chapter Twenty-One
Two weeks before the parade—which was scheduled the day before the kids got out of school for Thanksgiving break—the Cassavechias stood in Jake’s barn, staring at their secret float.
“Vivian’s going to poop her proper drawers,” Lucy observed.
Maggie laughed. “It will do her good. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we pull out in front of Santa Claus.”
Sugar walked around the float. It burst with silver streamers and huge white and red and green pecan trees. Instead of throwing candy, they would toss tiny Hotter than Hell Nuts bags to the crowd. The bags were tied off with little pink-and-silver ribbons. She and Lucy would be the float “queens”, each of them dressing in red velvet skirts—very short in Lucy’s case—and before the day was over, their family business would no longer be secret.
“Bobby did a great job on the trees,” Sugar said. “You didn’t tell me he was such an amazing builder.”
“He’s wonderful with his hands.” Lucy beamed as she looked at the lights strung around the trees. “I think I’ve finally found the man of my dreams.”
Sugar looked at her sister. She had never thought to hear those words come out of her sister’s mouth. “That’s awesome, Lucy.”
“Funny thing is, I can see myself living in Pecan Creek.” Lucy scattered some more glitter over the float. “I like it here. I even like ol’ Vivian.”
“You do?” Sugar and Maggie said in unison.
Lucy shrugged. “She doesn’t bother me. I get her. I figured her out, and then I realized I kind of admired her.”
Sugar and Maggie sank onto a couple of hay bales. “She’s done nothing but be annoying to you since we got here,” Sugar pointed out.
Lucy put some more red paint on the letters that spelled Hotter than Hell Nuts on the side of the float in huge, can’t-miss glory. “Yeah, I don’t care. The military prepared me for blowhards.” She beamed at her artwork. “I love this float. It rocks.”
Maggie looked at the float. “I’m a bit nervous.”
“Don’t be.” Lucy hugged her mother. “You let Vivian intimidate you, and I always thought you couldn’t be intimidated by anyone.”
“I’m at the age where I don’t like waves.” Maggie stuck a hand through her puffed hair. “I know she’s got it in for my girls, and that makes me mad.”
Lucy sat down by Maggie and Sugar. “Let me tell you how I see ol’ fire-breathing Viv. Viv admires good-hearted hos.”
Sugar turned to stare at her sister. “Good-hearted hos?”
“Yeah. Ladies who do what they have to do to survive. The first clue to Vivian’s soul is the décor in our house.” Lucy grinned. “You have two rooms that are an ode to good-hearted hos, Belle Watling of Gone with the Wind, and Mona Stangley, Dolly Parton’s character in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Neither one of those ladies was from the acceptable side of society, but both of them were very admirable characters. And they were pillars of their communities, albeit perhaps not from the right side of the tracks. But everyone knew they were doing good.” Lucy looked at them. “Vivian admires good-hearted hos because she saw herself as doing what she had to do to raise Jake after his father abandoned them. Hence, her own version of the Chicken Ranch in Pecan Creek. Only she couldn’t let it seem as if she was one of those kinds of women, so she pulled the reins tight on the town and makes sure everyone toes the line of purity and honesty. It’s pretty clever, if you think about it, even if she’s doing it subconsciously. It shows she has a good heart, underneath all the iron-fist-in-the-lacy-glove stuff.”
Sugar and Maggie glanced at each other. Sugar could tell her mother was as dumbfounded as she was.
“So what about the other two bedrooms as windows into Vivian’s soul?” Maggie asked.
“Those are the ‘guy’ characters, neither of them entirely honorable, counterpoint to Belle Watling and Mona Stangley,” Lucy explained. “Neither J.R. Ewing nor the American Gigolo were particularly interested in anything but their own pleasure.” She got up to toss some glitter on the letters. “They were not heroes. They were,” Lucy continued, “Vivian’s vision of the way she came to see men—selfish, self-involved and sexual beasts. Therefore, all discussion of sex must absolutely be avoided in Pecan Creek. Trust me, there’s a lot of sex going on, but nobody is ever going to bring it up, or Vivian’s carefully constructed image of Pecan Creek will no longer exist. Most folks are pretty happy with the primness here, because except for the random freak occurrence like our dead guy, the town is safe. Locked in its bubble.”
