Good Christian Bitches (9 page)

“Shit,” Heather finally said.

“You got that right.” Sharon was furious that Yolanda had figured her out. If only Dean could have gotten the information. “I’m late for work. This is so screwed up.”

“I know you’re disappointed you didn’t get the 411, honey. But this will make you feel better. Guess who the next chair of the Longhorn Ball is gonna be?”

“Amanda Vaughn?” Sharon’s mood quickly turned around.

“Shush-shush. Mum’s the word for now,” Heather said. “But it’s all been cleared by the powers that be. We just have to get her to say yes.”

“Awesome! Well, it’s safe to say we just ruined her whole next year.”

“Don’t worry about the car thing,” Heather said.

“What car thing?” Sharon answered, her unhappy visit with Yolanda already receding into foggy memory. “She’s not gonna have time for anything anymore. She’s gonna be way too buried with the Ball.”

“Call me later. We need a plan. That guy really, like, paid cash for the car? And she returned it?”

“Right on both counts.”

“I can’t believe it! What is she thinking?” Heather asked. “I have to say that Amanda’s got a little more backbone than we thought. I kind of can’t help admiring her.” There was a long pause. “But I mean, we’ll take her down,” she added quickly. “Not to worry.”

“I’m not worried in the least,” Sharon said. In a much better frame of mind now, she clicked off the call, folded the phone back into her purse, started up the Beemer, and happily headed to work.

“T
his house sucks!” Will pronounced in his angriest voice as Amanda did her best to direct the movers to unload the furniture into their new home. It was another sweltering, humid afternoon, and between the stress of trying to figure out where to put stuff while contemplating her new life and dealing with her belligerent son, Amanda felt at the breaking point.

“Will,” she said wearily, “for the hundredth time, please don’t use that word. It’s just so inappropriate.”

“It’s totally appropriate!” he said with a snarl. “It’s exactly how I feel, and it’s exactly the truth, which makes it appropriate, and you know it!”

Amanda glanced around the house. Okay, so it was only six thousand square feet, and it looked out on a view of other, equally large homes, instead of twelve thousand square feet looking out on the Pacific. She felt a pang of guilt that her son’s sense of values could be so skewed. Granted, she had grown up in a house larger than the Harrington home they were renting, but her values were pretty down to earth. Where exactly did Will get his attitude about life, so deeply rooted in entitlement? That’s not how kids were when she was growing up. But then she thought, maybe they were and she just never realized it. Who knows how these things happen. Still, she couldn’t help but think her son’s outbursts were way out of line.

“Where does this box go?” one of the movers asked, and Amanda sighed, staring at it and trying to decide exactly what its contents might be. She had been in such a hurry to pack and move that she had neglected to label many of the boxes. Dozens of brown boxes, with who knew what inside them, littered the living room floor. She shook her head. It would take months to unpack everything, and then after a year or two they would move on, so she’d have to go through the whole process all over again. Next time she’d hire a service instead of trying to do it all with her housekeepers. On the other hand, next time she wouldn’t be running from her ex-husband, desperate to start a new life for herself back home and put the past behind her.

“Just put it in the living room with all the others,” she said, resigned to her fate of spending an endless stretch of days trying to turn boxes and boxes of possessions into something approaching a normal home for her family.

“Can I go swimming?” Sarah asked cheerfully. “I love our new pool!”

Leave it to my daughter to find something good in all this, Amanda thought. “Of course, honey,” she said. “Will, you can go with her if you want.”

“I don’t want to go swimming, Mom,” he said, scowling. “I’m just gonna skateboard on the front steps. Our landlord should’ve put in a skateboarding ramp instead of that dumb pool.”

“Will,” Amanda said, trying to mask the exasperation she felt, “the movers are trying to use those steps for the boxes and the furniture.”

“Well, then, maybe they can find another entrance,” Will replied testily. “I live here, not them.”

Just at that moment, a Jaguar pulled up to the house. From it emerged Heather, who had been driving, holding a beautiful flower arrangement, and Sharon, holding a large object covered in tinfoil.

Amanda scratched her head, trying to figure out why the two women were coming to visit right now.

“We’re the welcome wagon!” Heather sang out, prancing up the sidewalk in an outlet mall Calvin Klein sheath that clung to her narrow hips. She had taken a couple of extra diet pills and was a little more wired than usual, which was saying something.

“We baked you a pie, darlin’!” Sharon added as she moved boldly toward her former best friend, having sufficiently recovered from the debacle in Yolanda’s office to regain her usual cheery state.

