He wiggled his dark brows. “Sleep?”
“I do not want or need to know details.” She covered her ears with her hands. “La-la-la. Changing the subject—I’m sure hoping that the doctor lets me throw away these crutches today. And when we’re finished, I’m buying Chinese takeout to bring to the bookstore to have lunch with Jennie Sue. Want to join us?”
“Love to, and since I don’t have a bookmobile trip today, I might just hang around for a while. Are you really going to take that job and be her partner in the store?” he asked as he sat down across the table from her.
“Yes, I am. I made up my mind last night. And Jennie Sue says we might start some programs, like a reading hour, a couple of times a week for children. I’d love that,” she answered.
“Think maybe I could read to them once in a while? It’d be a way to get them to visit the bookmobile, too.”
Cricket finished off the last of her biscuit. “I’m sure you could. If someone had told you a month ago that we’d be talkin’ about these things, would you have believed them?”
“Nope.” He set about eating his breakfast.
Lettie and Nadine were waiting by the bookstore door when Jennie Sue arrived that morning. Lettie had a covered pan of something that smelled like one of her famous breakfast casseroles, and Nadine carried a covered bowl of biscuits.
“You didn’t come home last night. You are wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday morning, although they do smell like they’ve been washed and dried, and you’ve got a smile on your face that suckin’ on a lemon couldn’t erase. Open the door and let’s hear all about it,” Nadine said.
Jennie Sue found the right key on her mother’s key chain to the door and stood to one side to let them enter first. “What happens on the farm stays on the farm, and I might not come home lots of times.”
“Did you sleep on the sofa because your good friend Cricket said you could have the easement? Or did you get lucky and sleep somewhere else?” Lettie wiggled her finger at Jennie Sue after she set the casserole on the table. “I’ll make some coffee and get plates.”
“Like I said, what happens on the farm . . .” Jennie Sue followed her.
“It was somewhere other than the sofa or she wouldn’t be grinnin’.” Nadine was right behind them.
“How many times have either of you stayed out all night?” Jennie Sue turned the conversation around.
“We’d have to take off our shoes to count, but it’s been years. We love living vicariously through you. So give us some details about something!” Lettie said.
“Well, Rick was whistling when I left, and when I was coming out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around me, I ran into Cricket. And that’s all the details I’m tellin’.” Jennie Sue set three mugs by the coffeepot.
“Oh! My! God!” Nadine squealed. “I bet Cricket is givin’ him hell.”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t seem mad and even offered to bring takeout for us to share after her doctor’s appointment this morning. Coffee is done. Let’s go have breakfast.” Jennie Sue picked up three disposable plates and some plastic cutlery.
Lettie swept a hand through the air. “The Bloom News headline of the day will read, ‘Oil Heiress Loses Her Mind.’”
“And the picture would be one of you lookin’ like a drowned rat when you got back to the farmhouse from the creek.” Nadine filled three mugs.
Jennie Sue almost dropped the plates and forks. “How did you know that I got wet at the creek?”
“Didn’t until now.” Nadine picked up a couple of the mugs. “Never underestimate the powers of an old woman diggin’ around for details.”
All three of them went back to the front part of the store and took their seats again. Lettie took her place on the sofa and removed the cover from the food. Nadine pushed the mugs around to the right places. Jennie Sue set the plates on the small table.
“Do you love that boy?” Lettie asked.
Nadine dug into the food first. “She slept with him, didn’t she?”
Lettie tucked her chin against her chest and looked over the top of her glasses at her sister. “Did you ever spend the night with a guy you didn’t love?”
“More than once,” Nadine said. “Sometimes it involved liquor, and sometimes it was just plain old lust. You want to talk about Everett Johnson?”
Lettie adjusted her glasses. “Maybe not Everett, but we could discuss his johnson.”
“Lettie Clifford!” Nadine gasped.
“Well, you brought it up,” Lettie argued, and then started laughing. Jennie Sue joined her.
Nadine slapped her on the arm. “Did you really have sex with Everett? Why? You never did like him.”
“Liking him didn’t have anything to do with it. I had a one-night stand with Everett to make Flora mad. She’d been trying to get him to ask her out for years, and he wouldn’t. I didn’t feel like I was as pretty as her, but then one thing led to another.” Lettie shrugged.
“Why would you want to make your sister mad?” Jennie Sue asked, glad that the subject had shifted away from where she’d slept the night before.
“She borrowed my earrings without asking, and that night, she said that I was too ugly to ever get a guy,” Lettie answered. “Here comes Amos. I swear, that man can smell food a mile away.”
“Especially homemade. You could flirt with him. He likes to eat and you like to cook. Y’all would make a good couple,” Nadine whispered.
“Sorry, but his last name isn’t Johnson,” Lettie told her as the bell above the door sounded. “Hello, Amos. Had breakfast yet? We’ve got plenty. Go get a plate from the office.”
“Nope, I haven’t, and yes, I would love to join y’all.” He removed his hat and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I was down at the café this mornin’, and I heard that you had a baby last year. I came to say that I’m sorry. If I’d known, we would have come to the funeral,” Amos said.
Jennie Sue stood up and hugged him. “Thank you, Amos.”
“Bless your heart. Losin’ your sweet little baby and then your parents all within a year. It’s got to be tough, but we’re here for you.” He motioned to include Lettie and Nadine. “You just call us if you need anything.”
“You got that right.” Lettie nodded.
“I love every one of you,” Jennie Sue said.
“And we love you, girl.” Amos hurried off to the office and returned with a plate and coffee. “I heard that you’re buyin’ the property behind the Lawson farm. I’m glad you are stayin’ close to home.”
Home.
Mabel often said that home was where the heart was. If that was the case, Jennie Sue really was staying close to home, because her heart was right there in Bloom.
“And guess what else?” Amos went on as he piled his plate full. “I heard that Texas Red is buying Baker Oil and your house, too, for the new CEO they’re bringin’ in. Is that rumor or truth?”
“Truth.” Jennie Sue winked at Lettie.
“Man, that is some fast business,” Amos said.
Jennie Sue finished her food and put the trash in the can. She imagined her mother shaking her finger at her all the way from heaven, scolding her for all the calories and fat grams.
“It’s not really so fast,” Nadine said. “I’m sure it will take a few months to get all the paperwork in order. This isn’t like selling a few bushels of beans at the farmers’ market.”
“Or a failing bookstore?” Amos glanced up at Jennie Sue.
“It’ll be a thriving one before long. Please tell me that you didn’t come in here to say you’d changed your mind.” Jennie Sue sure didn’t want to tell Cricket that she had to take back the offer of partnership.
“No way.” He picked up another biscuit. “I drove past and saw that you’d put some nice stuff in the windows. Iris used to do that. And then I saw Nadine and Lettie out there on the sidewalk with what looked like food. I never miss an opportunity to partake of their cookin’. Reminds me of Iris’s.”