The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (4 page)

“Are you insane? You cheated on me. Is Bridget pregnant?” Carlene screamed into the phone.

“I only slipped this one time, Carlene, and no, she's not pregnant,” Lenny said.

“And now you are lying. Your precious Bridget told me that you've been seeing her for five months.”

Silence.

“Well?” she said.

“When you cool down, call me. We can work through this. You've been so busy with your business that you haven't had any time for me,” he said. “I even made time for you when the Chili Kings and I were working on the cook-off every year. But since you got that damned old store, you've been ignoring me.”

“This is not my fault!” She wished that cell phones had a button that made the sound of someone slamming a receiver down violently. But they didn't so she beat it against the door frame and hoped that it burst his eardrum.

***

Patrice always used a tape measure when she had to leave her lair of figures and computers to help out in the sales department.

Kim measured out to be a 34C. Patrice was envious. She'd love to be that size so that she could buy her bras anywhere but oh, no, she got a healthy dose of the Cordell genes and they shared DNA with Guernsey milk cows.

Carlene took a common C-cup bra and Patrice had always been jealous of her, too. And she'd been jealous of Carlene when she'd landed Lenny Lovelle. He'd chased everything that wore a skirt from the time he was old enough to know the difference in little girls and boys. Everyone in Cadillac had figured he'd have a trophy wife if and when he ever settled down. So it had come as a big surprise when he proposed to Carlene Carmichael, a slightly overweight woman who worked at a bank in Sherman.

She met Carlene coming out of the stockroom with a dozen bras lined up on her arm. “What or who were you screaming at in there? Did Lenny call?”

Carlene nodded. “He's acting all cool as a cucumber. He wants me to go with him to dinner. Limo, wine, and the whole works while we talk about the problem. And it's my fault because I've been working too hard. According to him he even made time for me during this beloved old chili cook-off,” Carlene whispered.

“Screw him and feed him fish heads.” Patrice rattled off one of their favorite sayings.

“I don't want to screw him and I'd rather feed him poison.”

They walked away from each other and Patrice picked out a dozen bras to take back to the dressing room. She looked down at her own endowment and sighed. It was a good thing that she wasn't in the church choir. If she had to jump around doing choreography while singing “Shout for Joy” she'd sure enough have a problem with her shirt popping buttons and her boobs falling out for the whole congregation to see.

When Patrice hung the bras around the dressing room, Kim picked out her favorite two and Patrice waited outside. It wasn't long until Kim jerked the curtain back. There she stood in jeans and high heels and a black lacy bra.

Damn, that brought back memories.

Patrice had been the last one of the three cousins to turn twenty-one and the other two girls had taken her out for a party in Dallas. That was six years ago and her first and only one-night stand. That damn Lenny Joe Lovelle was sexy as hell, smooth talking, and he'd come on to her after the other girls had already gone up to their hotel room. She'd stayed for just one more drink and suddenly there he was on the bar stool next to her with that big smile on his sexy face.

Thirty minutes later she was weaving in front of an oversized mirror in the hotel room in nothing but jeans, a black lacy bra, and high-heeled shoes. The next morning she had chalked it up to too much whiskey and he never called her like he said he would when he left her hotel room. Who would ever have thought he'd wind up married to Carlene a year later or that he was stupid enough to leave a pair of underpants in his briefcase? Or that Carlene had been the one who sewed the fancy beads on that pair of bikinis?

Shit fire! Did she tell Carlene or take the secret to the grave with her?

“So do you think they'll get back together?” Kim asked as she pushed back her dark hair and looked at herself in the three-way mirror.

“Who?” Patrice frowned.

“You know. Carlene and Lenny. I heard that his mistress might be pregnant and is definitely pushing for an engagement ring. If they don't get back together and if she's not expecting a baby, I'd sure like to have another chance at him. He's a real sex machine in the bedroom.” She turned this way and that way, looking at the bra. “I like this one just fine. I don't need to try on any more. I will come back when I don't have the rest of the choir hovering around. I want something sexy and pretty to have on hand just in case. I would like to have that cute little corset that y'all got in the window.”

