Secrets over Sweet Tea

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “I’m craving Froot Loops,” Scarlett Jo announced. She turned a silver dial to release an avalanche of cereal onto her mountain of frozen yogurt.

  “Appropriate,” Rachel cracked as she covered hers with chocolate chips.

  Grace turned the nozzle for crushed Oreos and watched in horror as Scarlett Jo went on to crushed Reese’s peanut butter cups. Scarlett Jo proceeded to the chocolate sauce and caramel sauce, then finished with a cloud of whipped cream and took the whole thing to be weighed. Before the cashier could announce that the bowl cost almost seven dollars, she had a spoonful of it in her mouth.

  Rachel had her beat, though. The pieces of cheesecake and brownie she had crammed into her bowl brought the total to right around eight dollars. Even Grace’s came to just over six—the most she had ever paid at Sweet CeCe’s. They were apparently all assuming some freedom.

  As Grace went to pay, Scarlett Jo stuck her Sweet CeCe’s punch card in the cashier’s face. “Can you give me her punch too?”

  The woman eyed Grace, who nodded. “It’s fine. I don’t come here enough for a punch card. She has five children.”

  Scarlett Jo took her punch card back. “I can almost fill up a punch card in one visit with my boys.”

  “If we had been more strategic, we could have done two cups apiece, and you could’ve gotten two more punches,” Rachel informed her, placing her bowl on a table.

  Scarlett Jo’s lips twisted over her spoon as she sat down. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  Grace pulled up a chair beside them and sat down. She dipped her spoon into her cup, listening to Scarlett Jo and Rachel banter and watching idly as a young mother maneuvered a stroller through the door.

  Pain shot through her without warning. It ran swift and fierce, taking her breath away. Tears stung her eyes, and the lump that lodged in her throat made swallowing virtually impossible. She set her spoon down, grateful that Scarlett Jo and Rachel were too preoccupied to notice.

  She remembered the first time she’d ever come to Sweet CeCe’s, and the memory now flooded her with the impact of a class IV rapid. She had dreamed of what it would be like to bring her children here and watch them act like Scarlett Jo and Rachel over being allowed to create whatever their hearts desired. She had dreamed of their wide-eyed wonder, their hands in hers as they walked to a park bench across the street from the post office and watched the world go by. She’d dreamed of talking with them about preschool and puppies and all the things a mother talks about with her own children.

  Thinking of all those lost dreams made her soul ache.

  “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” She pushed her chair away from the table.

  Scarlett Jo raised her hand in acknowledgment but never looked up. Rachel didn’t even acknowledge her.

  Grace hurried to the bathroom and locked the door. She stood over the sink and turned on the faucet to cover the sound of her cries. Her grief mixed with the water running down the drain. But she simply let it surge, surrendered herself to it. Surge and surrender—there was nothing else to do. When it finally let her go, she looked in the mirror.

  “Please don’t let this pain last forever,” she whispered to the heavens.

  The ache subsided enough for her to wipe her face and gather herself. By the time she returned to the table, Scarlett Jo’s pants were unbuttoned and her own ice cream was virtually a puddle. But it didn’t matter. She had lost her appetite.

  “Where’d you go?” Rachel asked, dabbing a napkin at her mouth.

  “Just had to go to the ladies’ room.”

  “You’ve been crying.”

  “Yep.” She had no intention of hiding it from them.

  Scarlett Jo touched her arm. “You okay, sugar?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. Just have to get it out when it sweeps over me like that.”

  “That’s good, honey. That’s real good.”

  “I can’t believe you’re crying over him. He’s a jerk, Grace. You should be nothing but angry.”

  Grace felt anger all right, but not at Tyler. Not in that moment. Words came out of her mouth before she could restrain them. “Rachel, you can’t tell me how to feel. Don’t tell me when I should be angry and when I shouldn’t. I’m doing the best I can. And if I want to feel sad, I’ll feel sad. This is my journey to walk, not yours, and not anyone else’s. And last I checked, there was no book called Being Divorced for Dummies. I promise you, there’ll be days I’m angry with Tyler, but right now I’m sad, and if you’re my friend, you’re going to have to accept that.”

