Chenille hung up the phone and rushed to the living room. Her sister clung to the counter for support.
“What an awful woman she turned out to be!” Chenille said.
“I’m the awful one,” Chiffon said, bent over as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I cheated on my husband, and I’m not even sure who Gabby’s father is.” She refused to meet her sister’s gaze. “I can’t imagine what you must think about me.”
Chenille picked up her sister’s chin and looked her square in the eyes. “I think you’ve been through the wringer and you’ve handled yourself with a lot of courage and style.”
“Oh, Chenille,” Chiffon said, burying her face in her sister’s chest as she wept. “I can’t believe this has happened!”
Chenille held her sister close as she heaved out her sobs. Once her cries had diminished into a few stalled sniffles, Chiffon weakly lifted her head and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Chenille said with a smile. “Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want some sort of treat to eat?”
Roughly wiping away the streaks of tears on her face with her fists, Chiffon regarded Chenille with swollen eyes. “Nothing personal, but I think we have different ideas about treats. Carob cookies just ain’t going to cut it for me today.”
Chenille handed her sister a fresh tissue from the box on the coffee table. “I was thinking more of a DQ run.”
“Dairy Queen?” Chiffon said, cocking her head. “What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve seen their advertisements for a dessert called the Triple Chocolate Utopia. It sounded so decadent it made me think of you.” Chenille picked up her car keys and jingled them in her hand. “Interested?”
Chiffon blew her nose. Gorging on massive amounts of chocolate with her sister wouldn’t resurrect the ruins of her life with Lonnie, but it could make her predicament slightly easier to bear.
“I’ll get my shoes.”
Twenty-Four
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
~ Sign in the break room at the Bottom Dollar Emporium
Chenille sat across from Miss Beezle at the Wagon Wheel, marveling at how unchanged her old high school teacher looked after twenty years. Same carefully coiffed corona of white hair. Same smear of hot-pink lipstick. Same harlequin eyeglass frames.
“Chenille, do stop slouching so.”
Same crabby demeanor. With a round little face and blue eyes, Miss Beezle resembled Mrs. Claus, but there was nothing merry or motherly about her.
Chenille threw back her shoulders and sat up straight. “Miss Beezle, I’m delighted you asked me out for lunch. It’s such a treat to see you after all these years, and I’ve thought of you so often. I’ll never forget how you used to wear that scorpion pendant on test days. Do you still do that?”
“Of course. Why would I change?” Miss Beezle said, cutting her fried catfish into precise, uniform pieces.
“No reason, I suppose,” Chenille said.
Miss Beezle looked up from her plate and fixed her cool gaze on Chenille. “This isn’t a social visit. I’m not in the habit of having reunion lunches with former students, no matter how bright they were. And you were certainly one of my most gifted pupils.”
“Thank you, Miss Beezle,” Chenille gushed. “What a lovely thing to say!”
Miss Beezle set down her knife. “I’m not flattering you. I’m merely stating a fact. There’s nothing extraordinary about genius. It’s just a trick of genetics, like a crooked eyetooth or the ability to wiggle your ears. It’s what you do with your gift that matters, and from what I’ve heard, you haven’t done diddly.”
Chenille pushed a pinto bean across her plate. “It’s true, I haven’t exactly set the world on fire—”
“You haven’t even struck the first match,” Miss Beezle said, pointing a fork at her. “But I’m going to give you the opportunity to change all that. It’s time for me to retire from my teaching position, and the high school needs a replacement. I thought you’d fit the bill.”
“Me? You think I should take your place at Cayboo Creek High School?”
“Are you hard of hearing? That’s exactly what I said.”
“But, uh...” Chenille blinked in confusion. “I didn’t even think you liked me.”
“Whether I like you or not has nothing to do with the equation. I know that you have the required intelligence for the job, and you come highly recommended by Garnell Walker. That’s good enough for me.”
“Garnell recommended me?”
She gave Chenille a withering look. “Do you have trouble understanding the King’s English? Yes, he recommended you. Highly. According to him, you’re the best thing to come to Cayboo Creek since they installed a traffic light on Chickasaw Drive. And I value Garnell’s opinion.”
Chenille fidgeted in her chair. “At my other school...” She paused and cast her eyes to her lap. “There was an incident.”
“With a machete?” Miss Beezle said matter-of-factly.
“Not my machete, and it was made of plastic, but yes.”
Miss Beezle dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Doesn’t concern me. If I were forced to teach a horde of lazy underachievers, a plastic machete would have been the least of their worries. In my classroom, students are there to perform, period, or I boot them out. As the only gifted program in the area, we draw students from far-flung parts of the county, and there’s always a waiting list. The students understand that if they give me any lip, it’s back to learning watered-down mush with the masses.”
“I’d love to teach gifted children,” Chenille said. “And it would be wonderful to stay here in Cayboo Creek with my family.”
Miss Beezle flung down her red-and-white-checked napkin. “Good. I’ve already discussed it with my principal, and he’s expecting you to drop by on Monday morning. Your interview with him will just be a formality, as he trusts me to pick my successor. We’ll be starting a new grading period in the spring. Are you prepared to begin teaching then?”
