Small Town Rumors

by Carolyn Brown

  Nadine patted one shoulder from the back seat, and Lettie clamped a hand on the other one. “It’s all right,” they said at the same time.

  “Let it out,” Nadine said. “It’s natural for little things to set off the grief.”

  Jennie Sue straightened up and hiccuped. “It’s not fair.” She slapped the steering wheel. “Mama was coming around to understand that I was my own person. It’s not fair that I didn’t have more time with her and that neither of them will ever see my children.”

  “Now, honey, that’s not true,” Nadine said softly. “They are with your little Emily Grace right now, taking care of her for you.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Jennie Sue asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Nadine answered.

  “I want children,” Jennie Sue said softly. “I want a whole house full of them, not just one, and I don’t want to wait forever to start a family.”

  Lettie raised an eyebrow. “Are you tellin’ us something?”

  “No, but I wish I was.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A big lovers’ moon hung low in the sky with a gazillion stars twinkling around it when Jennie Sue brought the Cadillac to a stop in front of the Lawson house. She fortified herself with a deep breath and slung open the car door. She stomped across the lawn, trying to build up a bigger head of steam with each step. Rick was not going to treat her this way. She refused to feel like something that had been thrown into the trash when it was no longer usable.

  She rapped on the door frame and waited a few seconds. Then she grabbed the handle, determined that she’d go in without an invitation if she had to.

  “Come on in,” Cricket yelled.

  She poked her head in the door. Cricket was sitting on the sofa with her leg on the coffee table. “He’s not here. He’s down at the creek pouting. And the deed to this place is in the name of Richard or Edwina Lawson. That means I have a say-so without his signature, and I say you can have an easement across the property if you want to build a house back there by the creek.”

  “Faster than the speed of light,” Jennie Sue said.

  “Telephone, telegraph, tell-a-woman. The three things that are faster than lightning and twice as deadly.” Cricket nodded.

  “Thank you.” Jennie Sue started to shut the door.

  “Want to take a club with you? He’s pretty hardheaded,” Cricket yelled.

  “Maybe I can handle it without violence.” Jennie Sue closed the door.

  “If you can’t, call me. I’ll bring my crutches.”

  Jennie Sue cracked the door back open. “Is he really that upset? And why?”

  “He’s in the same place he was when he came home from the service. He won’t talk, and all he does is brood. If you can get him out of that, then you should put in a therapy room in the bookstore and hang out a shingle to help people,” Cricket said. “And then I might even like you as a friend and not hate you at all.”

  “You’d do that for him?” Jennie Sue asked.

  “Of course. He’s my brother,” Cricket answered.

  Jennie Sue headed around the house toward the creek. She found Rick, sitting against the old oak tree with a mound of small rocks beside him. One by one he was tossing them out into the water. When he ran out of rocks, he waded out into the creek, gathered them back up in his shirttail, and went back to the tree to repeat the process.

  If throwing rocks was therapy, then Jennie Sue figured that she should try it. “But I sure haven’t got the time to gather up a whole pile of them,” she whispered.

  She looked around and found one the size of a softball and hurled it through the air. It hit the moon’s reflection right smack in the middle and splashed water all the way to Rick.

  “Well, that didn’t cure anything. We still have to talk,” she muttered as she started toward him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.

  “I came to talk, so you need to clean off a spot because I intend to have a hissy fit, and once a Wilshire woman sets her mind to have one of those, it takes some territory.”

  “Oh, really?” His tone didn’t change.

  “I’ve given you plenty of time to get over your pissy attitude and grow up, so now you have aggravated me, and you’ll have to suffer the wrath of your stupidity.” She sat down beside him but kept a foot of distance between them.

  “I’m not stupid. I’m dealing with this the best way I know how,” he protested.

  “Is this about money?”

  “I am a disabled vet, Jennie Sue. I won’t ever be anything else. I grow vegetables and peddle them for enough money to keep the place running. My pissy mood will pass. It did in the hospital when I was injured, and it will again.”

  She slapped him on the arm. “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “Yes, dammit! It’s about the money. I won’t have people sayin’ that I’m a kept man.”

  “Did I propose to you?” she asked.

  “No, you did not,” he grumbled.

  “Didn’t you hear the latest news? I’m selling everything and giving it to the poor and needy. I am keepin’ Mama’s car, because I need something to get around in since you are being so hateful and won’t give me rides in your truck. And I’m buying the five acres right behind that fence back there so I can build a small frame house just like I want.”

  “You did what?” He raised his voice. “And you call me stupid? That land has no road access.”

  “I’m going to come across your land,” she told him bluntly.

  “The hell you are. I’m not signing an easement.”

  “Your sister already said that she would, and it’s a done deal. And for your information, I’m mad at you,” she said. “Hell’s bells, Rick Lawson, you let me think we had the start of a good relationship, and then you dump me. I must be worth less than nothing. One man gets paid to marry me and still leaves me high and dry when the money runs out; the next one that comes into my life leads me on and then throws me out like yesterday’s newspaper because I have a little bit of money.” She stopped to take a breath and then went on. “Looks like I can’t win for losing. I’m leaving now. You can sit here in your self-pity and pout the rest of your life.”

