The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (6 page)

***

Committee meetings always meant finger foods, so Alma Grace arrived at the church fellowship hall with a platter of jalapeño poppers and a dozen peanut butter cupcakes. God bless her mama's cook. Alma Grace could sweet talk a nun into a black lace corset and fishnet hose but she couldn't make toast without it resulting in sirens and fire trucks.

She set her offering on the table and picked up a purple paper plate. A hard morning of running back and forth from fitting room to stockroom to cash register had flat out worked up her appetite. She started with two chicken salad sandwiches and added a handful of chips on the side.

“You need some sideboards there?” Floy asked from the head of a table where only one seat was left. It was pretty quiet for a committee meeting, which left no doubt that they'd all been talking about the divorce.

“I think I can manage it.” She smiled.

“Okay, while we eat, we'll talk business,” Floy said. “I heard that Lenny put Carson on retainer this morning so I suppose this divorce is going to happen.”

She bit into the sandwich. “I'm not surprised. I hear he even told his new girlfriend that he'd hang a picture of them together above the mantel.”

“Why would he do that?” Floy asked.

“Well, you know he's won the chili cook-off every year since he and Carlene married. I guess he plans to win it this year and put his and Bridget's picture holding the trophy up on the wall. But we are praying that he comes to his senses and repents,” Alma Grace said.

“We had an executive meeting before you got here and we've voted to change the bylaws for the Easter committee,” Floy said bluntly.

The sandwich stuck firmly somewhere between Alma Grace's throat and stomach. It took three big gulps of sweet tea to send it on down. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the person in charge of the Easter program has to be above reproach. It was bad enough when you threw your lot in with your cousins and went into business in a panty shop, but now there's going to be a divorce and talk will be bad. They'll say that Carlene is doing all kinds of things in that room above the store.”

“It's pink,” Alma Grace stammered.

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“It looks like a little girl's Barbie room. There's no way it could ever be misconstrued as hooker paradise,” Alma Grace said.

Floy set her jaw and shook her head. “Even your language has been affected by working in that place. We just can't abide it, Alma Grace. So we put an amendment into the bylaws. It's to save you and your sweet mama embarrassment. From now on the president of the Easter committee can only serve two terms, each one lasting one year. You've already served far longer than that, so as of today someone else is taking over your spot and Kim will help her out. No hard feelings, now. It does say in the Good Book that those who the Lord loves will be chastised. Women need to learn their place and stay in it. If she'd been doing her part in the marriage, Lenny would not have strayed.”

Steaming hot tears welled up in Alma Grace's eyes but she didn't let a single one escape. “What about me? I'm the angel who sings the final song and this year we were working on bringing me down from the rafters like I was flying.”

Floy's smile was as stiff as that tight little gray bun at the back of her head. “Kim is going to do that. Bless your heart, you can sing in the choir. We'd never take that away from you. Not with your sweet soprano voice.”

Alma Grace pushed the plate away from her. If she had to smell that dill pickle another minute, she would throw up. She was ruined and she hadn't done a blasted thing. The fault lay on Carlene's shoulders for leaving Lenny before the Easter program. If she'd stuck around and tried to work it out, none of this would be going on.

Her voice cracked but she didn't let the tears loose. “I suppose you're putting me on the back row, right?”

Everyone in the committee knew that a place on the back row was a slap in the face. There was no way that anyone could even see Alma Grace or hear her either. She'd just been demoted from heaven to hell.

Floy's skinny shoulders popped up a couple of inches in a shrug. “It's the only chair open right now. If someone gets sick, we might make a place for you toward the front.”

Alma Grace pushed her chair back. “I'll make it easy for y'all. Just give my chair to someone else and I'll sing with the congregation this year. Have a nice lunch.”

She picked up her cupcakes and poppers on the way out, put them in her car, and was about to get inside when she remembered the wings and halo had been bought from her personal checkbook, not the church's money. She marched straight back to the choir robe room to get them. She looked in the closet but they were gone. She checked everywhere but she couldn't find them. Those rotten women had taken her position and stolen her wings, too.

***

Patrice looked up when Alma Grace stormed in the back door. She slammed the cupcakes and pepper poppers on the kitchen table and slumped in a chair. Josie opened the cupcake holder and rubbed her hands together.

She grabbed a cupcake and peeled the paper off the sides. “I love peanut butter cupcakes. I can gain five pounds just smelling them. And poppers, too. What happened? Did they call off the church thing?”

“No, they fired me. If I can't be the Easter angel, they aren't going to eat the food I took to the meeting,” Alma Grace said.

Carlene dropped her spoon and it rattled across the floor. “They did what?”

“Fired me! To make it less of an embarrassment, they changed the bylaws and now the Easter program committee head can only have that office two years running. Since I've had it a lot longer, I'm out. Just like that and they stole my wings and my halo. Kim gets to wear them.”

