The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (12 page)

“No, we didn't rent it. Carlene is Miss Scarlett and Jack is Rhett Butler and he's declared himself to her. Her, Patrice, not me! He was just using me to get close to her.” Every word got shriller until the last one was little more than a squeal.

Patrice slumped down in a chair beside the cash register. “Tell me more.”

Alma Grace set her jaw. “She knew I liked him.”

“And he likes her. She can't do anything about that, Alma Grace. Except tell him that you like him so she can't be seen with him or he can't call her because it will upset you,” Patrice said.

The hands left her hips and hung limply. Her hand went to her mouth. Her blue eyes widened. “She can't do that! It would be so embarrassing. I could never look at him again.”

Patrice disagreed but she did it without saying a word. She'd looked at Lenny and Carlene together for years and she'd had drunk sex with Lenny on her twenty-first birthday. With all the other notches on his bedpost, she doubted that Lenny even remembered it but she still couldn't look at Carlene right then.

“Then cool your heels. Carlene has always been the sensible one of us. She's not going to ride down Main Street on the back of his cycle and flip off Kitty Lovelle. She's just going to talk to him on the phone,” Patrice said.

“I can be mad because she didn't tell me.” Alma Grace pouted.

Patrice nodded. “We both can be mad about that but I swear if you start prayin' about it, I'll slap the shit out of you.”

Carlene threw up her hands. “I'm sitting right here. I can hear you! I wanted to tell you but I didn't want to break your heart. I haven't even signed those damned papers yet. The lawyer told Mama that they'd probably bring them out here to me or send them by registered mail by the end of the week. It can't be too soon but I'm not going to jump from frying pan to fire. Believe me, it hurts like hell to get burned.”

Alma Grace plopped down in a chair and sighed.

“I recognize that self-righteous look. If you start praying, I really will throw you out in the yard and lock the door,” Patrice said.

“Promise?” Alma Grace finally smiled.

Carlene shook her head slowly from side to side. Was this blasted arguing between them going to go on until the crack of dawn? “Oh, hush, and get back to work, the both of you.”

“Hey, when y'all want a break in there, come on to the kitchen. A nice lady whose husband is on the Blazing Saddles Team just brought us a wonderful rum cake. She says that she and her sisters are getting a team up for next year if we do well this year,” Gigi yelled.

***

The day lasted a whole week. No, it lasted two weeks and it was dark when they left to pick up some fried chicken from the convenience store for supper. Grieving was done in steps. Carlene knew that. Divorce had to be as traumatic as death, right? She'd had the flash of anger, the denial, and the little voice in her head filling her with doubts that Lenny was right in saying that it was her fault.

After she paid for the chicken, she finally got past the idea that she'd caused Lenny to cheat. She might have been busy and not given him one hundred percent of the attention he wanted, but she didn't make him cheat. That was on his list of sins, not hers.

Somewhere between the time she started the car engine and drove out of the parking lot, a white-hot fire started burning inside her heart and soul. Lenny was wise to keep his codes to that gun safe secret because she still had a key to the house. She could waltz in there and kill him in his sleep. Orange was one of her best colors and she'd always heard that prison jumpsuits were very comfortable.

In Texas the liquor stores were closed on Sunday but convenience stores could stay open twenty-four/seven and they were allowed to sell wine and beer. Carlene wasn't a beer drinker like her cousin, Patrice, but she did like good cheap wine. She whipped into the parking lot of the convenience store on the outskirts of Cadillac but the guilt came back when she picked up a bottle of blackberry wine. She tucked it firmly under her arm and carried a six-pack of Diet Coke and a gallon of milk to the front of the store. That was heavy enough to ensure a paper bag with handles.

Alma Grace would never know that she was buying wine on Sunday, so she wouldn't have a reason to preach at her for it.

She parked her van behind Alma Grace's cute little red Prius and Patrice's white Cadillac SRX. If they didn't need the van for the business, she'd trade it in next week for a motorcycle. She might buy a cycle anyway and roar up and down the street that Kitty lived on every night.

A soft drone of phone conversation was coming from Patrice's bedroom. Were she and Yancy having phone sex because she was too tired to go to his house that night?

