Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (11 page)

“Honeybelle,” I said automatically.

He smiled broadly. “That's not what they were calling her, and somebody else said you were just the dogsitter, which is when we figured out they were talking about you. It's unusual to have peanuts sitting out like that in a restaurant, you know. Half the kids in the country are allergic to peanuts. My little granddaughter is.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

I was even sorrier to hear that I was the subject of ice cream machine gossip. How did the news get out already that we were inheriting a large amount of money? Who had talked? Surely not Ten. And it seemed unlikely that Posie or Hut Junior was going around telling their friends and neighbors how Honeybelle had thwarted their dreams of an immediate windfall. I doubted Mr. Carver or Mae Mae had said a word either.

Miss Ruffles edged over to sniff him.

“We got to thinking,” Costello said, holding his position but eyeing her, “that if you're going to be a millionaire, maybe you could see your way to writing a check to Mr. Postlethwaite.”

“I'd like to help you,” I said. “But truth is, I won't get a penny beyond my regular paycheck for a year.”

“A year? Well, I bet we could work out something with one of those cash advance companies. My brother-in-law is always using those. Maybe—”

“It's all very complicated,” I said, “and it's really not anything I care to discuss, not with you.”

“Hey, is that any way to talk? We're just having a conversation here.”

I tugged at the leash. “I think it's a conversation that's going to end with you threatening me. So we're going to go before that happens.” I turned and started to jog again. Miss Ruffles joined me.

Costello called after us, “We're just talking. Hey, come back!”

It didn't occur to me to be frightened until they were both back in their car and driving in the opposite direction from Miss Ruffles and me. That's when my knees turned to jelly, and I wanted to sit down on the sidewalk more than anything. But Miss Ruffles nearly yanked me off my feet by charging after another passing car. She wanted to run it down and eat all the tires. I barely managed to stop her by throwing all my weight against the leash. Then we ran as if chased by demons.

About half a mile later, I stopped on a corner and bent from the waist to catch my breath. I groaned. My mother had been known for cutting corners, playing fast and loose with donations, wheedling money for expeditions that sometimes didn't materialize. I should have guessed one of her shady donors might come looking for repayment someday.

But this possibility, that someone might come looking for cash from me, had never blossomed in my mind. I had nothing to give to anyone—certainly not the kind of money the Blues Brothers wanted for their client.

“What am I supposed to do?” I said.

Miss Ruffles jumped against my knee. Puzzlement shone in her face.

“It's okay,” I said to her. “They're after me, not you.”

She yipped and pulled on the leash. I got the message. We jogged across the street to the next corner and kept going toward the bakery.

I didn't want to leave Miss Ruffles outside by herself, so I was glad the Heavenly Treats shop had a drive-up window. Most restaurants in Mule Stop had drive-up windows. It was possible to eat three meals a day without leaving your car.

The apple-cheeked lady standing at the window was the owner, who sometimes wore angel wings when she worked the counter. This morning she had tied on an apron that had various colors of frosting dabbed on it. She looked like Mrs. Claus, except messy. She smiled at me as she opened the window. “Can I help you?”

I fished some cash out of the tiny pocket in my running shorts. “I'll take a dozen mixed doughnuts, please.”

“You want me to choose for you?”

“That would be great, thanks.”

Miss Ruffles jumped up and put her front paws on the takeout window to investigate, and the woman's smile widened. “Why, that's Miss Ruffles, right? Honeybelle's dog?”

“Yes.” I put a few bills on the counter in hopes of speeding up the transaction.

But the owner rested one plump elbow on the counter and leaned there for a chat. “We're all real sorry about Honeybelle. She used to drive up here in her convertible every Sunday and buy all our pink sprinkle doughnuts. She took 'em to church, she said. She said it was good for the whole congregation to have pink doughnuts. I'm not sure what that meant, exactly, but it sounded nice.”

“She was always very generous.”

“You want some pink sprinkles?”

“Sure, that'd be great.” Belatedly, I added, “Thank you, ma'am.”

“I heard Honeybelle was real generous with you.”

I opened my mouth to reply but couldn't think of a response.

