Small Town Rumors

by Carolyn Brown

  “Alfredo, steamed vegetables, salad, and fresh bread. This won’t take but forty-five minutes to get ready. I’m used to working alone,” she said.

  “Sounds great,” Rick said. “If I can’t help, I’m going out to the watermelon field and finding a dozen nice ones for my deliveries in the morning. Cricket, you want me to help you out on the back porch so you can get some fresh air?”

  “I’ll just stay put,” Cricket said. “I’m going into town tomorrow and spending the day at the bookstore. Jennie Sue invited me.”

  “Thank you,” Rick mouthed as he closed the door behind him.

  “You might want to call Nadine and Lettie and let them know your plans. They were planning on driving out here tomorrow afternoon to bring you the news.” Jennie Sue turned around so she could see Cricket.

  Cricket’s whole expression perked up. “News about what?”

  “I have no idea, but they were going to take notes so they didn’t forget anything.” Jennie Sue shaped the bread dough into a long loaf, cut a couple of slits on the top, and then boned out three chicken breasts.

  She peeked around the edge of the refrigerator to see Cricket with her phone to her ear, and, sure enough, the woman looked happy.

  Chapter Ten

  Amos strutted around like a little rooster in the store. According to him, the place hadn’t been this busy since Iris had passed away. He didn’t seem to care that most folks weren’t buying a book but rather spending time visiting with Cricket.

  “Look at her over there holdin’ court,” he said.

  “She does look happy.” Jennie Sue was glad that folks didn’t want to talk to or about her. “And I’m gettin’ a lot of work done.”

  “Store is beginnin’ to look like it did when Iris was here,” Amos said. “I love it, but I just don’t have the know-how to do what she did.”

  “I can understand that, but, Amos, I was serious when I told y’all that this is temporary. I need to get busy on résumés next week, and I hope to be gone by fall.” She ducked around the end of the next row of shelves and started working on that section.

  At noon the place had cleared out, and Amos announced that he was going to the café to buy lunch for all three of them and asked Cricket what she wanted on her burger.

  “Mayo, no pickles or onions, and tots instead of fries,” she said.

  “Same here,” Jennie Sue said from the other side of the first row of shelving. “And I’ll just have sweet tea from the fridge here, so you don’t have to carry so much.”

  When Amos was out of the store, Cricket called out, “Thank you, Jennie Sue.”

  Jennie Sue rounded the end of the bookshelf and sat down on the sofa. “Did it hurt to say those words? Do you need a pain pill?”

  “More than you’ll ever know,” Cricket admitted.

  “Why do you hate me?”

  “Hate is too strong a word for what I feel for you, Jennie Sue.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Cricket inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe I wanted all that acceptance you always had when we were growing up. You fit in and I didn’t.”

  “You may have thought so, but I always felt like an outsider with every group,” Jennie Sue said. “Did I ever tell you that I loved it when your mama brought chocolate cupcakes to our class parties? I’d really like to have her recipe for that icing. It was like a layer of fudge resting on the top of the cupcakes.”

  Cricket slowly shook her head. “That recipe is in the church cookbook now. They were homemade. I loved the ones that your mama sent to the class. Those ones from the bakery looked so pretty. My mama’s were so plain.”

  “But they tasted so much better than the bought ones. Think we’ll ever be able to be friends?”

  Another shake of the head. “Probably not, but I don’t dislike you as much as I did last week.”

  “I guess that’s a step in the right direction,” Jennie Sue said.

  “Rick says that I’m too blunt.”

  “He’s right,” Jennie Sue agreed. “But then there is an upside to that. A person knows where they stand with you.”

  “Do you always have to say something positive? It makes it real hard to hate you,” Cricket sighed.

  Before Jennie Sue could answer, Amos backed through the front door with a brown bag. “After we eat, I’m going to drive over to Abilene and visit my brother the rest of today and tonight. I’ll leave the keys on the counter, Jennie Sue, so you can lock up and open up in the morning,” Amos said. “I’m likin’ having someone three days a week. Gives me time to enjoy retirement.”

