one thing to bear the humiliation of her husband's kicking her to the curb for this...this...this cliché, but having to endure the woman coming over to her side of the street to rub it in was simply too much.
Something dark and sinister came over Penny, filling her with vengeance. She put her hand on Sheena's bulbous chest and shoved her hard, off the sidewalk and in front of oncoming traffic.
Chapter Four
A liberal dose of theatrics...
IN SLOW MOTION, Sheena clawed at the air as she stumbled backward, her kohl-lined eyes wide with fear when she realized she was going down on asphalt. On the sidewalk, Penny stood frozen, part of her unable to believe that she'd just pushed the woman, part of her morbidly fascinated as she watched the action unfold. A dark SUV was barreling down Charm Street toward Sheena. The driver held a cell phone to his ear and hadn't yet noticed the woman flailing in the street. From the other direction came a station wagon, but it slowed: The driver seemed to be distracted by the horrid pink house.
Alarm overrode self-preservation, propelling Penny into the street. She dove and tackled Sheena, then rolled them both to the center line and braced to be struck and torn into a dozen bloody parts. She hadn't planned to die in the arms of her husband's girlfriend. Their joint demise would spark scandal...headlines...folk songs.
Tires squealed and horns blasted the air, although Penny could barely hear over Sheena screaming in her ear. She was lying underneath the woman, pinned by Sheena's pendulous breasts, unable to breathe. Her body sang with pain, especially where the mini binoculars in her pocket bit into her hip, but slowly Penny realized they hadn't been pulverized. She opened her eyes, squinting into the sun.
"Holy freak, are you ladies okay?" A wide-eyed teenager leaned out of the driver's side window of the SUV. He still held his cell phone to his ear. "Dude," he yelled into the mouthpiece, "I nearly mowed down two lesbians!" Then he moved the phone away from his mouth. "Seriously, are you two okay?"
"Get off me!" Sheena screeched at Penny.
"You're on me," Penny muttered, pushing to free herself.
Sheena flopped onto her back, her white neck brace and hair a stunning contrast against the dark asphalt. She looked dazed, and she'd lost a high-heeled shoe, but otherwise, she seemed fine. Well, other than the mad-as-hell part.
"I could have been killed!"
The teenager gave a dry laugh and pointed to Penny. "Yeah, she saved your life, lady. I would've splattered you for sure if she hadn't knocked you out of the way."
"Me, too," shouted the lady driving the station wagon. "That woman is a hero." Sporadic applause and cheers burst out from drivers who had rolled down their windows.
Penny pushed up on her elbows, looked at where the young man's SUV had finally come to a stop, and swallowed hard. Sheena's sunglasses lay in a thousand pieces behind one of the big tires. He would have splattered Sheena if she hadn't decided to act.
Of course, if she hadn't pushed Sheena, she wouldn't have had to save her.
Penny clambered to her feet and brushed herself off, feeling shaky at the close encounter with death, and guilty that she was being heralded a hero. She reached down, grasped
Sheena by the arm, and, with considerable effort, pulled the stunned woman to her feet. As soon as Sheena was standing, she slapped at Penny's hands like a windmill.
"Get away from me, you lunatic!"
Penny shrank back, turned to give the teenager a wobbly smile, and called, "We're fine here. Thanks." He pulled away and other cars followed slowly, staring at Penny and Sheena standing on the center line. The pieces of mail that Penny had held flapped on the ground like wounded birds. She glanced toward The Charm Farm and saw Jimmy Scaggs jogging toward them.
Great.
"Let's get out of the street, Sheena."
"Where is my shoe?" Sheena bellowed, hobbling in one high heel.
"It's over there," Penny said, pointing to the curb in front of her former house, avoiding curious stares from drivers, growing more frantic by the minute. She had almost killed the woman—no matter what sins Sheena had committed, she didn't deserve to die. Penny gulped air. What had she been thinking? Shaking noticeably, Penny touched Sheena's elbow. "I'm sorry. Come on, I'll help you across."
Sheena swatted at Penny again, her face mottled as she limped ahead, stopping cars with a mere lift of her hand. "Don't touch me. I told Deke you were going to blow, but he swore to me that you were a doormat."
Penny recoiled as if she'd been slapped. She stumbled, then stepped up on the curb beside Sheena, mere feet from what used to be her own driveway. That crack in the concrete—she had pulled weeds out of that crack more times than she could count. "Excuse me?"
Sheena glared, then leaned over to scoop up her shoe. "You've got Deke snowed—he thinks you're a meek little mouse without the backbone or the brains to retaliate." She shook the shoe, wielding the stiletto like a blade. "You jealous little bitch—you can't stand the thought of me marrying Deke, so you tried to kill me!" She shoved her face close to Penny's. "You're going to pay, Granola Girl."
Penny's body flamed with humiliation, both at the knowledge that Deke so thoroughly ridiculed her behind her back, and at the woman's vicious tone.
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