The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (11 page)

“I don't think you should. I'm just glad I'm not on the police team because I'd like to see you girls whip Lenny's ass. I hear there's a betting pot at the lingerie shop and I'd just love to put fifty on the Red-Hot Bloomers but, honey, I'm afraid to be seen coming inside. If I met you at the Cadillac Café tomorrow for lunch and slipped the money to you, would you buy me that much stock? And Cathy, Marty, and Trixie will be buying stock, too. Trixie says that she's going to turn a hundred dollars into five hundred.” He chuckled.

“Gossip brought out the whole town today and we've got to clean the shop up tomorrow afternoon but thanks for the invitation,” she said.

“Okay, then Carlene, let me put this a hell of a lot plainer. I've had a crush on you ever since high school but when I came home from the army you were married. I know you are going through a helluva divorce but I'd like to date you. I'm willing to wait until the divorce is filed and you've moved on past that,” he said.

Alma
Grace
is
going
to
kill
me
, was her first thought.

Her second was,
How
long
will
he
wait?

“Well, are you going to say anything?” Jack asked.

“I'm not sure I know what to say.”

“It's too early for you to date anyone. I realize that, but I don't want to be left in the backseat a second time so I decided to be like Rhett Butler and speak my piece.”

“You've seen
Gone
with
the
Wind
,” she gasped.

“Three women are my best friends. Yes, I've seen
Gone
with
the
Wind
about a dozen times. And I figure if Rhett can declare himself to Scarlett while she is still in widow's weeds, I can tell you that I've had a crush on you before you sign the divorce papers,” he said.

Carlene had always thought Jack Landry was downright sexy but he was two years older and he never even looked at her, or did he?

Alma
Grace
is
going
to
hate
you
even
more
than
she
does
for
getting
a
divorce
and
ruining
her
Easter
program,
that niggling little voice in the back of her head sing-songed away.

“You think it would be all right if I call sometime during the next few weeks? Maybe until after the chili cook-off? We could just talk about our day and how things are going.”

“I guess that will be okay.” Carlene wondered if she'd said the words out loud.

“You going to church tomorrow?”

“I'm sleeping in after today.”

“I've got night shift so I won't make it, either. I heard that your mama and your aunts were up in the attic lookin' for your grandpa's old recipes today. Lenny ain't got a chance in hell if they find the real one. My granny said that your grandpa's chili was the hottest damn stuff in the whole state.”

Alma
Grace
likes
him. You can't do this. Besides, you aren't even divorced yet,
the voice screamed.

“Looks like I've got another call. Saturday night drunk probably needs some help getting home. Good night, Carlene. Don't work too hard tomorrow.”

She looked from phone to television when she heard the rap on her door. Blanche was talking to Rose and Dorothy in the kitchen so it wasn't coming from there.

“Carlene, you still awake?” Alma Grace asked as she knocked again.

“I'm awake,” Carlene said.

Alma Grace didn't wait for an invitation. She marched in and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do you think God will hate me if I don't go to church tomorrow morning? I started to set the alarm and I'm so tired that I just want to sleep in. Besides I don't want to be there if Daddy and Jack are both there. It would just be too awkward.”

“Don't ask me. You're the one who can quote scripture and verse. Didn't even God rest on the seventh day or something?” Carlene said.

It was the perfect time to tell her that Jack wouldn't be in church, but how did she do it without saying how she knew?

Tansy, Gigi, and Sugar were sitting at the table with recipes spread out around them and takeout coffee cups in their hands, instead of margaritas and magazines. Clarice stopped in her tracks and got a whiff of greasy hamburgers with onions and something that smelled horrible. The trash can had the remains of a casserole in a disposable pan. Was that the culprit for the rancid odor?

“Hello.” Sugar's eyes looked like she'd been crying. “They found a whole raft of recipes inside Mama's old electric cooker. You can't buy these old heavy metal ones anymore. The new ones are lightweight and cheap plastic.”

Alma Grace pushed inside the kitchen behind Clarice and gasped. “Mama, you are still in your pajamas.”

“But I have my makeup on. I didn't go to church this morning. I did have a little prayer and meditation time in my bedroom. I just couldn't bear to sit in that pew without your daddy beside me,” Sugar said defensively and shot both of her sisters a dirty look.

“I'm only dressed because I had to drive down to the café and get hamburgers,” Gigi explained when Carlene looked her way. “We stayed over last night. Tonight I have a date with my husband to go to dinner and we'll begin our cooking tomorrow night.”

Patrice was the last one inside the house and she just shrugged and said, “Good mornin', Mama and Aunties. What is that foul smelling shit out there beside the porch? It's killed the grass for a foot out around it and even the fire ants are making a detour around it.”

“Sugar still snores like she did when we were kids,” Tansy tattled.

“I was here first so live with it.” Sugar looked up at Alma Grace and asked, “Which church did
you
go to this mornin'?”

“Neither one. I'll be dam…hanged…if I go to our church.” She slapped the top of the cabinet. “I'm still pissed at the whole committee and I'm pretty mad at Kim, too, even though she used to be my friend.”