She said, “You're sure one lucky young lady.”

She had a glint in her eye that didn't quite match her cordial remark, and she smiled as if she'd beaten me at Ping-Pong. I thought for a second about what a smart Texan would say to such a clear goad. It didn't take long to hit on just the right thing.

I said, “Bless your heart, ma'am. Thank you.”

Her smile changed, and she said more seriously, “I was real sorry Miss Honeybelle had to die right here in our parking lot we share with the pharmacy. Not that I blame her a bit. She had a big fight with that college man.”

“Who? President Cornfelter?”

“The one with the bow tie. They had words right out here.” She pointed at the edge of the parking lot, closer to Pinto's drug store. “I don't know what he said to her, but it musta been real mean. It like to have killed her, I guess. I'll go get those doughnuts for you.”

She went away, and I stood there thinking about something my mother used to say.
Listen to the thing you're studying. Let it tell you when you're going off track.
Maybe it was time to think about President Cornfelter.

When the proprietor came back, I paid and thanked her again and took the box of doughnuts in my arm.

When Miss Ruffles and I walked past the front window, all the patrons inside the restaurant portion of Heavenly Treats came to watch us go by. I assumed Mrs. Claus had told everybody I was outside and they had run to the window to see the million-dollar dog.

We were the topic of hot gossip already.

Balancing the doughnut box and managing Miss Ruffles turned out to be a challenge, and I gave up trying to run, too. By the time we got back to Honeybelle's, two black cars were idling in the street. None of the windows were rolled down, but I could see the Blues Brothers sitting in the front seat of the lead car, watching. I took Miss Ruffles and the doughnuts through the gate.

In the house, Mr. Carver was very happy to open the Heavenly Treats box.

I said, “The whole town is talking about us.”

His hand paused in the act of selecting a pink-frosted doughnut. “What about us?”

“About inheriting a lot of money from Honeybelle. Except they're calling her Moneybelle.”

Mr. Carver sat down hard at the kitchen table.

Mae Mae stopped slamming things in the pantry and came out into the kitchen. “Why'd you tell anybody?”

“I didn't say a word. But somebody did.”

To Mr. Carver, Mae Mae said, “It sure wasn't me.”

Mr. Carver sighed heavily. “Everything Honeybelle did was news in this town. Why did we expect this would be any different?”

“Because wills are usually kept secret,” I said. “Unless the Tennysons told someone—”

“Mr. Ten wouldn't say a word,” Mae Mae shot back. “He's no gossip.”

“Well, then, it had to have been one of the Hensleys.”

Mr. Carver spoke up. “Hut Junior wouldn't be caught dead spreading family business around town.”

“Posie?” I asked.

“She's a lady,” Mr. Carver objected.

“She's no lady,” Mae Mae said. “You know as much as anybody, that girl came from trash.”

“Don't talk like that.” Mr. Carver puffed up. “Honeybelle never said that word, and you won't either. Not while I'm in charge of this house.”

Mae Mae sniffed. “Maybe Posie went to college, and maybe she got herself into that pageant and made something of herself by marrying the right man, but she's still an Appleby, and there's no telling what any of those people will do.”

“They're an old Mule Stop family,” Mr. Carver said to me. “And a big one. There are bound to be a few twisted branches on a family tree like theirs. But Miss Posie is a perfectly nice woman, a good mother, a considerate wife.”

Mae Mae snorted and went back into the pantry.

“Our job,” Mr. Carver said solemnly to me, “is not to fuel any more gossip. We'll keep to ourselves, and say as little as possible.”

“The cat's out of the bag, Mr. Carver. We could lock ourselves in this house for the next year, but that's only going to make people talk even more.”

“She's right,” Mae Mae said from the pantry.

“We'll do our jobs,” Mr. Carver said stubbornly. “That's all we can do. It's what Honeybelle would want us to do.”

As I hung up the leash, it hit me then that Honeybelle would have enjoyed knowing that she had triggered exciting town gossip. It was just the kind of thing that made her laugh. I only hoped she didn't have any more surprises stored up for us.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

All spring and summer she was a classy southern lady. And then football season started.

