Miss Janie’s Girls

by Brown, Carolyn

  Noah turned around and pulled a white hanky from his hip pocket. He gently took her hand from her face and dried her wet cheeks. Then he bent slightly and brushed a kiss across each eyelid. “Then we won’t think about it. We’ll just treasure what time we have with her.”

  Teresa laid her head on his broad chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. The steady beat of his heart assured her that Noah Jackson was a good man, one she could always depend on.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Teresa could hardly believe her eyes that Friday when she looked at the calendar on the kitchen wall. Surely the month of August couldn’t be only two days away from gone. How on earth had the month gotten away from her so fast?

  “Good morning.” Kayla stared at the coffeepot. “Why haven’t you got the coffee started?”

  “Just got here. Do you realize I’ve been here only a few days shy of a month?” Teresa asked.

  With a few deft movements, Kayla had coffee going. “And I’ve been here about three weeks. I was thinking of that last night when I went to sleep. Noah told us that the doctor said Miss Janie might make it six weeks, and if he’s right, then we don’t have a lot of time left. When I first got here, I figured the days would drag by, but just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“they’re gone. What are you going to do when she’s . . . ?” Kayla teared up. “I can’t say the word, but you know what I mean? Do you think she’ll even know us at the end?”

  “When is the big class reunion? I saw a poster in town, but I forgot when it is.” Noah entered the room and headed straight to the coffeepot. “I bet you can’t wait to see how much all those kids you graduated with have changed.”

  “This year it’s on Saturday after the homecoming football game, which is always on the first Friday in September. It used to be at the end of August, but there was a conflict in the school schedule,” Teresa said as she reached for one of the cups and carried it to the table.

  “I’m still pretty nervous about going by myself. One of y’all could be nice and go as my plus-one. I’d hate to give Prissy Wilson a black eye and not have anyone witness why I did it,” Kayla said.

  “Would that be Priscilla Wilson?” Noah asked.

  “Yep.” Teresa answered for Kayla. “She was the prettiest, most popular girl in high school, and she never let anyone forget it.”

  “I guess you haven’t read the paper from a couple of days ago, have you?” Noah carried his coffee with him and left the room.

  “Did she die?” Teresa called out.

  “Nope.” Noah returned with a newspaper in his hand and laid it on the table between them. “Third page, halfway down. She must have a lot of pull over in Sulphur Springs not to be on the front page. This is a pretty big story. I’m surprised y’all didn’t see it. I read it to Miss Janie, and she got a chuckle out of it. She was having a lucid moment and said that she wasn’t a bit surprised.”

  Teresa picked up the paper and read the headline out loud. “Local Women Busted in Prostitution Ring.”

  Kayla leaned over to read the article with Teresa. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

  “If you look on the fourth page, you’ll see that her husband has filed for divorce and custody of their three-year-old son, too. From what I read, I guess he found out that she wasn’t teaching a Bible class on the days she hired a sitter for their little boy, and he was the one who turned her in to the police,” Noah said.

  Teresa immediately wondered if that was the job Noah had done in Sulphur Springs. Had he been the very private investigator who’d discovered all this? She looked up to see a smug little smile on his face and knew, without a doubt, that her question had been answered even though a word hadn’t been spoken.

  “How the mighty have fallen.” Teresa went back and read the article again, this time slower so she could get all the details. “Miss Janie used to say that when some hoity-toity person got their just due. I can’t imagine why she and those other three would be doing something like that. They were all cheerleaders in high school, and Prissy was even the student senate president.”

  “They sure didn’t need the money,” Kayla said.

  Teresa laid the paper aside. “Must have been for the thrill.”

  “And we thought it was a thrill to get ice cream from DQ.” Kayla giggled. “Guess we’re wired different than they are.”

  Teresa immediately thought of the differences in hers and Noah’s wiring. Noah had been raised with plenty, and she’d had a horrible upbringing. Did that mean that they’d never be compatible?

  “Miss Janie didn’t have a hand in raising them,” Teresa said.

