Ain't She Sweet? Part 4

"If you find the painting."

"I will. You can count on it." As she brushed past him and headed for the door, she had to force herself not to run. "Sorry you couldn't stay longer."

He took his time following her outside, the smile still hanging around the edges of that uncompromising mouth. "Let me make certain I've got this right. You're actually going to have to work to support yourself?"

"I'm very good at it." She twisted the lock with more force than necessary.

"Planning to wait tables again?"

"It's honest work." She headed for the car, trying not to look as if she were making a jailbreak. Just as she got there, he spoke from the steps of the depot.

"If you can't find a job, come and see me. I might have something."

"Oh, yeah, I'm going to do that, all right." She jerked open the door, then spun back to confront him. "Unless you want our range war to get really ugly, you'd better have that chain off my driveway by nightfall."

And didn't that just entertain the heck out of him. "A threat, Sugar Beth?"

"You heard me." She threw herself into the car and peeled off. As she glanced in her rearview mirror, she saw him leaning against the side of his shiny new Lexus, elegant, aloof, amused. Coldhearted b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

She stopped at the drugstore to buy a newspaper and met up with Cubby Bowmar at the register. He pocketed the change from a bottle of Gatorade. "Did you see my new van outside, Sugar Beth?"

"Afraid I missed it."

"Carpet cleaning business is real good right now. Real good."

He licked his lips and pressed her to join him again for a drink. She barely escaped with what was left of her virtue. Back in her car, she unfolded the paper over the steering wheel and checked the help-wanted ads. She wouldn't have to work for long, she reminded herself, just until she found the painting. Then she was heading back to Houston.

n.o.body needed a waitress, which was just as well, because the idea of serving hamburgers to all the people she'd once lorded it over turned her stomach. She circled three possibilities: a bakery, an insurance agency, and an antique shop, then headed home for a quick shower. A copy of the survey leaned against her front door. She flipped it open and saw that Colin had been right. The driveway belonged to Frenchman's Bride.

Depressed, she showered, swiped on some mascara and lipstick, twisted her hair up, and slipped into the most conservative outfit she owned, an ancient Chanel skirt and a white T. She added a raspberry pink cardigan, pulled on nylons and a pair of boots, and set off. Since the insurance agency offered the best money, she decided to start there. Unfortunately, she found Laurie Ferguson sitting behind the hiring desk.

Sugar Beth had liked Laurie in school, and she couldn't remember having done anything particularly despicable to her, but it didn't take long to figure out Laurie had different memories.

"Why, Sugar Beth Carey, I heard you were back in town, but I never expected to see you here." Her heavy hair was bright red now instead of brown, and her earrings were too big for her small, sharp features. She tapped an acrylic fingernail painted with a tiny American flag on the top of her desk. "You're looking for a job. Imagine that." She took a drag from her cigarette without inviting Sugar Beth to sit. "You have to understand. We can only hire someone who's really serious about having a career."

In Sugar Beth's mind, a general clerical job wasn't exactly a career, but she smiled. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

"And we need someone permanent. Are you planning to stay in Parrish?"

Sugar Beth had known this was coming, and despite the aversion she'd developed for playing fast and loose with the truth, she was forced to hedge. "You might have heard I have a house here now."

"So you're staying?"

The gleam of malice in Laurie's eyes made Sugar Beth suspect her question had more to do with Laurie's desire to feed the local gossip mill than to offer Sugar Beth a job. On the other hand, the idea of bossing around Griffin and Diddie's daughter might hold just enough appeal for Laurie to come through with an offer, and the nearly empty bag of dog food sitting in the carriage house kitchen motivated Sugar Beth to respond politely. "I can't promise to stay here until I'm dead and buried, but I plan to be around for a while." For how long was anyone's guess.

"I see." Laurie shuffled a few papers, then gave Sugar Beth a smug smile. "You don't mind taking our proficiency test, do you? I need to make sure you have the minimal skills we require in math and English."

Sugar Beth could no longer hold her tongue. "I don't mind at all. I'm especially good in math. But then, you must remember from all the times you copied my algebra homework."

Thirty seconds later, Sugar Beth was on the sidewalk.