“Yowza,” Sugar said, “I would never have spent so much time analyzing Vivian Bentley’s psyche.”
Lucy laughed. “It was fun to pick her apart. She’s not really a villainess. Anyway, the real poop she’s going to have is when she sees what I’m doing to her bedroom. I’m staying with the theme of famous characters in entertainment, but I’m classing up the joint.”
Sugar blinked. “Lucy, I might be scared.”
“I figured Jake out too. Remember when he told us that he and his mother had a huge debate over the American Gigolo room, but he wouldn’t tell us if he was for it or against it?”
Maggie and Sugar nodded.
“Guess,” Lucy said.
“He designed it,” Maggie guessed.
“I don’t care,” Sugar said. “But I’m guessing it was Vivian’s idea, and Jake wasn’t on board.” She got up to plug in the lights, and the float exploded with twinkly, winking colored lights. “I base my hypothesis on the fact that what I know of Jake makes me believe he would have either gone with a James Dean Rebel without a Cause room or a Star Trek room. He has some rebel going on, and I wouldn’t put him past some trekkie fantasy.” She thought about her theory for a few seconds, then nodded. “Probably more James Dean, though.”
“Exactly.” Lucy laughed. “He’s a traditionalist. I think American Gigolo would have been too hard-edged and contemporary for Jake. And it is. People love the over-drama of the other three rooms, but the AG room is just too overt.” Lucy sat down again, staring at the float. “If Vivian had a Gere thing going on, she should have gone with Pretty Woman. The good-hearted-ho theme would have remained intact.”
Sugar nodded. “You’re right. But that’s not the movie you chose.”
“No.” Lucy looked gleeful. “Sort of keeping the theme but getting away from the super-sex theme. It’s my dream bedroom. My dream life, maybe. Every girl’s dream. And maybe, just maybe, my dream will come true.”
“You want to be an actress?” Sugar asked.
Lucy wagged a finger. “You can’t tease any hints out of me.”
“Well, with all the robin’s egg blue going on, all I can think of is a Disney movie.” Sugar shrugged. “Like The Little Mermaid or something.”
Lucy shook her head. “Forget about it. You’ll never guess.”
Maggie got up. “I have to talk to you. Both of you.”
Sugar looked at Maggie, who no longer had a playful, bemused smile on her face as she’d listened to her daughters’ theories and musings about the Bentley family. Surprised, Sugar realized her mother looked worried.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Sugar asked.
Maggie’s hands worked nervously. “I can’t sit here and talk about Vivian when I’ve been no prize as a mother. God knows we sit around and dissect her behavior, and heaven knows she’s no warm fuzzy, but she’s not the devil, either. And she’s no worse than me.”
“Maggie!” Lucy looked at her mother. “You’re a good mother. You’re a nice person. Everyone loves you.”
Maggie sat down between her daughters, picked up their hands, touching her cheek to each hand. “I’ve been needing to get this off my chest for so long. I hope you’ll still believe the best of me when I tell you this.”
Sugar blinked. “Whatever you have to say isn’t going to change how much we love you, Mom.”
“Exactly.” Lucy kissed Maggie on the cheek.
Maggie released their hands. She drew a deep breath. “You probably don’t remember much about my second husband.”
Sugar stiffened. She remembered.
But she wasn’t about to say anything. Her blood ran cold inside her, her own guilt bothering her. She couldn’t take it if Maggie made some confession that she’d never gotten over the man. Shithead was lucky he’d escaped with his head still on his body. Sugar looked at a barn wall, focused her attention on her mother’s pain.
