“In the living room. Come on in here and tell us about the party last night. We were hoping you might sneak away and come by or at least call,” Lettie said. “Get yourself a glass of sweet tea on the way, and bring the pitcher to refill ours.”
Cricket set the brown paper bag holding several baggies full of goodies on the cabinet and yelled, “Can’t carry this much. Y’all come and help me.”
“We forgot that your foot is messed up.” Nadine’s voice preceded her into the kitchen. “And what is this?”
“I brought the party to you since you couldn’t come to it,” Cricket said.
Lettie came in right behind her. “I’ll take that to the living room. We was sittin’ in there, tryin’ to decide whether we wanted to make us a fresh tomato sandwich or go to the café for some lunch. It was so crowded after church that I just brought us on home. Now we can put all this out on the coffee table and have us a picnic.”
“So start tellin’ us about the party while we get things done.” Nadine got out the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and carried it, plus an empty glass, with her. “Come on, girl. I’ll give you the recliner, and me and Lettie can take the sofa and spread out all these goodies.”
“Well, I think Jennie Sue and I have gotten past the hate stage. She fixed my hair last night and even helped with my makeup. I had no idea that green eye shadow would look so much better on me.” Cricket set her crutches to the side and hopped over to the recliner. “And we went swimming after everyone left, and Rick even wore a swimsuit.”
“What did Jennie Sue do?” Lettie popped open the bag of leftover chicken salad and the one of pimento-cheese sandwiches and helped herself to a couple of each.
“She didn’t freak out. And this morning at breakfast, she admitted that she liked him. I hope he’s not in for a broken heart. When you think about the difference in what she’s inherited—well, it could change things.” Cricket took a sip of her tea while they opened all the lids on the leftover containers.
“Go on.” Nadine crossed forks with Lettie’s when she tried to get a bite of the shrimp cocktail. “You can have that chicken stuff. I like this better.”
“Too bad. I’m having at least one bite of the shrimp,” Lettie said. “Now tell us, who all was there, and what did they talk about?”
“I didn’t know a lot of them, but . . .” Cricket went on to talk about the party atmosphere, and what all she’d heard while everyone there ignored her.
“Where’s Rick and Jennie Sue now?” Nadine asked.
“At the farm. They took a picnic to the creek. Jennie Sue said bein’ there calms her down.”
“Her granny Baker was a farm girl,” Lettie said with a bob of her head. “So what’s going to happen to the oil company? Is she going to run it?”
“Not a word can be said outside this room.” Cricket went on to tell them what Jennie Sue planned to do.
“Bless her darlin’ heart.” Nadine wiped a tear from her cheek. “That she’s thinkin’ of doin’ something like that for Mabel shows that her heart is in the right place.”
“And what’s she going to do with all that money if she does sell it all?” Lettie asked.
“She says that she has a plan. I don’t think she’d go back to New York, but she might go to one of those third-world countries and help the women and children by building clinics and schools,” Cricket answered.
Lettie set her mouth in a firm line. “What are you going to do if she asks you and Rick to go with her?”
Both of Cricket’s palms shot up. “No, no, no! I’m not cut out for a clinic in a third-world country. I can’t even look when the doctor has to give me a shot, and I’m sure not smart enough to teach if she decided to build a school or something like that.”
“What if Rick goes with her?” Lettie asked. “He seems to be pretty struck with her.”
“Then I guess I’ll hire a good-lookin’ feller to help me run the farm.” Cricket winked. “And maybe he’ll like women who are curvy instead of skinny as a rail, and we’ll get married and have lots of babies.”
“Sounds like a book I just finished. Someone left it in my lending library out in front of the house. You should read it, Cricket. You might get some bedroom pointers. It gets pretty damn hot in places. I got hot flashes so bad I almost called Lettie to bring me one of her pills.”
“I ain’t had a hot flash in years”—Lettie popped her on the knee—“but I would like to read that book to see what one feels like.”
“You’ll have to get in line,” Cricket said.
Chapter Twenty
It’s not a memorial. It’s just a gathering of friends. These are the people who didn’t get to come to the one with the Belles and the other folks. We want to be there for you,” Lettie said.
“Promise you won’t go to a lot of trouble,” Jennie Sue said.
“We promise,” Nadine told her. “You get a good night’s rest up and sleep in as long as you like. It’s just Amos, the Lawsons, us, and maybe the preacher if he hasn’t made other plans. That’s all.”
“Okay.” Jennie Sue nodded even though she really would rather have spent the afternoon at the farm with Rick.
“So how did the picnic at the creek go?” Lettie asked.
“It was amazing. So peaceful.”
“We’d like a few more details than that,” Nadine pressed her.
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.” Jennie Sue grinned.
“So there was kissin’?” Lettie popped the footrest down on her recliner and leaned forward.
“A couple of times, but that’s all. He took a quilt from the house, and we had lunch, a long nap, a few kisses, and then we gathered in the garden stuff,” she said.
Lettie put the footrest back up. “If I’d gotten a feller that handsome out by a creek on a summer mornin’ at your age, I believe I could’ve done better than that.”
“You always have to dredge up the memories,” Nadine told her. “So you like him for more than a friend?”
“I do, but this whole relationship thing is pretty new, so I’m afraid if I talk about it, I’ll jinx it for sure. Right now, I’m going to take what I brought from the house up to the apartment and unpack it. I may need y’all to help me when it’s time to go back out there and go through personal things,” she said.
“Anytime,” Nadine said. “We’re here for you, and I’m sure Mabel is, too.”
Jennie Sue stood up from the sofa and glanced around the small living room. She liked a small house so much better than that huge thing out there in the country. When she built her own place, it was going to be just a house, maybe with a creek running close by. “Good night, ladies. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, and thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“It’s been our pleasure, darlin’,” Nadine said.
Lettie nodded in agreement. “If you need anything or can’t sleep tonight, you just call me, and we’ll get out the cards or dominoes.”
“If you do that, y’all better come and get me,” Nadine fussed.
“Sure thing.” Jennie Sue waved goodbye, knowing that if she couldn’t sleep, she’d call Rick before she called anyone.
When the lawyer, Justin, had laid out the basics of the will, he’d eyed Jennie Sue like she was a piece of ripe fruit. Several times Rick had caught his eyes roaming from her toes and going all the way up to her eyebrows. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that he liked what he saw. And it sure didn’t take one to know that every man in West Texas was going to be on her doorstep when they found out just how rich she was.
That was what was on his mind as he parked the truck beside the Cadillac at Lettie’s place. Just seeing the car sitting there reminded him she was out of his league, no matter what she’d said about them being in the first stages of a relationship. That could simply be grief talking—the need to have someone to hang on to until she could get past it.
An ironclad guarantee for happily ever after did not come with life. Life simply happened. A person accepted his fate and moved on. Those were his mother’s words, and that day as Rick got out of his truck, he understood the meaning more perfectly than ever before.
“Isn’t that Frank’s truck?” Cricket asked. “I didn’t know they were going to be here.”
“Yep, guess the party grew a little bit,” Rick said.
“Are you okay? You’ve been pretty quiet all mornin’.” Cricket tucked the crutches under her arms, and he shut the door for her.
“I’m fine, just a little worried about Jennie Sue,” he said.
“Hey, Rick, come sit on the porch and join me and Frank while the ladies put the finishing touches on the food,” Amos called out.
He hung back and let Cricket crutch inside the house before he sat down on the top porch step. “Looks like it might rain.”
“Be a good thing for the crops, wouldn’t it?” Frank asked.
“Oh, yeah! We never complain about rain this time of year.” Rick glanced up at the kitchen window to see Jennie Sue.