by Gen Griffin
“I thought I saw Breedlove a few minutes ago. I told myself I had to be wrong because we all know David doesn't pay for women. Only time I've ever seen him in here before, he was dragging Ian out the door. I guess he's here with you?” Virginia licked her lips. He had a hard time looking at her without remembering the bucktoothed carrot top she'd been in elementary and middle school. The friendly, awkward girl who had dropped out pregnant at 14. He'd never actually wondered what had happened to Virginia after she'd left her job at the gas station near the interstate, but he guessed he knew the answer to that question now.
“Yeah. Tonight's my bachelor's party.” Cal put extra emphasis on the last two words.
“Oooh. You and Gracie finally tying the knot?” Virginia flipped her boa back over one rounded shoulder. She was a bit on the chubby side, for a stripper.
“We are.”
“You interested in a little personal entertainment?” She winked at him. “We can have some one-on-one time. Or two-on-one, if you want Breedlove.”
“Hey!” The blonde spoke up. “I saw him first. If anyone's going to make money here, it should be me. I was already talking to him before you walked up. He's my customer.”
“Actually, I think we're about to leave,” Cal said.
“Cal isn't ever going to be anyone's customer, Becca.” Virginia rolled her eyes. “He's too good for us. I'm just having a little fun with him.”
“Ain't no man too good for me,” Becca argued with a shake of her curls. She looked back up at Cal. “You're not hot enough to be too picky.”
“He's rich,” Virginia said flatly.
“How rich?” Becca stood up a little straighter and smiled even wider at Cal.
“Stupid rich,” Virginia replied. She rubbed her thumb and her forefinger together.
“Really?”
“And married. Rich and married.” Cal really didn't feel like playing these games. He reached for his wallet and pulled out a $20. He dropped it into Virginia's outstretched hand. “Buy yourself something that covers some skin.”
“You're not married yet. You have another couple of days before the wedding, don't you?” Virginia frowned at the $20.
“Damn, he is rich, ain't he?” Becca eyed the money hungrily.
“He is, but you're wasting your time flirting with him. He's only ever had eyes for Grace Malone and she's not going to give him up.” Virginia fluffed her hair and shrugged at Cal. “Kind of a shame none of us other girls ever got a chance. I wouldn't have minded being your girlfriend, Cal.”
“You're not my type,” Cal struggled not to look uncomfortable as Virginia looked him up and down as if he were a piece of meat on the butcher's block. He was relieved to see David heading his way across the dimly lit room.“I've been married since the day I said 'I do' on the playground in 2nd grade.”
Virginia pursed her lips at him thoughtfully. “You're a strange breed, Walker. They just don't make men like you anymore. You remind me of my grandpa.”
“I'll take that as a compliment,” Cal said as David walked up to them. “You ready to go?”
“I've been ready to go,” David said. “Strip clubs have never been my scene. Malone's outside on his phone. Ian just texted me to tell me he's not coming because he can't get anyone to watch Hannah Mae.”
“You shouldn't leave so soon. We have a lot to offer,” Virginia said.
“I'm sure y'all have lots to offer. Like gonorrhea, syphilis, crabs and herpes.” David flexed his muscular, heavily tattooed arms, cracking his shoulders and back as he stretched.
Becca let out an angry gasp and raised her hand to slap him. David caught her wrist without flinching. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.”
The blonde's eyes got wide. Virginia stepped in between the blonde and David. “If you're going to start a fight, you're going to have to pay me more than $20.” Virginia held her hand out expectantly.
“Why would I pay you at all?” David asked. The black dress shirt he was wearing was brand new, classy and expensively tailored, but it did very little to hide his true nature.
“Why not?” Virginia asked. “I already told Cal that I could make him a very happy man. You, on the other hand...”
“What about me?” David asked with a smirk. No amount of expensive clothing could hide the tension he always carried between his shoulder blades or the sharp look in his hooded green eyes. David was always on edge and the sleazy strip club was pushing his natural wariness to rarely seen and never pleasant highs.