  Rachel’s shock at the outburst was evident, but her apology was immediate and genuine. “Grace, you’re right. Forgive me.”

  Grace shook her head. “It’s okay, Rach. Nothing to forgive.”

  “You’ve never spoken to me like that before.”

  “It wasn’t planned,” Grace assured her.

  “Hey, I liked it,” Rachel said. “You need that feisty in you. You’ve always said you admired how I was able to tell Jason whatever I felt. But you’ve never done that, Grace. You’ve just sat there and taken whatever was thrown at you. Unless of course it had to do with your faith. Now, don’t let someone attack that. You’re like a pit bull with that one. But anything else, you’d give them all the ground they wanted. I’m proud of you. This was a huge step for you.”

  Grace smiled. “It kind of was, huh? Maybe I’ll yell at you some more. Want me to?”

  “Don’t get crazy. I can still whoop you. Come on, we’ve got more work to do. Get up, blondie.” Rachel motioned to Scarlett Jo as she stood.

  Scarlett Jo pushed herself from the chair, her pants still unbuttoned.

  “Oh no,” Rachel said. “I’m not walking down the street with your pants like that.”

  Scarlett Jo threw her cup away and looked at Rachel. “Let me tell you something, my sweet sister. I’ll wear my pants on this street however I want to. You can walk three steps in front of me or four steps behind me. But sister ain’t buttoning these pants.”

  Rachel shook her head as they walked out the door. “Great. Now I get two of you with attitude.”

  Scarlett Jo snorted and punched Grace. “That was good, wasn’t it?”

  “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  “Scarlett Jo, what is that on your back?” Rachel’s voice was suddenly urgent. “I think it’s a cicada!”

  “What? Where?” Scarlett Jo’s hands started slapping at her shirt as she danced in frantic hops down the street. She finally stopped when she heard Rachel’s belly laugh.

  They ambled back to the store in a comfortable haze of sugar and freedom. Grace was pretty certain she couldn’t think of two better companions.

  Zach closed the sunroof and moved the visor to the side to block the glare of the setting sun as he drove north past stands of trees that were just beginning to change colors. He flipped on the radio and searched the channels. He wanted music. He usually listened to sports talk radio, but this evening he felt like a change. When the dial landed on a country station, Brad Paisley’s voice came over the speakers, and he turned it up. He liked that guy because, well, he was a guy. Had a song about it and everything. But this song he hadn’t heard. It was all about finding yourself.

  That was what he was doing. He was finding himself. He exited at CoolSprings Galleria and pulled his car into a parking space in front of the Belk store. On any other day he would hate the mall. Boycott it entirely. But he needed it tonight, just like he needed music. Another piece of finding himself.

  He opened the door and stepped into a vortex of high-priced jeans and slip-on shoes. The sights and sounds momentarily overwhelmed him. He didn’t shop for clothes. Oh, he had before he and Caroline were married and for a while after. But gradually, over the years, he’d let Caroline take over. He’d convinced himself he was too busy to shop for clothes, that he didn’t want to do it. But in this moment he knew that wasn’t it. The reason he didn’t shop was that Caroline had convinced him he couldn’t dress himself.
That what he picked out wasn’t good enough, cool enough, right enough for wherever it was she wanted them to go or how she wanted them to be perceived.

  He fumbled through the polo shirt section in Macy’s like a teenager on a first date—excited, unsure, and hoping no one was paying too close attention. He picked up a shirt that caught his eye. Yeah, that was right—his eye. It was blue-and-white striped with a little orange man on the left side of the chest. He held it out in front of him. Studied it. He didn’t know what else to do with it. So he just stood there holding it. Looking at it like a teenage boy staring at his date when she first opened the door. Wondering, Now what am I supposed to do with this?

  “Can I help you?” a man asked, his hot-pink tie suggesting that Zach didn’t want his help.

  “Nah, I’m good. Just browsing.” Oh, my word, I just said browsing.