“Why?” Carlene asked.

Patrice swallowed the first bite. “Floy probably already had Alma Grace on probation for going in with us to buy a sexy panty store. That was a big enough blot on their sweet little sanctimonious self-righteous asses. They sure couldn't deal with a divorced cousin. Dear God, that would singe their wings for sure. Am I right, Alma Grace?”

“You've got to be kidding me,” Carlene gasped. “Wait until Aunt Sugar hears this. I'll be taking my name off the Easter egg committee.”

Patrice giggled. “Aunt Sugar might even cuss or change churches but you will not take your name off that committee. We've got to have an inside woman or they'll line all of us up before the firing squad.”

Alma Grace pointed a long slim finger at Carlene. “This is your fault. I love you because we're kin folks. I respect you because we are business partners. But right now I don't like you. Why'd you have to leave him before the Easter program? Couldn't you have stuck around until it was over? Maybe by then you would have ironed things out. You did promise to stay with him through bad times and good times and it's only been two days and look what a mess you've made. And Patrice is right, if you leave the committee, it'll look like they've won, so you have to stay.” Tears streamed down her face, making wet circles as they landed on her cute little white shirt.

“If you have got to blame someone, then blame Lenny, not Carlene,” Josie said.

“I do blame him but he could repent and make things right. And I hope Kim is too fat for my wings and I'm mad at you for ruining that book because it might have helped Carlene go back to him but now he's been to see Carson so he's not going to repent,” Alma Grace whined.

“He's been to see Carson!” Patrice raised her voice. “Carlene just left yesterday, for God's sake. What are you going to do now, Carlene? He's already retained Carson.”

“Guess she pissed him off pretty good when she called Bridget, but he deserves it.” Josie got up and busied herself washing up the dirty cups and saucers.

“There goes the house and everything in it.” Patrice sighed.

“I don't want anything except Granny Fannin's candlesticks. Mama gave them to me for our first anniversary and I want those back. The rest of it he can have, long as he doesn't try to touch Bless My Bloomers. I'll fight with him until my dying breath before he touches a dime of our profits,” Carlene said.

“Surely he wouldn't be that stupid,” Patrice said.

“I don't know. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned or a man who's been caught with his under-britches down around his knees,” Josie said.

“Amen,” Carlene muttered.

Alma Grace hit the table with her fist. “Or an angel who got her wings stolen. I hope Kim gets laryngitis and can't sing a note. When they come to ask me to step in, I'm going to tell them to…”

“Spit it out. Might as well say it as think it.” Josie grinned.

Alma Grace bit her lower lip. “I will tell them to go to hell. That's not a cuss word, it is a destination. And I'm not praying for them or their program. I hope it's a big flop. And I'm still mad at you, Carlene.”

Alma Grace slid into the back pew of the Christian Nondenominational Church. No one called it that, but in keeping up with the current trend toward using initials for everything, it was simply the CNC church. She kept her head down and felt condemned for not going to the church where she'd gone her whole life. But the Bible said that under no circumstances was it okay to commit murder even if it was justifiable. If she had to sit in the same room that night with those so-called sanctimonious witches who'd stolen her halo and wings, she'd be sorely tempted to blow the bottom right out of the sixth commandment.

When she was a little girl, the building where the CNC church was located had been a grocery store and her mama brought her along to do the weekly grocery shopping. When the grocery store went out of business, it was converted into a convenience store/gas station and she remembered filling up the gas tank on her little hot-pink Mustang and buying candy bars and Cokes in the store.

Now it was a church and there she was sitting on the back pew. She'd been in the church a few months earlier for a wedding but it had been all decorated that day and had looked real pretty. Now it was bare and kind of sad looking, but peace wrapped around her like a nice warm fleecy blanket on a cold winter night.

Surely God did not want her to attend services there? Her spiritual gift was her voice and there was no choir loft. Not even a few folding chairs back behind that hideously old pulpit that had been painted crimson red. Pews lined either side with a center aisle between them but not even one tapestry or stained glass window graced the bare walls.

The clock behind the pulpit dinged seven times and Darla Jean took her place behind the podium. “Happy Wednesday, everyone. Let's begin our service by opening our hymn books to page one hundred and we'll all sing ‘I'll Fly Away' together.”

Alma Grace had heard better harmonizing but there was something about the way the congregation got into the hymn that melted her heart. The woman playing the ancient upright piano must have listened to quite a bit of Floyd Cramer because she sure put a lot of his type of runs into the music.

They were in the middle of the second song when someone touched her on the shoulder and she moved down the pew enough to let Jack Landry slide in beside her. “I'm late but I'm here,” he whispered.

