Dixie’s denim miniskirt, clingy red top, and denim shrug vest was as close to her native land of Plum Orchard as she’d come in a long time. She gave them both air kisses before inviting them to slide into the booth beside her and Em. They naturally declined with polite protests. They weren’t here to sit. They were here to stir the pot.
So Dixie decided to give them the spoon. “So what have you girls been up to since I left? Lesta-Sue, you married now?”
Dixie knew she was married. Married to the man she’d once stolen right out from under Lesta-Sue’s nose, a shameful act she’d be willing to redeem herself for, if only they were willing to let her. But that wasn’t what this visit was about.
Lesta-Sue’s pinched face and thin upper lip wrinkled. “You know I married Grover. I sent you an invitation to our wedding. I know it was after the ‘incident,’” she whispered, hazel eyes wide and full of innocence, “but we hoped you’d come back sooner than this.”
“Ten years is a long time to stay away.” Annabelle, no longer blond but chestnut-haired, twisted her thick, side-swept braid between her fingers.
And it was game on. This was called the bait and bait. Wherein, they baited Dixie then baited her some more until she became so frustrated she exposed herself and did the Mags’ dirty work for them without them ever having to lift a dainty finger.
Her cool reply said the ball was in their court. “There were other pressing matters keeping me in Chi-Town.”
Annabelle’s smile grew glib. “And we heard there are newer, more pressing matters keepin’ you here.”
A quick glance around Madge’s told Dixie no small children were present. She tapped Annabelle on the arm playfully. “Oh, stop implyin’, Annabelle. Let’s all just be adults here and say it. In fact, why don’t we all say it together? Just to get it out of the way. Ready?” She smiled at them as though they were two toddlers she was teaching a new word. “Phone sex.” She let her voice rise an octave, enough to catch everyone’s attention. “I’m engagin’, in Miss Nanette’s words, ‘in the devil’s acts,’ over the phone, no less. I bet you’re not surprised at this unexpected turn in my life, are you, girls?”
Heads turned in the group’s direction as Annabelle’s cheeks went pink and Lesta-Sue took an uncomfortable step backward, righting the wobble of her sensible turquoise pumps.
“So, let’s discuss, shall we? Then we can get all the awkward moments right out of the way. You know the moment I mean, too. It’s the moment where you set out to humiliate me publicly for being such a sad sack of a human being all those years ago. How would y’all like to do that? Maybe over some pie? My treat,” she cajoled.
Lesta-Sue cracked first, her manicured hands balling into fists at her side. Her sidelong gaze in Louella’s direction bellowed help.
Louella must have flashed her the go sign. Her words were meant to push Dixie’s buttons. “I can’t believe your lack of shame, Dixie! Your daddy’d do a back flip in his grave if he knew what you were up to.”
Dixie fought the urge to lunge at her by brightening her smile. The Mags knew any mention of her deceased father was a sore subject. She’d been a daddy’s girl through and through, and she’d missed him terribly since he’d died unexpectedly of a heart attack during her first year of college. “I’d like to think Landon met Daddy at the Pearly Gates and told him in person. About the phone sex, I mean.”
And as if on cue, Annabelle cracked next, embarrassed by the rise in Dixie’s voice. Her stiff words came out in a stream under her breath. “You’re just as disgraceful as you always were, Dixie. You should have never come back to Plum Orchard. No one wants you here.”
“As well they shouldn’t,” she agreed, totally compliant, completely cool—on the outside. “I’m a bad person, Annabelle, and even as I apologize to you both for the million and one things I did to you in high school, like stealin’ Lesta-Sue’s boyfriend, Grover, and treating you like my lackey, I’m still not going to let that stop me from doing what needs to be done. When has someone’s disapproval ever stopped me?”
With yet another attempt to cast public stones at her out of the way, Dixie waited. Come hell or high water, it was surely coming.
As Dixie suspected, the women turned their venomous attention to Em, still hunched in the booth, her face a mask of despair.
