Secrets over Sweet Tea (10 page)

Scarlett Jo stretched her feet over the side of the bed and slid them into her hot-pink fuzzy slippers. She did her best to stay quiet as she left the bedroom.

She had been doing this for a week now, getting up before dawn so she could watch the news—the early edition, anchored by the local celebrity who had moved in down the street and was coming to their church. Scarlett Jo poured herself a glass of sweet tea and pulled a cinnamon bun from the box she had hidden in the top cabinet where the glasses were. She had picked it up for herself when she went to Merridee’s on Saturday to get the boys their own box for breakfast.

She curled up on the sofa with breakfast and turned on the television. You would think she was watching a royal wedding, getting up like this. The news show started, but the woman staring back at her was not her new friend Grace Shepherd—unless Grace had become Beyoncé overnight.

“Doggone it,” Scarlett Jo said to the still-dark living room.

“We begin with breaking news this morning,” the young woman said, her white teeth almost iridescent.

Scarlett Jo scrunched in tighter against the sofa and took a bite of her cinnamon bun. She loved breaking news.

“Nashville Predators right defenseman Tyler Shepherd was arrested overnight for a DUI.”

The gasp Scarlett Jo let out was loud. “Oh my stars!”

A not-too-attractive mug shot of Grace’s husband spanned the full screen of her forty-two-inch television. “Oh, that is not a pretty picture,” Scarlett Jo offered to the unfamiliar anchor. “He looks drunker than Cooter Brown.” She had heard that old expression for years growing up in the South, but she had never learned exactly who Cooter Brown was. “You’d think at least they’d let you go to the bathroom and check yourself out before they put you in front of that camera. Lord knows, you’ve got to live with that picture the rest of your life.”

“He was released on bail this morning. The Predators have yet to issue a statement,” the newscaster went on to inform her. “We will make you aware of more details as they become available.”

Scarlett Jo took a long sip of her tea, then set her plastic tumbler on the glass-topped coffee table by the sofa. She opened the front door, walked onto the porch, and peered down the street at Grace’s new house. All the lights were off. If anyone was home, you’d never know it.

Scarlett Jo would check on Grace after she got the boys off to school. But right now she’d pray. It was still dark as she made her way to the sidewalk, so she decided to just walk and pray in her hot-pink robe. If someone else was up at this ungodly hour, she figured they deserved to have to see her this way.

Zach had helped Adele pack up her car. It had been his pleasure. She’d pulled out at six thirty that morning, lingering just long enough to tell the girls and Caroline good-bye before they all started a new week. He hoped it would be a while before he had to endure her again.

As he skimmed a razor blade across his neck, he felt Caroline’s arms wrap around his waist from behind. He’d pretended for a moment the gesture was genuine, real. He swished the foam-covered razor in the sink as she peeked her head around his side. She watched him in the mirror. His words took the risk.

“Caroline, honey, why do you let your mom dictate your life the way you do? I watch you when she’s here. It’s like you revert into this child who has no voice.”

Her response was tender, not at all what he had expected. “I don’t know.”

He let his body relax and brought the razor up for its next swipe. Such receptive moments had been too few and far between. He’d take this one. “Are you afraid of her?”

She was quiet for a moment as she cast her eyes downward.

“It’s okay if you are.”

She looked back into the mirror. “Maybe a little. I don’t know what it is.”

“Do you need her approval?”

She let out a cynical huff. “I don’t fight for things that don’t exist.”

He met her eyes in the mirror. “Maybe you should stand up to her. Be honest with her about what you feel. Tell her that we can’t afford to expand the business right now—that you’re the owner and you’ll know when that time is.”

She released him and crossed her arms; her gaze turned to a glare. “Expanding the shop is a great idea. My mother happens to be a very smart businesswoman. Look at all she has accomplished.”

He steeled his spine as she went on. “Honestly, I think you’re just jealous. That’s why you play these mind games with me. But if it weren’t for her, I don’t even want to think about where we’d be right now.”

He kept his hand on his neck to make sure he didn’t slice his jugular. “Did you have a question, Caroline? Or did you just want to pick a fight?”