  Retirement was something in the far future for Jennie Sue, and only if she could find a job that paid well with good benefits. But change happened and couldn’t be helped.

  With wet dirt clinging to her feet that evening after supper, Jennie Sue picked green beans from vines that Rick had trained up a trellis. A hot breeze ruffled the leaves on the cornstalks, and carried Rick’s humming to her ears. Then suddenly the stalks parted and his face appeared about three feet away.

  The setting sun lit up the scar on his jaw, and his hand went to it when he caught her staring.

  “It’s ugly, I know,” he said.

  “I don’t think so.” She took a step forward and touched it.

  “Well, you are probably the only one who thinks that way.” He stepped out and sat down on a narrow strip of dirt separating the beans and corn. “Let’s take a little break. My basket is full and yours is almost overflowing.”

  She sat down beside him. “Did you hate coming back here to farm?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Surely there was something else,” she said.

  “Maybe being a security guard, but even that was iffy with this limp. What about you, Jennie Sue? What are you doing back here?”

  “Trying to talk my dad into giving me a job at the company, but I’m not having much luck. Whatever happened ended your career, right?” she asked.

  His eyes remained fixed somewhere out there near the sunset. “Yes, it did. I was treated, discharged, and released. I’ve questioned God for letting that happen to me. Twenty more steps and I’d have been in the helicopter and safe with the rest of the team. But half a step back and I would have been sent home in pieces.” He still focused on something far away.

  “I’ve done the same thing, but we both know that it’s not God’s fault. We just needed someone to blame.” She wondered if he was seeing the whole thing again, reliving it, probably not for the first time.

  Rick jerked his head around to look at her. “What are you blaming him for?”

  “Letting me be sold off like a bag of chicken feed, for one thing.”

  “What?” Rick frowned.

  She told him what her father had told her about Percy and the dowry. “No one knows that, so I’d rather you kept it a secret. It makes me feel cheap and dirty.”

  Rick reached across the distance and laid a hand on her shoulder. There was that chemistry—electricity, vibes, or whatever folks called it—again.

  “You should never feel like that, Jennie Sue.” His drawl softened. “You are an amazing woman any guy would be lucky to have beside him. Percy should be shot.”

  “I really don’t care anymore. I’m pretty much indifferent to him. If they catch him, then he can pay the consequences. If they don’t, then he’ll be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life,” she said.

  “So have you forgiven your mother?”

  “Not yet, but I’m workin’ on it. If I can’t forgive her, then it’ll sit on my heart the rest of my life. I don’t want anyone, not even my mother, to have that kind of power over me.” She covered his hand with hers. “I’m glad you survived.”

  “Well, I’m glad that I survived, too.” He nodded. “Because I get to sit in this garden with you, and we can be friends.” He cocked his head to one side. “What do you really want in life, Jennie Sue?”

  “Right now? Tomorrow
or five years down the road?” she answered with more questions.

  “All of the above,” Rick answered.

  “Right now, to see if Cricket will snap beans tomorrow at the bookstore. We could sell them in quart bags to whoever comes into the store, and it would make her feel productive. Tomorrow—to phone my mother. Five years down the road? That’s too far to think about. What about you?”

  “I want a family someday. No hurry, but that’s my long-term goal,” he said.

  “Me, too.” She glanced his way to find him staring out across the fields again. She tried to imagine where the rest of his scars were but could only see him as a perfect man in her mind.

  “I’ll hate to see you leave Bloom, but I understand. Don’t worry about all the gossip and rumors. Folks are goin’ to talk, and what they think about the way you live your life doesn’t matter.”

  He turned quickly and caught her staring. A blush dotted her cheeks, and she blinked. “It’s not a matter of what other people think of me, Rick. It’s what I think of myself, and that’ll take a while to get over, if I ever do.”

  His hand went to her shoulder again. “Don’t be so tough on yourself. You’re a victim.”

  She slowly lifted her eyes. “What about you? You’re a victim, too.”

