“Take me in the truck. Keys in my purse.” Sticky sweat popped out on Cricket’s forehead. “Now! People are looking.” She absolutely couldn’t bear the embarrassment of people seeing her chubby thighs and white cotton underpants. She’d endure Lucifer if he was shielding her from everyone’s eyes rather than Jennie Sue, but he wasn’t, so Jennie Sue would have to do.
“I’ll call Rick and he can take you, then.”
“No! He can’t get into town. I have the truck. Are you stupid? If there was any other way, I wouldn’t ask you,” Cricket moaned.
“Okay, okay, stop your whining.” Jennie Sue helped her to her feet and got her into the passenger side of the truck before retrieving her purse from the sidewalk and handing it to her.
Amos knocked on the window as Jennie Sue crawled into the driver’s seat and Cricket tossed her the keys.
“You okay? I saw Jennie Sue helping you up,” he asked.
She nodded and yelled through the glass, “Just a little twist of the ankle. I’ll be fine. Jennie Sue is takin’ me home. Thanks for askin’.”
Dammit to hell on a rusty poker! Now he’d go tell everyone in town that Jennie Sue was nice enough to take her to the hospital. Everyone would think they were friends.
Cricket shoved her purse across the console. “Center compartment, and please hurry. I’m getting sick to my stomach.”
Jennie Sue left at least a week’s worth of tire rubber on the pavement when she peeled out, and by the time she reached the city limits sign on the south side of town, she was doing eighty in a forty-five. Cricket opened her mouth to tell her to slow down but only moaned when more pain shot all the way to her hip.
It was normally a fifteen-minute drive to Sweetwater, but Jennie Sue brought the truck to a greasy sliding stop in front of the emergency-room doors in less than ten minutes. She hopped out, rushed inside, and returned with a nurse pushing a wheelchair in what seemed like mere seconds.
“Sit still and let us help you,” the nurse said.
“It’s only a sprain.” The world took another couple of spins when Cricket tried to put a little weight on it.
“That can be worse and take longer to heal than a break sometimes,” the nurse said. “Settle into the chair, and we’ll go to the business center to get your information.”
“My stuff is in my purse. You take care of it,” she told Jennie Sue.
“Okay, then,” the nurse said. “We’ve had a slow day, so I can take you right on in.”
The nurse rolled Cricket into a triage room and left her sitting in the wheelchair. A guy in blue scrubs looked up from a computer and asked her how much she weighed—she lied by fifteen pounds, just in case Jennie Sue saw any of the records. How tall she was—she stretched it and said that she was an inch taller. Then he glanced at her swollen ankle that had begun to turn purple and took her straight to a cubicle.
“They’ll be in and take you down to X-ray in a minute,” he said, and disappeared.
Immediately Cricket began to worry about the lies she’d told. If they had to anesthetize her, then would they give her enough to keep her under? She sure didn’t want to wake up before they got finished.
Jennie Sue dug around in the purse until she found Cricket’s wallet and had almost given up even finding a driver’s license when she noticed a small cloth bag. Inside she found an insurance card and all the pertinent information that the lady behind the counter needed.
She took it from Jennie Sue and said, “She will have to personally sign these papers before she is dismissed, but you can put these cards away.”
“Now can I go back there with her?”
“Only if you are family,” the woman said.
Jennie Sue opened her mouth to say that she was her friend, but then snapped it shut. One of Mabel’s old sayings—you might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb—flashed through her mind. So Jennie Sue said, “I’m her sister.”
“Then I’ll press the button so the doors will open for you,” the lady said.
“Thank you.” Jennie Sue hoped that lightning didn’t shoot out of the sky and strike her dead on her way out of the office cubicle.
A hunky male attendant was rolling Cricket down the hall in a wheelchair and into the emergency-room area. She didn’t have a bit of color in her cheeks.
“What’s the prognosis, sister?” Jennie Sue asked.
The guy stopped at a door. “I’ll go in and tell them we’re here.”
