Small Town Rumors

by Carolyn Brown

  “That’s not funny,” Charlotte hissed.

  “It’s not a joke. I’m sitting right here in my new apartment,” Jennie Sue said.

  “You might as well have taken a gun and shot me through the heart. You know those old Clifford bats hate me. I’m disgraced.” There was a shrill shriek, and Jennie Sue heard something hard hit a wall.

  “Mama, I did not do this to hurt you. I told you and Daddy both I want a job. I need to be independent so I don’t have to shut my eyes to a cheating husband.”

  “That woman and her sisters were a thorn in my grandmother’s side and my mother’s,” Charlotte said. “I’m coming over. You’d better be ready to come home when I get there.”

  “Is Daddy going to give me a job in the firm?” Jennie Sue asked.

  “No, he is not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I told him not to.”

  “Why?” Jennie Sue gasped.

  “Because that’s low class. Wilshire women do not work, Jennie Sue. You’ve been raised better than that. And I told your daddy if he gives you a job, then he can’t have any more mistresses,” she said.

  “I’m a Baker, not a Wilshire. You said so yourself this morning,” Jennie Sue argued.

  “Then have it your way, but don’t expect a dime of your Wilshire inheritance if you feel like that.”

  That’s when Charlotte did hang up on her—for real.

  Jennie Sue threw the phone at the small sofa and took stock of her new place. The whole thing was smaller than her bedroom at her mother’s house. A small television sat on top of the chest of drawers in front of a sofa that snugged up to the end of a four-poster bed. A galley kitchen was located to her right, with two doors on her left—one into a bathroom and the other into a closet.

  A set of french doors led out to a tiny balcony barely big enough to accommodate a plastic lawn chair. She threw her suitcase on the bed, which was covered with a bright-yellow chenille bedspread.

  “It beats living in a box in an alley or in a shelter—and it comes with sheets and towels, so I’m not going to gripe,” she said out loud.

  Tuesday was Rick’s day to drive the bookmobile to several locations in Bloom, starting at the senior citizens’ center at one o’clock so the elderly folks could turn in books and check them out right after their lunch. He stayed thirty minutes. From there he drove to the bank parking lot and stayed an hour. After that he drove back to the library and spent the time there until it was time for Cricket to get off work.

  Reaching the library was his favorite part of the whole week. He could sit in an old, comfortable chair in air-conditioned comfort and read, or else visit with Amos in between customers and replenishing the bookmobile’s stock.

  He hurried out of the heat and inside the cool library to find Amos grinning like he’d just found a first edition. The short little guy had a perpetual grin, but today the extra twinkle in his eyes said he was up to something ornery. Amos handed Rick a tall glass of sweet tea and motioned to a couple of chairs over by the library’s two computers.

  “Jennie Sue Baker took a job cleaning houses for Nadine and Lettie Clifford.” He sat down, but he could hardly be still.

  Rick took the other chair and combed his dark hair back with his fingertips. “Are you crazy? Is this Long Island iced tea or regular old sweet tea?”

  “Nope.” Amos shook his head emphatically. “I was right there when she took the job. And that’s not all. I hired her to help me out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the bookstore.”

  Rick’s eyebrows drew down into one line. “The Jennie Sue Baker, daughter of Dill and Charlotte, granddaughter of the Wilshires?”

  “Yep.” Amos was almost giddy.

  Rick shook his head and sipped his tea. “I still don’t believe it.”

  “It’s the one hundred percent guaranteed gospel truth. Lettie couldn’t wait to take Jennie Sue home with her, and I bet the phone lines have been hot with the news.”

  More than a dozen customers who were more interested in the latest news than checking out books kept Amos hopping up and down from his chair. Finally, Cricket rushed into the library and sank down in the chair beside him. “Did you hear? Jennie Sue is going to clean houses for the Clifford sisters. I keep listenin’ for the ambulance on its way toward Charlotte’s house.”

  Rick frowned. “It’s good, honest work. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is that it’s their princess cleaning houses and living in a tiny little apartment above a garage. And guess what else? She’s been divorced for more than a year. Her husband left her, and the IRS is hot on his trail for income-tax evasion. And he left with another woman,” Cricket said.