  He nodded. “That’s what my therapist said in the hospital. But just sayin’ it isn’t like takin’ a pain pill, and it all disappears. I’ve got scars on the outside, and we both have some on the inside. Maybe God slapped us down together in Bloom, Texas, so we could help each other get through the past and move on to the future.”

  “I think a good friend is even better than a therapist,” she said.

  “Me, too, Jennie Sue.” He nodded. “It’s gettin’ pretty dark. Let’s call it a night. I’ve got plenty for the deliveries tomorrow.”

  “You are the boss.”

  He stood and stretched out a hand. She put hers in it and imagined him pulling her to his chest, holding her there and maybe even kissing her. The vision made her pulse race a little, but it didn’t happen. Once she was on her feet, he let go of her hand, and they picked up their baskets to carry back to the porch.

  “What makes you trust me? I could go tell your secret tomorrow,” he asked as he turned the faucet on that stuck out of the back of the house. In seconds a stream shot out from a short hose, and he sprayed off her feet before doing his own.

  Oh, honey, she thought. Compared to the rest of the baggage, you know very little. She wiggled her toes to air-dry them and then put on her sandals. “Because my heart says I can trust you. I’d ask you the same thing—you just told me things that Cricket doesn’t know.”

  “I feel better for tellin’ you. Kind of takes part of the burden off my chest,” he answered.

  “Me, too, Rick, but you’d better take me home now, or else Miz Lettie will get out the shotgun and insist you make an honest woman out of me,” she teased.

  “Or Dill Baker will, and believe me, darlin’, I’d be more afraid of his aim than Miz Lettie’s.” He opened the door a crack and yelled inside, “Hey, Cricket, I’m takin’ Jennie Sue home now. Anything you want from town?”

  “Not a thing,” she answered.

  A few minutes later, he was pulling into Lettie’s driveway. “Thanks for listenin’ to me tonight.”

  “That goes both ways. There’s just something about being in a garden—” She paused.

  He laid a hand on her arm. “I understand.”

  “I think you do.” Three times—or was it four?—he’d touched her that evening, and every time she’d wanted more. A kiss or even a long hug. “Good night, Rick. See you tomorrow.”

  “After I park the bookmobile at the library, I’ll come down to the bookstore. Maybe I’ll get in on the job of snapping beans, or I can help you rearrange the shelves.” He put his hand back on the steering wheel. “Thanks for all this, Jennie Sue.”

  “You are welcome, but I should thank you.”

  She hopped out of the truck and was on her way through the garage when Lettie hollered from the kitchen door, “I’ve been lookin’ for you. Come on in. We can brew up some hot chocolate and have a cookie. I’ve got news.”

  She did an abrupt turnaround and headed toward the porch, carrying her shoes.

  “I’m coming right out of the garden, so I might track in some dirt,” she called out when she reached the house.

  “I’ve got this really good cleaning lady who’ll come around in a couple of days, so I’m not worried. Pull up a chair to the table and let’s visit. Lord, I love having you close. It’s like you’re the granddaughter I never got to have,” Lettie said.

  A lump popped up in Jennie Sue’s throat. “I’d hug you, but I’m too sweaty and dirty.”

  Lettie patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll hug it out later. Hot chocolate is in the slow cooker. I make a batch every couple of weeks and then store it in the refrigerator. It’s good with a little whiskey in it on the nights when I can’t sleep. Want a little shot in yours?”

  Jennie shook her head. “I really don’t want anything at all to eat or drink, honest.”

  “Then tell me how things are going out on the farm.”

  “Just fine. We got plenty gathered in for Rick’s deliveries tomorrow, and it seems like Cricket is coming around. I kind of like her bluntness, to tell the truth. My friends in high school were the Belles’ daughters, for the most part, and in college, it was sorority sisters. I always felt like they couldn’t wait for me to leave the room so they could bad-mouth me. With Cricket, I don’t need to leave the room. If she’s got something to say, she says it.”