“How do you know that Lenny is a sex machine?” Patrice asked.

“Honey, he hasn't always been married and I'm just one of dozens and dozens of notches on his bedpost. Experience makes perfect and Lenny Joe is near perfect in the bedroom.” One of Kim's hazel eyes slid shut in a slow wink. “Would you put that corset back for me? I checked and it's exactly my size. And I'd also like a pair of boy-cut panties to match it and maybe some hot-pink hose.”

“Shhh,” Patrice said. “Don't you even want to know how much all that will cost?”

“It'll be worth every penny, I'm sure.” Kim winked again.

Patrice slowly shook her head. That woman would be singing “I've Just Seen Jesus” in the church before the whole town.

***

Alma Grace's first customer was the director of the church choir. She was even higher up on the righteous ladder than Alma Grace, who had been in charge of the Easter program for the past four years. Even though Alma Grace was the president of the Easter committee, Floy Gastineau was the big boss of anything that had to do with the choir. She was the drill sergeant and the girls, no matter age or size, were her recruits. And they'd better not be late to practice unless they were sick nigh unto death. Missing it altogether better mean they were in the hospital on a ventilator and hanging onto life by a thread. Jesus might forgive. Floy didn't.

Floy started talking the minute Alma Grace showed her into the dressing room. She was a wiry little woman who always wore long-sleeved dresses buttoned all the way up to her skinny neck, her hair in a knot on the back of her head, and a frown on her face. “I wear a 36B and I want an unadorned black bra. The shirts we're wearing are black. I don't agree with that part, Alma Grace, and you know it. But you are right about us looking uniform if we all wear black. Reds, yellows, and pinks wouldn't all match like black. But it is Easter and we should be wearing spring colors.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Alma Grace nodded.

“And before you go, what is this I'm hearing about Lenny and Carlene?”

Alma Grace sighed. “They are having a bit of a rough time but I'm praying for them to see the error of their ways and put their marriage before their anger.”

“Once a womanizer, always a womanizer, but she knew what she was getting when she married him. So she needs to remember her vows and forgive him. I thought she was woman enough to keep him from straying but I guess I was wrong,” Floy declared.

“Maybe we could have a special night of anointing prayer for her,” Alma Grace suggested.

“She'd have to be willing for it,” Floy said. “Can't lay hands on a woman that ain't willing for help. I don't know what we'll do about her being on the Easter egg committee.”

“I'll go get your bras.” Alma Grace slipped out of the room.

There was no way that Carlene would be willing to show up for a night of prayer. Too bad. They could have a potluck and she'd talk her mama's cook into making her famous pecan sandy cookies for the refreshment table.

She met Patrice coming out of the stockroom.

Patrice stopped in the hallway and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “I wish we would have done this Friday. Is Floy talkin' about Carlene?”

Alma Grace nodded. “Oh, yeah, but I told her that I was praying about it and God would surely give them the good sense to get back together. And I am praying, Patrice, whether you like it or not.”

“I'm already sick to death of hearing about it and you'd better not pray in my presence, girl. Not if you value your life. Blood is supposed to be thicker than water, you know.” Patrice headed into the stockroom.

Alma Grace took three bras from the rack and carried them back to the dressing room. Floy chose the plainest one and shooed Alma Grace outside. “I don't need an audience to put on my undergarments. If you want to be the head of the Easter committee, Alma Grace, you'd best fix this mess.”

***

Carlene sunk down into an overstuffed vintage chair beside the dressing room and threw a hand over her eyes when the choir ladies had gathered up their new bras and the remains of their brown-bag lunches and took off toward the church with Alma Grace in tow. She was glad that her cousin was the head honcho when it came to the Easter program. Maybe she'd go get a dose of the Holy Spirit with her singing and come back with a smile on her face. She'd been walking around all morning like she'd just been diagnosed with some dread disease and only had two hours to live.

