by Tina Leonard
Sugar blinked. “Is there a good reason to investigate?”
“There always is.” Lucy flipped the book open. “Oh, look at Jake in his little swimsuit.”
She stared at a picture of Jake on the beach with a shovel and bucket, next to a tall, dark-haired woman wearing Ava Gardner sunglasses and a Betty Grable swimsuit. “Women really did seem more glamorous back then,” she murmured.
Lucy flipped the page. “Our photos of Maggie don’t quite look like this. I think Vivian may have been raised a bit more gently, as they say.”
Sugar seated herself cross-legged on the hardwood floor next to her sister. “Where’s Jake’s father?”
“Not in this book, at least not yet.” Lucy pointed at the carefully written captions beneath each photo. “Here we have Jake in the first-grade Pecan Creek Christmas play. He was one of Santa’s elves.”
Jake’s slightly mischievous brown eyes shone with delight, even in the old color photo. “Pecan Creek loves its Christmas season.”
“Yeah, what else is there to do in a small town? You gotta love the fat man and the dead man, or you don’t have a holiday.”
Sugar drew back from her sister. “Lucy!”
“What? I’m just saying. Holidays are about fairy tales, aren’t they?”
Sugar sighed. “I’m going to bed.”
Lucy snapped the book shut. “I’m going into town to check on Maggie.”
“Why?” Sugar looked at her sister as she jumped to her feet and shoved the photo album back into the cabinet.
“Because I’m afraid, that’s why. I don’t trust Jake. I don’t know why he’s sticking Maggie with being mayor, but I’ve never heard of a small town electing a woman they’ve only known for a few days with the job unless there’s a problem.”
Sugar got to her feet, slightly alarmed. “Maggie can take care of herself.”
“Can she?” Lucy began clopping down the wooden stairs. “Do we want to find out?”
Sugar hesitated. Lucy didn’t trust anyone. Jake seemed nice enough to her. Maggie liked him; she’d said so.
Then again, Lucy had a point. It wouldn’t hurt to tag along so Maggie wouldn’t feel like Lucy was being overprotective. They could say that they’d simply come to meet some of the folks in the town, and thank Jake’s mom for the delicious apple pie.
It really hadn’t been that good. Sugar thought Mrs. Bentley had bought the pie at a bakery and put it on her own disposable plate with a doily before abandoning it on their doorstep with a cursory welcome note.
“I’ll go with you,” Sugar said, fast on Lucy’s heels.
Chapter Three
Vivian Bentley was the soul of poker face, Southern charm and impeccable good manners.
She was also, Sugar thought, like a mannequin who’d been left unattended too long. Stiff. Cold. Unbending.
Sugar and Lucy watched from the back of the old courthouse, which appeared to house a few jail cells, this gathering room and probably the catacombs of Pecan Creek. Lucy had simply looked on the town square for Jake’s black truck, and from there it was easy to follow the lights and the sound of voices. Maggie sat upright like she was at an interrogation. Jake’s mother—it had to be Vivian; none of the other three ladies had the ramrod formal, elegant bearing Sugar recognized from the photo album—stared at Maggie with little warmth.
“Maggie has generously offered to be our mayor,” Jake said, and Sugar strained to listen. “Since we’re looking for a figurehead mayor, so to speak, I present Ms. Maggie Cassavechia to the town council for consideration.”
“Really, Jake,” Vivian said, “you don’t want to burden our newcomer with town duties right away.” Vivian’s smile stretched at Maggie, who looked back at her, transfixed like she was in front of a cobra. Even from fifty paces back, Sugar could tell the smile masked annoyance.
“We don’t really need a mayor, do we?” another gray-haired woman asked.
“Although I’m sure you’d do a lovely job, Maggie,” a lady said. Her sweet face was bright in the unforgiving lights of the courthouse room.
“I think Maggie would make a fabulous mayor for us.” An older lady with a tall hairdo and starched clothes pinned Vivian with a meaningful gaze. “Peachy idea, Vivian. We owe you a debt of gratitude, Maggie, for agreeing to this. Welcome to Pecan Creek.”