  “Well, let me know if I can get you anything.”

  “Sure. Yeah. I’ll do that.” He sounded twelve. He felt twelve, like a child in a grown-up world. How did he get to this, not knowing what kind of clothes he liked or how to choose between a polo and a button-down?

  He spotted a sign featuring a golfer and headed that direction. He loved to golf, but he hadn’t done it much in recent years. Caroline always complained that it took him away from the family. Thinking about that now made him almost want to laugh. Caroline was the one who was rarely home—not just with work, but with the gym, with meetings, with her friends. She was the one who took long vacation getaways with the girls. And yet he was guilted over an afternoon of golf?

  He ran his fingers across a soft golf shirt. It was light blue. He loved that color. The one next to it was a kind of orange. He picked them both up. He noticed two mannequins nearby that were wearing some great pants. He searched the tables next to the mannequins and pulled out two pairs, one in black and one in a light khaki. By the time he made it to the dressing room, he had ten different items draped over his arm and was pretty sure he and the pink-tie man were going to be lifelong friends.

  He tried on clothes and shoes until the lights blinked to indicate the store was closing. By then he had six shirts, three pairs of shorts, two pairs of slacks, two pairs of shoes, and a pack of underwear. And he had picked every item out himself.

  When the pink-tie man rang up the total, Zach almost gasped. He never spent money on himself. There was an awkward pause as the associate held out his hand and Zach debated leaving all those clothes right there on the counter. Money was tight. His wallet felt heavy in his pocket. Pink-tie man’s smile was starting to collapse.

  Finally Zach pulled the debit card from his pocket and handed it to the man. And instantly felt fine about the purchase. Tonight freedom had no price.

  He walked out smiling into the now-black evening. Once in the car, he pushed the radio button and began to think through what the last few hours had done for him. He had lost some self-doubt and some insecurity. And he had found a few things as well. He had found that he liked shopping for himself. That he liked Sperry shoes and golf shirts in colorful shades of blue and orange and green.

  Yeah, he was finding himself. He was finding himself so much that he might actually admit to someone that he had been shopping. In fact, he wanted to tell someone.

  He texted Caroline. She didn’t respond.

  “Mom, I think I want to cuss,” Rhett declared as he climbed into bed. His Spider-Man underwear revealed the superhero’s ability to swing from a web that shot from his hands.

  Ten-year-old Tucker ran in and jumped onto Rhett’s bed. Rhett pushed a hand toward him. “Get off, Tuck.”

  Tucker bounced up and down just to torment his little brother—until Scarlett Jo popped him on the backside. “Get to your bed, Tucker.” She reached for the edge of the brown blanket that lay beneath Rhett’s green, brown, and blue patchwork coverlet.

  “I want to cuss again, Mom,” Tucker announced as he threw himself across his bed and his feet collided with the wall.

  Scarlett Jo had to laugh. The whole cussing issue had begun the other day in the car, when Cooper was tattling on Forrest for taking God’s name in vain. Cooper had been a rat the entire day. Everything out of his mouth that day was either thoughtless or downright rude. So Jackson had asked him, “Cooper, what’s worse—taking the Lord’s name in vain or having a nasty attitude like you’ve had today and saying ugly things to your brothers?”

  Cooper hadn’t even needed to think about it. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain because that’s a Ten Commandment!”

  Scarlett Jo had hurried to cover her mouth and nose so she wouldn’t snort. But her shoulders were shaking so hard she was certain her seat was moving.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, bud,” Jackson said. “Jesus looks at our hearts. We tell you that all the time. Now I’m not saying you should take the Lord’s name in vain. But I’ve got to tell you, I know a lot of men who would never, ever say a bad word, who go to church every Sunday and don’t miss paying their tithes, but treat people as mean as anyone I’ve ever met. They get angry if they feel like they’ve been slighted even a little. And their words can be cutting and cruel. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Cooper wasn’t sure he did.

  Jackson decided to help him some more. “It’s like saying a cussword. Some people make a big deal out of not cussing, but they’ll treat the cashier at Walmart like she has no value. So what is worse, Cooper? Saying a cussword if you’re joking or you just forget? Or treating someone badly?”