“Yes, I am,” Chenille said, thrilled to the core. “Thank you so much.”
Miss Beezle rose from the booth, wearing a familiar-looking dark paisley dress with a lace collar. “You can thank Garnell. Now that we’ve conducted our business, I’ll be on my way.” She paused for a moment, clutching her patent leather bag. “Incidentally, I don’t know the nature of your relationship with Garnell, nor do I care to. But I will say this: If you’re not making a mad play for that man, I promise you some other woman will. He is one of the finest individuals I’ve ever had the privilege to know. Good day, Miss Grace.”
Chenille was left speechless...and with the lunch check. As she searched through her wallet for a credit card, her thoughts turned to Garnell.
Ever since the night of the big fight at the Tuff Luck Tavern, he’d been on her mind. At odd times of the day, she’d hear the distinctive twang of his voice in her ear or imagine his friendly face lit up with a good-natured grin. He’d even started haunting her in her sleep, riding into her dreams, not on a big white stallion but on the back of a mule.
Surprisingly, thoughts of Garnell had replaced her fantasies about Drake, and although she had a date with the veterinarian this evening, she wasn’t looking forward to his company as much as she had in the past.
After her lunch with Miss Beezle, Chenille called Chiffon from the pay phone outside the restaurant to share the good news about her teaching position. Her sister was so excited she whooped over the phone line, causing Chenille’s eardrum to throb.
“I’m stopping by Garnell’s on the way home. I want to tell him the news, since he was the one who put in a good word for me with Miss Beezle,” she said to Chiffon just before she hung up the phone.
Not wanting to appear at Garnell’s door empty-handed, Chenille stopped at the
grocery store and purchased a potted African violet plant. Not many men appreciated flowers and plants as gifts, but she knew Garnell would.
She parked in his drive and walked along the cobblestone path leading up to his wooden A-frame house. She knew he was home because both his truck and van were parked under the shade of a large magnolia tree. Just as she ascended the steps leading to the porch, one of Garnell’s cats, a gray tabby with eerie-looking blue eyes, wound through her legs.
The faint sound of music came from inside the house. Chenille paused to discern the melody and was surprised to hear one of her all-time favorite songs, “Mandy,” by Barry Manilow. Why was a happy-go-lucky fellow like Garnell listening to such melancholy music? Was it possible that he was holed up in his house, listening to sad songs and pining away for her?
“I’m here, darling,” she wanted to call out, but instead knocked on the door, waited a minute or so, and knocked again. Hearing no answer, she felt a pang of concern. She turned the knob, discovered it wasn’t locked, and tentatively pushed it open. Silently she padded down his hallway, following the sound of the music to the den. There she spotted Garnell, but he wasn’t alone.
His left arm was curled around a woman’s tiny waist, and the other grasped her small white hand. Garnell whispered something in her ear, and the woman flung back her long auburn hair, letting out a musical laugh. Chenille recognized Jewel Turner from the Chat ‘N’ Chew.
She stood in the doorway to the den, unnoticed, African violet still in hand, as the two remained locked in their embrace. Chenille soundlessly backed out of the room and dashed out of the house to her car. Fastening the seat belt over her chest, she gazed miserably out her windshield, remembering Miss Beezle’s warning: “If you’re not making a mad play for that man, I promise you some other woman will.”
Jewel hadn’t wasted a second moving in on Garnell, and Chenille understood his attraction to her. She was pretty, sharp, and sweet as sugarcane.
He’s not shedding any tears over me, Chenille mused as she pulled out of the drive. Her good cheer had been replaced with an emptiness as pervasive as the hole in a doughnut.
Twenty-Five
Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart
~ Selection B-9 on the Chat ‘N’ Chew jukebox
“What’s wrong with you? You’re a million miles away,” Drake said to Chenille as he grasped her hand over the white linen tablecloth. “Maybe you’re gathering lavender in Provence or schussing down the Alps.” He brushed his lips over her knuckles. “But you’re not here, drinking champagne with me.”
“I’m sorry, Drake,” Chenille said, withdrawing her hand and balling it into a fist. A single candle flickered in a glass globe on their table in an Augusta restaurant called Bistro 99. Drake’s face was shrouded in shadows as he studied her from across the table. “I’m just a little tired.” She stared down at her mostly untouched lamb stew.
“I’ll summon the waiter,” he said, holding up a finger. Then he trailed his thumb along the inside of her wrist. “You look lit from within tonight. Like a golden goddess.”
Chenille fought to keep a yawn in her chest. Normally Drake’s compliments made her as giddy as a teenager, but tonight his smooth talk failed to move her. He might as well have been reciting his grocery list.
The waiter brought the check, and Drake discreetly slid his platinum credit card into the leather holder.
“Before we leave, there’s a little something I wanted to give you.” He fumbled in the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small black velvet box that he placed in front of her. “Open it,” he said in a low voice.
“Drake?” She looked up at him with a question in her eyes.
“Go on.”
She pried opened the box and gasped at the contents. Nestled inside was a platinum ring with a pear-shaped diamond.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll make it clear to you then.” He dropped to one knee beside her feet, covered his hand with hers, and said, “Will you marry me?”