Vivian seemed to sit straighter in her blue shirtwaist dress. Sugar was fairly certain Jake’s mother was faking her charm school diploma right now. She smiled syrupy-sweet at her son. “We’ll certainly give it some thought. Maggie, can we offer you some coffee?”
“Maybe with a little strychnine in it?” Lucy hissed in Sugar’s ear.
“You should come to our Bible meetings on Sunday mornings,” the tall woman said, “and we have a book chat on Wednesday night. We’d love to have you join us.”
There was definitely a power struggle being waged, but Sugar couldn’t tell who was on what team.
“Yes,” Vivian said, her gaze on her son. “We would so love to have you join us, Maggie. I’m sure you could contribute a fresh point of view to our meetings.”
Maggie seemed flustered. “Thank you.”
“They don’t like her,” Lucy whispered to Sugar. “Those bitches.”
“How can you tell?” Vivian was probably always a little frosty. Maggie had been known to wear down the frostiest of people. Eventually, everyone loved Maggie.
“They’re waiting on Vivian to give the nod to really warm up to Mom.” Lucy grimaced. “Only that tall battle-ax has stood up for Mom.”
“And Jake.”
Lucy gave her a sharp glance. “Jake is using Mom. He’s not standing up for her. The fink. Wait till I get my hands on him.”
Sugar blinked. She watched Maggie dig around in her purse.
“I’m sorry, there’s no smoking allowed in the courthouse, of course,” Vivian said.
“I was getting a piece of gum.” Maggie pulled a stick from her purse. “Want one?”
The four women opposite Maggie shook their heads. Jake took a stick, popping it into his mouth with gusto.
“I’m going down there.”
Sugar grabbed her sister’s arm. “No! Let Maggie win them over.”
“Why?” Lucy bristled. “They aren’t interested in her being the may—”
“Anyway,” Jake’s booming voice came to them all the way up the aisle, “if Maggie doesn’t mind being mayor, that leaves the rest of you free to be ambassadors of good will.”
“Really, Jake.” Vivian’s voice was sharp. “We don’t need ambassadors. Pecan Creek is good will.”
“You could have fooled me,” Lucy said on a hiss. Sugar patted her sister’s arm once more.
“Perhaps a man is what you’re really looking for,” Maggie said.
Vivian drew back.
“In a mayor, I mean,” Maggie said, floundering.
Jake stood and helped Maggie to her feet. “Possibly a male mayor is exactly what the council had in mind. Vivian, Charlotte, Dodie, Minda, I’ll see you at the next meeting.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Maggie said, and Vivian inclined her head. The other ladies each offered her a hand but with little enthusiasm.
“That’s it,” Lucy snapped. “I’m taking Mom home.”
She strode down the aisle toward Maggie. Sugar followed.
“Oh, here are my daughters, Jake,” Maggie said, sounding more braced. “Ladies, I’d like to introduce you to my daughters, Lucy and Sugar.”
Sugar put out a hand. She got the same limp-wristed treatment her mother had gotten. Lucy didn’t bother. Vivian’s gaze locked on Sugar first, then Lucy.
“Well,” Vivian said, “these are the people to whom you rented our house, Jake?” Her gaze traveled from Lucy’s short brown Uggs to her rhinestone navel ring just above her cut-off sweat pants with glittered Victoria’s Secret lettered up the side. Lucy’s chin-length red hair had frizzed in the August heat and the warm kitchen, making her look like a wiry doll. Vivian’s gaze move
d to Sugar, checking out her short-shorts, her pigtails, thumb ring and, Sugar was certain, her chipped toe nails.
Screw her, Sugar thought. Lucy’s right. She’s from the school of cold-and-clammy. I’ve seen corpses with more body heat. Jake must get his warmth from the other side of the family.
Then again, he did set my mother up for this charade.
“Come on, Maggie,” she said, taking her mother’s arm. “Good night, ladies.”
Jake took her mother’s other arm. Lucy followed after them, and Sugar could almost feel her sister throwing more vavoom into her hips as she stalked off.
“We’ll take Maggie home,” Sugar told Jake.
