The Cherry Cola Book Club - By Ashton Lee
Acknowledgments
My creation of the Cherico, Mississippi, universe would not have been possible without the help and advice of so many friends, professionals, and family members. I must begin with my superb agents, Christina Hogrebe and Meg Ruley, of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, who matched me up with John Scognamiglio of Kensington Books. John makes the editor-author relationship a seamless one.
Next, I owe a great deal to my aunt, Abigail Jenkins Healy, for rounding up and certifying a number of delicious Southern dishes for the recipe section at the back of the book. These dishes appear in the plot, and I thought it would be a homey touch to allow readers to experience these dishes themselves.
Many librarians have contributed to this novel with their encouragement and factual input. Among them: Susan Cas-sagne, Marianne Raley, Deb Mitchell, Catherine Nathan, Jennifer Smith, Lesa Holstine, Regina Cooper, Susan Delmas, Judy Clark, Jackie Warfield, Derek Schaaf, Alice Shands, the staff of St. Mary Parish Library, in Franklin, Louisiana, Larie Myers, and Angelle Deshoutelles.
Many thanks also to Jerry Seaman for his fishing lure lessons, which I trust I learned well. And to my many Facebook followers at facebook.com/ashtonlee.net, I have appreciated your comments and support more than you know.
1
Books versus Bulldozers
Maura Beth Mayhew shut her sky blue eyes and let the unsettling words that had just been thrown her way sink in for a few tense moments. When she finally opened them, she flipped her whiskey-colored curls defiantly at Councilman Durden Sparks and his two underlings seated at the other end of the meeting room table. Their only distinction was their nicknames—as in “Chunky” Badham, who had not missed many meals along the way, and “Gopher Joe” Martin, the consummate “yes man” if ever there was one. Colorful monikers aside, Maura Beth had no intention of letting any of them roll over her with those bulldozers they kept on romancing as if they were the secret to unlocking the universe.
“You actually think the citizens of Cherico are going to stand for this?” she said, her voice trembling noticeably as the stress crept into her face.
Councilman Sparks flashed his matinee idol eyes and prominent white teeth—the source of his ongoing popularity with many female voters—and leaned toward the town’s pretty young librarian of six years standing. “Miz Mayhew,” he began, “don’t panic. This won’t happen tomorrow. We’ll give you up until our budget approval at the end of November to rev up that library of yours. Use the next five months to show this Council why we should continue to fund it in lieu of other, more beneficial projects such as our proposed Cherico Industrial Park.”
Maura Beth had her response at the ready. “Interesting that you call it my library, now that you don’t think it has any value. Or maybe you never did.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he answered, nodding her way. “I remember when I was eight years old and I wanted to participate in summer reading like some of my classmates were doing. They were getting blue ribbons for finishing a certain number of books, and that got my competitive juices flowing. I asked my mother if I could sign up, and I’ll never forget how she rambled on about it. She described The Cherico Library as a burden for the taxpayers and told me that the librarian at the time, Miz Annie Scott, did nothing all day but read her favorite novels and try to get in good with all the wealthy families so she could wangle donations. Mom believed it was no coincidence that their children were the ones that always got the ribbons and that I could make much better use of my time playing sports and getting good grades. So that’s what I did.”
The shock clearly showed on Maura Beth’s face. “I had no idea you had such a jaundiced view of the library. But you actually think that grading that tract of glorified cow pasture on the north end of town will pay dividends for Cherico?”
“We’re not flying by the seat of our pants here. We’ve commissioned a study,” he answered, brandishing a thin bound volume in the process. “We believe several viable companies would locate here if we prepare the land for them properly. That would bring jobs to our struggling little community. It would mean growth for us in this stagnant economy.”
Well, there it was. The broken record of the current crop of local politicians who had gotten re-elected to office in Cherico, Mississippi, two years ago in the fall of 2010. They had won because they had campaigned with the same stale bumper stickers, but now that they’d gotten in once again, their mantra had suddenly morphed into growth and change. Even if she knew—and Durden Sparks, Chunky Badham, and Gopher Joe Martin also knew damned good and well—that Cherico was not the type of town that wanted to get busier with traffic and attract a lot of those copycat, big-box franchises that advertised on television all the time. It did not even have a daily newspaper anymore—only one of those weekly shopping guides full of coupons, discounts, and special sales gimmicks on certain days of the week.
No, Cherico was small and parochial, even xenophobic at times. It had never taken full advantage of its picturesque location on Lake Cherico, which itself was a finger of the Tennessee River System in the extreme northeast corner of Mississippi. The town was not actually old enough to be called antebellum; indeed, it barely qualified for the Victorian Era with a smattering of homes in the Queen Anne or Swiss Chalet style here and there. Overall, the architecture was muddled and mundane.