  Lettie picked up a cookie. “The secret to good pecan sandies is real butter. Don’t never use margarine in pecan sandies.” Lettie handed a mug of chocolate that smelled like Irish whiskey to Jennie Sue. “You can have a sip of mine just to see how good it is.”

  Jennie Sue took a small sip and rolled her eyes. “That is amazing. Next time I’ll have a cup with you.”

  “I can heat you up a cup anytime. Didn’t you make friends in New York?”

  “A few, but when Percy divorced me, they stopped invitin’ me to anything or even callin’. Tell the truth, when I left, I didn’t have a single person to tell goodbye except the IRS guy who wanted the keys to the apartment and my car,” she said.

  “How did you live like that?” Lettie shook her head in disbelief.

  “It was just the way things were. You said you had something to tell me,” Jennie Sue answered and reached for a cookie. Just one, because anything with real butter and fresh pecans had to be good.

  “Yes, I surely do. Your mama and her little Sweetwater bitches are coming home earlier than they’d planned. Remember when we talked about Belinda bein’ sick? Well, it ain’t got nothing to do with the food at the spa. She’s pregnant.” Lettie picked up a cookie and dipped it in her Irish coffee.

  Jennie Sue wasn’t sure that she could utter a word, but when she opened her mouth, they came tumbling out like marbles from a soup can. “Good Lord! How did you find that out? They’ve got a rule about not telling anything on each other except to the members in the club.”

  “The rumor pipeline reaches to far places,” Lettie laughed. “Take a bite of that cookie and tell me what you think.”

  Jennie Sue rolled her eyes. “Oh. My. Goodness. This is amazing. Belinda is pregnant? Her girls must both be at least twenty years old.”

  “Fattenin’ as hell, but worth every bite,” Lettie said. “And Belinda’s daughters are both over twenty. Thinkin’ of mothers and daughters, you need to make up with your mama. If I had a daughter like you, I’d bend over backward to keep her happy. But that ain’t Charlotte’s way. If it means that you can’t clean for me, then I can live with that. But even in this short while, we’ve become close enough that I don’t ever want you to have regrets about bein’ my friend.”

  Jennie Sue laid a hand on Lettie’s arm. “I’ll talk to Mama, I promise, but I will not have regrets. I’m happier than I’
ve been since I was a little girl and Mabel took care of me.”

  Lettie dabbed at her eyes with the tail of her apron. “That woman has the kindest heart in the whole world.”

  “Yes, she does. Thanks for the cookies and chocolate. I should be gettin’ up to my place for a shower,” Jennie Sue said.

  “Refill your cup and take half a dozen cookies with you. You might need a little bedtime snack before you turn in,” Lettie said.

  She gave Lettie a hug before she left. After a shower, she crawled up in the middle of her bed and replayed the day, the funny moments, the sad ones, but most of all the emotional ones.

  “Thank you, Cricket and Rick and Lettie and Nadine.” She yawned and pulled back the covers. “Enemies, frenemies, or friends.”

  Chapter Eleven

  When she was a child, Jennie Sue had often wondered if she was even related to her mother. Charlotte was a night owl, staying up until the wee hours of the morning and then sleeping until almost noon every day. Jennie Sue was the opposite. She liked to be in bed by ten and was awake at the crack of dawn. She loved the quietness of the early morning and had missed that in New York, the city that never slept. But what she liked even more in the rural area of Texas was the smell of morning—fresh dew on green grass, maybe the scent of dirt coming from a neighbor plowing a field or a soft breeze blowing across the roses. Those kinds of things couldn’t be faked with a scented candle.

  That Thursday morning she sat on her tiny little balcony and gazed out across the trees. Three miles away was her folks’ place, but it might as well have been eight thousand miles and several time zones.

  “Why can’t she like me as much as she does her girlfriends? Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t feel the need to pay someone to marry me,” Jennie Sue whispered and then sighed. “I’ll call her tonight. I promise,” she vowed to the universe. “Maybe since she and her little buddies have had a fallin’-out, she’ll be a little softer.”