“You might as well have taken a gun and shot me through the heart. You know those old Clifford bats hate me. I’m disgraced.” There was a shrill shriek, and Jennie Sue heard something hard hit a wall.
“Mama, I did not do this to hurt you. I told you and Daddy both I want a job. I need to be independent so I don’t have to shut my eyes to a cheating husband.”
“That woman and her sisters were a thorn in my grandmother’s side and my mother’s,” Charlotte said. “I’m coming over. You’d better be ready to come home when I get there.”
“Is Daddy going to give me a job in the firm?” Jennie Sue asked.
“No, he is not.”
“Why?”
“Because I told him not to.”
“Why?” Jennie Sue gasped.
“Because that’s low class. Wilshire women do not work, Jennie Sue. You’ve been raised better than that. And I told your daddy if he gives you a job, then he can’t have any more mistresses,” she said.
“I’m a Baker, not a Wilshire. You said so yourself this morning,” Jennie Sue argued.
“Then have it your way, but don’t expect a dime of your Wilshire inheritance if you feel like that.”
That’s when Charlotte did hang up on her—for real.
Jennie Sue threw the phone at the small sofa and took stock of her new place. The whole thing was smaller than her bedroom at her mother’s house. A small television sat on top of the chest of drawers in front of a sofa that snugged up to the end of a four-poster bed. A galley kitchen was located to her right, with two doors on her left—one into a bathroom and the other into a closet.
A set of french doors led out to a tiny balcony barely big enough to accommodate a plastic lawn chair. She threw her suitcase on the bed, which was covered with a bright-yellow chenille bedspread.
“It beats living in a box in an alley or in a shelter—and it comes with sheets and towels, so I’m not going to gripe,” she said out loud.
Tuesday was Rick’s day to drive the bookmobile to several locations in Bloom, starting at the senior citizens’ center at one o’clock so the elderly folks could turn in books and check them out right after their lunch. He stayed thirty minutes. From there he drove to the bank parking lot and stayed an hour. After that he drove back to the library and spent the time there until it was time for Cricket to get off work.
Reaching the library was his favorite part of the whole week. He could sit in an old, comfortable chair in air-conditioned comfort and read, or else visit with Amos in between customers and replenishing the bookmobile’s stock.
He hurried out of the heat and inside the cool library to find Amos grinning like he’d just found a first edition. The short little guy had a perpetual grin, but today the extra twinkle in his eyes said he was up to something ornery. Amos handed Rick a tall glass of sweet tea and motioned to a couple of chairs over by the library’s two computers.
“Jennie Sue Baker took a job cleaning houses for Nadine and Lettie Clifford.” He sat down, but he could hardly be still.
Rick took the other chair and combed his dark hair back with his fingertips. “Are you crazy? Is this Long Island iced tea or regular old sweet tea?”
“Nope.” Amos shook his head emphatically. “I was right there when she took the job. And that’s not all. I hired her to help me out on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the bookstore.”
Rick’s eyebrows drew down into one line. “The Jennie Sue Baker, daughter of Dill and Charlotte, granddaughter of the Wilshires?”
“Yep.” Amos was almost giddy.
Rick shook his head and sipped his tea. “I still don’t believe it.”
“It’s the one hundred percent guaranteed gospel truth. Lettie couldn’t wait to take Jennie Sue home with her, and I bet the phone lines have been hot with the news.”
More than a dozen customers who were more interested in the latest news than checking out books kept Amos hopping up and down from his chair. Finally, Cricket rushed into the library and sank down in the chair beside him. “Did you hear? Jennie Sue is going to clean houses for the Clifford sisters. I keep listenin’ for the ambulance on its way toward Charlotte’s house.”
Rick frowned. “It’s good, honest work. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that it’s their princess cleaning houses and living in a tiny little apartment above a garage. And guess what else? She’s been divorced for more than a year. Her husband left her, and the IRS is hot on his trail for income-tax evasion. And he left with another woman,” Cricket said.
Jennie Sue was divorced—he wouldn’t go there. Not with his scars, the limp, and the fact that the only time he was ever somebody was his senior year in high school, when Bloom went to district playoffs. Add in that he was a farmer, and there was no sense in wasting a single minute thinking about her. Besides, she’d get over whatever rebellion she seemed to have fallen into and go back to her lush lifestyle before long. Once a socialite, always a socialite, right?
“We were busy all day. The news spread fast, and people came to the café to talk about it.”
“I hate this behind-the-hands talk,” Rick muttered.
“Not me.” Amos pulled up a wooden chair and joined them. “I love it. Brings excitement into our lives. Charlotte is probably on the verge of a stroke. Dill might even have to leave his business trip with Darlene and come on back home to settle her down. She gets pretty worked up when she doesn’t get her way. Been like that since she was a kid. Jennie Sue never did have that Wilshire temper.”
Some things would never change in Bloom. They had put in new curbs and sidewalks two years ago, and some of the vacant stores on Main Street were occupied now, but if the citizens couldn’t gossip, it wouldn’t be long until the place dried up into a ghost town.
“So what’ve you been readin’? Did you finish Scarlett?” Rick rubbed the scar on his upper arm and tried to steer Amos and Cricket away from the gossip.
“Yep, and then read it again,” Amos answered. “You know, Jennie Sue kind of reminds me of Scarlett. She’s takin’ things into her own hands. I like that in a woman. My sweet wife, Iris, was like that. She didn’t let nobody, not even me, tell her what she could or couldn’t do. Lord, that woman was as stubborn as a cross-eyed mule in a thunderstorm.”
Rick nodded. “I’d say that’s pretty stubborn, but I know another woman here in Bloom that’s about as stubborn as that, too.”
“You’d better not be talkin’ about me. In my opinion, Jennie Sue is just plain uppity, Amos,” Cricket said.
“Evenin’, Amos. I’m glad I got here before you closed.” A lady laid a book on the counter. “I hate to keep a book out over the due date. Did you hear that Jennie Sue Baker is going to clean houses for the Clifford sisters?”
“You ready to go home?” Rick asked Cricket under the older folks’ conversation.
“In a few minutes,” she said.
“I appreciate good patrons, Joyce. Tell me what you’ve heard.” With Amos’s hearing going, Rick was surprised people couldn’t follow the conversation from outside the building.
“It’s closin’ time for the library, and we’ve got work to do,” Rick said.
“Oh, okay.” Cricket shot a dirty look his way and then called out over her shoulder as they left, “See y’all later.”
Amos waved and kept listening to Joyce. Rick wondered if Jennie Sue’s ears were burning yet.
Chapter Three
You look like your grandma Vera Baker,” Nadine said as she handed the SUV keys over to Jennie Sue. “Sweetest woman I ever met. She wasn’t at all like the Wilshire side of your family. Why, I remember when we’d have a family dinner at the church for funerals, she’d always insist on bringing three or four desserts instead of trying to cancel dessert entirely, and she loved to garden. Sometimes she’d bring sacks full of vegetables to the church and leave them on the table in the foyer so folks could help themselves.”
Lettie nodded. “Sad day when she left this earth.”