Jennie Sue wasn’t sure that she could utter a word, but when she opened her mouth, they came tumbling out like marbles from a soup can. “Good Lord! How did you find that out? They’ve got a rule about not telling anything on each other except to the members in the club.”
“The rumor pipeline reaches to far places,” Lettie laughed. “Take a bite of that cookie and tell me what you think.”
Jennie Sue rolled her eyes. “Oh. My. Goodness. This is amazing. Belinda is pregnant? Her girls must both be at least twenty years old.”
“Fattenin’ as hell, but worth every bite,” Lettie said. “And Belinda’s daughters are both over twenty. Thinkin’ of mothers and daughters, you need to make up with your mama. If I had a daughter like you, I’d bend over backward to keep her happy. But that ain’t Charlotte’s way. If it means that you can’t clean for me, then I can live with that. But even in this short while, we’ve become close enough that I don’t ever want you to have regrets about bein’ my friend.”
Jennie Sue laid a hand on Lettie’s arm. “I’ll talk to Mama, I promise, but I will not have regrets. I’m happier than I’ve been since I was a little girl and Mabel took care of me.”
Lettie dabbed at her eyes with the tail of her apron. “That woman has the kindest heart in the whole world.”
“Yes, she does. Thanks for the cookies and chocolate. I should be gettin’ up to my place for a shower,” Jennie Sue said.
“Refill your cup and take half a dozen cookies with you. You might need a little bedtime snack before you turn in,” Lettie said.
She gave Lettie a hug before she left. After a shower, she crawled up in the middle of her bed and replayed the day, the funny moments, the sad ones, but most of all the emotional ones.
“Thank you, Cricket and Rick and Lettie and Nadine.” She yawned and pulled back the covers. “Enemies, frenemies, or friends.”
Chapter Eleven
When she was a child, Jennie Sue had often wondered if she was even related to her mother. Charlotte was a night owl, staying up until the wee hours of the morning and then sleeping until almost noon every day. Jennie Sue was the opposite. She liked to be in bed by ten and was awake at the crack of dawn. She loved the quietness of the early morning and had missed that in New York, the city that never slept. But what she liked even more in the rural area of Texas was the smell of morning—fresh dew on green grass, maybe the scent of dirt coming from a neighbor plowing a field or a soft breeze blowing across the roses. Those kinds of things couldn’t be faked with a scented candle.
That Thursday morning she sat on her tiny little balcony and gazed out across the trees. Three miles away was her folks’ place, but it might as well have been eight thousand miles and several time zones.
“Why can’t she like me as much as she does her girlfriends? Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t feel the need to pay someone to marry me,” Jennie Sue whispered and then sighed. “I’ll call her tonight. I promise,” she vowed to the universe. “Maybe since she and her little buddies have had a fallin’-out, she’ll be a little softer.”
She finished off the last of the pecan sandies that Lettie had sent home with her night before last and a second cup of coffee before she got dressed and headed to Nadine’s to clean that day. She smelled the bacon half a block away. She crossed her fingers, hoping Nadine had made enough breakfast for an extra person.
She was not disappointed.
Nadine met her at the door and ushered her inside. “I’ve got bacon and waffles. Got to use up those fresh strawberries that Rick brought me last Friday, so I sliced and sugared them and whipped up some real cream. I haven’t eaten yet, either. It’s no fun eating alone.”
“Thank you. That sounds delicious. What can I do to help?”
“Not one thing, darlin’ girl. Just pull up a bar stool, and we’ll eat right here. Waffles won’t take long to cook. I’ve already got the iron heated up.”
Jennie Sue nodded. “So what’s on your agenda today?”
Nadine poured batter into the waffle iron that she’d placed in the middle of the bar. “I’m going to do a little yard work this mornin’ while it’s cool, and then I’m plannin’ to fry apple fritters so I can send some out to the farm when Rick picks you up this evenin’. Cricket is real partial to them. And I got to tell you, she said that you’re a real good cook. She loves to bake cookies and cakes and such, but she don’t have a lot of imagination when it comes to real cookin’. Y’all ought to go into the cleanin’ and caterin’ business together.” Nadine rattled on while the first batch of waffles cooked.
Yeah, right. I’d rather go into business with the devil himself, Jennie Sue thought as she listened with half an ear. But that idea didn’t sound too bad. After seven years of marriage to Percy, she definitely knew how to clean a house and plan a party. If she started up a business of her own, she could live right there in Bloom in Lettie’s apartment. She could do events on the weekends, especially in the winter after the farmers’ market closed down. She’d have to give up her goal of finding a job in her field for this crazy idea. Or maybe not? She wasn’t even thirty yet—she could give the new venture a couple of years and then use her education to run her own business. It would take some serious thought, but maybe it was worth looking into.
“I’d have to have equipment,” she mused aloud.
“Oh, honey, between me and Lettie, we’ve accumulated enough silver and crystal that you wouldn’t have to buy a thing. We come from a long line of hoarders when it comes to pretty things.” Nadine opened the waffle maker and put the first one on Jennie Sue’s plate. “Pile on the strawberries and whipped cream and add some bacon on the side for a little protein. Juice and coffee are on the end of the table.”
“Why would you loan me your precious things?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Honey, it’s just stuff,” Nadine answered.
Ideas bounced around in Jennie Sue’s head. In five years she could be using her business degree to run two businesses—a housecleaning one that might employ four or five ladies, and a catering one that could give part-time work to dozens.
But why would I want to stay in Bloom? she asked herself as she finished her waffle.
Because that’s where Emily Grace is buried, and your new friends are here, and they care enough about you to offer to let you use their pretty things to start a business and even make you waffles with sugared strawberries without even noticing your weight, the voice in her head said.
“I can see the gears workin’ in your head.” Nadine refilled her coffee cup. “Well, you just let them keep turnin’ while you clean today.”
“It’s hard to think that I’ve only been back in Bloom a bit and I’m even entertaining the idea of stayin’. I really wanted to walk into a company and start working my way up the ladder,” Jennie Sue said.
Nadine patted her on the arm. “You just think about it, honey. If you decide to go the CEO route, then you could commute to Sweetwater. It ain’t but a fifteen-minute drive, and you could still live in Lettie’s apartment.”
“Thank you, Nadine,” she said, “but one thing is for absolute sure—Cricket Lawson wouldn’t be interested in helping me with a business in town, and I’m not sure I’d want her to. It would be like workin’ with my mother.”
“Lot alike, ain’t they?”
“In different ways, but yes.”
“And you like Cricket enough to be an almost friend with her and not your mother?” Nadine asked.
“At least Cricket doesn’t tell me I’m fat,” Jennie Sue answered.
“Charlotte is wrong to do that, but she is your mama. You can have lots of friends, but you only get one mama. So call her and make things right,” Nadine said.
“I will. I promise,” Jennie Sue vowed for the second time that morning.