Jancy read through the last paragraph, slipped the letter back into the envelope, and put it with the rest of the letters. Swiping away a lonesome tear that escaped from behind her lashes, she touched her mother’s picture with her forefinger. “Mama, would things have been different if you hadn’t gotten pregnant with me? Was I really a blessing or a curse? Maybe you wouldn’t have married Daddy that summer otherwise.”
She finished unpacking, stuffed the duffel bags inside the suitcase, and set it in the closet. Taking a deep breath, she headed down the long hallway to the kitchen. Vicky and Nettie were sitting at the table, a pot of coffee and three cups sitting in the middle with a chocolate cake underneath one of those plastic cake carriers.
Vicky pointed. “We started without you. I’m only having half a cup or I’ll be awake half the night.”
“I’m immune to caffeine. This is my second cup,” Nettie said.
“Me, too.” Jancy pulled out a chair, sat down, and poured a full cup of coffee. “I know you’ve got questions, so fire away.”
“You done a good job today. Folks liked you,” Nettie said. “I reckon that’s all that’s important right now.”
“Except that we do need you to fill out some tax forms. We’ll do that tomorrow during downtime.” Vicky cut a thick slice of the layer cake and put it on a saucer. “We didn’t have leftover tarts today, but this is very good. You’ll like it.”
“Leftover tarts?” Jancy expected them to ask her personal questions, some that she’d probably not even want to answer.
“We usually bring home two to four in the evenings. We never serve leftovers. I make about fifty, and the rule is that a person can only take out two. We don’t cater them or sell them for parties, and when those fifty are gone, then there’s no dessert on the menu. Folks can eat as many as they want to buy in the diner or take two home with them, but no more. That’s rule number one,” Nettie answered.
“How many rules are there?” Jancy asked.
“Only a few, but they’re important. Go on and cut your own slice. I don’t know how much you want, but I’ll tell you right now, this is my second piece, and it’s really good.” Vicky took a bite. “Did you do something different with the recipe for this, Nettie?”
“Added a little bit of almond extract to the icing. You like it?”
“This is fantastic,” Jancy said. “It’s delicious, but I can’t wait to try a tart.”
“Didn’t you eat one back when you lived here?” Vicky froze with her tart halfway back to her plate in surprise.
Jancy shook her head. “Never had enough money to buy one, but I’m lookin’ forward to getting to taste them sometime in the next couple of weeks.”
“Well, honey, I’ll save one back for you tomorrow so you can see what you missed. Think about it long and hard first before you partake of a tart from the Strawberry Hearts Diner.” Nettie sounded like a preacher converting a house full of sinners.
“Why’s that?” Jancy asked.
“Because word has it that they are magic. If you ever eat the first one, then you’ll always crave them and want to come back to Pick to get another one,” Vicky said. “Want another piece of cake?”
“No, thanks. I’ve eaten more today than I have in a week combined,” Jancy answered. “Who taught you to make the tarts, Nettie?”
“Vicky’s mama and I perfected the recipe, and now I’m the only one who knows exactly how to make them. We always wanted to have a diner, not a café—a real silver diner—and name it the Strawberry Hearts. When Thelma’s husband died and left her a chunk of insurance money, we put one in and did just that.”
“I get the recipe when she kicks the bucket. Until then it’s locked in a safe-deposit box up in Tyler,” Vicky said.
“When did you start working in the diner, Vicky?” Jancy asked.
“I worked after school and summers from the time Mama and Nettie started the business. The summer before my eighteenth birthday my mother died and I went to work full-time. Nettie had been named my guardian until I could take over my half of the diner. I was pregnant before that even happened.”
“That means . . .” Jancy frowned.
“I was orphaned. Pregnant. Married. Widowed all in a three-month period. Then Emily was born when I was eighteen, and I was a mother. Thank God for Nettie and the café or I’d never have lived through everything. I’ve hated summer ever since then.”
Jancy swallowed the lump in her throat. She should open up and share some of her life with these strong women, but she couldn’t—not yet. Maybe not ever. It was too painful and too embarrassing to talk about. Jancy changed the subject. “Do you realize that you could sell this chocolate cake in the diner?”
“Yep, but Thelma and I made a deal that we’d only sell our tarts as desserts in the café. That’s the way it’s always been, ever since we had that diner built and set up on the corner of my land.”
“And there ain’t an entrepreneur in the whole great state of Texas who’s going to buy it for any amount of money.” Vicky sipped her coffee.
Jancy giggled. “I wouldn’t mess with either of you—or with Shane. Lord, did you see the size of his arms? They’d make a weight lifter look like a sissy. He’s really packed on the muscle since I lived here.”
“He’s a hardworkin’ boy, always has been,” Nettie said. “Awful self-conscious of that stutter, but when him and Ryder was in grade school, folks learned right quick that they’d better not tease him about it. Ryder didn’t take to anybody makin’ fun of his best friend.”
“What happened to Shane’s grandpa?” Jancy asked.
“He’s in a nursing home in Palestine. He’s got severe arthritis. Made his work just too hard. When he first realized what was happening to him, he signed over the whole business to Shane. That boy has expanded it from a junkyard into a body shop. He’s real good at what he does,” Vicky told her.
Jancy finished off her coffee and gathered up all the dirty dishes to take to the dishwasher. “Sign out at the edge of town still says there’s three hundred and six people. They didn’t change it when the three of us left, did they?”
“No, didn’t add to it when y’all came to take care of Granny Wilson, either.” Vicky put the cover back on the cake. “Nothing new in six years. Still got the feed store, post office, two churches, and the diner on this end of the highway through town. Shane’s business is up north of us, along with the volunteer fire station. South is Leonard’s convenience store and gas station combined. We keep hoping a business or two will go in the empty buildings between us and the convenience store, but nothing has happened yet.”
“You forgot the bank,” Nettie said.
“Yes, I did.” Vicky nodded. “It’s a branch bank from the one in Frankston. Set up in one of them portable buildings, but it’s got an ATM and everything that a big bank has. Where were you last night, Jancy?”