Secrets over Sweet Tea

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  Caroline was hurting—he knew that. Beneath all her anger was a deep, undeniable, desperate hurt. But in order for their marriage to survive, they both had to be willing to look at their stuff, didn’t they?

  But what if she won’t do it?

  The thought hit him hard, followed by an answer: I have to do it anyway.

  He had to be willing to go on this journey to the unknown, to be man enough to claim what he had done to get his heart into this pitiful shape. He stared at the white walls that surrounded him. The symbolism struck him. He could let this be the start of something new, a clean slate, a true adventure for him too, if he was simply willing.

  When his phone vibrated on the sofa beside him, he looked down and saw Jackson’s name. He almost laughed. Answering it would mean something. Answering it would mean he was willing to finally confront all the things that got him here.

  It rang a second time. He suspected hell itself would freeze over before Caroline Craig ever admitted anything was wrong with her. He had buried one marriage today. He prayed he wouldn’t have to bury his own.

  He picked up his phone as it rang a fourth time. Zach Craig had a choice to make. No matter what choice Caroline made, this was a defining moment for him.

  The phone rang again. And he answered it.

  “When you’re all healed from this divorce thing, please tell me she doesn’t have to hang around us anymore,” Rachel whispered. She motioned with her eyes at Scarlett Jo, who had moved a little ahead.

  Grace elbowed her. “I can assure you it’s going to take longer than a month.”

  Scarlett Jo grasped the brass handle of a large black-painted wooden door. She ushered them into the Red Pony restaurant, which was nestled between the Heirloom Shop and Walton’s Antique Jewelry, its boundaries marked off by red-painted brick. Dark walls encased them as they entered, and a metal screen painted in a pussy willow pattern stood at attention across from them. The dim lighting and dark woods brought a nighttime effect indoors, even though the sun was still a few hours from setting.

  “Can I help you ladies?” the young hostess inquired.

  “Newberry. For three.” The large white bow wrapped around Scarlett Jo’s head bounced as she said it.

  “I swear, she needs that ribbon to keeps all her brains together,” Rachel muttered.

  “Stop it,” Grace warned. “You’re—”

  “What in the world are you doing?” Rachel stared as Scarlett Jo patted her body all over and shook like a dog after a bath.

  “I’m making sure I don’t have any cicadas on me.”

  “You can’t be serious. The cicadas all keeled over weeks ago.”

  Scarlett Jo did her habitual nose-crinkle thing. “You’re kidding. They’re gone?”

  Rachel walked to the door and opened it. “Listen, Scarlett Jo.” She stuck her head out. “Can you hear anything?”

  Scarlett Jo tilted her head, listening. “Well, I’ll be. I can’t believe I’ve wasted precious weeks of my life hiding from those things.”

  Grace could see Rachel’s brain working. She was certain Rachel would use this exchange to her advantage at some point.

  The hostess called them and led them toward a staircase to the second floor. They maneuvered around the bar, where many patrons had already deposited themselves for the sweet hour that declared the weekend had arrived. Two men on the end turned their heads, and Grace felt their eyes follow the three of them as they headed up the stairs. Her thumb instinctively rubbed her empty ring finger, and her heart ached.

  On the second floor, a server ushered them into a large room. Two wood-and-mirrored-glass serving tables occupied the room’s center, each adorned with a soaring flower arrangement that practically touched the ceiling. The three women were shown to a beautifully set four-top nestled against one of the brick walls.

  Grace allowed the soothing atmosphere to calm her. She was going to enjoy an evening out with the girls. It was just what she needed after another grueling week of learning how to survive.

  As Rachel slid her black napkin into her lap, she posed a question. “Who would name a restaurant Red Pony?”

  Scarlett Jo didn’t miss a beat. “It’s from a Steinbeck novella.”

  Both Rachel’s and Grace’s eyebrows went up. Grace smiled. Rachel mouthed, “She reads.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. Fortunately Scarlett Jo was already facedown in the menu. The girl saw eating as a lifestyle.