A marriage had died that morning but there wouldn't be a funeral. The more she thought about it, the more Carlene didn't want a damn thing that Lenny had. She wanted her business and half of the equity in the house, since she'd made half the payments the past five years. The rest he could keep because she'd never know if one of his women had touched it. Well, all of it except for her Granny Fannin's crystal candleholders. For those she'd fight him to the death.

Patrice fell into the chair beside her and covered her eyes with both hands.

“Did you have a rough weekend, too?” Carlene asked.

“Had a wonderful weekend at the beginning. Spent it with Yancy in my house, drinking and having sex, watching a movie and having sex while we watched it, eating supper naked, and then we broke up and I ate a quart of rocky road ice cream. Must be the weekend for breaking up. I'm sorry, honey.” She got up quickly and crossed the room, dropped down in front of Carlene, wrapped her arms around her, and hugged her tightly. “I'm a sorry excuse for a cousin. I was so damn mad at Lenny that I forgot to console you.”

Carlene leaned on Patrice's shoulder. “Rocky road with whipped cream and nuts?”

“Ain't no other way to eat it. Now I'm bloated all out to hell, hungover, and I've got a wicked headache even after Josie's hotter'n hell cure,” Patrice said.

Carlene managed a weak smile. “Don't tell her or she'll make you drink another one.”

Josie slid into the third chair. “I'm taking my lunch break. I wasn't about to poke my head out the door until all those church women left. I bet all they wanted to talk about was Lenny. Am I right? Beulah called my cell phone twice but I didn't answer it.”

Carlene nodded. “Looks like I opened a fifty-five-gallon can of gossip. Sometimes it's hard to think of you, Beulah, Agnes, and even Violet all being the same generation, Josie.”

“Well, we are, honey. They're all a couple of years older than me but we come out of the same era. We ain't had nothing juicy in town lately. Folks is needin' something to talk about and you just delivered it up to them on a platter. Only thing you can do now is what you know is right and ignore the gossip,” Josie said.

Carlene tried to steer the conversation away from her problems. “Thank you, Josie. Did you get that corset done?”

Josie nodded. “Seems a shame to me to do all that work when it's going to spend most of its time on the floor or the back of a chair.”

“Oh, but that new bride will be pretty for her husband for a little while, won't she?” Carlene barely got the words out before she buried her face in her hands and her shoulders began to shake.

Josie threw an arm around her. “Let it all out and get it over with. He ain't worth a single tear but you've got to get past this stage and to the one where you don't give a damn. A divorce is like a death in the family and there's steps you got to go through. You don't get to skip one, neither. It is what it is, darlin'.”

“How long does the cryin' one take?” Carlene asked between racking sobs.

Josie patted her on the shoulder and let her sob. “Never know just how long any of them will take but one day it'll all be in the past and you won't even give a damn no more.”

The bell above the door said that customers had arrived. They should shut the shop for the day, hang a black wreath on the door, and turn out all the lights. But Fannin women didn't run and hide from problems; they faced them square on. That's what her mama always said and Lenny wasn't taking a bit of her power.

Gigi led the way into the shop and instantly went to Carlene's side. She dropped down on her knees in front of her daughter and wrapped her arms around her. “Do you want me to take care of him, honey?”

“I don't want him dead. I want him to suffer,” Carlene wailed.

“I could just shoot him in the knees,” Gigi said.

Josie headed toward the kitchen. “I'll bring coffee for everyone.”

Tansy patted her on the shoulder. “What can we do to help, darlin'?”

The hiccups had set in with the sniffles. “I don't even have a bed to sleep in tonight.”

Patrice handed her a box of tissues. “You can stay with me.”

“Don't you worry about a thing.” Tansy pulled a cell phone from her oversized purse. “Alex, go out in the yard and bring in our strongest gardeners. Take them up to that bedroom at the end of the hallway, the pink one on the left beside the linen closet. Have them load up every bit of that furniture, including the drapes and rugs, on their pickup trucks and bring it all down here to Bless My Bloomers. Lenny Joe, the sorry bastard, has done cheated on Carlene and she's moving into one of the bedrooms upstairs.”