“You scare me,” Virginia said. “You've got a dark side.”
David laughed softly as he released Becca's arm. She pulled her arm back and cradled it against her chest. “You have no idea how scary I can be,” he said.
“You ready to go?” Cal asked him. He was used to David's bad ass act. It didn't impress him in the slightest. People tended to underestimate him when they measured him up against David, but he was more than capable of holding his own.
“I didn't have any desire to come into this dump in the first place,” David said. “Coming here was Ian's idea. He insisted.”
“And then he no showed,” Cal pointed out.
“Can't have a bachelor's party without titties and beer,” David mimicked Ian's hard Southern drawl.
“I'd rather be shooting pool,” Cal said. “The girl I have waiting for me at home looks better than anything I've seen on stage in this club.”
Becca let out a loud humph.
“I'm right there with you, brother.” David rubbed his palms together. “Want to grab Addison and go to Leon's?
“Sounds good to me,” Cal said, even though he really didn't feel like going out at all. He briefly debated asking David if he would consider abandoning this who ridiculous bachelor party idea and go back to the hardware store with him instead? David was one of the only other people in the world who he trusted to double check the discrepancies he'd noticed in the store's accounts earlier today. He wanted at least one other set of eyes to confirm his suspicions before he took them to his Dad or Pappy.
Of course, he'd look like a paranoid jackass if he canceled his party and nothing was actually wrong with the books. There was a serious possibility that all the stress he'd been under during the last few months had made him start seeing problems where there weren't any. He couldn't afford to be wrong on this one.
“Leon will probably let us drink free since it's supposed to be your bachelor party,” David said.
Cal nodded. “Let's go. There's nothing I want here.”
“Me either.” David looked unmistakably relieved as they headed for the door and left the sad, depressing strippers staring after them.
Chapter 11
“Okay. Five points go to Irene.” Katie pointed at a chubby woman who was sitting at one of the tables she'd pulled into a loose circle on the opposite side of the room from the bar. Gracie wrote Irene's name on the dry erase board she'd borrowed from one of the country club's bar managers. She put four tally marks and a slash next to the name to indicate five points.
“Next question. Who here can name Gracie's favorite childhood pet?”
There was a moment's pause as the gathered masses, forty-two women in all, looked questioningly at one another. Several shrugged. A couple hands went up.
Katie picked the girl whose hand had gone up first. “Go ahead.”
“Mr. Meow the cat.”
Katie glanced down at the sheet of hastily scribbled questions that she'd forced Gracie to spend a full ten minutes answering before the start of their so-called game of 'how well do you know the bride?'.
“No, sorry. Next.” Katie gestured to the next raised hand.
“Pickles.”
“No. Next.”
“Fuzzball Jones.”
“Nope. Next.”
“Fluffy.”
“No.”
“Spot.”
“No.”
“Addison,” someone quipped. “He counts as a pet, right?”
Katie let out a so
ft laugh. “Probably, but not the answer we're looking for. Anyone else have a guess? Come on ladies?”
“Sam.”
“Scooby Doo.”
“Ollie.”
The bad guesses continued for several more minutes, giving Gracie plenty of time to reflect on exactly how little these people knew about her.
“Ed.”
“Piggle wiggle.”
“Was it a dog?”
“Does it matter? We need name, not species,” Katie said. “Though I can give an extra point to anyone who gets the species.”
“I'm just going to make a guess,” Holly spoke up from the end of the couch closest to Gracie. “The only pet I remember Gracie having when we were kids was a pug named Smushy. Is it Smushy?”
Gracie was surprised Holly remembered.
“The name is Smushy,” Katie confirmed. She looked over at Gracie. “A pug?”
Gracie nodded.
“Okay, cool. Let's add five more points for Holly and then start on our new question. How old were Gracie and Cal when they met?”
“Kindergarten,” someone said.
