“Did you love Mama when you married?”
“I did.” Sadness peeked around the edges of his smile. “She was so beautiful and full of life. Those first five or six years were amazing. The business was good, and we had you and built our dream house.” He stared out the window as if he were looking back into the past.
“And then James came home from the service,” Jennie Sue said.
He jerked his head around so fast that she heard the bones crack. “Who told you about him?”
“When a person gets out of the glass bubble called the Baker house, they find out all kinds of things. So what happened when James came home?” Her father had been right when he said it was complicated. This whole thing had more layers than a big Vidalia.
“We hit a rough patch that never got smoothed out.” His voice cracked. “Our bubble burst, and we’ve—evidently you’ve figured out the rest.”
“I refuse to live like y’all have, Daddy. That’s not the life I want,” she said.
“Don’t expect you to, but it will take a miracle to ever get your mother to come around to your way of thinkin’, darlin’ girl.” Sadness filled his words. “Maybe I should just go.”
He should for real, but she couldn’t tell him that. Another layer of guilt lay on her shoulders. She’d blamed him, and even now, he wasn’t totally in the clear because he could have made the choice not to cheat. But at least she was beginning to understand both of her parents’ underlying motives.
“Stay,” she said. “Daddy, I don’t think I ever had real friends before now. Not in school, where I tried so hard to be the daughter Mama wanted. Not in New York, where I was just arm candy for Percy.”
“And you think you do now?” he asked.
She nodded. “I really do, and I don’t think they care about this Wilshire thing, but I’m not planning to stay here. If you won’t give me a job, I’ll go somewhere else. At my age, I need to start building seniority, to have benefits and all that. I need a fresh start where no one even knows me. But I’ve got a feeling the friends I’ve made this week will always keep in touch.”
“You hang on to them, darlin’. That kind of friendship isn’t easy to come by,” he said wistfully. “And forget the Wilshire curse.”
“I heard about the beginnings of the Wilshire and Clifford feud,” she said. “So, did Flora have sex with my great-grandfather at the bachelor party?”
“Have no idea. It was a he said/she said situation, but you know how the rumors go in this town. And call your mama in a few days. She’s got a hot temper, but she cools down after a while. In addition to everything else, she’s going to be fifty this fall, and it’s really tough on her to age.” He scooted out of the booth and bent to give Jennie Sue a kiss on the forehead. “Do you need anything? Can I take you home or to your apartment?”
“Nope. I’m actually doin’ pretty good. After all this, I need to walk and clear my head,” she answered.
“I’m here if you need me, and I’m sorry,” Dill said.
He was gone before she could answer. Anger topped the list of all the other emotions that she’d experienced that week. Leaving Bloom might not be so difficult after all.
Cricket always went straight to the café after church, changed clothes in the restroom, and got right out onto the floor, and she was in a hurry. The parking places were all filled in front of the café, which meant she’d have to park on the next block. But then she saw a truck pull away, and she quickly grabbed that empty space.
She was running late. People were clustered up around the front of the place waiting for tables or booths. She slid out of the truck and grabbed her purse. In the rush, she didn’t even see the crack in the sidewalk until the spike heel of her favorite Sunday pumps popped right off. Then the heel on the other shoe went out from under her, and she fell flat on her butt right there on Main Street in Bloom, Texas. The first thing she did was look around to see if anyone saw her. For the first time, she was thankful that no one was paying a bit of attention to her.
She tried to stand up, but her leg hurt so bad that she collapsed. Her breath was coming in short gasps, and her stomach did a couple of flips with nausea. From the acute pain in her ankle, she figured it was broken. She jerked at her skirt so that her underpants weren’t showing, but it was tangled up around her waist. Everything started spinning around her so fast that it was hard to focus—and then she heard Jennie Sue’s voice.
“Stay with me. I’ll call 911,” she said.
Cricket opened her eyes and grabbed Jennie Sue’s hand. “Don’t. Insurance won’t cover it. Just take me to the emergency room.”
“I don’t have a car.” Jennie Sue started digging in her purse.
“Take me in the truck. Keys in my purse.” Sticky sweat popped out on Cricket’s forehead. “Now! People are looking.” She absolutely couldn’t bear the embarrassment of people seeing her chubby thighs and white cotton underpants. She’d endure Lucifer if he was shielding her from everyone’s eyes rather than Jennie Sue, but he wasn’t, so Jennie Sue would have to do.
“I’ll call Rick and he can take you, then.”
“No! He can’t get into town. I have the truck. Are you stupid? If there was any other way, I wouldn’t ask you,” Cricket moaned.
“Okay, okay, stop your whining.” Jennie Sue helped her to her feet and got her into the passenger side of the truck before retrieving her purse from the sidewalk and handing it to her.
Amos knocked on the window as Jennie Sue crawled into the driver’s seat and Cricket tossed her the keys.
“You okay? I saw Jennie Sue helping you up,” he asked.
She nodded and yelled through the glass, “Just a little twist of the ankle. I’ll be fine. Jennie Sue is takin’ me home. Thanks for askin’.”
Dammit to hell on a rusty poker! Now he’d go tell everyone in town that Jennie Sue was nice enough to take her to the hospital. Everyone would think they were friends.
Cricket shoved her purse across the console. “Center compartment, and please hurry. I’m getting sick to my stomach.”
Jennie Sue left at least a week’s worth of tire rubber on the pavement when she peeled out, and by the time she reached the city limits sign on the south side of town, she was doing eighty in a forty-five. Cricket opened her mouth to tell her to slow down but only moaned when more pain shot all the way to her hip.
It was normally a fifteen-minute drive to Sweetwater, but Jennie Sue brought the truck to a greasy sliding stop in front of the emergency-room doors in less than ten minutes. She hopped out, rushed inside, and returned with a nurse pushing a wheelchair in what seemed like mere seconds.
“Sit still and let us help you,” the nurse said.
“It’s only a sprain.” The world took another couple of spins when Cricket tried to put a little weight on it.
“That can be worse and take longer to heal than a break sometimes,” the nurse said. “Settle into the chair, and we’ll go to the business center to get your information.”
“My stuff is in my purse. You take care of it,” she told Jennie Sue.
“Okay, then,” the nurse said. “We’ve had a slow day, so I can take you right on in.”
The nurse rolled Cricket into a triage room and left her sitting in the wheelchair. A guy in blue scrubs looked up from a computer and asked her how much she weighed—she lied by fifteen pounds, just in case Jennie Sue saw any of the records. How tall she was—she stretched it and said that she was an inch taller. Then he glanced at her swollen ankle that had begun to turn purple and took her straight to a cubicle.
“They’ll be in and take you down to X-ray in a minute,” he said, and disappeared.
Immediately Cricket began to worry about the lies she’d told. If they had to anesthetize her, then would they give her enough to keep her under? She sure didn’t want to wake up before they got finished.