Mostly, though, Cherico was full of people who wanted to be left alone, particularly the newer citizens who had built their ritzy vacation retreats and boathouses out on the lake and were therefore not even year-round residents. When they dropped in on the environs during warmer weather for some fishing and skiing, it was only for a few weeks at a time, maybe as long as a month, and they stayed out of local politics as a result.
“What you cannot deny, Miz Mayhew,” Councilman Sparks continued after a healthy sip from his water glass, “is that your circulation figures have steadily declined over the past three years, and they weren’t going gangbusters before you came here, either. By your own admission, your only regular patrons are Miss Voncille Nettles and the Crumpton sisters, who gather in your meeting room once a month.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Maura Beth said, her eyes flashing. “We have our regulars who check out books and DVDs. And just for the record, we also have the very respectable Mr. Locke Linwood attending ‘Who’s Who in Cherico?’ His wife, Pamela, was also a regular before her untimely passing, as I’m sure you recall.”
“Yes, I do. It was a most unfortunate event. Very well, then. I stand corrected. Three spinsters and a widower attend these utterly fascinating meetings.” Councilman Sparks loudly cleared his throat and continued, “At any rate, they gather to run on about their fabled family trees. As if who begat whom is going to change from week to week. Hey, the bottom line is, you’re stuck with your genes—good, bad, or something in between—and no amount of flowery window dressing will make any difference, to my way of thinking.”
“ ‘Who’s Who in Cherico?’ has been the benchmark for genealogical research for many years,” Maura Beth proclaimed. “Miss Voncille Nettles spends countless hours researching deeds and such at the courthouse for accuracy. She knows everything about everybody, as well as all sorts of historical nuggets about this town.”
Councilman Sparks pursed his lips as if he had just taken a swallow of sour milk. “Tell me about it. I think sometimes we should just set up a cot for the darling lady in the archives and lock her in for the night. Maybe throw in a pitcher of water and a chamber pot for good measure. But Miss Voncille and her followers could just as easily meet in someone’s living room as your library. They’d certainly have more space, and I bet she and her little crowd would enjoy a libation or two while they gossip about their dear, dead relatives. Unless you’ve changed the policy without my knowledge, I don’t believe the library allows the consumption of adult beverages, if you will, on its premises. Why, that little bunch could leave you high and dry if they decided they’d had enough of teetotaling all these years. Face it, Miz Mayhew, they’re now your only viable claim to fame!”
Chunky and Gopher Joe snickered, winked at each other, and nodded their heads knowingly while Maura Beth did her best to suppress her disgust. She knew those two would never carry on in such a disrespectful manner anywhere other than this special budget session she was being forced to endure without benefit of a single witness. It was clear that as far as they were concerned, she fit the definition of the proverbial redheaded stepchild.
“May I quote you on all that, Councilman Sparks?” Maura Beth said.
“It would be a ‘he said, she said’ at best, I’m afraid. You’ll be gravely disappointed if you try to rally the public, because it’s my belief that almost nobody out there really gives a damn about the library. It’s my job as a politician to read the tea leaves on all the issues, and I don’t think I’m wrong about this one.”
Maura Beth shot him a skeptical glance and decided to stay on the attack as long as she could. “I’m curious. Why don’t you just close down the library right now? Why wait until you approve the new budget?”
After a particularly patronizing grin and an overly dramatic pause, Councilman Sparks said, “Because we wouldn’t want to be accused of not giving you one last chance to turn it all around. Even though we’re all supremely confident that you won’t be able to, of course.”
“Well, I have to admit you’ve done absolutely nothing to help me up to this point.”
“And how’s that? I don’t profess to know anything about running a library, except the cost efficiency.”
Maura Beth allowed herself to roll her eyes as she exhaled. “I’m referring to the fact that this Council has consistently refused my requests to fund a couple of computer terminals so the patrons can come in and access the Internet. That would have bolstered library use considerably over the past several years. It’s what knowledgeable patrons all over the country have come to expect. But I guess that didn’t suit your long-range agenda.”
“There, I have to put my foot down,” he said, making a fist of his right hand and pounding it twice on the table like a gavel. “The public can buy their own computers. Everybody I know has one—not to mention all the other electronic gadgets people use now to keep in touch no matter where they are.” He cut his eyes first at Chunky, then at Gopher Joe.