Lesta-Sue launched the first grenade. “And you, Emmaline? How could you consort with the likes of Dixie and her phone-sexin’ when you have two young boys to think of? It would serve you right if those poor children were taken from you and given to Clifton to raise. It’s repulsive!”
There was an unsettling stir in the crowd, heads turned with a rustle of discomfort, and all eyes fell on Em. Silence prevailed but for the jukebox playing an old Hank Williams tune in the background.
Dixie felt Em die a little. Felt it like she’d feel her own heart stop dead.
And that was all Dixie could stand. She’d fought her sharp tongue and scheming long and hard over these past couple of years.
She’d made as many amends along the way as she could, but dragging the only victim the Mags could find into this, one who’d never dream of hurting a soul just to make a public spectacle out of her, wouldn’t stand.
Like the lighting of a sparkler, Dixie’s infamous temper flared, dipping and rising to a new height before zeroing in on her targets in homing pigeon fashion.
The red haze of her anger sizzled, almost blurring her vision. “Speaking of the word consort, Lesta-Sue, a word you’re very familiar with, before you cast disparaging, not to mention judgmental, stones at Emmaline—” Dixie addressed the crowd trying their best not to gawk with open mouths “—would you like to share with everyone in this fine establishment what you did the summer just before our senior year?”
Lesta-Sue sucked in a hitched gasp of air, her eyes sending warning signals at Dixie. “You wouldn’t dare....”
Dixie’s smile was cunning when she crossed her arms over her chest. She leaned into Lesta-Sue, her eyes full of mischief and menace. “Aw, you know better than that, Lesta-Sue. I would dare. Em’s just doing her job, and y’all know it. So if, in fact, you so much as whisper a hurtful word about Em or her boys in the same breath as something so wicked ever again, I’ll make it my mission to share the consorting. The video of it.”
Em’s hand snapped out, reaching for Dixie’s arm, her fingers bit into her flesh with a trembling grip. Her face was paler than normal, her voice shaky. “Please.”
With Em’s plea, the angry haze filming her vision cleared almost as swiftly as it had arrived. “Pass that along at the next Mag meeting, would you, Annabelle? Just in case Louella missed it from all the way over there.” Dixie pointed directly at Louella, then gave Em a quick tug upward, grabbing her purse and hooking it over her shoulder. She ushered her out, head held high until they stood just beyond the front window of Madge’s.
The sweltering heat of early September clung to Dixie’s already hot face in a wave of cloying slashes. On fast legs, Dixie moved down the sidewalk, ignoring the questioning gazes of Plum Orchard. Familiar faces all wondering, What has she done now?
Em ran behind her and thrust a hand to her shoulder, curling her fingers into it. “Dixie, hold your horses!” Flinging her around, Em’s eyes searched hers.
Dixie threw her hands up in disbelief, furious with herself. “I just blew my stack as sure as Johnson Ridley blows up at least one box of fireworks by mistake every Fourth of July. It’s wrong, Em.”
That manner of retaliation should have been below her. For many years, her impulse to strike had been quelled by what she’d learned from one of the most painful experiences of her life.
But it had just all gone to hell, and Dixie didn’t like the way it made her feel. Low-down dirty and out of control.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I know you hate when the attention turns to you, but I j
ust couldn’t stand it.”
“Girl, I realized you were just practicin’ what you preach. It was pure genius the way you turned the tables on them. Hide out in the open, right? Expose yourself before they can expose you?”
Yes. That had been the exact strategy—to expose herself, not Lesta-Sue. Tears of frustration began to well in her eyes.
“I learn something new and useful from you every day, S.S.”
She stiffened, swiping a thumb under her eye. “It’s not something I want to teach.”
Em gave her a shake. “You said you’d only use your evil for good, right? And you did.”
“How is threatening to expose Lesta-Sue using my evil for good, Emmaline? It’s what the old Dixie would’ve done, and it was wrong and selfish. What I wanted to do was win and win big.” She spat the word as though it were covered in filth. “I wanted to grind her into the ground in just the same way they wanted to humiliate and knock you down a peg.”
