The Sometimes Sisters(26)

“You got so drunk that you fell on a beer bottle? From the way you and Tawny squared off, I got the impression that she helped you somehow.”

“No, I was not drunk and I did not fall.”

Brook headed to the kitchen. “I’m making myself some green tea with a slice of lemon. Y’all want some?”

“Not me,” Dana answered.

“No, but I’ll make it for you, princess,” Harper said.

“A princess does not spend her weekends in a sweatshop,” Brook grumbled.

Tawny caught the last sentence as she made her way from the door to the coffee machine. “You won’t fuss next Friday when you get your paycheck for all that hard work. I’ll take you to the mall Friday night if your mama don’t care, and you can blow it all at Victoria’s Secret.”

Brook shook her head. “Not me. I might blow it all at a shoe store or a makeup place, but not for underbritches. No one can see what’s under my clothing. Can I bring Cassidy with me?”

“I got no problem with that if Flora doesn’t care. Where is that child? According to the payroll, she’s been helping out on weekends.”

Brook motioned for Tawny to follow her to the buffet. “I took her place—she’s got a job babysitting every Saturday and Sunday.”

Tawny stopped at the cash register and looked up at Harper’s chin. “You didn’t bleed to death after all.”

“Disappointed?” Harper shot back.

“Maybe a little,” Tawny said curtly. Trouble followed the Clancy girls like a homeless hound dog, but it found their middle sister a lot more often than it did Tawny.

In a few minutes, the whole place was filled with fishermen, and the banter started to fly again, only that morning it was about which bait was best for catfish—spinners, worms, minnows, or stink bait.

“If they’re bitin’, bologna or bubble gum works as good as anything,” Wyatt added his opinion. “If they ain’t bitin’, then it don’t matter what you use for bait.”

“You could try singin’ to them.” Harper filled his cup for the third time.

“That’d scare them right up onto the bank for sure,” he chuckled.

Dana could almost see the electricity between Harper and Wyatt. Whatever it was about, his singing was an inside joke from long ago.

Flora came in about that time, filled a plate, and sat down at Brook and Dana’s table. “I love Sunday buffet. This is the one thing I’m going to miss when I retire at the end of summer. So you ready to go to work?” She glanced over at Brook.

Not much taller than Brook, Flora had short gray hair, bright-blue eyes, and at least three chins. She was as wide as she was tall and bustled around with the energy of a sixteen-year-old.

“Yes, ma’am. I live to fold towels and wash bedding,” Brook quipped.

“Regular little smarty-pants you got there, Dana.” A fourth chin popped out as she smiled, and her eyes twinkled.

“What can I say? She’s Annie Clancy’s great-granddaughter.” Dana shrugged.

“That about covers it.” Flora set to eating a tall stack of pancakes covered in warm maple syrup. “I hear that you and my granddaughter are in the same classes at school.”

“She showed me around, and we are going to be friends,” Brook said.

“Glad to hear it. Kids need good friends,” Flora said.

Dana left Brook in Flora’s care and opened the store. She made coffee, swept up a couple of dozen dead crickets, and then picked up a dusting rag and gave the shelves a quick going-over. She wasn’t expecting many customers that day, because the folks in the cabins would all check out by eleven o’clock. But just as the sun rose up over the horizon, people started to come in to buy bait, soft drinks, and beer and even wiped out her stock of bologna and bread.

Evidently, not all folks were worried about their eternal souls—by midmorning she’d rung up more sales than she had since she’d been there. Maybe their church was on the lake instead of a building with poor air-conditioning and a preacher sending them to hell if they didn’t get right with the Lord.

She’d finished checking out a teenage boy and his grandfather, and was about to get herself a cold root beer, when Wyatt popped into the store. “I owe forty dollars for gas, and I’m going to get an orange soda pop.”

He put the can of soda on the counter. Dana made change for the fifty-dollar bill he’d handed her.

“Thanks. You are Dana, the oldest sister, right?” he continued. “We’ll be seeing lots of each other this summer. I’m booked for every weekend between now and August.”

“Good to know. I barely remember you from back when Harper was sixteen—you were about the same age, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, we were.” He gathered up his things. “Have a nice day,” he said as he shut the door behind him.



Tawny had spent the entire morning checking people out of their rooms and tallying up all the receipts. She’d called Flora out in the laundry building to tell her that the honeymoon couple had checked out with two minutes to spare, so she and Brook could clean the last room of the day. She was about to head over to the café when Wyatt Simpson pulled his truck and boat up in front of her cabin.

He leaned out the window of his truck and raised his voice. “Hey, I just realized that I left my electric razor in the bathroom of my cabin. You reckon you could let me run back inside and get it? If the maids already cleaned the room, I’ll be very careful.”