“What?” she asked, studying his face in the flickering candlelight. “Goodness gracious! You’re serious.”
“Serious?” He chuckled as he rose from the floor. “Of course I’m serious. Ever since I set eyes on you, my heart’s been your prisoner.”
“But Drake, we hardly know each other. We’ve only been out on a few dates.”
“What does time matter?” he said with a wave of his hand. “The French have an expression, vivre’ l’instant, which means ‘live for the moment.’ At this moment I want to marry you.”
“My grandma Eugenie used to say, ‘Marry in haste; repent at leisure.’”
“How puritanical,” he said, a frown marring his impeccable features. “That’s not the Chenille I know. You led me to believe you had a taste for romance.”
“I do, but—” She lightly touched the diamond as if it might burn her. “This is so sudden.”
“Let me put it on your finger.” He removed the ring from its box and slid it over her knuckle before she could protest. “Look at the way the facets pick up the candlelight. It’s on fire.”
“It is beautiful,” Chenille said. She waved her hand in front of her face, mesmerized by the glowing gem on her finger.
Drake pushed a fine strand of hair behind her ear. “Let’s drive away together tonight,” he whispered. “There’s a place in the Smoky Mountains called the Forever Wedding Chapel, where we can pledge our love.”
“Tonight?” She dropped her hand into her lap. “I can’t get married tonight. I’d have to tell my sister. I wouldn’t dream of getting married without letting her know.”
“We’ll pick her up on the way. She can be our witness.”
“Chiffon can’t just take off for the mountains. She has three children,” Chenille said, struggling to remove the ring, which was stuck fast on her finger.
“You see,” he said with a silky laugh. “It belongs to you.”
Twenty-Six
Beware of the high cost of low living.
~ Sign outside the Rock of Ages Baptist Church
The check from Janie-Lynn Lauren arrived, and it was for a piddling amount, much less than the figure she’d promised before. The memo on the check said, “One year’s child support, paid in full.” After speaking with a lawyer, Chiffon discovered that Janie-Lynn had paid the exact amount of money required by the state based on Lonnie’s salary at NutraSweet last year. Not a penny more.
Now that her ankle was healed, Chiffon knew she had to earn some money. She’d accepted an offer of five hundred dollars from The Globe to tell her side of the story, on the condition that they didn’t ask any questions regarding the paternity of her children. (The published story, entitled “I’m Not a Redneck,” portrayed her as a hick straight out of Dogpatch.)
She’d turned down an offer to appear on a reality show called Fame Factor because she would have been forced to eat mealworms as a stunt. She decided she wasn’t eating worms for a million dollars, much less a measly three thousand.
Meanwhile, her story had been usurped almost immediately by the latest news out of Hollywood involving Wessica. “Wessica” was the media’s shorthand for the romance between movie star Wes Livingstone and supermodel/pop star Jessica Day. Recently Jess and Wes had had a public argument in the New York hot spot Bungalow 8 over a lesbian affair Jess supposedly had with her stylist. The media couldn’t seem to get enough of the couple, and Chiffon and the Tuff Luck Tavern plummeted from the radar screen.
Janie-Lynn and Lonnie didn’t completely disappear from the celebrity tabloids, though. A short article in People claimed that were keeping a low profile at her spread in Montana until their top-secret wedding date.
“Insiders predict that the wedding will coincide with the June release of Janie-Lynn Lauren’s first action flick, called Kill Another Day
,” the article read.
Chiffon finally accepted that her marriage was deader than a dodo bird. That evening, after the kids had gone to bed and Chenille had stepped out with Drake, Chiffon paged through her scrapbook a final time before she stored it in the attic. Ticket stubs for drag races, tractor pulls, and monster truck rallies were pasted throughout the book. If she had a nickel for every time she’d sat on a rickety stand next to Lonnie, a cup of warm draft beer between her legs, she’d be a rich woman.
As she glanced through the book, she recalled some of the more unpleasant aspects of her marriage, such as Lonnie’s obsession with fishing and hunting. How often had she been eyeball to eyeball with a bass or a crappie, standing over the cold, clammy creature with her filet knife? And how many weekends had she spent cooped up with the kids while Lonnie lumbered through the woods trying to fell some cute woodland creature with a load of buckshot?
She also wouldn’t miss the endless nights, tossing and turning on the waves of their waterbed, knowing her husband was out with another woman. She wouldn’t miss the scent of an unfamiliar perfume on his T-shirts, or answering the phone and hearing dead silence on the other end. Most of all, she wouldn’t miss the way his cheating made her feel, as if her insides had been stirred with a fireplace poker.
Chenille’s key turned in the front-door lock just as Chiffon shut the scrapbook and shoved it under the sofa.
“You’re still up?” Chenille said, startled to see her sister wide awake on the sofa. “I’m completely exhausted. I’ll take Walter out and then wash up in the bathroom. Is he sleeping in the children’s room?”
“I took Walter out an hour ago, so he’s fine. How about slowing down for a minute?” Chiffon patted the place beside her. “Tell me about your date.”
A Dollar Short (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 2) Page 18
