Small Town Rumors(12)

“Thank you for that.” Jennie Sue looked around the small café. Ten tables for four down the middle and ten booths on one side—not a huge place, but if the burgers were as good as the breakfast, then she might put on another ten pounds by September.

“And my sister and I always provide lunch for our cleaning lady. You’ll arrive at nine sharp and work until five, with an hour off from twelve until one. And sometimes in the evening, if you are willin’, we pay extra if you’ll drive us down to Sweetwater to Walmart or to the movies.”

Evidently, Lettie wasn’t going to let Amos get ahead of her.

“And you’ll have to drive them to our book-club meeting the first Friday of every month. That’s this week, so put it on your calendar. Seven o’clock at the bookstore. We’re reading Scarlett, but we wouldn’t expect you to read it in such a short length of time.”

Jennie Sue raised a palm. “I’ve read that book already. Gone with the Wind is one of my all-time favorites.”

“Great!” Amos said. “You’re goin’ to fit right in with the rest of our club.”

“Yes, she is.” Lettie beamed. “When I get finished with my breakfast, you can ride home with me, and I’ll show you the apartment. I could use some things from Walmart in Sweetwater, so you can drive me down there this afternoon. You’ll need to get a few groceries and things for yourself, I’m sure. Place comes with everything you need in the kitchen except a full refrigerator. You need an advance on your salary for that?”

“No, ma’am, I’ve got that much covered.” Jennie Sue slathered butter on her biscuit and tore the top off a plastic container of strawberry jam.

Lettie was getting a huge kick out of this, but Jennie Sue figured that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and neither Amos nor Lettie had mentioned her extra ten pounds or the fact that she was having bacon for breakfast.



Lettie’s place was a pretty little yellow house with white shutters and an immaculately kept lawn with colorful lantana, impatiens, and marigolds growing in the flower beds. She pulled into a driveway leading into the garage at the back of the house.

“The apartment steps are inside the garage, so you’ll need keys for both garage and apartment.” Lettie handed them off to Jennie Sue. “You go on up there and get settled in. I’ve got to talk to Nadine and tell her that I’ve solved our problem about a cleaning lady. You have a cell phone?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do,” Jennie Sue said, glad that she’d have a paycheck by the time the next phone bill arrived. She wondered why Lettie had chosen such a small house when everyone knew that she and Nadine were among the richest people in town. Maybe it was because she was frugal, or maybe it was because she didn’t need anything more since she’d always lived alone.

Lettie fished around in her purse until she found her phone and handed it to Jennie Sue. “Put your number in that. I barely know how to accept calls, and I’ll need to know how to get ahold of you if me and Nadine want to go somewhere.”

Jennie Sue hit a few keys and handed it back to Lettie. “There you go.”

“I’m figuring in about an hour we’ll be ready to go to Walmart. We been wantin’ to go for a couple of days, but I don’t like to drive down there in Sweetwater.”

Jennie Sue’s eyes shifted to the pickup.

“Nadine has one of them SUV vehicles that seats seven. We always take it when we go places. Trouble is, she’s over eighty and done lost her driver’s license for too many wrecks. Me, I just hate to drive, so I get out of it any way I can,” Lettie admitted. “Right up them steps is your new place. I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I will. Thank you, Lettie,” Jennie Sue said.

“Solves a problem for all of us. I’ll call you when I’m ready to go.”

Jennie Sue carried her suitcase up the stairs, dropped it right inside the door, and immediately called her mother. Charlotte should hear the news from her daughter’s lips and not the gossip vine of Bloom, Texas.

“Where the hell are you?” Charlotte answered. “We have appointments to get our nails done at ten thirty and then lunch with a couple of my Sweetwater Belles. I’m hoping to talk them into letting you serve on a committee or two.”

Jennie Sue inhaled deeply and spit out the whole story. She got nothing but total silence so long that she thought her mother had hung up on her.

“That’s not funny,” Charlotte hissed.

“It’s not a joke. I’m sitting right here in my new apartment,” Jennie Sue said.

“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?”