She pointed at the number on the hymnal page. Instead of reaching for his own book from the back of the pew in front of them, he nodded and shared with her. When that song ended, Darla Jean gave out another number.

Jack leaned over and whispered, “I guess you are here because you're pissed over that stunt about Easter. I heard they hid your wings and halo so you wouldn't take them back. They're out at the Prescott house. I'll shut down the police radio if you want to break in and get them.”

“Shhh,” Alma Grace said.

Small towns!

Especially Cadillac, Texas!

There weren't even enough cussing words in Josie's vocabulary to cover the way Alma Grace felt right then as she sang “When We All Get to Heaven.” Damned old gossip vines anyway! Why couldn't people just accept things the way they happened and not talk them to death?

Darla Jean opened her Bible and read scripture about forgiveness. Then she shut it and started talking. Alma Grace heard the words. She believed them. But she dang sure wasn't ready to embrace them like a brother.

No, sir! If it hadn't been for all the gossip about Lenny cheating, Carlene for leaving him for it, those women for taking her prestigious position, and even Patrice for ruining a wonderful book, she wouldn't be sitting on the back pew of the CNC church that night. She'd be in her own place of worship singing in the choir and she wouldn't be sitting in the back row, either.

The clock struck eight and Darla Jean said, “We'll close with a word of prayer. We have refreshments laid out right over there for anyone who'd like to stay and have fellowship.” She pointed to a table on the west wall.

Alma Grace bowed her head and planned to slip out the back door as soon as Darla Jean said “Amen.”

Alma Grace glanced at Jack but he had his arms folded over his chest and his head cocked over to one side like he was thinking. He'd stepped into the Cadillac police chief's position back around Christmas time and he'd worn his uniform to the church services that evening. He looked good in it, too, but then Jack had always been handsome even back when she was still a gangly girl in junior high and he was a big tough high school football player. His brown hair was longer now than when he first came home from many years in the military but it looked good on him.

“You came straight from work, didn't you?” she said.

He nodded. “Had to work until the last minute but I like Wednesday night services so I try to make them when I can,” he said. “You are here because you feel a need to be in church but you are mad at those women on the Easter committee, right?”

She nodded. “I'm not going to forgive them for a long time. Any of them.”

“Can't say as I blame you. It was a mean trick. I go with Mama every year to see the Easter program. After what they did, I don't think I'll be there this year. Come on. Let's go have some cookies and coffee and visit. And remember, half of all the gossip you hear isn't true. Maybe those wings aren't at Violet Prescott's house after all.”

“I left my car at the shop. I really should be going on back,” she said.

“I'll walk you home if you're afraid of the dark,” he teased.

Will
you
hold
my
hand? Will you kiss me good night? Will you push me out of the way when the angels throw lightning bolts at me for what I'm thinking right now?
Questions dashed through her head like kids let loose after a long sermon in church.

“Okay, then,” she said. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

***

Patrice unlocked the door to her two-bedroom house on the west end of town and threw herself on the sofa. She needed a glass of wine but she was too tired to go get it. If they had another three days like they'd just put in at the shop, she'd have to use a wheelbarrow to get the bank deposit to the bank. Who would ever have thought that pure old gossip could bring in more customers than high-dollar ads or even promotion gimmicks?

She leaned her head back and shut her eyes. But wait! What was that aroma coming from the kitchen and was that really a glass of wine on the coffee table? She sat up slowly and blinked but it didn't all disappear.

It almost smelled like the park did at the chili cook-off. Almost but not quite. She inhaled again and her mouth watered thinking about twenty different kinds of chili and all the beer that went with it. But it wasn't chili—it was something else that she couldn't identify.

“Did you get the bank deposit done and the statement balanced finally?” Carlene asked. “Supper is ready when you are. Your favorite. Lasagna and garlic bread. I stopped by Clawdy's and picked up half a peach cobbler for dessert and the lasagna is one of those frozen ones, but it's supper, right? Yancy came by and left a note on the bar.”

“I haven't heard from him in three days,” she said.

“It takes three days for you to calm down when you get that angry. It takes me a lot longer and it depends on how much Alma Grace prays as to how long it takes her. You fire up quick but it's a flash in the pan. I'm slow to burn but when I do, it lasts a long time. We're all different that way. Come on into the kitchen. You can read your note while we eat. I wanted some company tonight.”

Carlene pointed to the dining room table when they went through the door. “That glass of wine is all you get so you'd best drink it slow.”

“You can't tell me how much to drink,” she protested.

“Tonight I can, because I poured half of what was left in your glass and half in mine. Your cabinet doesn't have another drop of liquor and there's no beer, so that's it,” she said.

“It's six blocks to the liquor store,” she reminded Carlene.

“And we are both too damn tired to go.” Carlene cut a slab of lasagna and put it on her plate and pushed the aluminum pan across the table toward Patrice.