“Matter of fact, that reminds me of a joke going around. Stop me if you’ve heard it. Seems this fella walks into a doctor’s office complaining of a peculiar growth on his ear, and now he’s constantly hearing bells and loud voices. He’s been really worried about it for a while and finally decides to get a medical opinion. ‘Do ya think it might be a tumor, or am I going crazy, Doc?’ the man says. Whereupon the doc flicks on his flashlight, squints real hard looking around, and finally answers, ‘Nope, you’re fine. It’s just your cell phone.’ ”
The guffawing from Chunky and Gopher Joe was devastating for Maura Beth. She felt as if they were laughing at her and the joke was their cover. When it had all finally died down, she found herself staring at their wrinkled, solemn faces and wondering if these lackeys had ever in their lives read anything that had not been required for their high-school book reports light-years ago. In fact, she had strong anecdotal evidence to that effect when at a previous meeting, Chunky had rambled on about “all those snooty books in the library like ‘Silence’ Marner that nobody likes to read.” Even so, she knew she was up against it big-time, and that it would do her no good to continue to aggravate this powerful, privileged trio.
“Very funny joke. But I still have about five months to turn things around,” she managed, quickly recovering from her unpleasant mental review. “And if I do so, you’ll continue the library’s funding?”
Councilman Sparks took his time, casting his eyes toward the whirring ceiling fan as he considered. “I wish I could give you a guarantee, Miz Mayhew. But if you do nothing to change the status quo, The Cherico Library is history. We can’t justify the expense any longer. If you should impress us enough, maybe we’ll be willing to work something out. Just remember, though—you’ll need more than Miss Voncille beating the drum on your behalf. The fact is, there’s no millage specifically dedicated to the library, and we think the time has come to stop pretending that we’re getting good value for our money in this particular line item of the budget.”
Meager as that peace offering was, it was still a vestige of hope from the powers-that-be. Maura Beth caught herself smirking faintly as the session came to an end and she rose from her seat without fanfare. “Please, gentlemen,” she told them, nodding in their general direction. “By all means, don’t bother to get up. I know you really don’t want to.”
Alone among the three, Councilman Sparks stood and executed a hurried little bow.
As she made her way down the hall, memories of library science school at LSU suddenly flashed into Maura Beth’s head. There had been no course titled “Dealing with Politicians 101,” nor even something along the lines of “Elementary Schmoozing.” There should have been, though. Some wise professor should have stood before her and the other innocent young library students taking lecture notes and warned them that the political aspects of librarianship were going to be the most difficult to maneuver. That libraries and their scant mill-ages would usually find themselves first to be cut and last to be restored. It always seemed to be easier for politicians to favor the sound of bulldozers in motion over the static silence of the printed word.
Maura Beth walked down the steps of Cherico City Hall and out onto Commerce Street as if she had just been handed a prison sentence. Five months to get cracking. Her shoulders were slumped, and the blazing June sun glinting off the asphalt made them slump even more. It was just past three in the afternoon, and even though she had skipped lunch, she had no appetite at all. What she needed was a big helping of solace, not sustenance. So she made her way deliberately past the familiar lineup of one-story brick and wooden storefronts: Audra Neely’s Antiques; Cherico Ace Hardware; Vernon Dotrice Insurance Agency; and Curtis L. Trickett, Attorney at Law, among others. Finally, she reached the shade of the big blue-and-white awning dotted with silver stars belonging to The Twinkle, Twinkle Café. Inside, she knew she would find its owner and the woman who had become her sounding board since her move to Cherico half a dozen years ago—Periwinkle Lattimore.
“Maura Beth, you get your cute little redheaded self in here before you wilt like my famous warm spinach salad!” Periwinkle called out the second she spotted her friend sighing at the delicious blast of air-conditioned relief that greeted her just inside the door. The place was empty, being right in the middle of the no-man’s land between the lunch and dinner crowds, but the welcoming fragrance of spices and herbs lingered over the dozen or so tables with their blue-and-white tablecloths and delicate votive candles. Periwinkle quickly pointed to a corner two-seater beneath a mobile sporting an elaborate array of gold and silver metallic stars. “Right over there, honey! I’ll wait on ya myself!”
“Oh, I didn’t come to eat,” Maura Beth said. “Just some much-needed talking and listening.”
Periwinkle laughed brightly and headed over to the table with a complimentary glass of sweet tea. “Aha! Deep-fried talking and braised listening—my house specials!”
“And I’ve come for my fix. Sit with me until someone comes in.”