  Jennie Sue was divorced—he wouldn’t go there. Not with his scars, the limp, and the fact that the only time he was ever somebody was his senior year in high school, when Bloom went to district playoffs. Add in that he was a farmer, and there was no sense in wasting a single minute thinking about her. Besides, she’d get over whatever rebellion she seemed to have fallen into and go back to her lush lifestyle before long. Once a socialite, always a socialite, right?

  “We were busy all day. The news spread fast, and people came to the café to talk about it.”

  “I hate this behind-the-hands talk,” Rick muttered.

  “Not me.” Amos pulled up a wooden chair and joined them. “I love it. Brings excitement into our lives. Charlotte is probably on the verge of a stroke. Dill might even have to leave his business trip with Darlene and come on back home to settle her down. She gets pretty worked up when she doesn’t get her way. Been like that since she was a kid. Jennie Sue never did have that Wilshire temper.”

  Some things would never change in Bloom. They had put in new curbs and sidewalks two years ago, and some of the vacant stores on Main Street were occupied now, but if the citizens couldn’t gossip, it wouldn’t be long until the place dried up into a ghost town.

  “So what’ve you been readin’? Did you finish Scarlett?” Rick rubbed the scar on his upper arm and tried to steer Amos and Cricket away from the gossip.

  “Yep, and then read it again,” Amos answered. “You know, Jennie Sue kind of reminds me of Scarlett. She’s takin’ things into her own hands. I like that in a woman. My sweet wife, Iris, was like that. She didn’t let nobody, not even me, tell her what she could or couldn’t do. Lord, that woman was as stubborn as a cross-eyed mule in a thunderstorm.”

  Rick nodded. “I’d say that’s pretty stubborn, but I know another woman here in Bloom that’s about as stubborn as that, too.”

  “You’d better not be talkin’ about me. In my opinion, Jennie Sue is just plain uppity, Amos,” Cricket said.

  “Evenin’, Amos. I’m glad I got here before you closed.” A lady laid a book on the counter. “I hate to keep a book out over the due date. Did you hear that Jennie Sue Baker is going to clean houses for the Clifford sisters?”

  “You ready to go home?” Rick asked Cricket under the older folks’ conversation.

  “In a few minutes,” she said.

  “I appreciate good patrons, Joyce. Tell me what you’ve heard.” With Amos’s hearing going, Rick was surprised people couldn’t follow the conversation from outside the building.

  “It’s closin’ time for the library, and we’ve got work to do,” Rick said.

  “Oh, okay.” Cricket shot a dirty look his way and then called out over her shoulder as they left, “See y’all later.”

  Amos waved and kept listening to Joyce. Rick wondered if Jennie Sue’s ears were burning yet.

  Chapter Three

  You look like your grandma Vera Baker,” Nadine said as she handed the SUV keys over to Jennie Sue. “Sweetest woman I ever met. She wasn’t at all like the Wilshire side of your family. Why, I remember when we’d have a family dinner at the church for funerals, she’d always insist on bringing three or four desserts instead of trying to cancel dessert entirely, and she loved to garden. Sometimes she’d bring sacks full of vegetables t
o the church and leave them on the table in the foyer so folks could help themselves.”

  Lettie nodded. “Sad day when she left this earth.”

  Nadine was tall, thin as a rail, and had sparkling blue eyes. Her gray hair was twisted up into a bun on the top of her head. The sisters were definitely not lookalikes—not by any stretch of the word.

  “Thank you, Jesus, for giving us a housekeeper and a driver. I was about to go crazy thinkin’ about sittin’ in the house another day,” Nadine said as she got into the back seat and fastened her seat belt.

  “My name is not Jesus, and you’ve gone somewhere every day since Wilma quit workin’ for us,” Lettie said.

  “Then thank you, sister,” Nadine said. “When we get done shopping, let’s go to the Dairyland for burgers and ice-cream cones for supper. My treat tonight.”

  “You’re just wantin’ to flirt with that old man who carries the trays to the tables,” Lettie said.