Cricket looked up with the best of her dirty looks. “I’m not—”
Jennie Sue bent down and cupped her hand over Cricket’s ear. “I had to tell them that so they’d let me come back here with you. If you blow it, you’re on your own.”
Cricket frowned and answered, “Don’t know until the doctor sees the X-rays. And—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I appreciate you doing this for me, but we are barely friends.”
Jennie Sue’s shoulders raised in half a shrug. “After the way you’ve treated me, I’m not even sure I want to be your friend.”
“Me neither,” Cricket said. “But it seems like we’re thrown together all the time. Maybe instead of barely friends, we’re civil friends.”
“That sounds more like it.” Jennie Sue nodded.
The door opened and the guy stepped out. He glanced over at Jennie Sue. “You’ll have to wait out here, but this won’t take but a minute.”
“Yes, sir.” She sat down in a folding chair right next to the door.
Mabel used to tell Jennie Sue that everything happened for a reason, that life was like a ball of yarn. She explained that when a person got older, they could pull the loose end and look back at life and see that something that happened on a particular day had changed the course of it. Jennie Sue couldn’t think of a single reason that she had to be the one who’d been close enough to Cricket when she fell to help her.
Maybe it was to get your mind off the conversation that you had with your dad. There was no doubt it was Mabel’s voice in her head. You needed a little time to cool your heels. Remember, you do have some of that Wilshire temper even if it doesn’t show up very often.
“I don’t have my mother’s temper,” she muttered.
Be honest.
Before she could argue any more, the man pushed Cricket out of the X-ray lab and headed down the hall. “We’ll go back to the emergency room, and the doctor will be here soon to discuss the next step.”
“Is it broken?” Jennie Sue asked.
“The lab tech will read it, and then the doctor will talk to you,” he said as he got Cricket into her original cubicle and helped her up onto the narrow bed. “Need a blanket?”
“Yes, please,” Cricket moaned.
“Can you give her something for the pain?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Not right now. The doctor . . . Oh, here he is now. Ask him.”
An older man with a round face, a wide nose, and snow-white hair cut close to his head gently rolled the sheet away from Cricket’s leg. “Let’s see what we’ve got here. I checked the picture and there’s no broken bones, which means a nasty sprain that’s going to keep you off your feet for three to six weeks. For the first week, you’ll keep it propped up and only get up to go to the bathroom—on crutches.”
Cricket sucked air through her teeth several times when he pressed on the ankle. Jennie Sue grabbed her hand and held it.
Cricket tried to jerk it away, and Jennie Sue leaned down and whispered, “We’re civil friends, remember?” Did that subcategory of friends mean that the friendship ended when they left the hospital, or did she have to do more for Cricket? And how was it different from acquaintances?
Jennie Sue was still mulling over the type of friendship she wanted with Cricket when the doctor’s deep voice jerked her back to the room.
“Ice. Twenty minutes on and twenty minutes off, three times in the morning, afternoon, and evening,” he said. “Second week you can move around the house on crutches, but you can’t put the foot on the ground. I’ll see
you at the end of that week and we’ll talk about a walking boot.”
“I have to work,” Cricket moaned.
“Not for the next three weeks, and then only part-time until I release you,” he said sternly, and then looked over at Jennie Sue. “I understand you are her sister. Can I trust you to make her follow my instructions?”
“She’s not really—” Cricket snapped.
Jennie Sue squeezed her hand hard. “This time I get to be the boss, so don’t argue with me. How much longer will we be here, Doc? And will you please write a prescription for pain medicine? She’s an old bear when she’s hurting.” Jennie Sue talked fast to keep Cricket from saying another word.
“Where do you want me to call the prescriptions in to?” the doctor asked.
“A pharmacy here in Sweetwater that’s open on Sundays, since our little drugstore is closed,” Jennie Sue answered. “Can we get crutches there?”
“We’ll give her some and I’ll tell the nurse to call this in to City Drug. Know where that is? And you’ll see to it that she makes a follow-up appointment?”