Jake reluctantly released Maggie’s arm. “Are you sure? I brought her, I—”
“I’m quite sure,” Sugar said. Lucy and Maggie got into Sugar’s old Oldsmobile. “Do you mind telling me what that was all about?”
Jake shook his head. “I miscalculated. I’m sorry.”
“You miscalculated? You let a pack of cats go on my mother and all you can say is you miscalculated?” Sugar glared at him. “You asshole.”
She got into the car, gunning the engine so Jake would know she was good and ticked and backed up fast, making him jump back a foot.
Lucy giggled. “What a bunch of wooden dummies.”
“I liked them,” Maggie said. “Why’d you drag me off?”
“Because they were being rude, Mom.” Sugar glanced over at her mother. “They don’t want you to be the mayor.”
“So? I don’t want to be a mayor. I don’t want to be anything. I just want to be.” She lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. “They’re just a little set in their ways.”
“They’re a lot set in their ways.” If she saw Jake too soon, she was going to slap him silly for subjecting Maggie to that. “The casting for Norman Bates’s mother could be any one of those women.”
“I don’t care how frozen they are,” Maggie said. “I’m not trying to sleep with them, for heaven’s sake.”
“Who would?” Lucy asked.
“They looked at us like we were termites.” Sugar shuddered, remembering Vivian’s piercing glare on her sister’s clothes. “Cockroaches.”
“You girls are too sensitive,” Maggie said, and her voice was so cheerful that Sugar just shut her mouth and drove home in silence.
“Jake, a word, if you can spare a moment.”
Jake watched Sugar’s long blue ragtop Oldsmobile fade into the distance. “Sure.”
“What exactly do you think you are doing by renting our house to those people?” Vivian asked.
He couldn’t say he hadn’t known this was coming—just perhaps not this soon. “Where do you expect me to find the kind of people you want? Blue-blooded, wealthy, well-heeled aristocrats don’t just drop out of the sky into Pecan Creek looking to rent a rundown house decorated like Rancho Sex-o.”
Vivian drew in a sharp breath. “Those rooms are art.”
Jake sighed. “They are not art, unless it’s art you’d find— Never mind, Mom. The Cassavechias are nice people.”
“A little class would be nice, Jake. That’s what would have been nice. Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?”
“Embarrassing to whom? I’m not embarrassed. I was over there today, and they’re taking great care of the house. Between the repairs I’ve done and the flowers they’ve planted, the place looks alive again.”
Vivian’s brown eyes pierced him. “The young one is trash, a slut. The mother is a trollop. I don’t even know what to say about the oldest daughter except that she seems tough.” Vivian’s voice rose. “They all look low class, Jake. Like fifty miles of bad road.”
He’d thought Maggie was a pretty soft cookie, actually, and Sugar wore her heart in her eyes. She tried to be a general, but she was trying to keep everything together. Lucy, he’d grant, was nobody’s fool. “You’ve got a bit of toughness in you too, Mom. And you know,” he said, his voice softening, “we haven’t rented the place in over two years. It was time.”
“The family home,” Vivian said bitterly.
“Yeah, and Dad’s not coming back.” Jake took no joy in the pain that flared in his mother’s eyes. “He’s not. He found another woman years ago, and he’s made a life with her, and he’s gone. That’s it. Over. One day, you’ll have to accept it.”
Vivian’s shoulders slumped. “They’re trouble, Jake. You don’t think I recognize trouble when I see it?” She gazed at her son’s unmoving face for a few moments, then seemed to realize Jake had no intention of bending. She turned and walked away. Jake watched her go, hating himself for saying anything, for shattering his mother’s illusions that she wrapped herself in, but Sugar had a right to be upset. Vivian had been rude as hell to Maggie, and as far as he could tell, there was no reason to turn away good money just for the sake of illusion.
The fact was, Sugar wasn’t the kind of woman he’d throw out of his bed for eating crackers. He wasn’t about to toss her out of his house just because Vivian’s self-righteous standards had been violated.
Entry #1, August, midnight
Dear Journal,
This move may have been a mistake. A big one. Like, hellishly big.
But we’re all together—right?