She snuck the milk and soda into the fridge, left the paper bag sitting on the cabinet, and tucked the wine into her purse. She opened the cabinet doors to find a gorgeous stemmed glass and carefully stuck it upside down in her purse. She felt like she'd won the lottery when she locked her bedroom door. Quiet, blessed quiet. She loved her mama and the aunties. She loved her cousins, even when Alma Grace prayed. But she craved quiet, and if the wine did the right job, she'd have peace of mind and soul to go with the physical quiet surrounding her.

She kicked off her shoes, left her jeans and shirt lying on the floor beside her bed, unfastened her bra and threw it toward a rocking chair in the corner, and donned a faded old gray nightshirt with the Texas Longhorns logo on the front. She poured a glass brimful of wine, sipped, and lounged against the pillows propped against the headboard of her bed.

Two glasses later, the bottle was nearly empty. The rage had subsided and the doubts began. Maybe Alma Grace was right after all. The truth was that Jack had walked Alma Grace a block down the street after church. Rumors told a whole different story. Carlene would never believe that story about an April Fools' joke but maybe other than that one indiscretion Lenny had been faithful. Perhaps they could work on their marriage and it would be even stronger than it had ever been. She needed to talk to him and it couldn't wait until morning.

She parked at the curb and padded barefoot up to the door. When she finally got her key into the doorknob, it wouldn't work, so she leaned on the bell, listening to it ring and ring for a good thirty seconds. When he didn't come to the door, she started knocking and kept it up until the door swung open.

There he stood with pajama bottoms riding low on his hips and a grin on his face. She'd always loved that grin and the sparkle in his eyes. Maybe that's what Alma Grace meant when she said to find something she loved and work forward in baby steps from that. He wasn't one of those men who had a dark shadow by five o'clock but by this time of night he did have enough scruff to add to his sexiness.

She started to reach across the distance and touch his cheek but everything suddenly started spinning and she used the hand to grab the doorjamb.

“Well, well, look who has come dragging back home at the eleventh hour. So I guess you are ready to apologize?” he said. “And by the way, darlin', you look like hell.”

“Well, thank you, Lenny Joe. And your ego is still as big as the whole state of Texas,” she said. “I came here tonight to talk to you, civilly, like adults, without mud slinging, but I see that I've wasted my time and yours.”

“I'll talk. You'll listen. If you want to come back to me, there's a new set of rules. I like being married but I like playing around. It's as simple as that,” he said. “And I'm not changing, Carlene. I'll be discreet.”

“Holy shit!” she muttered. “Does that mean if I'm discreet I can screw other men, too?” she whispered.

He shook his head emphatically. “A woman doesn't have the needs that a man does. Some of us are not one-woman men. You will apologize to my mother and I'll take this visit as your apology to me and we'll go right back to our old lifestyle. You won't ever find anyone else who'll want you, anyway. This way you can have a husband and a family.”

“Why wouldn't anyone else want me?” she asked.

“Darlin', you are too tall, too big, and too much woman. It takes a man like me to handle you,” he said.

She sighed and pushed away from the door. “Good night and good-bye, Lenny.” She turned around and even though it took every bit of her concentration, she made it to the car without stumbling. She got all the way to the shop before the tears flooding her cheeks blinded her and she pulled over to the curb.

“That was the absolute most stupid thing I've ever done,” she yelled.

The words were still bouncing around inside the van when the voice inside her head said,
Okay, Carlene, you listened to Alma Grace's advice and it brought closure like nothing else could. Go home and listen to your heart. Not Alma Grace or Patrice or anyone else.

***

Patrice was on her way down the hall when she heard Carlene crying in her bedroom. It didn't take a mathematical genius or a degree in advanced psychoanalysis to know that she was crying about Lenny.

She rapped lightly on the door. When there was no answer, she turned the knob to find it locked. That was a very minor setback. She'd opened doors with ice picks, hairpins, and even a toothpick one time. A quick trip to the kitchen netted an ice pick and the door swung right open.

Patrice burst in to the room to find Carlene with a glass of wine in one hand and an empty bottle in the other.

“Where did you get that wine?”

“At the convenience store.” Carlene slurred a couple of words.

Patrice plopped down on the edge of the bed. “You are one drunk girl.”

“No, ma'am, I am not, but if you'll go get us another couple of bottles of wine, we could be by midnight,” Carlene said.

“Drunk, who's drunk?” Alma Grace asked from the doorway.

“I am but don't preach at me for drinking. Besides, Jesus drank wine,” Carlene said.