  “Oh, my word, they have the best shrimp and grits ever here.” Scarlett Jo poked her finger at the middle of the menu.

  Grace picked up her menu and glanced through it. Nothing caught her eye. She hadn’t had an appetite in six months.

  “Ooh, and their blue cheese risotto. Oohwee, that stuff is slap-your-mama good.” She raised her hand toward Rachel.

  “You better not slap me,” Rachel shot back. “I’m telling you now. You have been warned.”

  Scarlett Jo laughed and flicked her menu at Rachel, then looked at them both as if the best idea had hit her. “I know. Let’s get three different things and share.” She bounced in her seat. “That way we can all get a little taste of everything.”

  Grace put her menu down. That was one less decision she had to think about. “Sure,” she said. “You pick.”

  Rachel nudged her. “I want to pick something too.”

  Scarlett Jo clapped her hands together. “Okay, yes, you pick. I love surprises.” She placed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Do you know I let each one of my boys be a surprise? I mean, the fact that they were boys. I never let the sonogram lady tell me they had wingadingas.”

  Rachel slapped Grace’s arm. “She did not say that!”

  Grace couldn’t help but smile.

  “What?” Scarlett Jo looked back and forth between them. “What? What do you call them?”

  Grace shook her head at Rachel, who had opened her mouth to speak. “You don’t want to know.”

  Scarlett Jo flapped her hands. “Anyway, I just waited until they popped out. Never knew what a one of them was going to be.” She leaned back. “So you pick, Rachel. Surprise us.” She said the last two words in a husky, spooky voice.

  Rachel rolled her eyes and picked up the menu. She gave Scarlett Jo both her requests, the shrimp and grits and the beef tenderloin with the blue cheese–sweet corn risotto. Then she added the Red Pony BLT—bacon, lobster, and tomato over Yukon Gold ravioli. Scarlett Jo licked her lips with sheer excitement as Rachel gave their order to the waitress.

  Grace was grateful for her two friends because their banter kept her from having to make conversation while waiting for their food. And despite Rachel’s attitude, Grace could tell she was beginning to like Scarlett Jo. Scarlett Jo wasn’t afraid to ask or say anything. She was a straight shooter. She asked Rachel about everything from race to religion and multiple topics in between, and she didn’t bristle at the answers. Scarlett Jo would declare her love for Sarah Palin, Rachel would pretend to gag, and Scarlett Jo would just laugh. There was no taking offense, no high-maintenance personality to soothe. And because Rachel was such a straightforward person herself, she appreciated that. They were an odd combination, these three. But they were becoming a sweet one.

  Rachel kept the conversation going even as the waitress arrived with the food. “Scarlett Jo, where did you go to school?”

  Grace had never even thought to ask.

  “Ole Miss. I majored in philosophy.”

  Rachel moved her glass to make room for the tenderloin platter. “You majored in what?”

  “I know. Crazy, right?” Scarlett Jo speared a shrimp with her fork. “Most people would have me pegged as an early-childhood education major or a dropout. But there’s stuff up in there.” She tapped her head. “Past the big hair and big headbands and underneath all that bleach, there is something up in there.”

  Grace smiled. “I can see that about you.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Then you are a bigger woman than me. I wouldn’t have pegged
that for anything.”

  Grace elbowed her, but Scarlett Jo laughed. “Grace, it’s okay. It’s not like I go around ruminating on the great mysteries of life or anything. Truth is, I find it more interesting to ponder life as it’s being lived.”

  Rachel looked at Grace and shrugged. “Who knew?”

  Forty minutes later, Scarlett Jo pushed away the remnants of her chocolate demise cake and unfastened the top button of her black walking shorts. “Oh, girls, you’re going to have to roll Mama out of here.”

  Rachel stood and took Scarlett Jo by the arm. “Come on. You can do it. Just squeeze those cheeks together and push yourself out of there.”

  Scarlett Jo raised her head with a haughty sniff. “Philosophers do not partake in such childish banter.”

  Rachel laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not a philosopher, then.”