“Yes, sir, I will be sure.” Jennie Sue nodded.
“Okay, then, I’ll see you in my office in a couple of weeks,” he said on his way out the door. “Someone will be in to wheel you out to your vehicle in a few minutes.”
“You are not my sister!” Cricket hissed.
“A civil friend doesn’t act like a full-fledged bitch,” Jennie Sue said. “Let’s just get you home and comfortable so you can start that regimen with an ice pack.”
A woman came through the curtain with a syringe in one hand and a set of metal crutches in the other. “Doc has ordered a pain shot to help until you get your meds started. Hip or arm?”
“Arm,” Cricket answered.
“It wears off quickly, so go ahead and take a pill as soon as you can with food. Here’s your crutches. Tuck them tightly under your arms, and don’t put your hurt foot on the ground. We’ll get you in the wheelchair and roll you out to the car.” She looked over at Jennie Sue. “You can go get the vehicle and I’ll roll her out to it.”
Cricket was barely in the chair when another woman arrived with a sheaf of papers. “You’ll need to sign these. We’ll bill your insurance and then send a bill with the balance due to the address on your driver’s license.”
Cricket signed all the places where she was told and glanced over at Jennie Sue. “I sprained the other ankle five years ago. I know what to do. Just take me home and then leave me alone.”
“Sisters. You don’t get to pick ’em, and there’s nothing you can do about what you get when they arrive. So which of you is oldest?” the administrator asked.
“I am,” Jennie Sue said. “By ten months.”
“Then I guess you’ve got the God-given right to be the boss,” the woman said. “Let’s get you out to your car.”
Forty-five minutes later they’d been to the drugstore, picked up the medicine, and Jennie Sue was parking the truck in front of a small white frame house. It looked like a picture from Mabel’s kitchen calendar with the deep-red crape myrtle bushes blooming all around it. On one end of the porch a swing, wide enough for three or four people, moved gently in the afternoon breeze. On the other end, two bright-red metal lawn chairs, like what Mabel and Frank had on their porch, beckoned for folks to come sit a spell and visit.
“Hey, what’s goin’ on?” Rick rubbed a hand over his face as he came outside. When Cricket got out of the truck and tucked the crutches under her arm, he hurried to her side. “What happened?”
“I fell. Jennie Sue took me to the hospital. It’s a sprain and I’m fine.” She started toward the house with Jennie Sue on one side and Rick behind her to catch her if she fell. “What are we going to do? I can’t work for at least three weeks and maybe six. And you need help with the crops.” Tears began to rush down her cheeks and drip onto her shirt.
“Stop worryin’ about all that. We’ll survive,” Rick answered as she made her way up three steps to the porch.
Jennie Sue wiped away Cricket’s tears with the tail of her T-shirt. “I’ll make her an omelet and some pancakes if you’ll get an ice pack ready. She’s got to eat to take a pill.”
“You are not my sister. You’re only my civil friend, and that don’t mean you get to waltz into my house and take over,” Cricket fumed.
“Sister?” Rick looked from one to the other again.
“She lied and said she was my sister so she could come back into the emergency room with me. Now she’s been bossing me worse than you do.” Cricket eased down into a worn recliner when she made it into the house. She popped up the footrest and leaned back. “That pain shot is starting to wear off, and it’s throbbin’ again.”
“Civil friend?” Rick raised a dark eyebrow toward Jennie Sue.
“Friendship comes in degrees. Civil friend is a step below barely friend, but only a step up from not at all and almost hate,” she explained.
“I see.” He grinned. “Well, thank you for taking her and bringing her home. I can handle it from here. I’ll make her some food after I give you a ride home.”
“No, it’s starting to hurt and I need to eat,” Cricket said. “Fix me a peanut butter sandwich or hand me a tomato and I’ll eat it like an apple. I want a pain pill. Why did you tell them you were the oldest?” Cricket asked.