That particular competitive gene was the bane of her existence. Her hot temper was a close second; it made her reckless and foolish.
Em smoothed her hands over Dixie’s bare arms in a soothing fashion. “No, Dixie, don’t you see? You said those things to protect the boys and me so the Mags wouldn’t dig around about my troubles in front of a whole restaurant full of busybodies. Only good people do that, and I won’t hear nothin’ to the contrary. Good people speak up for people who’re too afraid, or in my case, too pathetic to speak out for themselves. You saved me from those perfectly dressed, pink-and-blonde bullies. I, fair maiden Dixie, dub thee a hero.”
Dixie gave her head a shake, her lips a hard line. “I’m no hero, Em! Don’t you confuse the two. I feel like I stepped right back into my pink stiletto shit-kickers like I never took them off. The real problem with that is they felt sooo, so good.”
“Well, you did wear them for a long time,” Em conceded.
Dixie shook Emmaline off with brisk impatience, moving away from her to sit on the bench in front of Brugsby’s Drugstore under the shade of the dark green and gold overhang.
The cheerful topiary beside her, one that had been there since she was a teen, was a painful reminder of all the times she’d sat on this very bench and plotted.
She let her head fall back on the peeling bench, huffing a tired sigh. “Plum Orchard was no place to come back to test my mean-girl overhaul, Em. It was easier in Chicago. I had less history to battle. Too many things have passed in ten years, and that’s not including what’s passed in just the last two days. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I won’t be that person anymore.”
Em shoved her over, sitting alongside her. Crossing her feet at her ankles, she said, “Sure nuff, Chicago was easier. It’s a big place full of more strangers than folk you know personally. You can’t get by with that here. A test isn’t really a test if it isn’t hard, Dixie.”
Yet another reason she never should have agreed to this phone-sex-off.
“And here’s somethin’ else to chew on, Dixie. I’m beginning to think you’re not that person anymore already. Color me as shocked as anyone, but I’m this far from callin’ you a new leaf. Really, Dixie, when was the last time you took up for someone weaker ’n you? There was no advantage to you in lookin’ out for me and the boys.”
Dixie gave her a weak, heat-deflated smile and coyly batted her eyes. “Does this mean you trust me now, Em?”
Her snort ripped through the humid air, full of laughing sarcasm. “Oh, no it does not, miss. One kind act does not eradicate all your sins. But it’s a foot in the right direction, Dixie. Yes, ma’am, it is.” Em gave her a playful nudge to her shoulder before patting hers and inviting Dixie to rest her head on it.
Dixie did so with a mournful sigh and a million emotions warring with her heart. Surprisingly, the least of which was malicious joy at besting the Mags. What troubled her was how little time it had taken before she’d exhibited signs of her former path of destruction.
Em plucked at Dixie’s denim shrug. “So, want to tell me about this mysterious video of Lesta-Sue?”
“No, I do not.”
“You don’t play fair. How could you bring up something so delicious and not share?”
“Because the former me would do exactly that. I forgot myself there for a minute, and every resolution I’ve made, every truly good thing I’ve tried to do since I made all those promises to myself went right out the window. I will not allow the Mags to try and convict the people who’ve chosen to give me another chance just to get to me.”
“Is that what this is with me, Dixie? Another chance?”
She hadn’t thought of it like that when she’d come home. She’d only given thought to getting in and out with the stealth of an F-16. But she liked Em. She enjoyed her company, and the more Dixie liked her, the more she wanted Em to forgive her and accept her friendship.
“I suppose it is. You have something to say about it?”
Em leaned her head against Dixie’s. “Not a word, Dixie. Not a word.”
They sat like that for a time, Dixie pondering how she was going to keep Em from the Mags’ angry wrath and anticipate their next move. She thought about how she was going to keep herself afloat and pay her debts off if she lost this phone-sex challenge.
She thought about Caine and all the painful longing he dredged up.