Patrice filled her plate, put a bite in her mouth, and rolled her eyes. She pulled a chunk of warm garlic bread from the loaf and laid it on her plate and sighed. “God, this is good even if it isn't homemade. We really should learn to cook, you know.”

“If I knew how to cook I'd enter the chili cook-off just to piss Lenny off,” Carlene said.

“That's for men only. Us mere old hardworking women don't get to play with the boys when it comes to the cook-off,” Patrice said.

“What's the note say?”

Patrice opened it up and read it as she ate. “He says he's sorry. That he was a jackass and he wants to take me to dinner Saturday night in Dallas at my favorite Italian restaurant. Of course, I'm going to go so don't even bother asking. I love him and it was as much my fault as his that we argued.”

“You going to tell him that?”

Patrice giggled. “Hell, no!”

“What was the fight all about anyway?”

“We either argued about which movie we were going to watch or we were fighting about buying more beer. I don't remember,” she said between bites.

Carlene shook her head slowly. “That's a crazy thing to fight about.”

“I know, but at the time my brain was pure mush,” she said.

“You really love him?”

“Oh, yeah, I do. He's the one, Carlene. I know he is but I just got so damned mad that night.”

“I understand the anger even if I don't understand the reason,” Carlene said.

“I'm sorry. After what you've been through, it seems pretty trivial, doesn't it?” Patrice said.

Carlene used a paper napkin to wipe away the one tear that escaped. “We hardly ever had a fight. Maybe we should have. It might have shown him that I was a passionate woman.”

Patrice reached across the table and laid her hand on Carlene's arm. “Darlin', don't you ever blame yourself for what Lenny did. This is his fault, not yours.”

“Thank you.” Carlene straightened her back and pulled the lasagna back across the table.

***

Josie's phone was ringing when she got home that chilly evening. She left the front door standing open, set her takeout bag with a burger and onion rings on the kitchen table, and grabbed the receiver from the phone in the living room.

“Hello,” she said.

“Mama, I've got bad news,” her oldest son said.

“Do I need to sit down?” she gasped.

“No, it's not that bad but none of us can come home this weekend. We've got ball games starting up and they play on Saturday and the grandkids have a party to go to on Sunday. Will you be all right?” he asked.

Josie could barely keep the excitement from her voice. A whole weekend to do whatever she wanted. She could eat beans straight from the can or maybe live on cheesecake and beer all weekend. “I think I'll live,” she said.

“We all feel terrible, Mama. And now more bad news. It might be a month or six weeks before we can get back up there. You really should drive down here on Friday nights so you won't be alone.”

Josie clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the giggles at bay. “It's okay, son. I'm tired at the end of a long week of work. I'll rent a couple of movies and relax. Maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll drive down there.”

“We'll call both days to make sure you are all right. You won't mope around and miss Poppa will you? We'll definitely be home in time for the chili cook-off if not before,” he said.

“I'll be just fine. Give the kids a kiss from me and tell them good luck at their ball games,” she told him.

She did the happy dance all the way back to the kitchen, twisting and turning with an imaginary salsa partner. She'd loved her husband with her whole heart, had mourned him when he died, but she was past the molly-coddling stage and ready to have some time to call her own. Spending time in her sons' homes was not how she wanted to spend it.

Her phone rang again and she dreaded answering it. Surely her youngest son wasn't calling to say that he and his family would sacrifice their time and come to Cadillac for the weekend.

“Hello,” she said cautiously.

“Josie, are you sick? You sound like you are out of breath. Are you comin' down with the flu? It's going around up in Sherman and just over the line in Oklahoma,” Beulah Landry said.

Josie rolled her big brown eyes toward the ceiling and hoped Beulah wasn't on a talking jag. “No, I'm fine. I just came home and was about to have supper.”

“I won't keep you. I just called to see if you'd heard about the trouble down at my church. Thought you might want to know since you work at the…” Beulah stammered.

“Panty place,” Josie said.

“It sounds so vulgar to say Bless My Bloomers, almost like a sacrilege,” Beulah whispered. “Well, Alma Grace wasn't at church tonight so I asked her mama about her. Sugar told me that she might have had to work late, but when I got home, Violet called and said that Alma Grace was seen going into the CNC church. Did you know she was changing churches? I bet it's all over them changing the bylaws about the Easter program, isn't it?”

“I have no idea. I've always gone to church over in Tom Bean. That's where Louis went when we got married and I joined it,” Josie said.

“She didn't mention it at the…” Beulah hesitated.

“She's old enough to make up her own mind about things so I reckon she can go to church wherever she pleases,” Josie said.

The smell of a good old greasy hamburger wafted across the distance to her nose and her stomach growled. Beulah wouldn't be caught dead in Bless My Bloomers so she had to find out what she could over the phone.