"I've been thinking a lot about Ted lately." Shelby hooked one side of her blond bob behind her ear and gazed down at her new peep-toe ballerinas.
"Haven't we all." Kayla frowned and touched her pavé diamond star necklace.
"Way too much." Zoey started to chew on her bottom lip.
Ted's newly single status had once again raised their hopes. Emma wished they'd both accept the fact that he would never commit to either of them. Kayla was too high maintenance, and Zoey inspired his admiration but not his love.
It was time to draw the conversation back to the subject they'd been avoiding, how they were going to raise the rest of the money to repair the library. The town's normal sources of big money, which included Emma and husband Kenny, still hadn't recovered from the hits their portfolios had taken in the last economic downturn, and they'd already been tapped out by half a dozen other vital local charities in need of rescue. "Anyone have any new fund-raising idea?" Emma asked.
Shelby clicked her index finger against her front tooth. "I might."
Birdie groaned. "No more bake sales. Last time, four people got food poisoning from Mollie Dodge's coconut custard pie."
"The quilt raffle was a dreadful embarrassment," Emma couldn't help but add, even though she didn't like contributing to the general negativity.
"Who wants a dead squirrel staring back at them every time they go into their bedroom?" Kayla said.
"It was a kitten, not a dead squirrel," Zoey declared.
"It sure looked like a dead squirrel to me," Kayla retorted.
"Not a bake sale and not a quilt raffle." Shelby had a faraway look in her eyes. "Something else. Something . . . bigger. More interesting."
They all regarded her inquisitively, but Shelby shook her head. "I need to think about it first."
No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get any more out of her.
,
Nobody would hire Meg. Not even at the ten-unit motel on the edge of town. "You got any idea how many permits it takes to keep this place open?" the ruddy-faced manager told her. "I ain't doin' nothin' to piss off Ted Beaudine, not as long as he's mayor. Hell, even if he wasn't mayor . . ."
So Meg drove from one business to the next, her car guzzling gas like a construction worker gulping water on a summer afternoon. Three days passed, then four. By the fifth day, as she gazed across the desk at the newly hired assistant manager of Windmill Creek Country Club, her desperation had developed a bitter center. As soon as this interview fell through, she'd have to swallow her final shard of pride and call Georgie.
The assistant manager was an officious preppy type, thin, with glasses and a neatly trimmed beard he tugged on as he explained that, despite the club's lowly status, being only semiprivate and not nearly as prestigious as his former place of employment, Windmill Creek was still the home of Dallas Beaudine and Kenny Traveler, two of the biggest legends in professional golf. As if she didn't know.
Windmill Creek was also the home club of Ted Beaudine and his cronies, and she'd never have wasted gas coming here if she hadn't seen the item in the Wynette Weekly announcing that the club's newly hired assistant manager had last worked at a golf club in Waco, which made him a stranger in town. On the chance that he didn't yet know she was the Voldemort of Wynette, she'd immediately picked up the phone and, to her shock, snagged this afternoon's interview.
"The job's eight to five," he said, "with Mondays off."
She'd gotten so used to rejection that she'd let her mind wander. She had no idea what job he was talking about, or if he'd actually offered it to her. "That's-that's perfect," she said. "Eight to five is perfect."
"The pay's not much, but if you do your job right, the tips should be good, especially on weekends."
Tips! "I'll take it!"
He eyed her fictionalized résumé, then took in the outfit she'd pulled together from her desperately limited wardrobe-a gauzy petal skirt, white tank, studded black belt, gladiator sandals, and her Sung dynasty earrings. "Are you sure?" he said doubtfully. "Driving a drink cart isn't much of a job."
She bit back the urge to tell him she wasn't much of an employee. "It's perfect for me." Desperation made it alarmingly easy to set aside her beliefs about golf courses destroying the environment.
As he led her outside to the snack shop to meet her supervisor, she could barely comprehend that she finally had a job. "Exclusive courses don't have drink carts," he sniffed. "But the members here can't seem to wait for the turn to grab their next beer."