—TEXAS TRADITION

I continued to take Miss Ruffles for her morning runs. And every morning—no matter how early I started—the black car was sitting outside the gate. Sometimes a second car sat with the first. Sometimes one of the cars followed us.

“Have any thoughts about paying Mr. Postlethwaite?” Mr. Costello asked one morning after rolling down the car window, keeping pace with us on the street.

“Not today!” I replied with a friendly wave before cutting across a playground.

They didn't get out of their car to approach me. Maybe the Texas heat was too much for them. But they still made me nervous.

The following Saturday, I was scheduled to take Miss Ruffles to the first Alamo football game of the season. Honeybelle had told me Miss Ruffles was an unofficial mascot of the University of the Alamo football team. Coach Hut Hensley had always had a Texas cattle cur on the sideline when he coached, and it was tradition to continue to have a cattle cur at the games. Honeybelle had agreed to honor that tradition by providing the dog. She handed over chaperoning duties to me, citing her sore knee. The last thing she wanted was to break a hip, so I took Miss Ruffles to the game two weeks after her death.

My first mistake was showing up at the alumni office in the wrong clothes.

“Oh, sugar, you can't wear a yellow shirt in the stadium on the first game day of the season. Or any game day!” The secretary looked horrified. The name plate on her desk said
TAMMY JAYE
and was decorated with Texas stars. She said, “Alamo colors are red and white.”

“Sorry.”

“No worries!” She leaped up and unlocked a closet with a key, which she tucked into her bra when she was finished with it. “My favorite part of this job is helping outfit Alamo fans. I have to keep all these clothes locked up, though, or they just walk off by themselves. Here's a hat—perfect.” She handed over a large white cowboy hat with a sequined red hatband and a silver star so big it was a cartoon. “And this belt is so cute! I've been waiting for just the right person to come along for this. Oh, and I can give you this vest, too—red and white with silver, see?”

I took the giant white hat and the sequined silver belt, but looked at the spangled red vest with doubt. It had silver tassels. “That's going to look funny over my yellow shirt.”

“Well,” Tammy Jaye said, and stopped. She bit her lip. She had an impressively large hairdo and a red and white dress that said she'd been to Victoria's Secret for her underwear. She waited for me to catch on.

It took half a minute for me to realize she meant for me to remove my shirt and wear the vest alone. I shook my head. “I have not lived in Texas long enough to walk into a stadium wearing tassels.”

She understood. “Okay, how about a nice, simple T-shirt?”

She handed over a sleeveless red and white University of Alamo T-shirt with sequins surrounding a picture of the Alamo cowgirl
.
“Gaudy” wasn't a word that began to describe it. I was grateful that at least the outfit didn't have a battery pack and lights. When I went into the bathroom to wrestle it on, I discovered it was too small—more like a size Miss Ruffles could fit into. If I'd had another cup size or two, I'd have passed for a stripper. When I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink, I caught Miss Ruffles looking as if she didn't recognize me anymore.

When we came out of the bathroom, I nearly ran smack into President Cornfelter, who was standing in front of the closet, pulling out Alamo hats, shirts, and sweaters as if to save them from a fire. Tammy Jaye had sucked in a dismayed breath to see her supply being ravaged.

Cornfelter swung around and caught sight of me. And Miss Ruffles. He dropped his armload of booty.

The first time I'd seen President Cornfelter, he'd been pulling the cork on a bottle of Honeybelle's favorite chardonnay in her pastel living room. In that room she sometimes closed the pocket doors for privacy so the household couldn't hear what was going on. Whether holding a social occasion or a business meeting, Honeybelle preferred to keep some secrets. That day, the doors were open just an inch.

At the time of his visit, I'd been outside with Miss Ruffles, throwing the ball for her in the yard. Not knowing Honeybelle was entertaining, I'd let the dog into the house, and Miss Ruffles had gone barreling through the rooms in search of her mistress. She nosed open the pocket doors and dashed into the room. With a happy yip, she took a flying leap into the tufted silk cushions of the sofa and nuzzled Honeybelle with affectionate whines.