  She’d taken about a dozen steps when suddenly she was lifted off the ground in a swoop. The hot night air blew her hair back away from her face as she struggled to free herself.

  “Put me down right now,” she screamed.

  Her arms flailed against him, and when she could see his face, it was etched in stone. Finally, he dropped her right into the cold creek water. “That ought to cool you down.”

  She reached out with one hand and grabbed his good leg and gave it a hard tug. He landed right beside her. “You’re the one who’s all hot under the collar. And you are a self-righteous hypocrite.”

  “Oh, yeah, what makes me that horrible?” He pulled himself up on his elbow.

  She splashed water in his face. “You’ve said at least twenty times since we’ve been friends that you don’t like gossip, and now here you are fighting against what we have because people might have something to say about it.”

  He returned the favor, soaking what little dry threads were left on her shirt. She cupped his face in both hands and kissed him long and hard. And when that kiss ended, she shifted her weight until she was sitting in his lap.

  “Did you really give all your money to a charity?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t. That’s just what we’re going to tell people.”

  “Are you really going to buy that land and build a house?”

  She nodded. “I can imagine my house sitting right back there, and it makes me happy. When I think of living anywhere else, I’m sad. Besides, from here, I can walk to the garden and not have to drive.”

  He buried his face in her wet hair. “What if someday you have regrets?”

  “I don’t think that day will ever come.” She snuggled down closer to his chest so she could listen to his steady heartbeat.
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  Cricket hit the “Snooze” button when the alarm went off. It was the day that she had to go to the doctor, and hopefully he’d give her a walking boot, and say that she could throw the crutches away. But the appointment wasn’t until ten o’clock, and she sure wasn’t looking forward to riding to Sweetwater and back with her moody brother.

  When the alarm buzzed the second time, she put a pillow over her head and slapped it again. The third time, she threw the pillow across the room and turned it off. Jennie Sue had spent a long time with Rick at the creek the night before, so hopefully she’d gotten through to him on some level. If she hadn’t, Cricket hoped that she hadn’t mentioned the easement idea. That would be a huge sore spot.

  “And I sure don’t want to be stuck in a truck with him all morning in that case,” Cricket mumbled as she headed toward the bathroom.

  She was reaching for the knob when the door swung open, and there was Jennie Sue, wearing nothing but a towel around her body and a big smile on her face.

  “Good mornin’, Cricket. When you get back from the doctor’s office, would you like for Rick to drop you at the bookstore? I could use the company,” she said.

  Cricket was speechless until she heard her brother whistling in the bedroom down the hallway. In that moment, she didn’t care where Jennie Sue had slept the night before or what people would say about it. Rick only whistled or hummed when he was happy, and that was worth everything to her.

  “I’d love to. Want me to bring some takeout Chinese from Sweetwater? I could pick it up after my appointment,” Cricket said.

  “Sounds amazing.” Jennie Sue padded down the short hallway and closed Rick’s bedroom door behind her.

  Brushing her teeth and putting her unruly hair into a ponytail wasn’t an easy feat while standing on one foot, but Cricket managed. When she finished, the aroma of coffee filled the whole house. She spent a little extra time getting dressed, halfway dreading the awkward moment when she made it to the kitchen. Would they be all lovey-dovey with each other, or would it be just winks and nudges? She finally headed that way, only to be surprised to find Rick alone when she arrived.

  She looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Jennie Sue?”

  “She stuffed a biscuit with bacon and said she’d eat it on the way to work,” he answered. “I hear you gave her verbal rights to cross our place to get to her land when she buys it.”

  “Yep, I did.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. She absolutely loved this little house where they’d lived their whole lives. A cozy living room, small dining area, and kitchen built for two people at the most. Nothing like the huge place where Jennie Sue had grown up. Three bedrooms, one of which was still the same as the day her dad died, because she couldn’t bear to change what had been his and her mother’s. One bathroom that she and Rick had fought over in their teenage years. She’d sat in his bedroom for hours after he’d left for the military and wished that he’d stayed closer to home.

  “So what are you thinkin’ about right now?” He set a plate of food in front of her. “You look like you’re seeing ghosts.”

  “I think I just might be. We didn’t often have friends that slept over, Rick. I don’t know how to put it in words, but it doesn’t feel weird that Jennie Sue spent the night, that we are sharing our home with her,” Cricket said.

  Rick turned around so quick that he almost dropped his plate of food. “Would you repeat that? I’ve been preparing myself for a lecture lasting from now until we get back from your appointment.”

  Cricket frowned at him. “Brother, after the way you’ve acted the past few days, I wouldn’t fuss if you slept with the devil’s sister.”

  He wiggled his dark brows. “Sleep?”

  “I do not want or need to know details.” She covered her ears with her hands. “La-la-la. Changing the subject—I’m sure hoping that the doctor lets me throw away these crutches today. And when we’re finished, I’m buying Chinese takeout to bring to the bookstore to have lunch with Jennie Sue. Want to join us?”

  “Love to, and since I don’t have a bookmobile trip today, I might just hang around for a while. Are you really going to take that job and be her partner in the store?” he asked as he sat down across the table from her.