Alma Grace crossed the room and sat down on the bed beside Patrice. “What happened? I was going up the hall to see if we had any milk.”

“I just bought a gallon so, yes, we have milk. I talked to Lenny, face-to-face,” Carlene said.

“Oh, did it go well?” Alma Grace held her breath.

Patrice took the bottle and the glass from her hands, sat down on the bed, and wrapped her arms around Carlene. “What did he say? Spit it out.”

Between gulps she told them the story and how she'd had to stop on the way because she couldn't see for the tears. “It hurts but I'm truly done with the man. No more chances. No more thinking about it.”

“This might just be a minor setback. Every therapist knows the first visit in marriage counseling is sometimes rocky and it's just a baby step at a time,” Alma Grace said.

Carlene wiped tears from her eyes.

Alma Grace sighed. “I'm going to my room to pray. The Bible says that God hears the fervent prayers of the righteous.”

“You're wasting your time,” Carlene said.

“Tell God to send lightning bolts to kill Lenny Lovelle,” Patrice said.

The sisters arrived just as the shop was closing on Monday afternoon. Sugar met them in the kitchen and handed each of her sisters a little bibbed apron printed with roses and edged with lace that matched the one she already wore. Gigi wore a hairnet over her updo and the other two had on ball caps. Sugar's curly ponytail, pulled out of the hole at the back of the cap, looked like a ball of twisted yarn, and Tansy's didn't look much better even if it was a little bit longer.

“So you are trying chicken chili tonight, I take it?” Josie said.

“We found Mama's recipe for it. The chicken is already cooked,” Gigi said.

“Which one of you handled the cold, dead bird?” Josie asked.

Gigi raised her hand. “I did.”

“And she didn't even put oven mitts on her hands,” Tansy said.

Josie looked up at Gigi's hairnet. “Goes real well with your longhorn earrings but the apron clashes with your orange jersey.”

“They made me put the hairnet on,” Gigi said.

“Well, I was wondering.” Josie smiled.

“Y'all about to get busy?” Patrice asked.

“Yes, we are. You want to stick around and taste our product?” Sugar asked.

“No, ma'am. I'll taste it at the cook-off.” Patrice pulled her platinum hair up into a messy ponytail and secured it with a rubber band she pulled from the pocket of her snug-fitting jeans.

“How about you, Carlene?” Gigi asked.

“Carlene has had a hangover all day. She'd upchuck if she ate chili,” Patrice told them.

“I do not!” Carlene said right behind her. “I've got a wine headache and I took four aspirin and it's wearing off.”

“It's Lenny's fault. She wouldn't drink so much if he hadn't riled her up,” Josie said.

Patrice nodded in agreement. “She went to the house and talked to him and finally figured out there is no future with him.”

Josie threw up her hands. “I heard all about it this morning at the convenience store. I'm glad you've figured out what most of us knew all along, honey. Now let's get on with the job of running a business and beating the shit out of him in the cook-off.”

A hard knock on the kitchen door sent Tansy to open it.

“Floral delivery for the Fannin sisters,” the man said.

“I'll take it. Thank you,” she said.

“Have a nice day.” He nodded.

Tansy set a lovely arrangement of yellow daisies, white mums, and purple-tipped baby carnations on the kitchen table and opened the envelope with the card. “I bet it's from our husbands.”

Sugar and Gigi were suddenly glued to her side.

“Well?” Josie asked.

Gigi took the card from Tansy. “She don't have her reading glasses. It says:
We
are
all
proud
of
you
for
entering
the
cook-off and we're rooting for you even though our husbands are the Wildcat Team. We hope you teach the whole bunch of those male chauvinists that women can do anything a man can.”

“I'll be damned,” Josie grinned.

***

Alma Grace was the last one to come trailing into the kitchen. She sat down at the table. “That smell is going to get into our lingerie. Nobody wants to buy panties that smell like chili.”

Gigi slapped her leg and laughed loud and hard. “They would if they knew that chili turns a man on more than perfume.”

“If it still smells like this in the morning I will be duct taping the door shut, all around it. I think I'll go by the store and buy potpourri to set on the credenza and some candles to burn in the store just in case,” Alma Grace said.

“It'll all be out of the house by morning but who is going to taste for you all?” Patrice asked.

“Agnes is taking care of that,” Sugar said.