  “Amen.” Noah smiled. “If Prissy is out on bail, and I imagine that she is, then I wonder if she’ll even show her face at the reunion.”

  “She’ll probably be there and brag about how much money she made before she got caught,” Teresa said.

  “Now I can’t wait until next week.” Kayla went to the refrigerator and took out a pound of sausage. “Miss Janie loves biscuits and gravy, so that’s what we’re having this morning.”

  Teresa hardly heard the last words she spoke for the buzz in her ears caused when Noah sat down and his knee touched hers. Dammit! she thought. I’ve got to get ahead of this schoolgirl attraction or else come right out and ask him if he feels the same way I do.

  The week went by in a blur, and when the evening of the reunion arrived, Kayla understood that old saying about being as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.

  Kayla turned to one side, then the other, and even looked over her shoulder at her reflection in the mirror after she’d gotten dressed.

  “You look amazing,” Teresa said from the doorway.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” Kayla’s cheeks turned scarlet. Could her foster sister read her mind, too? Did she know that Kayla had been thinking about the biggest nerd in school?

  “I didn’t sneak up on you,” Teresa argued. “I was on my way to my room, and your door was open. I mean it. There’s no way anyone is going to outshine you at the reunion.”

  “I doubt that, but thank you, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you loaning me this dress.” Kayla took one more look at the woman in the mirror. The people who’d lived under the bridge with her would never believe that she was the same person.

  Kayla picked up a small clutch bag that matched the shoes she’d bought on sale and started downstairs with Teresa right behind her. “Are you gloating?” she asked.

  “About what?” Teresa shot right back.

  “That you could take an ugly duckling and turn it into a swan?” Kayla turned around when she reached the hallway.

  “You were only an ugly duckling in your mind. Shake it off and enjoy the evening,” Teresa told her. “Your eyes look gorgeous in that dress.”

  Kayla appreciated how close they had gotten. She had no doubts that even though they might disagree regularly, they really could run a business like the senior place together.

  Noah peeked out from Miss Janie’s room and said, “You look like you belong on the cover of a magazine.” He tossed her the keys to Miss Janie’s car. “Have a good time.”

  “Thank you.” Kayla smiled.

  Ten years ago, she’d gotten into a car with Denver in the middle of the night, and the two of them had driven south. They’d thought they were doing something really wild until they had to use all their savings to rent a travel trailer in a park outside San Antonio. Reality hit strong a few weeks later, when Kayla was the only one holding down a steady job. She realized then what a mistake she’d made in leaving Miss Janie’s house and packed her bags to go back, but Denver scared her into staying. He said that if she left him, he’d hunt her down, and no one would ever find her body. She believed him because the Bailey boys, Denver and Bowie, had a reputation for being downright mean. Thank God he hadn’t come looking for her when she finally decided that being dead would be better than living with him.

  She turned on the radio, more to
ease her own jitters than to listen to the music, but the words of every song seemed to be aimed right at her. She needed to let go of all the pent-up anger, but it had been with her so long that she’d feel empty without it.

  “And now,” the disk jockey said, “we have news in brief. The Senior Citizens on Broadway in Sulphur Springs will have a domino tournament tomorrow from one o’clock until five. A reminder that the church on Seventh Street has a food bank for anyone who is in need . . .”

  He went on, but Kayla’s mind stayed on what he’d said about the senior citizens. If she and Teresa did start a little place for the senior citizens in Birthright and the surrounding area, the old folks would have a place to come and play dominoes. They could serve them a healthy lunch each day, and they could catch up on all the gossip and news about the town.

  She was so excited about the idea that suddenly she was parking Miss Janie’s car at the school, and she didn’t even remember driving there.

  Go on inside and knock ’em dead, the voice in her head whispered.

  “Knockin’ ’em dead is for the popular girls, not me,” Kayla told her reflection in the rearview mirror.

