If I'd been here on assignment, I would have murdered them with my review.
As it was, I'd already resigned myself to poor service and mediocre food. If nothing else, the kids were in seventh heaven, the two younger ones oohing and aahing over every little thing. Tammy was a little more contained but I caught her doing an excited wiggle in her seat when she thought I wasn't looking. Even if the food was bad, it was worth the indigestion to see the three of them doing something other than yelling and crying and moping.
"Jeannie? Jeannie Jackson?" The voice was familiar but not to the point where I could place it. "Why, it is you-I'd recognize that hair of yours anywhere."
I glanced up, the smile I reserved for strangers firmly in place, only to drop my jaw in shock. "I'll be damned."
"Aunt Jeannie." Tammy hissed out my name, looking over at the younger kids before glaring at me. "No cursing in front of Dolly and Conway."
"Tammy, if you think I'm going to follow that particular rule, you're in for a world of disappointment." Shifting my attention back to the server, I said, "I'd say something about small worlds but Cotton Creek never was too big. How've you been, Lynn?"
Lynn Smith, former Miss Teen Georgia runner up, Homecoming Queen, Prom Queen, captain of the cheerleading squad, and one of the people who had made my life nothing short of a living hell in high school was my server.
If I was a shitty person, I'd use this as an opportunity for good old fashioned revenge.
Then again, it would only give her a chance to tell people she'd always known I was trashy and it didn't matter how much money I threw around I was still that girl from the trailer park.
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
"Oh, I'm fine, just fine." Her lips thinned out some, as if she was struggling to hold the smile in place, which only made me smile that much brighter. "They're a little short-staffed here so I told Bill and Diane I'd help them out in the evenings."
"You always were praised for your charity work." A lie, since the only cause Lynn Smith had ever embraced was her own advancement, but unlike in the real world, you couldn't call someone out on their lies in Cotton Creek. No, you had to smile and bless their heart and deliver some cutting remark addressing the fact you knew they were lying but were far too polite to say so. "Anyway, I'd love a sweet tea. Kids-either tea or one soda and then water."
As soon as Lynn sauntered off to fill our drink order, Tammy leaned over and whispered, "They're not short-staffed. I tried to get a job here during the summer and Ms. Diane said they had more than enough servers."
"Oh, I know."
"How?"
"Knowledge is power, Tammy, especially in a place like this." When she started to open her mouth, no doubt to ask what I mean by that statement, I shook my head. "I'll explain later. Right now, watch and learn." I smiled at Lynn, both of us pretending not to notice her nearly bobble the tray or the fact she touched the rim of each and every single glass. After she set the last one down, I said, "Why don't you start with the kids and I'll make up my mind before you get around to me?"
"Sure thing." If the way she ground her back teeth together was any indication, she was about as pleased with the suggestion as she'd been the day our senior English teacher made her switch seats because she couldn't make it through a class without talking. Turning to Dolly, she said, "What are you having, little girl?"
The next few minutes were interesting to say the least. Not because the kids couldn't order for themselves, because they could. It was the fact Lynn was apparently so unfamiliar with the menu she had no idea what sides came with certain entrees or that you didn't really need to ask someone how they wanted their chicken cooked. By the time she made her way back around to me, she was flushed and sweaty and all of the kids were irritable from the multiple rounds of twenty questions.
"And what are you having, Jeannie?" Lynn's smile was more of a grimace, her grip on the pen so tight I wouldn't have been surprised if it suddenly snapped in half. "Steak? Pot roast?"
"Actually, I'll just do a bacon cheeseburger, medium, pepper jack, fully dressed, with the steak fries."
"I'm not sure if we have that kind of cheese and we can only do burgers medium well."
"If you don't have pepper jack I'll take Swiss and yes, you can." When she only glared at me, her lips pursed so tight they were almost a seamless line, her nostrils flaring slightly, I sighed. "Go get the cook, please."
The second she stalked off, Tammy hissed, "What are you doing?"
"Starting out as I mean to continue. Don't worry, I'm not going to embarrass you." I ran my fingernail down the glass, frowning at the obvious evidence of hard water residue. "They need to get a softener."
It took a few minutes, probably because Lynn was back in the kitchen talking about the bitchy, picky customer, but she finally stormed out through the swinging door, a big hulking beast of a man in her wake. Flouncing over to the table, she lifted her chin and said, "Here's the cook. Joel-."
"McNabb." I stood and held out a hand, my smile genuine for probably the first time in a week. "I'll be damned. What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Ignoring my hand, he scooped me up in a bone-crushing hug, my toes barely touching the ground. Setting me back on my feet, he said, "Heard you'd come home. Sorry about your sister. She was always nice to me."
"Thanks." Joel was one of the few people in town who hadn't considered me or my sister trash, probably because he'd lived in the trailer six slots down and he'd dealt with the same bullshit I had. Stepping back, I said, "So you're a cook now, huh?"
"Pays the bills, which is more than can be said for working out at the plant." He shrugged, somehow managing to not look ridiculous despite the small, almost dainty apron struggling to cover his mountainous frame. "Besides, I always liked working with food."
"That you did." He'd been the only boy in our grade to take home economics and had aced the class with almost no effort. The only reason there'd never been even a rumor about his sexuality was his position on the football team and the fact he'd been known to lay out a grown man with a single punch. "So tell me something-why is it I can't get a burger done medium?"
"Who said you can't?" His easy smile died and he turned to Lynn with a scowl. "Come on now, Lynn. Not again."
"Consuming undercooked meat isn't recommended." If her spine got any straighter it'd probably interfere with the stick in her ass. "Doctors say-."
"Lynn." Joel dropped his voice to a low murmur, probably to keep from drawing any more attention our way, although most of the people in the restaurant were already watching not only openly but avidly. "Unless a damn doctor is a customer, it doesn't matter. And if Jeannie Jackson wants a medium burger, she can have one."
"With pepper jack cheese." I waited a beat. "If you have it, I mean."
"Of course we...." Joel trailed off, shaking his head even as Lynn clenched one fist at her side. "No problems, Jeannie. I'll make sure everything comes out right."
"Thanks, Joel." I turned to Lynn and smiled. "You, too, Lynn. Great service so far."
I sat down as they both headed toward the kitchen, the restaurant erupting in whispers. Tammy leaned over and said, "How'd you do that?"
"Told you, Tammy-knowledge is power. Not just what you know but who you know and what you know about them." I took a sip of my tea and sighed. "And I know an awful lot about an awful lot of people."
CHAPTER SIX
The next day, I stood on the front porch of my new home and watched Beth Barnes Bailey pick her way up the cracked and crooked pathway leading from the gate to the house. If the massive diamond and equally ostentatious wedding band on her left hand was any indication, she was doing a good deal better than the other two members of the so-called Golden Trio from my high school days. If the oversized hat and sunglasses shielding her face from the sun were any indication, she'd either learned you didn't need to go through life striving to fry yourself to a crisp in a tanning bed or she'd had a facelift recently.
If the rumors I'd heard in the last week were true, I was betting on the latter.
"Jeannie Jackson!" Her drawl was thicker now than it'd been in high school, the thick, cloying sound reminiscent of the fake accents Yankees and television people thought everybody south of the Mason-Dixon Line had. Pressing one hand to her hat to keep it from blowing away in the non-existent wind, she held out her other, even though she was a good five feet and ten steps from where I stood. "Imagine my surprise when I found out you'd gone and bought this place."