Patrice shivered. People tasting something that the Fannin sisters cooked? That was a scary thought. It might even get poor old Agnes thrown in jail.

***

Alma Grace was about to load her cart with candles that evening when she noticed the plug-in air fresheners with replaceable units. She mentally went through the store, the beading room, the office, and the foyer, counting all the places where she could plug them in and bought several. Lavender scent for the store, rose for the office, gardenia for the foyer, and plumeria for the stockroom. Surely to goodness, that would knock out the smell of chili.

She turned the corner and there was Violet Prescott—and the woman actually smiled at her. Alma Grace immediately looked out the plate-glass windows at the front of the store to see if it was snowing or if the sky was falling fast toward the earth.

“Alma Grace,” Violet said sweetly.

“Miz Prescott.” Alma Grace nodded.

“Darlin', I'm so glad that our paths have crossed today.”

No lightning bolts and the sky only had a few big white clouds floating around.

Violet opened her handbag.

Alma Grace looked around frantically for a place to hide if the woman brought out a gun.

Violet pulled out an envelope and shoved it toward her. “This is cash money and the names of the people who are donating to Lenny's party fund which will be held at my plantation.”

Alma Grace shook her head and clasped her hands behind her back. “No, ma'am, I will not take that from you. You will have to put it in Patrice's hands yourself. If there was a discrepancy in the amount that reached the shop, you could blame me.”

Violet shoved the envelope back in her bag. “I should have known that even you with all your righteous ways are still kin to Carlene.”

“Yes, ma'am, and blood runs thick in the Fannin family.” Alma Grace quickly pushed her cart toward the checkout counter but she could feel Violet's eyes boring holes in her back the whole way. She might not agree with Carlene or with Patrice, but by golly, they were kin folks. Violet Prescott wasn't.

***

The next morning Alma Grace beat everyone to the shop, sniffed as she walked in, and swore she could smell a faint hint of chili. It didn't take her long to plug in all her new floral-scented room fresheners. Then she slipped into the kitchen and checked inside the refrigerator. Sure enough there were several large containers of the chili that had been made the night before.

“This place smells like a flower shop,” Patrice said.

Alma Grace jumped and slammed the refrigerator door on her fingers. “Dammit! That hurt. And better that it smells like flowers than a chili factory. Do you see all that stuff in there? What are we going to do with that much chili every day for weeks on end?”

“Feed the poor people. Maybe Preacher Isaac down at the church can take it to the soup kitchen in Sherman.”

Alma Grace scanned the whole kitchen before she spoke. “You think that's safe?”

Patrice laughed. “Probably not but it's a way to get rid of it. That first batch is still killing the grass out in the yard. If we could figure out how they made it, we could sell it as weed killer and make millions.”

Carlene and Josie arrived through the back door at the same time. “Wow! It smells nice, not at all like chicken chili. Where is last night's cooking?”

“In there. Patrice slammed my finger in the door,” Alma Grace said.

“There's a rubber seal. It might smart but you won't die,” Josie said bluntly.

“Will you taste it and tell us if it's decent enough to go to the soup kitchen in Sherman, Josie?” Patrice asked.

“Not for a million bucks,” Josie said. “Carlene, you make a pot of coffee and we'll get busy. We've got lots of work still to do after that business on Saturday.”

***

“If you are going to lounge in here, you could pick up a needle and help us,” Carlene said to Patrice in the middle of the morning.

“You don't want me to do that. I'd have blood all over everything. I can't sew on a button without poking my fingertips. Besides I'm the bookkeeper and fill-in salesperson, which is what I'm doing until Alma Grace gets back. There's no customers right now so I'm taking a break.”

Alma Grace breezed into the room, opened up a big bag, and poured a dozen more fresheners on the table. “I didn't plug any into your office, Patrice, or in this room. Y'all can do that. I checked upstairs. Mama is praying and the other two rooms are empty so I guess Aunt Gigi and Aunt Tansy went home last night. This isn't such a bad setup after all, is it?”

“So we smell like a funeral home instead of a panty shop,” Josie said.

Patrice shook her head slowly. “A flower shop, not a funeral home. Now tell us about the gossip you heard over the weekend.”

“First weekend I get to have peace and quiet and my damn phone rings all weekend long. Beulah called to tell me that Kitty has put a restraining order on all three of you because she says that you threatened Lenny,” Josie said.