“Birth,” another quipped.
“She was three or four. Maybe 5. Cal's a couple of years older, so make him somewhere between six and eight.”
“Narrow that down,” Katie said.
“Gracie was three. Cal was seven.”
“Nailed it. Five points to April Lynne.” Katie had a forced smile on her pretty face as Gracie reluctantly tallied more points next to April Lynne's name. Cal's cousin had successfully guessed the answers to roughly a third of the questions. She had a grin on her chubby face as Katie moved on to the next question, something about Gracie's biggest accomplishment in life.
No one was going to be able to guess that one. Gracie had made up the answer on a whim.
“How many questions were on that paper?” Holly leaned over to Gracie and whispered the question in her ear.
“Twenty, I think.”
“At this rate, the game is going to take an hour. No one has gotten any of the questions right on the first try,” Holly said.
Gracie shrugged. “The only person here who would stand a prayer on half of these questions is Katie, and she's hosting the game.”
“I don't remember her from when we were kids. Was she in our grade?” Holly asked as everyone continued to fail to guess Gracie's greatest accomplishment.
Gracie shook her head. “She was in the same grade as Cal and David.”
“Humph. I still don't remember her.”
“She moved into town a couple months after you moved out.”
“That explains it,” Holly said.
“Y'all give up?” Katie asked the crowd. They consented and she revealed that Gracie was claiming her greatest life accomplishment was being part of the state championship softball team in high school. Several people groaned or grumbled under their breath.
“Who can tell me what Gracie's favorite food is?” Katie asked and the guessing began again.
“What about the other girl?” Holly asked. “The one who left to get the pizzas.”
“Trish,” Gracie offered the name up.
“She doesn't know you well enough to answer these questions either?”
“Trish knows me, but not really in the pointless life trivia kind of way,” Gracie explained as she examined the manicure that Trish had made her get in preparation for tonight's events.
“She's not from Possum Creek. Or anywhere else in Callahan County.”
“You can tell?” Gracie quirked her head at Holly curiously.
“That dress she's wearing is a Gianti Patholoi. It's one of his classic designs. Retails for something like $450. Don't even get me started on her shoes. Or yours. I'm guessing y'all wear the same shoe size, because the Gracie I grew up with wouldn't drop over $600 on high heels.”
Gracie glanced down at the shiny black patent leather peep toe designer originals that Trish had let her borrow for the night because they looked smoking hot with her dress. “She wears an eight and a half. I wear a nine. I can usually fit them.”
“Nice of her to let you stretch them out. She must have money to burn.”
“Her ex had money to burn,” Gracie explained, thinking of the trip she and Trish had made to Silver City a couple of weeks back. They'd gone with the intention of cleaning out Curtis's apartment. They'd gotten as far as picking up some of the personal belongings that Trish had been forced to leave behind when she'd left Curtis back in the spring. Gracie hadn't known it was possible for one girl to own so many pairs of shoes. They'd had to leave the apartment well before they'd come anywhere close to clearing out the rest of the furniture or shared household items. Kerry had given up on arresting David and instead tried to arrest Cal on some bullshit charges that lasted only as long as it had taken Trish and Gracie to drive back to Possum Creek. Trish had been unusually vicious in dealing with Kerry that night, Gracie recalled. Underneath all that silky black hair and designer clothing was a girl whose combination of temper and intelligence made her as good match for David Breedlove. Truth be told, when Trish was angry, she scared Gracie far more than David ever had.
“Trophy girlfriend?” Holly asked.
“Used to be, I think.”
“Not anymore?”
“No.” Gracie didn't elaborate. Julie Smithers, one of Gracie's least favorite former classmates, had recalled Gracie's love of fried catfish. April Lynne was still the only person to answer more than one trivia question correctly.
“Can anyone tell me how old Gracie was when she lost her virginity?” Katie made a face as she read the question out loud.
“She's still a virgin,” Lacy or Michelle said.