The Creme de la Creme Bakery had been Glendora's Cafe when Sugar Beth was growing up. Unfortunately, the new owner needed someone who could do maintenance work as well as bake, and when she handed Sugar Beth a monkey wrench to demonstrate her skills, the gig was pretty much up. Everything rested on the antique shop.

The charming window display at Yesterday's Treasures included a child's rocking horse, an old trunk filled with quilts, and a spool-legged chair with a hand-painted pitcher and washbowl. Sugar Beth's spirits lifted. What a wonderful place to work. Maybe the owner was new to Parrish, like the woman at the bakery, and wouldn't know Sugar Beth's reputation.

The old-fashioned bell above the door tinkled, and the soft strains of Bach's cello suites enveloped her. She inhaled a spicy potpourri along with the pleasantly musty scent of the past. Antique tables gleamed with English china and Irish crystal. The open drawers of a cherry highboy displayed exquisite old linens. An unusual rosewood desk showcased an array of watch fobs, necklaces, and brooches. Everything in the shop was top quality, perfectly arranged, and beautifully tended.

A woman's voice called out from the back. "I'll be right with you."

"Take your time."

Sugar Beth was admiring a cheery tableau of Victorian hatboxes, silk violets, and handmade reed baskets filled with speckled brown eggs as a woman stepped from the dim depths at the back of the store. Her dark hair fell in a sophisticated cut that ended just above her jawline. She was neatly dressed in pale gray slacks and a matching sweater with a simple strand of exquisitely matched pearls at her neck.

An icy finger crept along Sugar Beth's spine. Something about those pearls...

The woman smiled. "h.e.l.lo. How can I-"

And then she stopped. Right where she was, underneath a French chandelier, one foot placed awkwardly in front of the other, the smile frozen on her face.

Sugar Beth would have recognized those eyes anywhere. They were the same shade of crystalline blue that looked back at her from the mirror every morning. Her father's eyes.

And the eyes of his other daughter.

"If I had a daughter like you, I would be ashamed to own her!" said Mr. Goldhanger, with real feeling.

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Old bitterness curdled in Sugar Beth's stomach. Intelligent men kept their legitimate children separated from their illegitimate ones, but not Griffin Carey. He'd plunked them both in the same town barely three miles apart and, in his utter selfishness, refused to acknowledge how difficult it would be for Sugar Beth and Winnie to go to school together.

He'd gotten two women pregnant within a year-first Diddie, then Sabrina Davis. Diddie kept her head high, expecting him to outgrow his infatuation with a woman she regarded as a mealymouthed n.o.body. When he hadn't, she'd chosen to be philosophical. A great woman learns to rise above, Sugar Beth. Let him have his piece of trash. I have Frenchman's Bride.

Whenever Sugar Beth raged over being forced to go to school with Winnie, Diddie turned uncharacteristically harsh. Nothing's worse than other people's pity. You keep your back straight and remember that someday everything he owns will be yours.

But Diddie had been wrong. In the end, he'd changed his will and left everything to Sabrina and Winnie Davis.

The stylish woman standing before her bore little resemblance to the introverted outcast who used to trip over her feet if anyone spoke to her. The old sense of powerlessness crept through Sugar Beth. As a child, she hadn't been able to control the behavior of any of the adults in her life, so she'd exerted her power in the only way she knew how-over her father's illegitimate daughter.

Winnie stood motionless near an old pie chest. "What are you doing here?"

She could never say she'd come looking for a job. "I-I saw the shop. I didn't know it was yours."

Winnie regained her composure more quickly. "Are you interested in anything special?"

Where had her poise come from? The Winnie Davis Sugar Beth remembered had turned red when anyone spoke to her.

"N-no. I'm just looking." Sugar Beth heard the stammer in her voice and knew by the flicker of satisfaction in Winnie's eyes that she'd heard it, too.

"I just got a new shipment in from Atlanta. There are some wonderful old perfume bottles." She curled her fingers over the strand of perfectly matched pearls at her neck. Sugar Beth stared at the pearls. They looked so- "I love perfume bottles, don't you?"

All the blood rushed from her head. Winnie was wearing Diddie's pearls...

"Whenever I see an old perfume bottle, I always wonder about the woman who owned it." Her fingers caressed the necklace, the gesture deliberate. Cruel.