“I don’t remember a whole lot about him,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“You were pretty young, not even a teenager,” Maggie said. “Sugar probably remembers him a little more.”
Sugar met her mother’s gaze. She didn’t say a word.
“I’m so sorry, Sugar,” Maggie said. “I was in the hall that night. I heard what you did.”
Sugar’s body went completely stiff. She couldn’t move.
“And I thank you for what you did,” Maggie continued, touching Sugar’s cheek. “I’m just so sorry I wasn’t a better mother. I’m sorry you had to fight that battle alone. But thank you for being so brave.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Lucy demanded.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sugar quickly said, protective of Lucy.
“It matters,” Maggie said softly, “because you’ve borne everything ever since then.”
“My God, will someone tell me what’s going on?” Lucy demanded.
“I had no idea, Sugar,” Maggie said. “I’m ashamed to say that. But I really didn’t. It wasn’t a case of ignoring clues or anything. I sincerely didn’t know he was…a pervert.” Maggie’s eyes glimmered with distress. “I’ve wondered for years how I could tell you that I was sorry. But I didn’t know how to say it. It’s not easy to speak up and admit you’ve been harboring some kind of monster.”
“My God,” Lucy said, “will someone please tell me what the hell happened? Who the hell was a pervert?”
Sugar put her arms around her mother. “It wasn’t your fault, Mom. He was a worm. And you deserved so much better.”
“Jesus,” Lucy said, “are you talking about our stepfather? Was he a pervert?”
Maggie nodded, turning to face Lucy, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I am so sorry.”
Lucy shook her head. “Don’t be sorry to me. Nobody ever molested me. I can assure you, I was a virgin until Bobby German got in my— I mean—” She cut herself off. “I mean, I was never molested. I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Maggie turned to Sugar. Sugar’s heart spiraled at the pain in her mother’s eyes. “Let it go, Maggie,” she said. “Lucy doesn’t remember. She was sound asleep.”
“Lucy doesn’t remember what?” Lucy demanded. “I can remember numbers from ten years ago and can memorize four pages of text without missing a word. What doesn’t Lucy remember?”
Maggie held her daughters’ hands again. “My husband went into your bedroom one night. Sugar saw him go in.”
“Oh shit,” Lucy said. “Did you leave him any balls, Sugar? Is that why he left in the night?” Lucy gasped. “Sugar! Did you kill him?”
A slight smile touched Maggie’s face. Even Sugar smiled—just a bit.
“I didn’t kill him. I just helped him leave our house.”
“Poor bastard,” Lucy said. “Did I just sleep through all the excitement like a baby? I probably never moved, did I?”
Sugar shook her head. “You slept like a princess, Lucy. Which is just the way it should have been.” Once again the rage washed over her. Sugar had to blink back the white light of fury that had never left her that night.
“I was in the hall,” Maggie said. “I saw him go in. I froze. I’m so ashamed of that.”
“Mom, stop.” Sugar pulled Maggie to her. “If you’ve been beating yourself up about this all these years, you shouldn’t have.”
“You did what I should have done,” Maggie said. “When I saw you go in after him, I should have had your back. I’d like to think I would have if he’d turned violent, but I just don’t know. I was so astonished.” Tears poured down Maggie’s cheeks again. “It’s really hard to know that your daughter has to fight your battles, that you let her down when she needed you the most.”
Sugar shook her head. “You’re a wonderful mother.”
“But I know you must have been watching him,” Maggie said, “keeping an eye on him. And if you were suspicious of him, then I know in my heart he must have made a move on you. And I think it’s the reason you married Ramon,” Maggie continued, wiping at her eyes, “when you knew he wasn’t the kind of man who’d ever be faithful to you. I think my fear and my weakness affected you for a long time.”
Sugar wrinkled her nose. “Mom, Shithead did make a move on me. I kicked him in the balls so hard it was a wonder he could ever stand in anything other than a caveman stoop after that.” She gently touched her mother’s face. “I figured that since he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me, he might try more vulnerable ground.”
