“She always did love the garden when we had one here. And I just love knowin’ that she might’ve picked the tomatoes or the beans that I get from Rick. Makes them extra special. Come on in the house, darlin’ girl, and tell me all the news.” Mabel pulled her away from Frank.
Frank pretended to pout. “No fair. You always get to spend more time with her than I do.”
“I’ll remember every word she says for you,” Mabel promised. “Now tell me about this argument you had with Cricket because you fell asleep in the same room with Rick last night.”
“That didn’t take long to make it all over town, did it?” Jennie Sue grinned. “But sleep was all we did, honest. I was on the sofa and he was in a recliner. It’s not like we were in the bedroom or even together on the sofa.”
“Honey, if we had to vote on the best juicy bits of the past decade, these past few weeks would win the contest, hands down. You should buy stock in whatever company is offerin’ the most data on those cell phones, because folks are sure usin’ up a lot of it since you got into town. Now sit down at the table, and I’ll make you some breakfast. What do you want? You look thin. Have you been workin’ too hard and not eatin’ enough?” Mabel fussed.
“You do look like you’ve lost a few pounds,” Charlotte said as she breezed into the kitchen, leaving the scent of expensive perfume in her wake. As usual, her makeup was perfect and every hair was in place, prompting the ugly-duckling feeling to wash over Jennie Sue again.
“Good mornin’, Mama.” If she was going to act like nothing had happened, then Jennie Sue would follow her lead.
“I don’t suppose a fattening breakfast would hurt you this one time.” Everybody in Bloom had better bend over, grab their ankles firmly, and kiss their ass goodbye, because the apocalypse was about to be a reality. Either that or one of Lettie and Nadine’s aliens had entered her mother’s body.
“Thank you. Want me to make enough for both of us?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Nothin’ doin’!” Mabel said. “I’ll make the breakfast this mornin’, and you two can eat on the porch. It’s still cool enough that you won’t break a sweat. Just go on out there and get comfortable.”
“Thank you, Mabel.” Charlotte motioned toward the door. “I’ll have an egg-white omelet with mushrooms and tomatoes and low-fat cheese, dry toast, and a cup of lemon tea.”
“Yes, ma’am, and you, Jennie Sue?” Mabel asked.
“A whole-egg omelet with bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes and double cheese, two pieces of buttered toast, a glass of milk, and one of those blueberry muffins you’ve got hidin’ under the glass dome,” Jennie Sue answered.
She expected at least a sigh from Charlotte, but she got nothing, which was downright scary. Much more of this and she’d believe in the aliens instead of teasing about them, but, like a dutiful daughter, she followed her mother to the screened porch.
“Don’t look at my toenails. Garden work is tough on them, but I’m going to give myself a pedicure tonight,” she said before her mother could make a nasty comment about them.
Charlotte waved the comment away with the flick of a wrist, but she did wince slightly when she glanced at her daughter’s feet. “When you lived in New York, even when you were pregnant, you took better care of yourself. Since you came back to Bloom, you’ve become—” Charlotte struggled with the words.
“What, Mama? What have I become?” Jennie Sue was almost glad to be back on argumentative ground, despite her mission of peace.
“White trash,” Charlotte spit out.
“And what makes me white trash?” Jennie Sue asked. What would come out of Charlotte Baker’s mouth now?
“Runnin’ with those low-class farmers and cleaning houses,” Charlotte answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“People like James?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Where did you hear that name? No, don’t answer. Those wicked Clifford women have been spreading gossip.” Charlotte laid the back of her hand over her forehead in a dramatic gesture as she stretched out on the lounge.
“Who cares who told me what? You should have told me rather than letting me hate Daddy all these years for his affairs. You were both doing the same thing,” Jennie Sue said. It didn’t look like a truce was going to happen today. If she didn’t eat the breakfast Mabel was fixing, it would hurt her feelings.
“Sure thing,” Charlotte hissed. “I could tell my five-year-old daughter that I was in love with another man, and I couldn’t leave her father, because if I did, then I’d sully my mama and grandmama’s names. There was never a divorce in the Wilshire family until you got one, so that dirty mess is on you.”
“I’m not feelin’ guilty about it or any of my other decisions. Can we leave the past alone and move on to the future? I should’ve already been putting out résumés, but I keep hoping you and Daddy will change your minds and let me work for the family company. If I’m going to inherit it someday, it stands to reason I should be busy getting to know it from the ground up,” she said.
Charlotte dropped her hand and sat up straight. “It will not happen.”
“Why?”
Charlotte sighed. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell Dill to give you a job if you move back home, go to the Belles meetings and parties with me, never speak to those Clifford women again, and break it off with Rick Lawson. And also his sister, Cricket. I never did like that girl. She’s nothing but a gossip.”
“No, thank you.” Jennie Sue shook her head.
“I’m willing to compromise. You can keep Rick if he’s that good in bed, but only on the sly. I don’t want him in this house except to deliver vegetables to Mabel,” Charlotte said.
“No, thank you,” Jennie Sue repeated. “I can get a job somewhere else. Mama, I don’t know if Rick is anything but a very good friend. I’m not sayin’ that there are no possibilities with him. He’s a good man and I do like him a lot, and he could turn out to be ‘the one.’” She made air quotes around the last two words. “But let’s get something straight—I don’t give a damn about the Wilshire name. I’ll never marry another man that you can pay to marry me.” She stopped for a breath. “Don’t look at me like that. I know what you did. Any man that can be bought ain’t worth havin’.”
“Isn’t,” Charlotte corrected. “You’ve been hangin’ around the lower classes too much. You’re beginnin’ to sound like them.”
“Thank you,” Jennie Sue said. “I consider that a compliment.”
“I admire you,” Charlotte said.
“Would you repeat that?” Jennie Sue shook her head. Surely she’d heard her mother wrong. Charlotte fussed at her, tried to control her, wanted to fit her into a mold, but she’d never given out compliments.
“I wish I’d had the courage to tell my mother to go to hell, that I was going to marry James and go off to wherever the military stationed us,” she said wistfully. “But I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you get a divorce and marry him when he came home?” Jennie Sue asked.
“Wilshires didn’t do that. Besides, I had a child by then, and it was my duty to make sure you had a proper home.”
“A Wilshire home?” Maybe if she’d been raised a military brat, her mother would have at least made her feel loved.
“Okay, I’ll admit it. James couldn’t give me the living I was used to, and my mama had to give me the same talkin’-to I’m givin’ you today,” Charlotte told her. “Why didn’t you ever ask me why I wanted to keep your baby a secret?”
Mabel brought out food on a tray and left it on the table between them. “Y’all need anything else?”
Charlotte waved her away with a flick of her wrist. “We’re fine. Thank you, Mabel.”
Jennie Sue sat in stunned silence for several minutes. “So my grandmother knew about James?” she finally asked.