Mostly, she thought about how nice it was to simply sit with Emmaline on a bench across from the whitewashed gazebo nestled in the neatly manicured square, smelling the scents of summer nearing its end, and watching Plum Orchard go about its day.
Eleven
“This is Mistress Taboo. Are you worthy?” Dixie’s voice bled through the walls to Caine’s office, so husky and sultry it was ruffling his already ruffled feathers.
He threw his pen down, leaning back in his chair. His desk was cluttered with a collage of sticky notes he’d made an array of designs with in order to keep his mind off Dixie.
Erasing Dixie’s memory was more difficult than he’d anticipated. Especially when he thought back to her trapped in that closet, clinging to him as though he were the last life raft on a sinking ship. Hearing her heartbeat against his ear, feeling her slinky thighs wrapped around his hips—all things distinctly Dixie.
When it came to Dixie, he was helpless—hopeless. All she had to do was give him that wide-eyed look of anguish when he taunted her unmercifully for all her scheming and lying, and he was lost. It seemed the only way to curb his insatiable need to make her pay with his cruel words was to haul her body to his and make insane love to her.
Losing her once had hurt like hell. Losing her twice wasn’t going to happen. He’d dug in his heels this time. There’d be no convincing him she was changed. There’d be no convincing him she’d dug her conscience up somewhere in the landfill of her devastation.
Huh, pal. I don’t remember Dixie trying to convince you of anything. She just showed up, somehow very different than the Dixie you once knew.
Landon in his head. Again.
What made this doubly hard was the encounter he’d witnessed between her and the Mags today. He’d never, in the entire time he’d known her, seen her take up for anyone unless it meant the means to her endgame.
Yet today at Madge’s, she’d gone at Annabelle and Lesta-Sue as if Em was hers to protect. That side of Dixie, fierce and so primal, had chipped away at the ice forming around the part of his heart that had once belonged to her.
He’d watched that go down from behind a potted plant and a plate of eggs, shocked as hell. Stealing glances at her defiant eyes and defensive gestures almost made him like her.
Like her?
Where the hell had that come from? He didn’t want to like her. Loving her was hard enough. To like who Dixie wanted everyone to believe she’d become would be to forget it hadn’t just been her life,
her future that was smashed to a million pieces by the end of their engagement.
He’d fallen hard for her back then, heedless to the warnings of everyone around him, heedless to his own internal warnings. He’d just fallen. Leaving Plum Orchard without Dixie as his wife had been like a knife to the gut.
To forgive her? He’d never given it much thought. Leaving her unforgiven was what fueled his macho fire. It was all he had, and he’d be tarred and feathered before he wasn’t on the ground blowin’ on the flames that kept that fire burning.
Emmaline poked her head around the corner of his office space and waved at him, halting his dark thoughts. “It’s my job as mediator to pay you drive-by surprise inspections of your work. So, you stickin’ to the rules, Mr. Smexy?”
Caine grinned at her, stretching his cramped arms. “You bet. Did you expect anything less?”
She grinned, smoothing her dark hair with a pale hand. “From Plum Orchard’s golden boy?”
There was that damn moniker again. How had he missed that catch phrase in reference to him all these years? “The one and only.”
Her glance was one of reproach. “Well, if I was mediatin’ anything else, I’d expect nothing but good form from you. But, we are talking about you and Dixie. That’d give Jesus himself pause.”
The mention of Dixie’s name made Caine tentatively inquire, “You okay?”
For a fleeting moment, concern crossed her face, marring her creamy ivory beauty. The wary look in her eyes shifted, and she let her face relax into one with no expression. “Of course I am. Why would you ask such a thing?”
He shrugged indifferently, as though the gossip around town after Dixie and the Mags’ little confrontation wasn’t the talk of every dinner table. Em was hiding something, something she was desperately afraid of.
Which made Dixie’s defense of her even more significant. Whatever Em was afraid of was hers alone. He wouldn’t add to her anxiety by saying anything more, but the Mags’ anger just because Em had chosen to dine with Dixie, couldn’t be the crux of what troubled her.
Talk Dirty to Me Page 15