Carlene ran her fingers through her hair. “I didn't threaten him.”

“I know that but Kitty is just being her own bitchy self, honey,” Josie went on. “And then Agnes called, laughing her fool head off to tell me that you and Jack Landry are getting married as soon as the divorce is final. Gossip has it that you've been seeing him off and on since y'all were in high school on the sly and it didn't stop when you married Lenny.”

“Oh, my God! We didn't ever date and he's only called me one time,” Carlene said.

“And Alma Grace is in tears and only time will tell if she is pregnant with Jack's baby after they spent the night together in the store among all the sexy underwear after church on Wednesday night,” Josie said.

Alma Grace blanched and slumped down in a chair across the table from Carlene.

“Patrice is the only one that is in the clear so far, but there's talk that Yancy might break up with her over all this. You girls are pretty wicked. It's a wonder an old woman like me can even work with you,” Josie said.

Patrice laughed until it echoed off the walls. “Alma Grace might be needin' to do some 'fessin' up. You did get pretty perturbed yesterday about Jack calling Carlene.”

“He only walked me to my car. He didn't even kiss me,” Alma Grace sputtered.

“I'm not finished,” Josie said. “Poor Beulah had to increase her heart medicine when she thought Alma Grace and Jack might get involved. After all, y'all do own a place that promotes sex with all your fancy unmentionables. Now that he's interested in Carlene, why, that's a divorced woman as well. She's just sure when she goes to see Doc Hardison this morning that he's going to increase her blood pressure medicine, too. She's probably wrung the threads out of ten hankies this weekend.”

All three cousins waited for a full minute.

“Any more?” Patrice finally asked.

“Kitty is deciding how to go about taking all your fathers to bed so that she can break up marriages to pay Carlene back for cheating on Lenny. I believe that's all. I'd rather have my kids and grandkids at the house as talk on the phone all weekend,” Josie said.

“Mama will shoot her graveyard dead if she even winks at Daddy,” Carlene said.

“She'll have to stand in line behind Tansy Cordell and Sugar Magee if she makes a play for any of our fathers,” Patrice gasped.

***

The bell rang before Alma Grace could voice her opinion. The day couldn't get worse. She told herself that right up until the time that she saw Kim waiting in front of the cash register.

“Good mornin', Alma Grace. I have a corset put back and I've come to pick it up,” she said cheerfully.

Alma Grace rifled through the layaway box under the counter and laid the white bag with the shop logo imprinted on the side on the counter. She peeled a ticket from the handle and rang up the sale.

“So now that the divorce is final, you're going after Lenny, right? I think that the story I heard was that you were a notch on his bedpost and you'd like another turn?” Alma Grace said icily.

Kim nodded and then shook her head from side to side. “Yes, I did say that but I've changed my mind. I'm going to use this cute little thing to seduce Isaac.”

Alma Grace almost choked. “The preacher.”

“Yes, ma'am. That damned Floy got mad at me when I told them we should at least reimburse you for the wings and halo that you bought with your own money. I'm just a little bit superstitious and I didn't want to take a chance on wearing them if they were stolen outright. So now I'm sitting in the back row of the choir and I've been fired from the Easter program, too, and they're going to let Macy Bardeen be the angel because she's about your size,” Kim said.

“But what has Isaac got to do with that?” Alma Grace asked.

Kim shrugged. “Not a damn thing. I guess I'd better learn to curb my cussin' if I'm going to be a preacher's wife.”

“A preacher's wife!” Alma Grace stammered.

“Nobody, not even Floy Gastineau, will put the preacher's wife in the back row of the choir. And next year I will be the president of the Easter program. Those dumb changes they made will be changed back and you can be the angel if you want to be. That'll teach them to mess with me. Now I'm off to the beauty shop to get my nails done in a color to match the corset. Tonight begins my seduction.”

“You are wearing that on the first night?” Alma Grace whispered.

“No, darlin', but I want him to get used to me wearing pink. First the fingernails and a teary confession that I was the one who stole your wings and halo and I'm so sorry. What does he think I should do? Yes, of course, I'll bring them home to you and the church ladies can buy another set if he thinks that is the right thing.” She wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. “Then it'll be dinner at my house to repay him for listening to me. After that he'll ask me out and we'll go from there. Three weeks from now the corset will come out of the tissue paper.”