  Scarlett Jo snorted and slapped her. “Ain’t it though.”

  Grace yawned hard. The richness of the meal and her early morning hours since going back to work made eight at night feel like midnight. She placed her hands on the edge of the wooden table and forced her body out of the chair. She got to the top of the stairs and wished for another way down, one that didn’t pass the bar. Scarlett Jo and Rachel were in front of her, laughing and carrying on, so she just kept her head down and followed them out.

  They headed down the sidewalk, the Friday night crowd as thick as the August humidity. They could see people milling around outside Mellow Mushroom at the end of the street by the square, waiting for a table with cold drinks and good pizza. As they passed the building next to Zach’s law firm, Grace couldn’t help but peek.

  Scarlett Jo and Rachel both noticed. “What are you looking at?” Rachel asked.

  Grace had stopped. She couldn’t help it. The For Lease sign was still up. She leaned close and squinted, trying to see into the darkened building. She couldn’t make out a teapot any longer. “I just think this is a quaint space.”

  “A quaint space for what?” Rachel goaded.

  Grace shrugged.

  Scarlett Jo let out one of her melodramatic gasps. “Oh, my side, Grace. This would be a perfect space for you to open your restaurant.” She bounced excitedly as she spoke as if she were going to do it herself.

  Rachel sidled up next to her. “Is that what you’re thinking, Grace?”

  Grace shrugged once more and cocked her head slightly, still looking inside the building. “I don’t know. I was kind of . . . dreaming. About a tearoom.”

  “It’s okay to dream, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Scarlett Jo leaned in close to them. “A tearoom would be perfect. You could serve those scones. Oh, mercy, those scones.” She used that voice again, that ecstasy-ridden, deep growl thing she had that always made Grace a little concerned about her mental health. “And that cream. Oh, boatloads of that cream. And little finger sandwiches.”

  “How can you get excited about food right now?” Rachel asked. “I’m not sure I ever want to eat again.”

  Scarlett Jo was already lost in her new world. “And we could decorate it in canary yellow and tangerine and teal!”

  Rachel raised a hand. “Hold on there, chief. The only one living in the exploding Crayola box is you. Me and Grace here are chocolate and vanilla kind of girls, not rainbow sherbet, if you get where I’m going with this.”

  Scarlett Jo clapped her hands together again, her excitement not in the least bit drained by Rachel’s insult to her color palette. “Well, you can do the interior. That’s fine. But I want to be the tasting expert. And I can taste everything first and then greet customers and tell them what they should order.”

  Grace started walking up the street again. “I’m glad y’all have such grand plans for my money. Which I don’t have enough of to take a huge risk like that.”

  “Banks have money,” Scarlett Jo suggested.

  Grace chuckled. “Yes, they do. They also have strict regulations, and I’m sure they wouldn’t lend me enough to start a business.”

  Rachel grabbed her arm, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I’d lend it to you.”

  Grace heard the seriousness in Rachel’s tone and saw the solemnity of her friend’s face. “What? You don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Jason does.”

  Grace so loved her friend in that moment. “Rach, I know you and Jason would do anything for me. But I’m not taking your money or his money to start a business.”

  “But we’ve been looking for something to invest it in. And this town could actually use a tearoom. You know how people hated it when Homestead Manor closed down. And Lillie Belle’s is no longer a tearoom. There is no tearoom around here, which is a shame because we’re Southerners. We love tearooms. And your food, Grace. No one I know cooks like you. Everything you make is so good.”

  Scarlett Jo ran her tongue across her lips. “Ooh, so good.”

  Rachel pointed a finger at Scarlett Jo. “Stop it! Seriously, you have to get control of yourself. You’re freaking me out.”

  Scarlett Jo clapped her hands together and straightened her back. “Sorry. Yes, go ahead. You were talking about how we are going to start a business.”

  Rachel shook her head adamantly. “No, I am not talking about how we are going to start a business. I am talking about how she is going to start a business. I will be a silent partner and financier. And you, Scarlett Jo, will be even more silent.”