“Show me the kitchen and I’ll make her a quick meal,” Jennie Sue told Rick and then turned her attention back to Cricket. “I was always the oldest in the class, and you were one of the youngest ones. Didn’t we all have to line up according to age in the first grade? We were the brackets. I was jealous of your braids and the freckles across your nose. Frank said that freckles were where angels kissed a person, and I wanted them. I loved your hair, and Mama wouldn’t ever let me have braids.”
“You remember that?” Cricket asked.
“Yep, now how do you like your omelet?”
“With bacon, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of cheese. And Rick . . .” Tears started down Cricket’s cheeks again. “I’m so sorry . . . What are we going to do for real? I can’t help with the crops.”
“I’ll do it.” Jennie Sue headed for the kitchen. “When I get off from my other two jobs each evening, I’ll help you. I don’t have anything to do in the evenings anyway. You just have to pick me up.”
“Thank you. I can’t pay much, but I can at least give you minimum wages.”
“How about I make supper for you both each evening, and what I eat can be my payment? That way I don’t have to buy food, and I have someone to eat with and cook for,” Jennie Sue said. “And besides, it’s what civil friends do to help out someone who needs it.”
“We don’t take charity,” Cricket said.
“I’m workin’ for my supper, and it’s you givin’ out charity, not me. I’m probably the poorest person in Bloom right now. Are you goin’ to let your sister starve?”
“Okay, okay, if it’s all right with Rick, we’ll accept, but I hope you know how to cook plain food.”
“I was trained by Mabel. Now show me the kitchen and I’ll get busy.”
“You sure about this?” Rick asked.
“Just lead the way,” Jennie Sue answered, not sure at all about what she’d just done.
Chapter Nine
Well, there’s my new employee.” Amos opened the door and bowed with a flourish when Jennie Sue arrived at the bookstore the next morning.
“Thank you for the welcome. I’m ready to work. What do I do first?” she asked.
“Whatever you want. I’m just glad that I can keep the store open all day on Monday through Wednesday. Half days were killin’ me, but I’ve always helped with the library, and I didn’t want to give it up. This store was my sweet wife’s, and I just couldn’t completely close it up,” he said.
She noticed romance, nonfiction, and cookbooks all on the same, most visible shelf. “Looks like we need some organizing.”
“That would be great. The office is through that
door.” He pointed. “Restroom is over there.” He swung his finger to the other side of the store. “We’re closed from twelve to one for lunch, and now I’m going to a Kiwanis breakfast. Make yourself at home. Paperbacks sell for a quarter of whatever the retail price is on them. Hardbacks sell for five dollars.”
“You really don’t care if I do some rearranging?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Honey, I’d appreciate anything that you want to do with the place.” Amos waved and left her alone in the bookstore.
She found two big boxes in the back of the store and brought them up front, where she filled them with books from the first set of shelving. She’d recently read that romance sales were a large percentage of the market, so she planned to fill the first row of shelves with that genre—alphabetically according to the author’s last name. It would take weeks to organize the whole store, but she’d get a little bit done each day, and before she left town, folks could easily find what they wanted.
Humming as she put the first twenty books on the top shelf, Jennie Sue drifted off into her own little world, remembering how fun it had been to get dirty and sweaty in the huge garden on the Lawson farm. Even if Cricket was cool toward her and at times downright hateful, she’d still enjoyed cooking for three and having someone to eat supper with.
“Besides, I’ve lived with Charlotte Baker all my life, so Cricket doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of intimidating me,” she muttered. “I kind of like her brutal honesty. Different from the kind of girls I grew up with—or in Percy’s world.”
Looking back, that first year hadn’t been so bad. He’d been busy building up the business he and his partner had bought. A jewelry launch party or something similar filled every weekend. Not to mention the charity events where Percy tried to get new—female—clients. She’d been swept into a world that her mother loved and tried very hard to fit into it, but it bored her.
They hadn’t been married a month when he’d found water spots on the bathroom faucets and decided that the housekeepers weren’t doing it to suit him. When she asked her mother about it, Charlotte had said it was just a test to see how much she loved him.
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