“Yum-yum,” Heather said, patting her stomach and then frowning by force of habit. “We just wanted to say welcome home. We want it to feel like you never left.”

“That’s so sweet,” Amanda said, touched and yet suspicious, then immediately upset with herself for feeling that way. Why couldn’t she just accept a nice gesture at face value? Maybe, she thought, because Sharon had been leading the Bible study where she had been prayed for—or was it preyed upon?

“I seem to remember you having a fondness for chocolate pecan pie,” Sharon said. “I know my grandmother’s was your favorite. I’ve attached her recipe.”

Amanda had to laugh at the fact that Sharon was so clueless, she didn’t even get it that most people hoped the famous Peavy family recipe would’ve long since been forgotten. The story of Sharon’s grandmother and her now famous chocolate pecan pie was a legend in the neighborhood. It was said that Grandmother Peavy’s pie was so good that the recipe was not only jealously guarded, but coveted. Very few received the recipe, and those who did paid a tremendous price—and never in dollars. Grandmother Peavy gave out the recipe only as a last resort, when she wanted a favor from someone or wanted to influence someone’s thinking. Over the years, she’d shared it with no more than half a dozen people, and always with the stipulation that the recipient had to cross her heart and promise to never share it with another. They all went to Hillside Park Presbyterian together, so the provision was easy to enforce. For years, recipe recipients marveled that no matter how hard they tried, or how often they made it, no one could ever seem to quite master the recipe like Grandmother Peavy. It was truly a phenomenon, and many attributed her luck with her being blessed for all her good deeds. For many, many years, she taught Sunday school, volunteered in the nursery for the early service once a month, and helped out in the pastor’s office once a week. She was almost a saint. So, of course, no one could justify disclosing the secret recipe. One year, in an attempt to “honor” her grandmother, Sharon snuck a copy of the famous pie recipe and submitted it for publication in the much-anticipated church cookbook. You can imagine the shock that ensued when it was discovered by comparing the recipes that the original called for real butter, not margarine, and one-half cup more sugar than the version Grandmother Peavy had given out over the years.

Oddly, when these same lucky people followed the new cookbook version, it tasted exactly the same as Grandmother Peavy’s. Poor old Mrs. Peavy had a heart attack and died just days after the cookbook came out. Though everyone had a different theory regarding Sharon’s true intentions, to her credit she had wept throughout her grandmother’s entire funeral service. In fact, it was the last time anyone remembered having seen Sharon Peavy cry. Amanda grinned. She hadn’t had a slice of chocolate pecan pie in her entire sojourn in California, and it was her favorite. She accepted it graciously.

“That’s really so sweet of you, Sharon. Thank you. How have you been, anyway?”

“I’ve been fine, honey. You know how it is. This, that, and the other. I don’t know why I never picked up the phone and called you all that time you were out West.”

“Phones work both ways,” Amanda admitted sheepishly. “I could’ve called you.”

“Let’s not be strangers,” Sharon said. “You’re here, you’re back, your children are here, and I just want to be close again. I can’t see why it can’t be like you never left.”

Amanda nodded. On one level, it really felt as if she had never left. The heat, the humidity, the homes—all that was the same. Even Sharon strutting around half-dressed all the time. She had been the same way in high school. When you’ve got it, flaunt it, I guess, Amanda thought.

“What a beautiful home!” Heather gushed, and Sharon nodded in agreement.

“We’re really lucky it was available,” Amanda said. “It’s just a couple blocks from my mom’s, so I can keep an eye on her, and she can see her grandchildren easily. A lot more easily than getting on a plane to Southern California.”

“We missed you!” Sharon exclaimed. Amanda couldn’t tell whether she was being sincere or not. Then she thought of one of her ex-husband’s favorite sayings—that the hardest thing in the world to demonstrate is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made. And she asked herself again, Why am I being so suspicious of these women?

“Would you look at all this stuff,” Sharon said, looking around at the mess. “I guess you’ll be unpacking those boxes for a long time, mmm?”

“I know. I feel like I’ll be unpacking forever.”

Sharon felt that old familiar jealousy for Amanda raising its ugly head again. How could two people who were so close end up so differently in life? Sharon hadn’t made such poor choices. She was always a victim of circumstance. And look at Amanda. Those beautiful children, this home, these beautiful things everywhere. If Sharon were to ever get lucky enough to move from her aunt’s house, all she’d need is a friend with an SUV willing to make two trips.

“I can’t believe how busy I am,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes. “Between taking care of the children and getting these boxes sorted away, I don’t think I’m gonna have time for anything else. Not for a long time, anyway.” Heather and Sharon exchanged glances, and Heather cleared her throat.

