“If you are,” Rick said. “Mabel says that your mama’s friends insisted on coming tonight, so we’ll clear out before they get here.”
“No, Belinda called to change it. They’re coming tomorrow evening at eight and bringing refreshments with them, since Baker Oil employees will be dropping by, too. It’s only for an hour, so please don’t leave me alone with them.” Jennie Sue handed him the keys to her mama’s car. “If you’ll drive, please, I’d appreciate it. And this car will be easier for Cricket to get in and out of.”
“Rick and Cricket can be here tomorrow night, honey, but not us. Those women would barricade the doors and shoot us on sight,” Lettie said as she got into the back seat of the Caddy, with Nadine and Cricket right behind her.
“I’m not sure . . . ,” Cricket started.
“Please,” Jennie Sue begged.
“Okay, if you are sure about it,” Cricket agreed.
Rick touched her on the arm. “Yes, we will stay.”
“Thank you both. I just need to get through this thing with the Belles tomorrow night, and then I can go back to my apartment,” she answered.
“You’re kiddin’,” Cricket said. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I like my apartment better than I like that big house,” Jennie Sue answered. “And I’m rattling on about plans because I’m dreading this part so much. Until this minute, I could kind of pretend that it was just a bad dream. I’m glad y’all are goin’ with me.”
It was only a short drive to the coroner in Sweetwater. He met them in the outer office. “I’m Dr. Wesley Johnston. Which of you young ladies is Jennifer?”
She stepped forward and stuck out her hand. “I am Jennie Sue Baker.”
He pumped her hand once and dropped it. “Are you absolutely sure you want to see your parents? It’s not a pretty sight. You might want to remember them the way they were the last time you talked with them.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I need to see them.”
“Okay, then, follow me.”
She grabbed Rick’s hand and held on tightly as they entered a long hallway. The doctor turned a corner and then opened the first door on the left, with Jennie Sue right behind him. Rick let go of her hand and stood back to let her go inside alone with the doctor. Her chest tightened when the doctor shut the door, leaving her friends on the other side.
I can do this alone. I need to do this alone. It’s the only way I’ll ever have closure, she told herself.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded, and he carefully pulled back the first sheet. “Your mother sustained a head wound and was killed instantly. She did not suffer.”
She stood there for a long time, tears running in rivers down her cheeks and dripping onto her dress. Finally, she reached out and touched Charlotte’s hair. “My beautiful mama. You won’t ever be old or have to worry about wrinkles again. You’ll always be young and gorgeous. I love you, Mama.”
“Ready to move on?” the doctor asked.
She nodded. “Goodbye, Mama,” she said softly as she took two steps to the other table.
When she saw her daddy, so still and lifeless with a huge cut on his chin, she groaned and let the next batch of tears loose.
“His neck snapped when the plane crashed. Death was instantaneous for him, too.”
“See you later, Daddy,” she whispered as she bent and kissed his cold cheek.
Chapter Eighteen
Cricket was dressed and trying to do something with her unruly, almost curly, not quite straight, hair when Jennie Sue rapped on the bedroom door. Wearing a cute little sleeveless black dress that stopped at her knee and a pair of plain leather flats, Jennie Sue looked like she’d just stepped off a fashion runway.
“Need some help with your hair? We’ve got thirty minutes before the Belles arrive, and I’m antsy,” Jennie Sue asked.
“I’d love help, but you’re always so cool and collected. I can’t even begin to imagine you nervous,” Cricket said.
“Those women are going to try to make me join their club. It’s written in the charter that when a mother passes, her daughter steps up to take her place. I’ll get the curling iron from my room and be right back.”
For years Cricket had wondered what it would be like to be in the circle that Jennie Sue ran in. To be invited to slumber parties where they’d all fix one another’s hair and do makeup. Now it was happening, and she wasn’t so sure how she felt about any of it. Maybe it was because she and Jennie Sue were both twenty-eight. All that high school popularity didn’t matter anymore.
“Got it.” Jennie Sue plugged the iron into the wall and laid it on the vanity. “Have a seat in front of the mirror.”
Cricket sat down and sighed at her reflection. She should just pull her hair up into a ponytail. It didn’t matter if she was a wallflower that evening—this wasn’t about her. It was about helping Jennie Sue get through the whole night with a bunch of people that she wasn’t comfortable around. “Why don’t you want to join the Belles? Your mama would want you to carry on her legacy.”
While the curling iron heated up, Jennie Sue ran a brush through Cricket’s hair. “Yes, she would. Just like my grandmother expected Mama to fill her shoes. But I’m just not Belle material. I might have been ten years ago or even six years ago, but not now. I’ve got an idea—you can join the Belles in my place.”
“Not me. Those women intimidate me,” Cricket laughed. “Look at us bein’ good enough friends that you are offerin’ me your place on the Sweetwater Belles.”
“Honey, that probably means that we are what they call frenemies these days. I was teasin’. I would only wish that on my worst enemy.” Jennie Sue laid the brush aside and picked up the curling iron.
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.” Jennie Sue shivered. “Big bouncy curls or straight?”
“What?”
“Your hair? How do you want it?”
“Curls.” Cricket felt more than a little guilty about Jennie Sue styling her hair. “I should be fixin’ your hair. How do you do it?”
“What? Fix hair or not fall to pieces right now?”
Cricket pointed at her hair.
“I had to learn. Percy didn’t like the way the beauty shop did it, and it had to be perfect—always—not only when we went out or had an event. He had his good points, but somehow they got lost in his controlling nature.” Jennie Sue tamed Cricket’s hair with a few twists of the curling iron and then twirled the stool around to look at her work. “You have the most unusual shade of green eyes. With just a touch of dark-green eye shadow, they’d pop right out.”
“I’ve always worn blue,” Cricket said. “But I was talkin’ about you takin’ care of everyone else when we should be takin’ care of you.”
“You are takin’ care of me,” Jennie Sue said. “I’d be all alone if you and Rick weren’t stayin’ with me, and if you didn’t let me go to the farm, I’d probably be crazy.” She picked up a palette of eye shadow from the vanity. “Mind if I try green?”
“Not at all.” Cricket couldn’t very well tell her that the reason she’d worn blue since they were in school was because that’s what Jennie Sue wore all the time.
When Jennie Sue finished, she swung her around to face the mirror. “I applied a little blush to your cheeks.”
“Oh. My. Goodness!” Cricket gasped. “I’m almost pretty.”
“You are beautiful with or without makeup.” Jennie Sue flipped one curl forward over Cricket’s shoulder.
Cricket felt the heat rising to her face but could do nothing about it. “I’m just a plain Jane, but you’ve done wonders.”
“You are whatever and whoever your self-confidence allows you to be, Cricket. When you walk into a room, act as if you own the whole house, not just that room. Paste on a smile, even if it’s fake, and never tug at your skirt or mess with your necklace. That shows insecurity,” Jennie Sue said. “That comes straight from my mother on my way to my first Belle meeting when I was sixteen.”
“So the daughters get to go to the meetings?”
Jennie Sue sat down on the end of the bed. “Once a year at Christmas, so that we’d learn the ropes.”