  A six-foot-long table was set up inside the lobby, with two high school students sitting behind it. “Good evening, and who are you?” a cute little brunette with a name tag that read Emily asked.

  “Kayla Green,” Kayla answered. “Starting off like I figured,” she said under her breath. “They don’t even know me.”

  “Hey, you came,” Will Barton yelled from twenty feet down the hallway.

  “You know my uncle Will?” Emily asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Kayla answered, but her eyes were on Will. He wore khaki pants, a light-blue shirt the color of his eyes, and a smile that was so bright it lit up the long hallway.

  “He’s my favorite.” Emily laughed. “He’s so funny and sweet. Mama says he was a nerd in high school, but I don’t believe her.”

  In a few long strides, Will was right beside her. “Come with me, and I’ll show you where the party is.” He grabbed Kayla’s hand and led her down the hallway. “I’m so glad you decided to show up—you look amazing. Did you read that story about Prissy in the paper?”

  Kayla felt a little—no, it was a helluva lot of—heat rush through her body as they walked toward the cafeteria. “I couldn’t believe it. She’s always had the whole world falling down in front of her just to get to kiss her feet.”

  “She’ll pay a fine and won’t do a day’s worth of jail time, but she’s lost her husband and child because of it,” Will said.

  Kayla raised a shoulder slightly. “Makes a person wonder if she ever loved him.”

  Will’s head bobbed in agreement. “She probably married him for his money.” He opened the door to the cafeteria and stood back to let her enter first.

  “Well, hello, Will. Who is your plus-one?” Amanda, one of Prissy’s good friends and a member of her posse in high school, turned around and spoke to them.

  “It’s Kayla Green, darlin’.” Kayla put on her best Texas drawl and pointed to her name tag. “And whose plus-one are you?”

  “I’m Amanda Carson. I was voted prom queen our senior year.” Her face registered pure shock that Kayla didn’t know her. “I drove a cute little red sports car. I still have it, and I drove it here tonight.”

  “Sorry.” Kayla shrugged.

  “We only graduated eighty kids that year.” Amanda seemed determined to force Kayla to remember her.

  Kayla squinted a little and turned her head to one side and then the other. “Nope, sorry. Will, I thought we knew everyone, didn’t we?”

  “I thought we did, but maybe she’s mistaken about the year she graduated.” Will played along with a smile on his face.

  “Didn’t you graduate with my sister, Teresa, or was it a few years before that?” She leaned in a bit as if she was checking Amanda’s wrinkles. “You’re quite a bit older than us, aren’t you?”

  “No. I was in y’all’s class,” she protested. “Amanda Carson. Everyone remembers me. I’m a lawyer now.”

  “Guess not everyone. If you were in our class, you should have known us, dearie.” Kayla turned her attention to Will. “You promised me a dance. They’re playing ‘The House That Built Me.’ I love this song—it reminds me of Miss Janie’s house.”

  Will wrapped an arm around Kayla’s shoulders and led her away from Amanda and her friends. When they were in the middle of the dance floor, he took her by the hand and spun her around, then brought her to his chest and started a country waltz with her in his arms.

  “That was brilliant,” Will whispered for her ears only.

  “Thank you.” Kayla smiled up at him.

  “And funny at the same time.”

  Will’s surprising dancing skill made her feel like Cinderella. “I bet she didn’t find a bit of humor in it,” Kayla said.

  “Probably not, but let’s talk about you, not her.”

  “What do you want to know about me?” she asked.

  “Everything.”

  One minute she was lost in Will’s blue eyes. The next her back stiffened and she was frozen in the middle of the floor. Fight-or-flight adrenaline rushed through her veins, and she couldn’t run because her feet wouldn’t work. Denver and a tall, thin woman who looked like she’d just walked off a model’s runway were standing not ten feet away, talking to Amanda and her cohorts.

  “Ignore him and them, too.” Will tipped up her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. “They don’t matter. Pretend like we’re the only two people at this reunion.”