Sugar Beth couldn't do this. She couldn't stand here and look at Diddie's pearls around Winnie Davis's neck.

She turned toward the door, but she moved too quickly and b.u.mped against one of the tables the same way Winnie used to b.u.mp against desks at school. A bra.s.s candlestick wobbled, then fell and rolled to the edge. She didn't stop to pick it up.

Dinner's gonna be nasty tonight, and not just because we're having steak, which I ree-fuse to eat due to global warming, et cetera, but because of Her. Why can't she be more like Chelsea's mom instead of having such a stick up her b.u.t.t all the time? I'm not anything like her, no matter what Nana Sabrina says. And I'm not a rich b.i.t.c.h, either.

I hate Kelli Willman.

"Gigi, dinner's ready."

As her mother called from the bottom of the stairs, Gigi reluctantly closed the spiral notebook that held the secret diary she'd been keeping since last year in seventh grade. She pushed it under her pillow and swung her legs in their baggy corduroys over the side of her bed. She hated her bedroom, which was decorated in this gay Laura Ashley c.r.a.p her mother luvvved. Gigi wanted to paint the room either black or purple and trade in all the prehistoric antique furniture for some of the awesome stuff she'd seen at Pier One. Since Win-i-fred wouldn't let her do that, Gigi'd stuck up rock posters everywhere, the nastier the better.

Setting the table was her job, but when she got to the kitchen, she saw that her mother had already done it. "Did you wash your hands?"

"No, madre, I dragged them through the dirt on my way downstairs."

Her mother's lips got tight. "Toss the salad, will you?"

Chelsea's mom wore low-riders, but Gigi's mom still had on the boring gray slacks and sweater she'd worn to work. She wanted Gigi to keep on dressing like last year in seventh grade, in all kinds of c.r.a.p from the Bloomingdale's catalogue. Her mother didn't understand what it was like to have everybody call you Miss Rich b.i.t.c.h behind your back. But Gigi had fixed that. Starting last September she wouldn't wear anything that didn't come from the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. It drove Win-i-fred nuts. Gigi'd also stopped acting like such a geek at school. And she'd found cool new friends like Chelsea.

"Mrs. Kimble called about your history test. You got a C."

"C's okay. I'm not as smart as you used to be."

Her mom sighed because she knew it wasn't true, and for a minute, she looked so sad Gigi wanted to tell her she was sorry for being such a brat, and that she'd start working up to her potential again, but she couldn't say it. Her mom didn't understand anything.

Gigi hated being thirteen.

Win-i-fred set the last salad plate on the table. They were using the tea leaf ironstone china tonight, probably because her dad was home for dinner for a change. Their oak pedestal table wasn't nearly as cool as this awesome French farm table Win-i-fred had sold right out from under them, even though Gigi'd loved it and they didn't need the money. Gigi wished she'd close the store, or at least hire more people to help out so they could eat something decent for dinner once in a while instead of frozen c.r.a.p. Her mom said if it bothered Gigi so much, she should cook a few meals herself, completely missing the point.

The teak bowl held one of those salads-in-a-bag with nothing except lettuce and some dried-up carrot t.u.r.ds. In the old days, even with all her board meetings, her mom used to make salads with good stuff like fresh tomatoes and Swiss cheese and orzo, which looked like fat grains of rice but was really pasta. She'd even fix croutons from scratch, with lots of garlic, which Gigi adored, even if it made her breath stink.

"I want orzo in it," Gigi complained.

"I didn't have time." Her mom went to the back door and stuck her head out. "Ryan, are the steaks done?"

"On the way."

Her dad grilled on the patio all year-round. He didn't like grilling too much, but her mom said meat tasted better that way, and he felt guilty because half the time he didn't make it home for dinner. He was chief operating officer of CWF, which was a big responsibility. Her Nana Sabrina owned the window factory, but the board of directors ran it, and her dad had worked his way to the top like everybody else, except Gigi heard her mom tell Nana that he worked harder than ten people because he still felt like he had to prove himself. Nana lived in this really cool mansion on Scenic Drive in Pa.s.s Christian, down on the Gulf, which her dad said was almost far enough away.