  “The day I quit flirtin’ is the day you two can put me in a casket, fold my arms over my chest, and send me on to see Flora up in heaven,” Nadine declared.

  “How do you know Flora went to heaven?” Lettie asked. “She never set foot in the church after Mama died.”

  “Because she was too mean and cantankerous for the devil to want her,” Nadine answered. “Lord, that girl was wild as a hooker on steroids when she was young.”

  “And how wild is that?” Jennie Sue asked.

  “She came close to breakin’ up your great-grandma’s weddin’. She was the girl the best man talked into doing a striptease for your great-grandpa’s bachelor party. That was what started the feud between the Wilshires and the Cliffords.”

  “Oh, really?” Jennie Sue glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “Your mama didn’t tell you all about it?”

  “Guess not,” Jennie Sue answered.

  “It’s a long story,” Lettie said. “We’ll tell it another time. Right now, we’ve got to be sure we got everything we need on our list for tomorrow’s dinner. You’re invited, Jennie Sue, if you aren’t goin’ home for the party there. If you are, we have dessert after the fireworks, so you can join us for that.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to my folks’ house for their annual party tomorrow, but I might be able to slip away and get in on the dessert,” she answered. So the fact that her mother didn’t like the Cliffords because they were such big gossips didn’t cover the whole story. Maybe on Friday, when Jennie Sue cleaned Lettie’s house, she’d hear the rest of the tale.

  Bloom was a little less than ten miles north of Sweetwater. The drive usually took about ten minutes unless there was traffic, and that night there was none. The sisters talked about their menu for dinner the next night the whole way to the Walmart. “Where do we meet up when we get done?” Jennie Sue asked when she stopped at the door to drop the sisters off.

  “We’ll wait for you by the shopping carts,” Lettie answered. “We don’t never get scattered out when we shop. Tried that once and spent hours trying to find each other.”

  “You could use your cell phones,” Jennie Sue said.

  “Honey, I ain’t about to use mine anywhere they have fluorescent lighting. I heard tell that the combination of the lights and whatever signals are on the phones mixin’ up in a place like this can cause cancer,” Nadine said as she got out of the van. “And I don’t take chances like that.”

  “That’s hogwash,” Lettie declared. “That can’t cause cancer or half the people in Texas would be droppin’ dead like flies all around us.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But if there’s aliens out there—and I’m not sayin’ that they exist or that they don’t—but just in case there are, I bet they can listen in on them things. Give me a phone with a cord on it or even one of the cordless like we got in our houses now and there ain’t no way them little fellers can hear what I’m sayin’. That’s why I don’t use my cell phone in public unless it’s an emergency of some kind.”

  Jennie Sue wasn’t sure if they were serious or joking with her, so she simply said, “Okay. I’ll try to find us a good parking spot.”

  “Wait a minute!” Nadine dug around in a black purse almost as big as Jennie Sue’s suitcase. “Use this so you can park closer to the door.” She handed her a handicapped tag.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jennie Sue hung it on the rearview mirror. “I’ve got to get stuff, too, so I’ll meet you at the front doors, right?”

  “We’ll be right there, waitin’ on you.” Lettie got out of the vehicle and followed Nadine.

  Jennie Sue circled the lot once and found an empty handicapped place very close to the grocery-store end of Walmart. When she got inside, Lettie and Nadine were waiting, each with a cart.

  “It’s my turn to lead the pack,” Nadine said. “Then Lettie and you can bring up the rear. We go up and down all the grocery aisles, and then if we need something else, we go that direction. Next time Lettie gets to drive the lead cart.” She lowered her voice. “She drives a cart like she does that ancient truck of hers, like a bat out of hell, and I forget half a dozen things because she’s going too fast.”

  “Oh, hush.” Lettie took her place behind Nadine. “Nadine drives her cart like she’s had six shots of moonshine. I was the good child. She and Flora were the wild ones.” Lettie bumped her in the butt with her cart.

  Nadine sent a go-to-hell look over her shoulder. “You will pay for that when it’s my turn to drive behind you.” Then she led the caravan to the deli counter, where she ordered half a pound of shaved ham, two pounds of thick-sliced turkey breast, and a pound of American cheese.

