Drop Dead Divas (2 page)

Now, to be frank, I had decided to swear off men. My one and only marriage ended in my one and only divorce, and my one and only child is grown and happily married in Atlanta. So I feel my female duty has been sufficiently satisfied. Bitty has attempted to convince me otherwise. Bless her heart. Her efforts have only complicated matters, but despite her, Dr. Coltrane and I now enjoy a close friendship.

With an unerring instinct for reading my mind, Bitty chose that moment to remind me, “Besides, if not for all that nonsense you wouldn’t be dating Holly Springs’ most eligible bachelor right now.”

“We are not dating,” I said primly. “We are friends.”

Bitty rolled her eyes. “Good lord, Trinket. You’re not in grade school. No one cares if you and Kit are playing doctor in the linen closet.”

“Lower your voice, please. Those people are staring at us. Probably because you have twenty pounds of sequins and diamonds eating off your plate, but I’d rather not take the chance they can hear you.”

“Oh no, precious. Don’t eat off mommy’s plate. You might choke on a chicken bone.”

While Bitty extricated a piece of chicken from the jaws of an annoyed pug, I reflected on the wisdom of our conversational topic in a crowded café. Discussing my sex life was almost as dangerous as discussing Naomi Spencer, who had flaunted her relationship with Philip Hollandale when he was still Bitty’s husband. And still alive. So, a change of topics was definitely desirable.

But then it was too late.

The very topic of our former conversation appeared right next to our table. Naomi Spencer is young, tall, blonde, and the Barbie-doll kind of pretty. She has all the right clothes and looks great from a distance, but up close her facial features are too sharp and there’s a vacant look in her eyes that must have something to do with heredity. I won’t share Bitty’s favorite observation about the Spencer genetics with you here. It’s a bit too graphic.

At any rate, Naomi smiled so widely that her newly whitened teeth nearly blinded me. “Why hello, Miz Truevine, Miz Hollandale. I saw y’all sittin’ here in the window and thought maybe it’s time we called a truce. Don’t you think? I mean, what with Philip being dead and all, there’s no reason to go on being enemies.”

Spots danced in front of my eyes, no doubt caused by a sudden lack of oxygen to my brain. Bitty was right about Naomi. She really is stupid.

Before I could think of anything to say other than
“Uhhhh”,
Bitty smiled back at the dumber-than-dog-doo girl. It was not a nice smile. It was a smile full of expensively perfect teeth and venom.

“Why, Naomi. Aren’t you just precious?”

Just so you’ll know, despite my early years of close proximity to Bitty, I have a horror of public scenes. I’ll go out of my way to avoid them. My mother is the same way. It is not a Truevine family trait shared by all, unfortunately.

Regaining some of my wits, I kicked Bitty under the table. She ignored me. A feral light gleamed in her blue eyes. I sensed an imminent beheading. So I began to babble.

“Naomi, is that an engagement ring on your finger? It’s lovely. Show it to us. I hadn’t heard you were engaged. How nice. Anyone I know?”

Blushing prettily, Naomi held out her left hand. A rather small diamond glittered in a lovely setting. Bitty peered at it over the pug, and squinted enough to make permanent wrinkles between her brows if not for Botox.

“Oh,
there
it is. It’s nice, dear. It almost looks real. Where did your brother buy it?”

Naomi looked slightly confused. Being more familiar with Bitty’s conjectures on the Spencer heritage and familial bonds, I intervened. “I bet your fiancé bought it in Memphis, didn’t he? There are so many lovely jewelry stores up there.”

Before Naomi could reply, Bitty said with a puzzled expression, “But Trinket, why would he go up there when there’s a dollar store right here on the square?”

Apparently, Spencer stupidity only extends to a certain depth.

Naomi jerked back her hand and glared at Bitty. “Race bought it at Biddly, Banks, and Biddles.”

“Do you mean Bailey, Banks, and Biddle?” I asked quickly, but unfortunately, not loudly enough to be heard over Bitty:

“
Race
? Dear god—and I thought your brother’s name is Billy Don.”

Fists on both hips, Naomi narrowed her eyes. “I’m not marrying my
brother
.”

“Oh. Excuse me. Philip always said . . . but he must have been mistaken about that. He made so many mistakes while we were married. By the way, have you had any more problems with your boobs? So sad about the sag in the left one. And after Philip paid all that money for your implants, too.”