“Vulnerable?” Lucy looked at them. “I always thought I was taking care of this family. I always thought I was the adult.” She hugged Sugar and Maggie to her. “Sugar, you’ve always been the big sister every girl should have. You have to tell me, what did you do to Shithead?”
Sugar shook her head, relief engulfing her now that she knew her mother hadn’t pined for her husband. The relief was so intense it was almost painful. “I believe a baseball bat might have been involved. I was as tall as he was, and he knew I had a helluva swing. It was a fast conversation.”
“God, you’re a tough broad,” Lucy said admiringly. “And so I slept on in my ivory tower, completely unaware you were fighting my battles.”
“And mine,” Maggie added.
Sugar sighed. “I didn’t fight any battles. I just wasn’t ever going to let anything happen to us.”
Lucy looked at her. “No wonder you were so pissed when that officer made a move on me and then got me in trouble.”
Sugar nodded. “I knew damn well you hadn’t been messing around with a married officer. I was glad you slapped him. I just wanted you to take the discharge and let us get the hell out of there. I’d had it with the military at that point. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. Being a woman in the military can be a challenge, and I was ready for some peace in my life.” She held her family tighter. “Whatever happened, I was proud that we always stuck together, through thick and thin, as a family.”
“I know,” Lucy said, “I always thought we had the coolest family of all.”
Maggie pulled out of the embrace to wipe her eyes with the collar of her white blouse. “I have the best daughters in the world. The very best.” She sighed. “I wanted so much for you over the years. There was so little I could provide for you. And then, somehow, you grew up independent and strong, and I knew everything was going to be all right. Even though I’d never really been able to give you anything except my love.”
“Which turned out to be all we needed,” Sugar said. “It’s going to be all right, Mom. From here on out, everything is going to be just fine.”
Maggie nodded. “We’ll crank this float down Pecan Creek’s town streets and turn the town on its ear, and they’ll probably run us out of here, but we’ll be together.”
Lucy laughed. “I’m going nowhere. I’m staying right here and making Vivian Bentley my best friend. And I’m going to talk Bobby German into being my pool boy when we get rich off of Sugar’s nuts and buy ourselves a real pool.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Sugar closed her eyes, imagining the pool, the blue water, the cleansing baptism of sinking into refreshing coolness. “Next stop, three pool men, one for each of us.”
They hugged each other, marking a silent vow.
It was going to be all right. In fact, everything was going to get better than anything they’d ever imagined when they’d first loaded up the blue Oldsmobile for Texas. Sugar knew in her heart the future held nothing but blue water, pecans and maybe, J.T. Jake Bentley’s hard muscles and teasing smile.
J.T. Jake Bentley would make a hot pool boy.
If she could close the door on the past.
Jake looked at the repair job Lassiter had done on the Bait and Burgers. It looked better than new. He wondered if Lassiter wanted more work renovating Pecan Fanny’s.
Jake had big plans for Pecan Fanny’s.
But first, he had to talk to Kel.
He hadn’t seen Kel in days, and that was a bad sign. Kel usually hung around, the Bait and Burgers being both job and hangout for him. But since he’d moved out of Jake’s house, Kel had been lying low.
He hadn’t been a very good friend. And the truth was, Kel had always been there for him.
“Jake.”
He turned around. “Hello, Mother.” He kissed Vivian on the cheek. “What brings you to the Bait and Burgers?”
“What brings you?” Vivian shot back.
“Well, I happen to own this greasy spoon,” Jake said, and Vivian gave him a gimlet gaze.
“I wondered when you were finally going to come clean about that.”
Jake looked at his mother. “Why didn’t you say something?”
She shrugged, her blue wool dress formal as ever, her walking shoes prim and proper. “It’s not my place to be in your business. But you should know as well as anyone that there are few secrets in Pecan Creek.”
Jake looked at his mother. “Touché. So the purpose of this visit then is what? Something must be on your mind.”