Sugar
Chapter Four
“Sweet Jesus! Jake, you gotta come quick!” Kel practically fell into the Bait and Burgers basement the next morning while Jake was taking inventory of food stock, liquor and, most especially, paper napkins. Folks tended to hate eating burgers without sufficient napkins to sop up the juiciness of what Jake considered the best burgers in Texas. Unhappy customers meant bad word of mouth.
Kind of like Sugar last night—all kinds of bad word of mouth. He couldn’t blame her for being pissed. The problem was, he hadn’t yet figured out how to fix it. “I can’t leave, Kel. What’s going on?”
“You’re never going to believe this.” Kel glanced around, his eyes wild, his hair standing straight up. “They’re lying out with no tops on, bare as the day they came into this world. And I was right. Lucy’s tits are the stuff of legend.”
Jake held back a groan. “Who is they?”
“All three of those ladies from Flo-rid-ah.” Kel looked like he was about to pop a coronary. “You never saw such a beautiful thing in your whole life, I swear it. It’s even better than Playmate of the Month in triplicate. Holy shit, I think I’m gonna fall out.”
Jake shoved Kel into a chair. “How the hell could you have seen them without their tops on? Aren’t the Cassavechias in the backyard?”
The backyard was private, protected by board-on-board fence. He’d installed it himself. There wasn’t room for an ant to shinny through.
“I was— Don’t be mad, but you’d said the roof needed shingles, so I went over to see if I could put some up.” Kel waved at the air with a big paw. “And when I looked down, there they were, just like God intended his angels to be.”
Jake closed his eyes for a brief moment. “Look. You had no business being up there without telling them.” For a moment, he wondered what Sugar’s breasts looked like glistening in the sun, then shoved the unworthy thought away. “You have to tell them when you’re going over to do a repair.”
“They’re renters,” Kel said, as if renters didn’t deserve courtesy, “and I was trying to help. Actually, I was trying to make some money, but that was worth it.” Kel looked like he’d died and gone to heaven.
Jake shoved a twenty in Kel’s hand. “Thanks for trying. Now this is what you’re going to do. Go arrange for a babysitter, and I want you to take Debbie out for a nice dinner. A long one, just the two of you.” He fished a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and crammed that in Kel’s meaty fist too. “And a hotel room. You need to spend time alone with your wife.”
“Even the old lady’s got a great set of knockers,” Kel said, his voice hushed and reverent. “After all the shit we saw in Iraq, that almost made up for it, Jake. Almost.” He closed his eyes, overcome.
Jake shook his head. After a moment, he realized Kel had completely blown himself out. All the excitement had totally short-circuited his big, hammy brain. “Damn,” Jake muttered, sitting down to ponder the situation.
The Cassavechias weren’t hurting anything. It was their backyard. No one else was likely to get on top of the roof. After a moment, Jake went back to counting inventory. It had to be a Florida thing, lying around without tops on. Ladies in Pecan Creek would rather be caught picking their noses in church than topless. He was pretty certain that was no exaggeration. Once you were blackballed in Pecan Creek, you were done for. It was almost impossible to get back into the good graces if one was given the not-so-ladylike finger.
Pecan Creek’s social register was tighter than a nun’s ass crack.
But he could understand Kel’s coronary. Sugar’s long legs in those short white shorts she’d worn last night to the courthouse had given him erotic dreams the likes of which he hadn’t had in years. Underscore hot dreams with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a year, and it was time to call out the fire department.
He wondered if he should call the ladies up and warn them that they’d been seen. After last night, he figured Sugar didn’t want any more help from him. He was still trying to figure out the best way to go about an apology.
“This is the hottest August I believe we’ve ever had,” Kel said, still in the grip of Lucy-incited emotion. “You remember when we were on patrol in Iraq, and you picked up that spent mortar because you were worried it was a live one and you didn’t want it going off on our unit? You said that mortar was so hot you nearly shat your pants. You said that if there was a hell, it was probably hot as that,” Kel said, his voice dreamy as he remembered. “That’s how I felt today. Like I’d seen something so goddamn hot I’d probably shat my pants.”
Jake shook his head, feeling sorry for his buddy. Numbnuts.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Sugar’s breasts—”