Small Town Rumors(36)

“Show me the kitchen and I’ll make her a quick meal,” Jennie Sue told Rick and then turned her attention back to Cricket. “I was always the oldest in the class, and you were one of the youngest ones. Didn’t we all have to line up according to age in the first grade? We were the brackets. I was jealous of your braids and the freckles across your nose. Frank said that freckles were where angels kissed a person, and I wanted them. I loved your hair, and Mama wouldn’t ever let me have braids.”

“You remember that?” Cricket asked.

“Yep, now how do you like your omelet?”

“With bacon, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of cheese. And Rick . . .” Tears started down Cricket’s cheeks again. “I’m so sorry . . . What are we going to do for real? I can’t help with the crops.”

“I’ll do it.” Jennie Sue headed for the kitchen. “When I get off from my other two jobs each evening, I’ll help you. I don’t have anything to do in the evenings anyway. You just have to pick me up.”

“Thank you. I can’t pay much, but I can at least give you minimum wages.”

“How about I make supper for you both each evening, and what I eat can be my payment? That way I don’t have to buy food, and I have someone to eat with and cook for,” Jennie Sue said. “And besides, it’s what civil friends do to help out someone who needs it.”

“We don’t take charity,” Cricket said.

“I’m workin’ for my supper, and it’s you givin’ out charity, not me. I’m probably the poorest person in Bloom right now. Are you goin’ to let your sister starve?”

“Okay, okay, if it’s all right with Rick, we’ll accept, but I hope you know how to cook plain food.”

“I was trained by Mabel. Now show me the kitchen and I’ll get busy.”

“You sure about this?” Rick asked.

“Just lead the way,” Jennie Sue answered, not sure at all about what she’d just done.





Chapter Nine

Well, there’s my new employee.” Amos opened the door and bowed with a flourish when Jennie Sue arrived at the bookstore the next morning.

“Thank you for the welcome. I’m ready to work. What do I do first?” she asked.

“Whatever you want. I’m just glad that I can keep the store open all day on Monday through Wednesday. Half days were killin’ me, but I’ve always helped with the library, and I didn’t want to give it up. This store was my sweet wife’s, and I just couldn’t completely close it up,” he said.

She noticed romance, nonfiction, and cookbooks all on the same, most visible shelf. “Looks like we need some organizing.”

“That would be great. The office is through that door.” He pointed. “Restroom is over there.” He swung his finger to the other side of the store. “We’re closed from twelve to one for lunch, and now I’m going to a Kiwanis breakfast. Make yourself at home. Paperbacks sell for a quarter of whatever the retail price is on them. Hardbacks sell for five dollars.”

“You really don’t care if I do some rearranging?” Jennie Sue asked.

“Honey, I’d appreciate anything that you want to do with the place.” Amos waved and left her alone in the bookstore.

She found two big boxes in the back of the store and brought them up front, where she filled them with books from the first set of shelving. She’d recently read that romance sales were a large percentage of the market, so she planned to fill the first row of shelves with that genre—alphabetically according to the author’s last name. It would take weeks to organize the whole store, but she’d get a little bit done each day, and before she left town, folks could easily find what they wanted.

Humming as she put the first twenty books on the top shelf, Jennie Sue drifted off into her own little world, remembering how fun it had been to get dirty and sweaty in the huge garden on the Lawson farm. Even if Cricket was cool toward her and at times downright hateful, she’d still enjoyed cooking for three and having someone to eat supper with.

“Besides, I’ve lived with Charlotte Baker all my life, so Cricket doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of intimidating me,” she muttered. “I kind of like her brutal honesty. Different from the kind of girls I grew up with—or in Percy’s world.”

Looking back, that first year hadn’t been so bad. He’d been busy building up the business he and his partner had bought. A jewelry launch party or something similar filled every weekend. Not to mention the charity events where Percy tried to get new—female—clients. She’d been swept into a world that her mother loved and tried very hard to fit into it, but it bored her.

They hadn’t been married a month when he’d found water spots on the bathroom faucets and decided that the housekeepers weren’t doing it to suit him. When she asked her mother about it, Charlotte had said it was just a test to see how much she loved him.

They never hired another housekeeper after that.

It went downhill from there. He gradually became more and more verbally abusive and demanded more from her. She thought things might change for the better when she told him she was pregnant, but she was wrong.

“You did this on purpose. A baby will ruin our life. I’ll make an appointment tomorrow for you to get rid of it,” he’d said in a tone so cold it had sent shivers down her spine.