Their finances were complicated. Some stuff like the window factory was Nana's, but Frenchman's Bride used to be her mom's. Her mom wouldn't live there, though, and it was closed up till Colin bought it. Gigi loved Colin, even when he got all sarcastic because she hadn't read c.r.a.p like War and Peace. Two years ago he'd volunteered to coach the high school boys' soccer team, and last year they'd gone all the way to State.

Gigi dropped the salad bowl on the table. "I'm not eating steak. I told you that."

"Gigi, I've had a long day. Don't be difficult."

"Here we go." Her dad came through the door carrying the steaks on one of the tea leaf ironstone platters, which, even if Gigi liked tea leaf ironstone, which she didn't, she wouldn't have let herself get attached to because her mom would sell it right out from under them, too. Her mom was a history nut, which was why she liked the antique store so much.

Her dad winked at her as he set the platter on the bra.s.s trivet. He was thirty-three and Win-i-fred was thirty-two. Most of her friends' parents were a lot older, but Gigi'd been born while her parents were in college. Premature, like, ha-ha, anybody would believe that.

The smell of the steak made her mouth water, so she forced herself to think about all the cow burps that were s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the ozone layer and causing global warming. Two weeks ago when she'd decided to become a vegetarian, she'd tried to explain it at lunch, but Chels told her to stop talking like a geek. But that weird Gwen Lu had overheard and wanted to strike up this big intellectual conversation about it. As if Gigi's reputation could stand being seen talking to Gwen Lu.

"Wine tonight or not?" her dad asked.

"Definitely." Her mom took some disgusting frozen french fries from the oven and dumped them in a bowl.

Her dad pulled a bottle from the wine rack.

In seventh grade, when Gigi had still been friends with Kelli and everybody, Kelli had said Gigi's dad looked like Brad Pitt, which was a total lie. For one thing, Brad Pitt was short and old, and his eyes were squished too close together. Also, could anybody honestly imagine her dad going around with his hair messed up all the time and looking like he never shaved? It grossed her out when some of the girls said they thought her dad was hot.

Gigi mainly looked like him, her mouth and the shape of her face. But her hair was dark brown instead of blond, and she didn't have his goldy-colored eyes. Hers were like her mom's, light blue and sort of creepy. She wished they were goldy brown like his. No matter what Nana Sabrina said, Gigi was a lot more like her dad than her mom.

She wished he didn't work so much. Then her mom might not have opened the store. They sure didn't need the money. Her mom said with Gigi in school and Ryan working such long hours, there wasn't enough for her to do, even with all her committees. In Gigi's opinion, she could stay home and make some decent salads.

He carried the winegla.s.ses to the table, and they all sat down. Her mom said grace, then her dad pa.s.sed the steak platter. "So, Gi, how's it goin' at school?"

"Boring."

Her parents exchanged a look that made Gigi wish she'd kept her big fat mouth shut. They thought one of the reasons her grades were going down was because she wasn't getting enough intellectual stimulation from her cla.s.ses, which was true, but that didn't have anything to do with her grades. Lately she'd started to get scared they might send her away to some boarding school for the gifted like Colby Sneed's parents had done, and Colby hadn't been half as smart as her.

"Mainly because of the kids, though," she said quickly. "Cla.s.ses this week were very stimulating, and my teachers are excellent."

Her mom lifted an eyebrow, and her father shook his head. One thing about her parents...they weren't stupid.

He salted his french fries. "Funny that with all that stimulation, you couldn't do better than a C on your history test."

Gigi knew she was walking a delicate line. Being the cla.s.s brain-except for that dorky Gwen Lu-and being the richest girl in town, too, had made everybody hate her, but if she let her grades drop too far, she might find herself in boarding school, and then she'd have to kill herself. "I had a stomachache. I'm sure I'll do better next time."

He got that worried look in his eyes she'd been seeing a lot lately. "Why don't you come to the factory with me on Sat.u.r.day morning? I won't be there long, and you can mess around with the computers."

She rolled her eyes. When she was a kid, she'd loved to go to work with him, but now she thought it was boring. "No, thank you. Me and Chelsea are going over to Shannon's house."

"Chelsea and I," her mother said.