Maura Beth had long ago concluded that the key to the success of The Twinkle, as many locals affectionately now called it, was Periwinkle’s willingness to stop at nothing to keep it going. Not just ordering the food and supplies, but doing a major share of the cooking and even helping her waitress serve when the place got overwhelmed. The woman remained lean and indefatigable but somehow never seemed to break a sweat. Her blond hair with its stubborn dark roots was always styled attractively, never disheveled, even if she was seldom without the unsophisticated touch of a wad of Juicy Fruit gum in her mouth.
“So what’s on your mind?” Periwinkle said, settling into her chair. “I can tell you’re upset about something.”
Maura Beth took a sip of her tea, breathed deeply, and then unloaded, covering every detail of the ordeal she had just endured at the hands of Cherico’s three heavy-handed councilmen.
“Those . . . so-and-sos!” Periwinkle exclaimed, managing to restrain herself. “You mean you might lose your job? After all this time?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
Periwinkle put her elbows on the table, resting her fists under her chin as she contemplated. “Tell me true—do you think they would be taking you more seriously if you were a man?”
Maura Beth managed an ironic little chuckle. “Maybe, maybe not. In this case, I just think they’re all about shuffling the budget around to suit themselves.”
“I don’t doubt it. But I wonder if they’d be as willing to bulldoze you—using your words here, honey—if you had a pair. Listen, we women have to fight for everything we get. Do you think I would have gotten the seed money to start this restaurant if I’d pulled my punches in my divorce settlement with Harlan Lattimore? Hell, he wanted to ditch me high and dry, but I bowed up and said, ‘No, sir, you won’t! Not after thirteen years of marriage, and my salad days are in my rear-view mirror. I helped you make a success of The Marina Bar and Grill, working hard as your secretary day and night, and I’ll be damned if you’ll leave me out in the middle of the water without a paddle!’ ”
There was a touch of envy in Maura Beth’s quiet little sigh. “You certainly know how to stand up for yourself. Of course I know I can’t let these men intimidate me. That’s exactly what they want. But I can’t force people to come to the library, either. I just don’t know if there’s a way out of this.”
“You gotta have you a gimmick,” Periwinkle replied, leaning in while furiously working her gum. “Listen to this. When I was trying to come up with a name for my restaurant, I realized that it wouldn’t matter what I called it if my food was no good. I know how to put together a delicious meal, though, so that part didn’t worry me. But I thought to myself that a catchy name might just get ’em in the door the first time, and then they’d be hooked. Did I ever tell you that I originally wanted to call this place Twinkle, Twinkle, Periwinkle’s?”
They both laughed heartily, and Maura Beth said, “No. So why didn’t you? I just love that!”
“Well, I thought it might be a bit too cutesy. So I ran it past my mother over in Corinth, and she said, ‘Peri, honey, that sounds like you’re running one a’ those baby boutiques. You know—where they sell bassinets and cradles and that kinda stuff.’ And after I thought about it for a while, I knew she was right on the money. So I put the café part in there so people would know it was definitely a new place to eat. Since then, of course, everyone’s shortened it to The Twinkle. It’s all worked out, but you need to come up with something that’ll get people into your library pronto so you can fend off those fat cats.”
Just then, a somewhat plump but still appealing middle-aged woman wearing big brunette hair and a busy floral muumuu flounced through the front door, waving and smiling expectantly all the way. “Periwinkle,” she said, slightly out of breath, “I finally found the time to pick up those tomato aspics I ordered this morning. I’ve been running behind all day with my errands.”
Periwinkle stood up and offered her hand as the woman reached their table. “They’re in the fridge, cool as a cucumber. I’ll run go get ’em for ya.” She quickly made a half turn toward the kitchen, but stopped just as suddenly in her tracks. “Now, where are my manners? Let me introduce you two. Maura Beth Mayhew, this is one of my newest customers, Connie McShay. She and her husband just moved here from Nashville about a month ago.” Periwinkle paused for a quick breath. “Connie, I’m sure you’ll be interested to hear that Maura Beth runs our library. I don’t have much time for books myself since The Twinkle takes up every minute of my day, but I’m sure Maura Beth’ll welcome a new patron with open arms, won’tcha, honey?”
“I most certainly will!” Maura Beth exclaimed, rising from her seat to shake hands and exchange further pleasantries while Periwinkle hurried off to retrieve the aspics.
“I’ve been meaning to drop by your library, you know,” Connie continued with an authentic warmth in her voice. “My husband, Douglas, and I have been so busy settling into our lodge on the lake, though. We’ve popped in only a week or two every year, but now we’re here for good. We still have so many boxes to unpack. I could swear those cardboard creatures somehow managed to reproduce in that moving van on the way down. Anyway, I’m a huge reader, and I even belonged to a wonderful book club up in Nashville. We called ourselves The Music City Page Turners.”