“We need to talk about the ladies who are living in our house.” Vivian’s face was set in determined lines.
He couldn’t say he hadn’t known his mother wouldn’t want to talk to him about the Hot Nuts. “Okay. Come inside. I’ll spring for a burger for you.”
“I will take you up on that.” Vivian slid into a booth. “With curly fries, please.”
Jake put the order in with Evert, then returned to join his mother with a couple of sodas. She sipped hers delicately.
“I know that you have a fondness for Sugar Cassavechia.” Vivian sniffed, the hanging balloon unspoken being, ‘Though you could do so much better.’ “I know she stayed at your house for about a week after the unfortunate incident in our family home.”
Here it goes, the guilt trip. “The dead body wasn’t their fault, no more than it would be your fault if someone broke into your house.”
“I know.” Vivian nodded. “Although the Cassavechias do seem to attract a certain amount of excitement and drama.”
That was not necessarily a false statement. “A little excitement is good for Pecan Creek.”
“I was thinking more of an arts district, but whatever.” Vivian shrugged. “Are they renewing the lease?”
“I doubt it. I think the dead guy was a bit much for them.”
“Of course if Lucy Cassavechia hadn’t been blogging about her sister’s business, complete with pictures of the bedrooms, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened. Did we give them permission to use any images of our house on the Internet?”
Jake looked at his mother. “No.”
Vivian looked at him. “And I suppose you’ve discussed with Sugar the need for permits and health inspections?”
“Again, I don’t think they’re going to renew the lease.”
“But the business is operational now. And they have no permits. The reason this is a problem,” Vivian said, “is that we’ll never be able to sell that house now that it’s had a dead stranger in it. Everyone in town knows it was a mentally ill individual.” She frowned at Jake. “Why would anyone buy their product with such a thing hanging over them?”
“A dead guy isn’t going to affect their product negatively,” Jake said, though he wasn’t certain. If someone kicked off at the Bait and Burgers, it would definitely slow business down.
“It’s all over the Internet. The story was picked up by a local reporter who gave the story to one of the big newspapers. It then got picked up by Hello, America. Apparently, Sheriff Goody has been fielding calls from reporters who want to come here and interview everyone involved. That would be your friends.”
Jake’s gut cramped. That would be bad. He didn’t need Vivian to draw him a picture. The national media would eat the Hot Nuts alive. Pecan Creek would come off looking unprofessional and unsafe, especially once it was dug up that Sugar hadn’t bothered to get any permits or health inspections. It was a rookie mistake in the food business. He knew how the mistake had happened, because he was in the food business. You got a big idea, you had a thousand things to decide for the business, and little things like codes and permits and health inspections never came up in your own house where you were cooking in your own kitchen.
There had been a dead body of questionable origin in their place of business.
“Have any suggestions?”
Vivian kept silent as their burgers were placed in front of them.
“Hello, Mrs. Bentley,” Evert said with an enthusiastic grin.
“Hello, Evert,” Vivian said. “Please say hello to your mother and father for me. I heard that your mother recently made up a new batch of her delightful divinity. I’m hoping her shop gets lots of business during our parade.”
“She does, too.” Still grinning, Evert shambled back to the grill.
“So?” Jake said.
“There’s only one way to save this. They’re going to have to shut down their business.” Vivian took a bite of her hamburger, nodding. “Delicious.”
Jake stared at his mother. “Shut it down?”
“How else do you propose that this train wreck gets stopped?”
He lost his appetite, looked out over the parking lot. For once he could tell his mother wasn’t operating from a position of spite. She wasn’t even bitching about the fact that there was a business in their home, or about the Hot Nuts. She seemed totally concerned with Pecan Creek’s reputation as the Most Honest Town in Texas not being tarnished by talk of dead bodies, sexy pecans and a business that hadn’t been vetted by the local health authorities. “They’re hoping to launch in two weeks.”