  “Hey, Lettie,” an older woman yelled and pushed her cart in that direction. “I heard you found a cleaning lady. Want to share her with me? I could use some help every other week on Wednesdays.”

  “Nope.” Lettie shook her head. “Can’t do it. She’s got a job except on Thursdays and Fridays, and me and Nadine have her on those days.”

  “Well, rats! And who is this with y’all?” she asked. “Why, bless my soul if it ain’t Jennie Sue Baker. You might not remember me—Linda Williams. I was your grandmother’s hairdresser for years.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t, but it’s still nice to see you,” Jennie Sue said.

  “That’s all right, darlin’. You remind me of Vera Baker when she was your age. She was the sweetest customer that I had,” Linda said as she pushed her cart toward the checkout counter.

  Jennie Sue barely remembered her grandmother on the Baker side, and now twice in one day, she’d been told that she either acted or looked like her.

  Linda had barely gotten past the doughnut display when she whipped out her cell phone. Evidently she wasn’t afraid of cancer or aliens as much as not being the first one to deliver the news that she’d seen Jennie Sue with the Clifford sisters at Walmart.

  “Your turn to order deli stuff,” Nadine told Lettie.

  “Don’t need anything here. You go on and get what you want, and then we’ll start down the bread aisle.” Lettie moved her cart to let Jennie Sue move up in line.

  She was so busy deciding whether to buy half a pound or a whole one of pastrami that she didn’t even turn around when she heard Lettie talking to someone else. She decided on half a pound and then ordered the same amount of white American cheese. She put her order into the cart and turned around. She recognized Cricket right away and nodded—and then looked into the most gorgeous green eyes she’d ever seen on a man. They were rimmed with thick black lashes that curled upward—entirely too pretty for God to have given to a man. Good Lord, was that Rick Lawson?

  “Hello, Cricket and Rick. Looks like the whole town of Bloom came to Walmart tonight,” Lettie said.

  Rick took all three women in with a single nod. “Hello, ladies. We were out of brown paper bags for the farmers’ market later this week, so we decided to make a run into town.”

  “Don’t know if you remember them, but this is Rick and his sister, Cricket. He grows the best vegetables in the area, ju
st like his daddy did before he passed away,” Nadine explained to Jennie Sue. “And he has a booth at the farmers’ market in Sweetwater on Saturday. But some of us in Bloom get our stuff delivered to the door.”

  “Of course, I remember both of y’all from high school. I graduated with Cricket, and you were a couple of years ahead of us, right?” She looked up into his eyes again, and a hot little shiver ran down her spine.

  He’d been quiet and smart, two pretty crazy qualities for the quarterback of the football team. Not only had he been a good football player, he’d won every single academic bowl he’d participated in. Neither had run in her circles, Cricket being standoffish, but the Bloom school only graduated about twenty-five kids a year, so everyone knew everyone. But she sure didn’t remember him having such gorgeous eyes.

  “Hello, Jennie Sue.” Rick stuck out his hand. “It’s been a while.”

  She put hers in it and was surprised by the sparks that flitted around them. “Didn’t you join the army right after high school?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did.” His smile shone warm and friendly.

  At least, she thought it did—maybe she was reading too much into a simple handshake, but she thought she’d sure like to get to know him better.

  She dropped his hand and turned to face Cricket. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since we graduated ten years ago.”

  “You were at one of our all-school class reunions a few years ago, and I was there, too.” Cricket’s tone shed snowflakes.

  “Percy and I were on a tight schedule, so we only dropped by for an hour,” Jennie Sue said.

  “You missed a good time,” Cricket said.

  Rick pushed the cart in the opposite direction. “Well, you ladies have a nice evening.”

  “See you at the fireworks tomorrow night.” Cricket flashed a sweet smile at Lettie, but it turned into a smirk when she looked back at Jennie Sue.

  “Don’t mind her,” Nadine whispered when they’d gotten far enough away that Cricket couldn’t hear. “She’s got a burr under her saddle when it comes to you.”