“Alma Grace! One day away from church and you're talkin' like Tansy,” Sugar scolded.

“Well, I
am
pissed. I could pitch a hissy I'm so mad, so that's pissed. They stole my job, my halo, and my wings and I'm not going to go back to that church until I've forgiven them,” Alma Grace declared. “I hope every one of them but Barbara Culpepper gets laryngitis the day of the program. If she has to carry the whole program, everyone will be holding their ears.”

Tansy shut her eyes and crossed her chest with her hands. She leaned back and raised her head toward the ceiling and said, “I have a vision of someone tying a knot in the ropes and instead of Kim floating from balcony to pulpit gracefully, she gets about halfway and just hangs there in the harness, waving back and forth like alfalfa in the wind.”

“Are you going to figure out a way to tie that knot, Mama?” Patrice asked. “And how did you have a vision right here in Bless My Bloomers. Your cockatiel is your muse and he is at home. You have to have that damn bird close by to get visions or see things in dreams. And no one told me what that shit is beside the porch. It's awful.”

“My precious Dakshani lit on my shoulder just before I left yesterday so his spirit is still with me, and besides, Mama sometimes visits me in a vision or in a dream and it's her spirit that I feel this morning, not my bird's.” Tansy moved one hand from her chest and waved it over the top of the recipes. “Mama has promised me that she will take care of Alma Grace's pain for being fired and Carlene's pain over being cheated on. You don't mess with Mama or her offspring.”

“Tansy Fannin Cordell, you are full of shit,” Gigi said.

Tansy's brown eyes opened and she dropped her head dramatically to her chest. “This psychic business takes the energy out of a person. Carlene, make us a pot of coffee to give us a boost.”

Aunt Tansy playing psychic always lifted Carlene's spirits. “Sounds to me like y'all have had enough coffee. How about I make a big pitcher of sweet tea instead?”

“Anything, darlin'. I always have a sinking spell after a vision,” Tansy said.

Gigi tucked her chin into her chest and said, “Well, my sister, you'd best rise on up out of that sinking spell because we've got work to do.”

“Oh, my God. Y'all tried to make chili last night and that's what's out there, isn't it? What in the hell did you put in it?” Patrice asked.

“Too much cayenne pepper,” Sugar said honestly.

“It was so hot that Sugar drank tequila to get the fire out of her mouth and a sweet lady came and brought us a casserole for supper. We had enough that we finished it off for breakfast. She showed us how to open cans with that thing in the drawer,” Tansy said.

Patrice shook her head slowly. “And y'all are going to find the prize-winning recipe for us to win the cook-off?”

“Don't you doubt us for a minute. Our first attempt might not be right but we'll learn,” Tansy said.

“Well, try Granny's recipe and follow it to the letter,” Carlene said. “Granny would have put the chili recipes in the cooker because that was probably the only time it ever got used. Lenny kept his cooker in the closet in his office. It's like the Holy Grail. He probably bows down to it three times a day starting the week before the cook-off. And his recipes are in his gun safe. He changes the code regularly so I can't get inside.”

“
Duh
, Carlene,” Gigi said. “It wasn't his recipes he was protecting. It was his little black book and maybe even pictures of all his women. He was protecting his sorry ass by keeping that safe locked up.”

Patrice giggled. “You got that right, Aunt Gigi. Good thing she didn't know the code or there might have been buckshot holes in Lenny in the dealership that day. I'm talkin' real bloodshed, not just holes in a Corvette.”

“Well, if she ever does shoot the bastard, she'll take care of it with one shotgun shell. I taught her not to waste ammunition just like my mama taught me,” Gigi said.

“I can't believe my mama got drunk,” Alma Grace whispered.

“It was drink the tequila or lose all my precious teeth,” Sugar told her defiantly.

***

This
was
hell
.

Alma Grace stopped inside the door to the store, putting her elbows on the checkout desk and her head in her hands. She shut her eyes and prayed that when she said amen it wouldn't look like a tornado had hit the lingerie racks.

God
said
no!

“Why? Why? Why?” Alma Grace whined.

“Might as well stop questioning and get to work,” Patrice said.

“Ask and ye shall receive,” Alma Grace groaned. “I forgot to ask for the cleaning fairies last night. I was too busy praying that you didn't get pregnant when you went over to Yancy's place. That's all we need right now.”

“Well, thank you so much but I'm a big girl and I don't give a rat's ass about what people say,” Patrice said.

A sneaky little doubt found its way into Alma Grace's mind, causing her to frown. Had God said no about Carlene and Lenny? Was she praying selfishly because she wanted to be right?

Oh, no,
she thought,
get
thee
behind
me
Satan. This message is not coming from heaven.

Carlene giggled and picked up a corset from the floor under a round rack. “Shit! A thread has come undone and there's at least a dozen beads gone. Inspect as you clean and put all the ones that need repairs on the counter. Josie and I'll have our work cut out for us tomorrow.”

“I'll start in the dressing rooms,” Alma Grace said.