April Lynne had been tossing back another shot, but she choked on it and wound up sputtering liquor out her nose. Gracie had to laugh.
“Thirteen,” April Lynne announced as she finished coughing.
“Good guess,” Katie told her.
“Not a guess. I remember that one,” April Lynne announced in her nasally tone. “Cal was seventeen – almost eighteen - and we were all making fun of him for staying a virgin that long. We kept telling him he should just screw some other piece of ass and get it over with.”
Several people let out nervous laughs. Gracie glared at April Lynne.
“Boy virgin, that was Cal,” April Lynne continued. “And there were plenty of other girls who were more than willing to have him.”
Katie raised her eyebrows and then spoke loudly enough to drown April Lynne out. “Next question, girls. What is Gracie and Cal's dream vacation?”
“Honolulu,” someone guessed.
“Australia.”
“Greece.”
“The Bahamas.”
Katie pointed at the last woman who had spoken. “You're correct. I'm sorry, I don't know your name.”
“Carrie Heeler,” the girl said.
Gracie wrote down the name on the dry erase board with a scowl. She remembered Carrie Heeler all too well from high school. She'd been the one who ratted Gracie out for skipping class with David on more than two dozen occasions. She'd also slept with Addison. Hell, more than half of the women who were at the bachelorette party by way of mysterious pink invite had slept with Addison. How annoying.
Gracie had made sure to write 'none of Addison's ex-girlfriends' across the very top of her list of people not to invite to her wedding.
Her list.
Gracie nearly choked on the air she was breathing.
Gracie didn't keep a diary, but sometimes she did write notes and lists for herself. These writings were private and usually intended as a way for her to keep her mind focused. She'd written the list of people who were not invited to her wedding one night while she'd been sitting in the Chevy waiting for Cal to get done with a late class at the community college. She'd used her list to compare against the guest list Miss Loretta had compiled for the wedding before invitations had been sent out. Almost everyone whose name was on Gracie's list, with the exc
eption of April Lynne, had been struck off the official guest list.
It had been a very thorough list. It had to be when you lived in a small town like Possum Creek. It wouldn't do to have the girl who had repeatedly flashed your fiance during high school football games, or the girl who wanted to claw your big brother's eyes out for cheating on her, socializing together on what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life. And yet, here they were. Sitting right here in the country club at Gracie's bachelorette party. Jolie Kensington had flashed Cal a full view of her DDD titties on more than one occasion. Barbara Jean Lark and Kitty Ellis had both stalked Addy at some point or another.
Nearly every single woman at her bachelorette party had, in some form or another, been on the list that Gracie had written out as people not to invite.
“Shit,” Gracie whispered.
“What?” Holly looked at her curiously.
Gracie frowned at Holly, trying to remember if Holly had been on her list. She didn't think so. It had been so long since she'd seen Holly. Gracie didn't think it had even occurred to her that the other girl might turn up during her wedding.
“I just... remembered I left my curling iron on. I hope the auto-shutoff kicks in.” Gracie was trying to remember where she had left that blasted list. The last time she'd seen it, it had been on top of the dresser she and Cal shared at his parent's house. She hoped it was still there, because if it wasn't then she had a serious problem on her hands.
“Oh.” Holly frowned at her but nodded as if she believed the excuse. “I think your game is winding down. We're on question nineteen.”
“Thank god.” Gracie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hadn't been doing a very good job at keeping track of the points for the trivia game, but it didn't matter. April Lynne had won by a landslide. Probably because she'd always been such a nosy, gossipy bitch when it came to Gracie and Cal's relationship.
Gracie briefly allowed herself to wonder if April Lynne really had been the person who had sent out the pink invitations? It was entirely too possible. Especially if she'd somehow gotten hold of Gracie's list.
“Ladies, I think we have a clear winner here,” Katie announced as the trivia game finally came to its inevitably painful ending when Heather James correctly answered the final, and easiest, question of the game by naming Katie as Gracie's best friend.