  Scarlett Jo got a pouty look on her face. “But I want to do something. I want to work. Wait tables. Greet customers.”

  Grace put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Rachel wagged her finger at Scarlett Jo. “No, no greeting customers. But maybe we can find something for you to do.”

  “I’m going to have a job!” Scarlett Jo screamed. She ignored the strange looks from a gaggle of teenagers skirting them. “A real live job!”

  Rachel glared. “There will be no job if you don’t learn how to control yourself.”

  Scarlett Jo grabbed one of the kids and whispered, “I’m going to have a job.”

  The girl slid from her hands and ran down the street.

  Scarlett Jo straightened herself up again. “Okay. Yes. Complete control.”

  Rachel moved closer to Grace. “Seriously, Grace, think about it. If there ever was a time in your life for you to do something that you want to do, it’s now. Not because it’s smart. Not because it will make someone else happy. Not because it’s practical or makes sense in the long run. But just because you want to do it. You want that for you.”

  Grace studied her friend’s eyes. Rachel meant every word. Simply knowing that was almost overwhelming.

  Scarlett Jo sidled up beside them, her eyes glistening with tears. “I don’t know two women in the whole world who are better friends than the two of you. I want in on it. Can we be best friends forever?”

  “Do we have to?” Rachel asked.

  Scarlett Jo punched her with a snort. Rachel rubbed her arm. Grace was certain it would leave a bruise.

  “I’ve only known you a few months, Grace,” Scarlett Jo said. “But until this moment I have never seen this kind of light in your eyes.”

  “This is the light she used to have,” Rachel added. “Before . . . well, just before.”

  “It’s time for it to come back on,” Scarlett Jo said.

  Rachel shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, Grace, but listen to her.” She pointed to Scarlett Jo. “Listen to her.”

  Scarlett Jo left Landmark Booksellers with a new book under her arm and big hugs from Joel and Carol, the owners. She knew most people didn’t think of her as a reader. They looked at her head of big blonde hair and her other rather looming parts and figured her for a shallow kind of gal. But she’d devour this biography of Steve Jobs in a week, even though it contained more words than one of Sylvia’s tirades.

  Scarlett Jo read so much, in fact, that her kids said she needed one of those e-readers. But she liked re
al live books, the kind with paper and ink—which was why she liked Landmark. They still sold real books, and they always had great recommendations. Plus, they knew her name, and she liked that too. There was just something special about a bookstore that wasn’t one of those chains or on the Internet.

  She’d read about a woman in Texas who had a bookstore inside her beauty salon. One minute that woman would be teasing your hair, and the next minute she’d be telling you about the latest Pat Conroy novel. And she sponsored a book club where all the members wore tiaras and animal prints when they got together to talk about books.

  Scarlett Jo loved the idea so much that she’d started her own book club last year. She’d even invited Eugenia Quinn, who let her know in no uncertain terms that she didn’t do either tiaras or animal prints. But Eugenia had shown up every week anyway and brought several of her friends. They’d stopped meeting for the summer and had never quite gotten started again, but maybe it was time—

  “It’s official! We are going to hell in a handbasket. I’m saying that, and I don’t cuss.”

  Scarlett Jo looked up to see Sylvia stalking toward her. “Who’s we?”

  “Me. You. This world.” The frantic tone in Sylvia’s voice was unusual even for her.

  “Now, Sylvia, why don’t you get hold of yourself and sit down. You need to tell me what is going on.” She pulled a wrought-iron chair from under a table in front of the bookstore.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Sylvia tried to scoot past Scarlett Jo.

  But Scarlett Jo was fast and broad, and nobody scooted around her. She stopped Sylvia dead in her tracks. “Tell me,” she repeated, her voice calm and kind.

  Sylvia’s permanently furrowed brow wrinkled deeper. “I will not. Now get out of my way.”

  Well, she had forced her. “Sit!” Scarlett Jo’s words barreled from her chest low and loud.

  Poor Sylvia about jumped right out of her patent-leather pumps. But she sat.