Patrice drew a virtual line from cash register to the back of the store with her finger. “I'll take the left side. Carlene, you do the right. We might get it all done by supper time. Our treat is going to be fried chicken from the convenience store for supper. We'll be too tired to cook anyway.”

“Cook? You mean microwave frozen burritos, and we can't get takeout for supper. I miss mama's cook.” Alma Grace sighed.

“You'll live.” Carlene smiled.

“Why don't you ask God to deliver a home-cooked meal to our door tonight?” Patrice smarted off.

“You are mean,” Alma Grace said.

“It makes as much sense as all that prayin' you've been doin' wanting Lenny and Carlene to get back together,” Patrice said.

Alma Grace threw a wave over her shoulder and pulled back the fancy satin curtain into the first dressing room. “I'm going to ignore you, Patrice. It looks like hogs have been rooting around in here. I swear my daddy's pig pens look better than this. It's horrible.”

She checked each piece of lingerie and made two piles on the bench along one side of the small space. One needed repairs; the other could be returned to the rack.

Her phone vibrated in her hip pocket and she pulled it out, checked the ID, and laid it on the bench. She didn't want to talk to Kim; she was still royally pissed. And according to Uncle Hank, that was a step worse than being just plain old pissed.

The floor was cleared and she was busy putting lingerie back on the hot-pink velvet hangers when Patrice pulled back the curtain. “Phone is for you. Guess yours is turned off.”

Her cousin's eyes were sparkling and the grin on her face said she was up to no good.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“I don't know.” Patrice shoved the phone toward her.

She answered it. “Hello?”

“Turn on your phone, Alma Grace. What if somebody died or had something real important like I do to tell you and there you'd be in the dark. I'm your friend, girl,” Kim said. “I know y'all are in there cleaning up from yesterday because I drove by and saw your vehicles parked in the driveway. And your mama wasn't at church this morning. Is she sick nigh unto death? That's the only thing that would keep Miz Sugar from services.”

“Mama is fine. We didn't want lightning to strike the church building and we would have been hypocrites if we would have been there. We're both pissed at the way I've been treated. That Easter program has grown into a big production under my care and you know it.”

Kim's sigh came through the phone as loudly as if she'd been standing right next to Alma Grace. “Oh, honey. I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

“Bad news?” Cold water replaced the blood in Alma Grace's veins. “Is my daddy all right?”

“Of course, he's all right. He was down at that CNC this morning sitting right up near the front. I bet he put a big check in the plate because our offering total was down by hundreds this morning. That's not the bad news.”

Alma Grace could visualize Kim's nose rising exactly three inches. It always did when she was miffed, which was just a religious form of pissed.

“I know that Jack Landry walked you home after you forsook us and went down to the CNC on Wednesday night. I heard that you were flirting with him and that you even said you wanted to ride on his motorcycle. Well, I've got a cousin who has a cousin who works as dispatch at the police station on the night shift,” Kim said.

“And? I don't suppose either one is a sin, is it?” Alma Grace said coldly.

“No, but he does go to the CNC even though his mama, bless her heart, prays that he'll come back to our church. He's been on the prayer list for weeks and weeks and he's not even sick. She's afraid he won't go to heaven if he gets killed in the line of duty since he was baptized in our church.”

Alma Grace considered throwing the phone over the top of the petition separating the dressing room from the one next to it.

“Well, anyway…” Kim dragged out the words. “To make a long story short, Jack called Carlene last night. My cousin's cousin said that she just accidentally hit the wrong button and heard it all. He said that he'd had a crush on her since high school, but by the time he got up the courage to tell her that, he was in the military. When he got home, she was already married to Lenny but he said that he was going to be like Rhett Butler in
Gone
with
the
Wind
. You know when he told Miss Scarlett that he was in love with her right after her husband had died. Well, Jack said that he realized the divorce hadn't even happened but he'd be waiting in the wings when it did, and she gave him permission to call her on the phone between now and that time.”

Alma Grace saw red flashes dancing in the dressing room.

Kim went on. “You poor thing. He was just walking you home in hopes of learning more about Carlene. I'm so sorry but friends tell friends when something is going on and I had to call. I should've come by but I didn't want to tell you in front of Carlene.”

Alma Grace hung up the phone without saying good-bye or thank you. The woman had just shattered her dreams so why should she thank her. Red dots were still flashing in front of her eyes when she marched right up to Carlene and popped both hands on her hips.

***

Steam boiled out of Alma Grace's ears, her hands were on her hips, and she looked like she was going to shoot first and pray later. “When were you going to tell me? I had to hear it from Kim.”

“What are you talking about?” Carlene whispered.

“Kim's cousin's cousin works at the police department. And she listened in to the conversation between you and Jack last night. Does the part about
Gone
with
the
Wind
ring a bell?”

Patrice stopped working and, in a couple of long strides, joined her cousins in the middle of the store. “What about
Gone
with
the
Wind
? Did y'all rent it? I'm not watching that damn show ever again so tell me right now and I'll go to Yancy's until y'all are done watching it. It makes me cry when Bonnie dies.”