  “Um, treating someone badly?”

  “That’s right. Mom and I have tried to teach y’all that God is most concerned about the condition of your heart.”

  Forrest wanted to explore this some more. “So if I am in a boat with my friends, and we almost tip over, and I say a bad word—that’s okay?”

  “I’m saying if your heart has evil intent in anything you do, Forrest, that is sin. But I’m not recommending you go out cussing with your friends.”

  Scarlett Jo had looked back at her youngest boys, who were following the conversation with rapt attention. Maybe it was time to defuse the whole issue. “Tucker, do you want to say a cussword?”

  Tucker let out an almost-feminine giggle. “Sure.” He stuck out his chest and let one fly. The entire car erupted.

  “Cooper, do you want to say one?” she prodded.

  Cooper shook his head.

  Rhett blurted out, “I’ll say one!” as if it were the coolest thing he could imagine.

  Scarlett Jo caught Jackson’s eye and snorted. “Okay, buddy. Go ahead.”

  And off he’d gone. The word he chose had surprised everyone, including himself, and they’d all burst out laughing. Which was obviously why he was bringing it up now.

  She swatted his rear end in a playful way. “No, no cussing tonight. Though I’m glad you have the freedom to say anything to us, I’m thinking we don’t need to be known as ‘the cussing preacher’s family.’”

  “But cussing’s fun, Mommy.”

  She laughed and picked at a chip in her orange-painted fingernail. Renovating Grace’s future tearoom was fun, but hard on her manicure.

  “I agree it can be fun every now and then. But tonight let’s just say our prayers. Mama’s pooped.” She pushed the blanket underneath his chin in a wadded mess. Jackson would have folded it neatly, which had never made any sense to her. Rhett would have it wadded in a few minutes no matter what.

  Rhett folded his hands under his chin. She turned and looked at Tucker, who had his eyes closed too. “Lord, thank you for this day and for food and for the poor people in Haiti and Africa. Bless Mommy and Daddy and Jack and Forrest and Cooper and Tucker. And, Jesus, I pray that when we cuss, you’ll know our heart. Amen.”

  Scarlett Jo leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Amen, baby boy.” She walked over to Tucker and kissed the top of his freckled head. “Love you, Tuck.”

  “You too, Mom.”

  She moved toward the doorway. As she did, an unmistakable—and r
ude—sound ripped through the room. Tucker burst out laughing. Rhett responded by producing one just as loud. “You boys are pitiful.” Scarlett Jo reached to flick off the light. But as she left the room, she let one go that put theirs to shame.

  She could hear them howling all the way down the hall as she headed to her bedroom—and thanked God that she didn’t have a houseful of girls. Because her boys thought she was the coolest mom ever.

  Grace threw another bag of trash into the Dumpster behind her store. She was a little more than three weeks away from opening, and the place already looked amazing—everything she’d wanted it to be. The pink- and white-checkered tile floor matched the pink in the toile wallpaper. Light fixtures with large paper shades and dangling crystals hung in four different sections of the store. The kitchen was fully equipped.

  With all the decorating basics in place, now she was into the fun stuff. Scarlett Jo had unpacked the gift items that had arrived—packaged teas, cups and saucers and teapots, gourmet chocolates. Shopping bags with her logo and the store name, Sweet Tea, would be there any day now. Each time she held an item, she felt like she was holding another new piece of her life.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. I can’t apologize anymore.” The voice she heard coming from nearby was familiar.

  She peered through the slatted wood divider that separated her parking place from the building next to her. Zach Craig stood by his car, talking on the phone. His words came in spurts and sputters as if he couldn’t get through to the person on the other end of the line.

  Grace leaned against the boards and listened, not to what he was saying, but how he was saying it. She knew that tone, the desperation in it. Why wouldn’t she? She had felt it so many times herself. She also heard exasperation. Weariness. All of it was so familiar. And she hurt for him. In spite of the mistakes he had made, she hurt for him in this moment.