“During the parade?” Vivian shook her head. “Terrible timing. Sheriff Goody says the reporters will be here then, specifically because of the parade. But they’re sending some reporters ahead to do some local interest scouting.”
Jake leaned back. “I can’t tell the Cassavechias to shut down.”
“I know. But I’ve stretched my mind to think of another way to solve this, and I can’t. Either they take their business elsewhere, or they close it down. It’s never going to be a working business model. There’s too many negatives involved. Imagine what would happen if one of the old-timers keeled over in your restaurant.”
“I know.” Jake blinked. “The body was upstairs in Lucy’s bed, not in the kitchen.”
“Which destroys the house value and any chance we ever have of leasing it or opening it up as a B&B,” Vivian said, without any rancor in her voice, “and it will still affect their business. It’s just bad, Jake.”
Even he could see that time was short. They could maybe jam through the necessary permits; they could make the arrangements with the health department and hope they moved fast, although this close to Thanksgiving, it might be questionable. Jake frowned. There was still the fact that a breaking-and-entry pervert had died in the same house. “That business is their dream.”
“I know.” Vivian shook her head. “I know what it feels like to lose a dream. Believe me, I don’t approve of them, but I don’t want them to lose their business. I better than anyone understand what it means to be a woman with a livelihood when you have no one else in the world to depend on.” She sipped her soda, wiped her lips delicately. “And I don’t want our home affected any more negatively, I’m not going to lie. I also don’t want bad publicity for Pecan Creek. But the thing is, there’s going to be a lot of bad publicity once the story gets out, and their business is sunk.” She sighed. “I don’t envy you having to tell them.”
He’d promised Sugar January and February for advertising on the billboard. “I’ll think of something,” he said, and Vivian said, “I hope you do.”
He frowned. “Since when have you become so worried about the Cassavechias?”
Vivian put her burger down again. “As I said, I feel for anyone who loses a job. I fought hard over the years to make ends meet, and believe me, it wasn’t always easy. My friends were in the same boat as me, and that made it tolerable, or I might have just stayed…depressed.”
He was shocked. He’d never heard his mother talk like that. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Don’t be. You were a child. I wanted you to have a good childhood.” Her mouth twisted. “I understand exactly what the Cassavechias are going through. I also know that Maggie just got a clean report on her breast cancer. No woman wishes ill on a woman who’s suffered through anything like that. I’m concerned about Pecan Creek and I always wanted the best for you, but I never wanted anything bad to happen to those women.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He reached over to pat her hand.
“And as the grapevine mentioned that you and Sugar seem to be getting very close to each other, a mother’s mind naturally turns to grandchildren.”
Jake blinked. “Grandchildren?”
“Well, I would like one eventually. You’re my only child, so one realizes you’re my only hope for grandchildren.” Vivian sniffed. “Sugar Cassavechia looks like she is quite capable of birthing grandchildren. The rest of the family appears sturdy. It looks like a good bet to me for healthy genes, if not perhaps the world’s most untarnished. Beggars cannot, however, be choosers.”
She took another bite of her hamburger, at peace with her thought process, however unconventional. Jake couldn’t have been more astonished if his mother had suggested he fly around the earth with wings he built himself. “Mom, Sugar and I don’t have any kind of serious relationship. Some days, I really step in it with her.”
Vivian patted her mouth delicately and got up, kissed him on the head. “I can’t solve everything for you but I do wish you well. Especially when you tell Sugar her business model is seriously flawed at this point. Good luck, son. I really would like a grandchild one day,” she said, stepping carefully off the patio porch Lassiter had built. Jake helped her to the bottom of the steps.
“I’m no spring chicken, you know. Thank you very much for lunch. Congratulations on your restaurant.” She walked off across the parking lot at a good clip in her walking shoes, looking fit and hearty, more than he felt at the moment.
Sugar’s business meant everything to her. It was her touchstone, her reason for bringing her family to PC. It was her Tara.
This ought to kill any chance we ever had of having anything more serious than a hello when we pass on the street.
Damn.