Maura Beth brightened considerably. “And that’s music to my ears. You simply must get your card soon and pick out a couple of the new best sellers we’ve just gotten in. I use every last cent the library has to keep up with all the popular reads. What’s your genre, by the way?”
“I’m the ultimate mystery buff. But I only like the polite kind where they figure out everything over tea and buttered scones. No bloody, gory, true crime forensics for me. When Agatha Christie died, I went into literary mourning for months. No more Miss Marple padding around the village of St. Mary Mead stumbling onto murders committed by the landed gentry, what ho! Or Hercule Poirot waxing his mustache, for that matter.”
Maura Beth laughed and was about to reply when Periwinkle reappeared with a small paper bag and handed it over to Connie. “Your aspics are just as snug as oysters in the shell in their little plastic containers in there. Just don’t brake for any squirrels on the way home, and they should hold their shape nicely.”
“Here’s seven bucks, and keep the change as usual,” Connie said, chuckling while she proffered a bill she had just retrieved from her purse.
“Much appreciated again, honey,” Periwinkle replied, tucking the money into her apron pocket.
Then Connie leaned into Maura Beth as if they had been the best of friends for the longest time. “Don’t you just love these tomato aspics? I was hooked the first time I bit into one and got a mouthful of that sinful cream cheese that was hiding in the middle. Douglas makes me get them now practically every other night for our dinner. That’s all we seem to eat these days—aspic and whatever fish he catches that day out on the lake. That I end up cleaning, by the way. Some retirement—I’ve spent most of it so far with stringers and fish scalers. Maybe I need to put my foot down.”
“I don’t know about that, but you’ve single-handedly turned tomato aspic into my biggest seller,” Periwinkle added. Suddenly, she began giggling and couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m sorry,” she continued finally, “but I just thought of what a difficult time I had selling my aspic when I first opened up. No one would ever order it, and I couldn’t figure out why. I knew there was nothing wrong with my recipe. It was my mother’s, and everybody in the family always raved about it. Then one day the mystery was solved when one of my customers, a very polite older man visiting down here from somewhere in Ohio, complimented me on the food on the way out. But he also said, ‘Just to satisfy my curiosity, could you tell me what icepick salad is? Your waitress recommended it as an appetizer, but it sounded pretty dangerous to me, so I passed on it. I’ve just spent a fortune having most of my teeth capped.’ ”
Both Maura Beth and Connie looked halfway between amused and bewildered as Periwinkle caught her breath once again.
“I know, ladies. I had that same expression on my face when that dear little man asked me that question. The deal is, there’s a certain type of Southern accent where people pronounce words like nasty as ‘nicety,’ glass becomes ‘glice,’ cancer turns into ‘kindsuh,’ and, of course, aspic winds up as ‘icepick.’ Maybe you’ve run into somebody who does that. Anyway, my waitress at the time, Bonnie Lee Fentress, was the sweetest little thing, but that’s the way she spoke, and she had no idea she was scaring people to death when she mentioned that item on the menu and left it at that. So I sat down with her and straightened out her diction, and lo and behold, my aspic was reborn. The rest is delicious history.”
“I most certainly agree with that,” Connie said while glancing at her watch. “Oh, I still have a million things to do, ladies. Let me run now. So nice visiting with you both.”
“Don’t forget about your library card!” Maura Beth called out as Connie exited as quickly as she had entered, hurling a muffled, “Will do!” from out on the sidewalk.
“I really like her,” Periwinkle said as she and Maura Beth resumed their seats. “She may be living high on the hog out on the lake, but she’s the salt of the earth—just my type.”
Maura Beth was gazing at her tea in silence and let a few awkward moments go by. “Oh, yes, I know she’ll be a welcome addition to Cherico, particularly since she’s a reader,” she finally offered, coming to. “I must track her down if she doesn’t keep her word and come by for that card. She’s given me an idea that might help the library out. It came to me just this second.”
“Shoot!”
“That book club she said she belonged to,” Maura Beth explained. “I need to pick her brain about that. Maybe we could get something like that going here in Cherico. You know, get people into the library to review books and socialize with each other. Maybe that’s the type of gimmick you were talking about earlier that I could use to put the library back on the map.”
Periwinkle looked particularly thoughtful and then nodded. “Couldn’t hurt. I think you need to get on it right away, though.”
“I knew I did the right thing coming in here to talk things over with you,” Maura Beth added. “That shoulder of yours has come in handy quite a few times over the past several years.”
Periwinkle reached across and patted her hand affectionately. “Hey, what are girlfriends for?”