Naomi’s face turned an interesting color. “I don’t have implants,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m all natural.”

Bitty laughed. “Of course you are, dear. Just not above the waist.”

While Bitty hadn’t bothered to lower her voice, Naomi sounded like a leaky tire hissing. “That’s not true.”

“Why, your boob job
looks
perfectly natural except for that left sag. Don’t you think so, Trinket? Wait. I’ll just ask that gentleman over there what he thinks . . ..”

Before Bitty could do more than gesture to a man at the nearest table, Naomi had lifted a half-full glass and poured sweet tea all over Bitty, the table, and the pug. I have to say, Bitty's reflexes are pretty quick. Not, however, quite as quick as Chen Ling’s. About the time Bitty managed to sling leftover chicken and dumplings at Naomi, the pug sunk her top fangs—or to be more precise, fang—into Naomi’s forearm. She let out a shrill shriek. Naomi, not the dog.

After that, I withdrew to stand next to the brick wall and pretend I didn’t know them. Bitty didn’t need me anyway. Not only did she have Cujo as her guard dog, the café manager had arrived. Budgie grew up down the road from me. She has lots of siblings and knows how to quell catfights. It didn’t take her long at all to disentangle Naomi from Bitty and the pug.

Amidst a flurry of accusations and curse words—all from Naomi—and poses of mystified bewilderment—all from Bitty—Budgie managed to hustle the unattractively raging former cheerleader to the bathroom to clean chicken and dumplings from the front of her dress. The usual lunchtime crowd would relish retelling the episode to everyone and anyone who would listen, of course. Tourists in town for the Kudzu Festival would wonder just what all went on in small towns that they might be missing. If they only knew.

I, however, just wanted to slink home.

“Sit down, Trinket,” Bitty said when I continued to make myself part of the brick and mortar. “You’re making Chen Ling nervous staring at us like that.”

“Chitling doesn’t have a nervous bone in her body. And you have no shame.”

Ignoring the curious looks in our direction, I disengaged from the wall and sat back down in my chair. The table was a mess. Ice and sweet tea had formed puddles in plates and on the table top. Chicken and dumpling remnants clumped here and there. Chen Ling busied herself with cleaning them up while Bitty cleaned up Chen Ling. To my surprise, my hand trembled slightly when I reached for my tea.

“Why should I be ashamed?” Bitty wondered as she scrubbed dumpling bits from the pug’s left ear. “She started it. Only an idiot would come up to a woman whose husband she used to boink at the Motel 6 during recess and ask to be friends.”

“She was already out of high school,” I reminded as I lifted my tea glass. Just before I took a sip, I noticed half a dumpling floating atop the ice. I set it back down. “Besides, I know your mother taught you to be nice to half-wits. Truevines have always had good manners.”

“
My
mother was a Jordan.”

My lips twitched. Bitty looked up about that time and laughed.

“See, Trinket? You would have done the same thing.”

Probably. But not in public. I had no intention of encouraging her though, so just said, “If you’re through bathing Chitling, I’m ready to leave.”

“Her
name
is Lady O-ya Moon Chen Ling,” Bitty said haughtily, “and I wish you would remember that.”

“I’ll remember her name if you’ll stop making a habit of insulting Philip’s former flings in public. My dry-cleaning bill could get steep.”

“Sugar, just think how steep it could get if he was still alive. You know how much he loved spreading himself around.”

By this time we stood outside on the concrete walk in front of Budgie’s café. The cute sign in the window may say
French Market Café,
but it would always be known to the regulars as Budgie’s, despite who really owned it now. The new owners had had the foresight to keep the former owner Budgie on as the manager, so not much had really changed over the years, except the décor and a few menu additions.

Bitty caught me by the arm when I started to step off the curb to get into her car. “You’ve got corn muffin on your rear end, Trinket. Oh. And it looks like dumplings, too. Those pants are washable, aren’t they?”

“No. They’re unwashable linen. That’s okay. I didn’t want to wear them more than once anyway.”

“Well, I have the dry cleaners on retainer, so we’ll just put them in with my stuff. Come on home with me.”

“Bitty, you have everyone on retainer. Lawyers. Caterers. Florists. Gardeners. I think I’m the only one you don’t pay to hang around. And no, I’ll just go home. I have no intention of staying at your house waiting on my clothes to come back from the cleaners. That hasn’t worked so well in the past.”