  “Yes, I am. I made up my mind last night. And Jennie Sue says we might start some programs, like a reading hour, a couple of times a week for children. I’d love that,” she answered.

  “Think maybe I could read to them once in a while? It’d be a way to get them to visit the bookmobile, too.”

  Cricket finished off the last of her biscuit. “I’m sure you could. If someone had told you a month ago that we’d be talkin’ about these things, would you have believed them?”

  “Nope.” He set about eating his breakfast.

  Lettie and Nadine were waiting by the bookstore door when Jennie Sue arrived that morning. Lettie had a covered pan of something that smelled like one of her famous breakfast casseroles, and Nadine carried a covered bowl of biscuits.

  “You didn’t come home last night. You are wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday morning, although they do smell like they’ve been washed and dried, and you’ve got a smile on your face that suckin’ on a lemon couldn’t erase. Open the door and let’s hear all about it,” Nadine said.

  Jennie Sue found the right key on her mother’s key chain to the door and stood to one side to let them enter first. “What happens on the farm stays on the farm, and I might not come home lots of times.”

  “Did you sleep on the sofa because your good friend Cricket said you could have the easement? Or did you get lucky and sleep somewhere else?” Lettie wiggled her finger at Jennie Sue after she set the casserole on the table. “I’ll make some coffee and get plates.”

  “Like I said, what happens on the farm . . .” Jennie Sue followed her.

  “It was somewhere other than the sofa or she wouldn’t be grinnin’.” Nadine was right behind them.

  “How many times have either of you stayed out all night?” Jennie Sue turned the conversation around.

  “We’d have to take off our shoes to count, but it’s been years. We love living vicariously through you. So give us some details about something!” Lettie said.

  “Well, Rick was whistling when I left, and when I was coming out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around me, I ran into Cricket. And that’s all the details I’m tellin’.” Jennie Sue set three mugs by the coffeepot.

  “Oh! My! God!” Nadine squealed. “I bet Cricket is givin’ him hell.”

  “I don’t think so. She didn’t seem mad and even offered to bring takeout for us to share after her doctor’s appointment this morning. Coffee is done. Let’s go have breakfast.” Jennie Sue picked up three disposable plates and some plastic cutlery.

  Lettie swept a hand through the air. “The Bloom News headline of the day will read, ‘Oil Heiress Loses Her Mind.’”

  “And the picture would be one of you lookin’ like a drowned rat when you got back to the farmhouse from the creek.” Nadine filled three mugs.

  Jennie Sue almost dropped the plates and forks. “How did you know that I got wet at the creek?”

  “Didn’t until now.” Nadine picked up a couple of the mugs. “Never underestimate the powers of an old woman diggin’ around for details.”

  All three of them went back to the front part of the store and took their seats again. Lettie took her place on the sofa and removed the cover from the food. Nadine pushed the mugs around to the right places. Jennie Sue set the plates on the small table.

  “Do you love that boy?” Lettie asked.

  Nadine dug into the food first. “She slept with him, didn’t she?”

  Lettie tucked her chin against her chest and looked over the top of her glasses at her sister. “Did you ever spend the night with a guy you didn’t love?”

  “More than once,” Nadine said. “Sometimes it involved liquor, and sometimes it was just plain old lust. You want to talk about Everett Johnson?”<
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  Lettie adjusted her glasses. “Maybe not Everett, but we could discuss his johnson.”

  “Lettie Clifford!” Nadine gasped.

  “Well, you brought it up,” Lettie argued, and then started laughing. Jennie Sue joined her.

  Nadine slapped her on the arm. “Did you really have sex with Everett? Why? You never did like him.”

  “Liking him didn’t have anything to do with it. I had a one-night stand with Everett to make Flora mad. She’d been trying to get him to ask her out for years, and he wouldn’t. I didn’t feel like I was as pretty as her, but then one thing led to another.” Lettie shrugged.

  “Why would you want to make your sister mad?” Jennie Sue asked, glad that the subject had shifted away from where she’d slept the night before.

  “She borrowed my earrings without asking, and that night, she said that I was too ugly to ever get a guy,” Lettie answered. “Here comes Amos. I swear, that man can smell food a mile away.”

  “Especially homemade. You could flirt with him. He likes to eat and you like to cook. Y’all would make a good couple,” Nadine whispered.

  “Sorry, but his last name isn’t Johnson,” Lettie told her as the bell above the door sounded. “Hello, Amos. Had breakfast yet? We’ve got plenty. Go get a plate from the office.”

  “Nope, I haven’t, and yes, I would love to join y’all.” He removed his hat and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I was down at the café this mornin’, and I heard that you had a baby last year. I came to say that I’m sorry. If I’d known, we would have come to the funeral,” Amos said.

  Jennie Sue stood up and hugged him. “Thank you, Amos.”

  “Bless your heart. Losin’ your sweet little baby and then your parents all within a year. It’s got to be tough, but we’re here for you.” He motioned to include Lettie and Nadine. “You just call us if you need anything.”

  “You got that right.” Lettie nodded.