  She did what he said, but she could see her ex in her peripheral vision. He wore expensive slacks, a button-down shirt, and loafers that most likely cost more than she had made in a month as a waitress.

  She knew the minute he spotted her because his eyes went into what she called the evil mode, and he started across the floor toward her, dragging his poor woman away from Amanda and her crowd. Kayla stepped back from Will but kept her hand in his. “Hello, Denver. I wondered if you might be here this evening.”

  “Well, I never expected to see you here.” His eyes started at her toes and traveled to her hair and then back again to stare into her eyes. “This is my wife, Dotty. Dotty, these are two of my classmates, Kayla and Will.”

  Dotty stuck out a veined hand and shook hands with Kayla. “It’s so nice to meet you. This is a quaint little place, not at all like Atlanta, where we’re making our home.”

  “My pleasure.” Kayla held her cold hand a moment longer than necessary. Up close, Kayla could see that the woman was at least twenty years older than Denver, and that was being generous. She could be sixty with veins like that, but if all those diamonds that sparkled under the lights were an indication of her wealth, then Kayla knew exactly why Denver had married her.

  “There’s Bowie,” Denver said. “It was nice seeing you again, but I haven’t seen my brother since we flew into the little airport here in town. It’s sure nice to have a private plane and not have to rely on commercial flights.”

  Dotty kissed him on the cheek. “He’s such a sweetheart. The little things make him happy.”

  Oh, yeah, he’s a real darlin’, Kayla thought as the two of them walked away.

  “That woman is old enough to be his mother,” Will whispered.

  “Love must know no age limits,” she said.

  “You really are funny, but would you look who Amanda flat-out kissed on the mouth?” Will glanced that way.

  “Good God!” Kayla gasped. She hadn’t thought that anything could get weirder than Denver showing up with a woman twice his age, but Amanda and Bowie? A hotshot lawyer lady with Denver’s renegade brother—now, that would be something else to tell Miss Janie the next time she was lucid. “I wondered why he mentioned Bowie being here. He wasn’t even in our grade.”

  “I heard they were sneaking around in high school, but I didn’t really believe it. He’s two years younger than us, and he’s always going from one job to anot
her. The latest news is that he got fired again last week,” Will said. “I guess the Bailey boys like rich women, and the rich women like bad boys.”

  “Looks like it.” Kayla couldn’t take her eyes off Denver and his wife.

  Wife! The word finally sank into her brain. He wouldn’t marry Kayla, but he’d let an old gal come along with diamonds dripping off her ears and every finger and threw away all that ranting and raving about a marriage license being nothing but a piece of paper.

  “You all right?” Will threw an arm around her shoulders. “You look like you could chew up railroad spikes and spit out thumbtacks.”

  “Now who’s the funny one?” She smiled. “Thanks for being here for me, Will, and for the dance.”

  “Us misfits best stick together,” he said. “Tell the truth, I’m a little lost in this crowd. I’m sure glad you showed up, so I don’t feel like a fish out of water.”

  “Yes, we do, and I’m glad to have someone with me tonight. I’m shocked speechless, but I’m glad to see Denver tonight and to know that he’s married and out of my life.”

  “That’s called closure, my friend,” Will said.

  “That’s a beautiful word and an even more amazing feeling,” she said. “Let’s find a table and visit awhile. You can catch me up on the past ten years and tell me the names of the people I don’t recognize.”

  As luck would have it, they’d barely gotten seated when Denver and Dotty claimed the table next to them. Dotty constantly patted Denver on the shoulder or gave him cute little kisses on the cheek.

  “Guess we chose the wrong table,” Will said.

  “Nope, the exact right one. I don’t want to talk about him, though. I want to enjoy your company, and I refuse to let them spoil my evening,” Kayla said.

  “Spoken like a very wise woman. Thinking of wise women, how’s Miss Janie doing this week?” Will asked. “I loved that woman when we were in high school. She let me cry on her shoulder more than once. My freshman year was pure hell. I was bullied every day.”

  “She is still an amazing person even when she does her time travel.”