“You have a long memory for the wrong things,” Bitty said. She pressed the button on her remote, and the car lights flashed, a beep sounded, and the motor started. As soon as cold weather arrived, she’d probably trade in this convertible for a more practical car. If it was still in one piece. Bitty had purchased a stick shift before she learned to drive one. The Miata struggled bravely to outlast her.

After backing out into traffic and hitting no one, we bucked forward on the slope of the street and made a left to go around the square. My parents’ house, Cherryhill, lies about three miles outside the city limits of Holly Springs, Mississippi. It can seem much farther when riding with Bitty, depending upon her mood and the weather.

Fortunately the weather was fine, and even Bitty’s mood was good. I guess it had cheered her up to insult Naomi Spencer. Elvis played on the car stereo system, a really nice one Bitty had paid extra for, and with the top down, the sun shining, and the wind in our hair, we lurched through the town square at a reasonable speed, the engine only dying twice. Once out on Highway 311, she lowered her foot on the accelerator. I tried not to think about immovable barriers hidden beneath the thick kudzu vines draping trees and telephone poles we passed at seventy miles an hour. And I did my best to ignore the pug sitting in my lap. She pees at inopportune times, and I’ve found it’s usually much drier if I don’t upset her. Getting my lunch out of the seat of my nice linen pants was going to be a major feat. I certainly didn’t want to extract Chitling urine as well.

“So,” Bitty shouted over Elvis and the rushing wind, “have you had that thing you won’t let me talk about yet?”

Bitty, I’m sorry to say, discovered that in all my years of marriage, I had never experienced the . . . uh . . . pinnacle of female ecstasy. It’s my fault she knows. In a weak moment I’d confessed that my eyes had never rolled back in my head. Not once. She was horrified at the discovery. Since she tends to dwell on the oddest things, and took it upon herself to ensure that I have that special moment before I die—not as that may sound, but by choosing the right man for me—I had quickly decided she was not to mention it to me again. Ever. Bitty nags.

“None of your business,” I shouted back.

Bitty glanced at me then made a face. “You forgot to put Chen Ling’s sunglasses on, Trinket.”

“Why would I wear her sunglasses?”

She motioned impatience, and with a sigh, I took out the pair of doggy sunglasses with the strap to hold them on and slid them onto the pug’s head to cover her eyes. Chen Ling bit me in gratitude. It didn’t really hurt. She only has one front tooth on top. And an underbite like a Louisiana alligator. She constantly drools. That’s why she wears bibs. Bitty has them special-made with embroidered scenes of China, pagodas, dragons, and so on. If not for nice settlements from three former husbands, and alimony checks from her last—and dead—husband, she wouldn’t be able to afford canine couture. Fortunately for Bitty, she has rarely been lacking in male attention or alimony.

“What are Aunt Anna and Uncle Eddie doing today?” Bitty asked when the car jolted to a stop in the half-circle driveway at Cherryhill.

I unbuckled my seatbelt and unglued the pug from my chest. She has her own seatbelt, but since I take up all the space in the bucket seat, she has to share mine.

“Probably booking a camel trip along the Nile. I’m sure I saw some brochures with pyramids lying on the kitchen table earlier. It’s my job to warn them about sand storms and crocodiles, not to mention bad-tempered camels.”

“Good luck with that.”

Bitty understood. My parents are enjoying their second adolescence. While I’m glad for them, they can be remarkably stubborn at times. And single-minded. It must be a Truevine trait. After all, Bitty is as stubborn as they come, and her father was Daddy’s brother. There is a lot that can be blamed on genetics, I’ve decided.

Bitty firmly buckled Chen Ling into her own special seatbelt complete with a seat that holds her up high enough to look out the passenger window—a sight bound to have startled more than a few unsuspecting pedestrians—then she tooled off down the driveway with a careless wave of one hand. I went into the house to look for my parents.

Mama stood at the kitchen counter dishing up Brownie’s food. I don’t know why she bothers cooking special dog meals for him. I believe one of his ancestors had to be a goat. Any dog that can eat metal and expensive jewelry qualifies as a member of the ovine family, in my opinion. I still haven’t found one of my emerald earrings he ingested, although I spent a disgustingly long time wearing a plastic glove and looking through piles of dog poop.

“How was your lunch, sugar?” Mama asked over her shoulder. “What’d Budgie have as the special today?”