“Actually, Amanda,” she said, “there is something we wanted to talk with you about. Is this a bad time?”

Amanda shrugged. “It’s about as good as any. I may get distracted every so often if a mover needs to ask me where to put something, but otherwise, I’m all yours. What’s up?”

“It’s the Longhorn Ball,” Heather said.

“What about it?” A mover held up an unmarked carton for Amanda’s consideration. “Beats me. Put it anywhere. Living room, I guess.”

The mover nodded and continued up the stairs, barely missing contact with Will and his skateboard.

“Will,” Amanda said, raising her voice, “could you please find somewhere else to skateboard right now? Why don’t you skate over to Gigi’s place and watch a video?” That was one of the great things about the neighborhood—you could still feel comfortable sending your children off by themselves, as long as it was within Hillside Park. Amanda had never felt safe sending her children anywhere around Newport Beach, because there was so much traffic zipping around, and also because everybody just seemed so crazy. At least compared to Hillside Park, anyway. Although who knows, Amanda thought—maybe they’re just as crazy here, too. Maybe they just feel more of a need to hide it here, unlike in California, where you can be as crazy as you want and nobody seems to care one way or the other.

“We were talking about the Longhorn Ball,” Heather said, a trace of impatience in her voice. She wished she’d remembered to reapply her lip gloss. Those diet pills always left her feeling parched and dry.

“Oh, of course,” Amanda said wearily. “It’s just too much to keep track of, between the children and the boxes and the furniture. Okay. What about the Ball?”

“We’re wondering if you’d be interested in taking more of an active role,” Sharon said delicately. “We know you’ve been an inactive member all these years.”

Amanda thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I’d love to, but I don’t see how. At least not this year. I’ve got so much going on right now, what with the children and the house. I think I’d better stay inactive. I don’t even know anybody anymore. I wouldn’t even know who to ask for what. You know what I mean?”

“Sure, sure. We know what you mean,” Heather said, digging in. This was obviously going to be a harder sell than either she or Sharon had anticipated.

“We were thinking,” Sharon began, choosing her words carefully, “about the fact that, well, you know the Longhorn Ball is in shambles right now.”

Amanda bit her lip. “I know that something happened yesterday with Susie,” she said, wanting to walk the fine line between staying out of other people’s business and satisfying her curiosity about what had happened. With everything going on in her life—the mysterious black Mercedes, the unexpected heart-to-heart with her mother, Will’s anger, and the business of the move—she had forgotten all about Susie.

“Poor Susie,” Sharon said, making a clucking sound.

“I tell you what,” Heather said. “I think the chief of police of Hillside Park is going to be looking for a new job.”

“A new career, you mean,” Sharon said with a snort. “And not in law enforcement. I think Edward Caruth is gonna make sure he never gets near another badge or gun anywhere in the fifty states.”

“Uh-huh,” Heather agreed. “Anyway, Susie’s okay. But she definitely left everybody in Hillside Park with a bad taste in their mouths about the whole Longhorn Ball. So the question is . . . how do you get the Ball back to where it was?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been out of the loop for so long,” Amanda said.

“Well, the way you make anything better,” Heather said, answering her own question, “is with great people. It takes great people to restore a great institution . . . to . . . greatness. Right?”

“Right,” Sharon chimed in, although she sounded a little less convinced, to Amanda’s ear, than Heather.

“Where’s all this going, ladies?” Amanda asked warily. “If you’d like me to write a check, I’ll be happy to. But I don’t—”

“Let me cut to the chase,” Heather interrupted. “We all love, love Susie. She made a lot of money—made, collected, extorted—who really knows? But she left dead bodies everywhere. She messed everything up, and now the whole thing’s just . . . a disaster! I heard from some of the girls in the office that all the records of donations from previous years are lost. The Pediatric Foundation’s madder than heck at us, even though we gave them more money than ever. They may not even want to be associated with us anymore. So there’s a lot of fence-mending that needs to be done. And the question is, who’s best to take on a job like that? Who’s got credibility with everybody in Hillside Park—all the businessmen, all the wives, all the corporate interests? Who hasn’t been tarnished by this whole thing?”

“Everybody in town is so disgusted with Susie,” Sharon added, “because of her high-handed attitude. Just about everybody involved with the whole thing is saying, ‘I don’t want anything to do with it.’ Somebody’s got to take on the responsibility of making sure that one of the most important events on the Dallas social calendar, not to mention one of the most important philanthropic events in the city of Dallas, doesn’t dry up and disappear.”