She moved to her side of the bathroom. “Do you remember the client I had to style last week?”

He didn’t respond, and honestly she didn’t need him to. Most of the time her questions were simply information regurgitation.

She continued talking through a second lipstick application. “Well, they live in that really quaint development, Westhaven. They’ve got a lot of houses for sale there, and so many of the kids go to school with the girls. And I was thinking—”

“No.” His answer came out sharp and quick.

Her hands dropped. “I knew you’d say that.”

He kept his eyes on the mirror. “Where is the loving wife who snuggled up against me a minute ago? The one who offered
me a brief moment of something real?” He didn’t try to hide his sarcasm. She paid it no attention.

“This is the best time to buy. I took Mom yesterday to look, and she thinks we’d be foolish not to do it. She’s even willing to help.”

He had to put the razor down, or it would be a matter of seconds before 911 had to be called. “Caroline, seriously. You had to have this house. Remember? You
had
to have
this
house. You wanted to live in the
historic
area of Franklin. We had a perfectly fine house. And now we have a house payment we can barely afford.”

“Well, if your practice did better—”

He stopped her immediately. “If my practice did better? I’m working my rear end off to make sure that we can meet all our demands. Your business brings in nothing. In fact, it has lost money this year, and you’re talking about investing another hundred thousand dollars into it that we don’t have. Where do you think it all ends?”

She turned toward him, her angry eyes as green as envy itself. “We made the decision to start my business
together
, Zach. Don’t act like it was all my idea.”

“Well, then let us make another decision
together
. It’s not going to happen. Not an expansion to the store and not another move. It may be a good time to buy, but it’s not a good time for us. We paid top dollar for this place. There’s no way we could even recoup what we’ve put into it. And we are not taking more money from your mother.”

She jerked her three-hundred-dollar handbag off the counter. “You can’t tell me what I will and won’t do.”

He took in a deep breath, trying to release the tension in
his body and in the bathroom. “But why do you need another house? Why isn’t this one enough?”

Her tone was still biting. “Because the girls can’t just walk to a friend’s house from here. They don’t have any classmates in this area, so we have to drive all over town for them to have any kind of social life.” She found the syrup again. He would avoid getting stuck in it. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were right near their friends’ houses? This is the age where they are separating from us, and friends are the most important thing. Denying them something like this is just . . . it’s just selfishness.”

He resisted the urge to laugh. And to scream. He resisted a lot of urges in that moment. He simply shook his head, turned back toward the sink, and picked up his razor again.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“How do I respond to that? You know as well as I do that if I move you into that house, in six months you’ll want another one. And another car. And another overpriced purse. It’s a never-ending cycle of ‘another.’ There is no response to that.”

“You’re a jerk, Zach. How is that for a response? You only think about yourself. And I’m so sick of it.” Her heels clicked loudly on the hardwood floor as she walked out of the bedroom. Her hypocrisy, however, lingered behind.

“Grace, wake up.”

The voice was distant. Grace tried to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt glued shut. She could almost see the swollen puffs beneath them. Sun trickled in between the tiny slats of the plantation shutters. She still hadn’t hung drapes in this room.

“Grace, are you all right?” Rachel’s voice finally registered.

“Yeah, yeah.” She rubbed hard at her eyes and sat up in bed.

Rachel sat on the edge of the bed. “When you wouldn’t answer your phone, I knew it was bad.”

Grace blinked and looked around the room. She didn’t even know where her phone was. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just needed to know you were okay.”

“I’m okay. I think. It’s just . . . Rach, I need you to do me a favor.”

Fifteen minutes later, Rachel left to arrange childcare so she could be available later that day. And as much as she appreciated her friend, Grace felt relieved when she was gone. She needed the silence. For now.

Miss Daisy popped up from the foot of the bed. She moved closer to Grace and stretched out luxuriously, waiting to be rubbed. Grace obliged, grateful that at least one of them was unaware of the harsh lines that would define their life from now on.

Grace got up and walked quietly down the stairs, Miss Daisy at her heels. She was finally beginning to get a feel for where everything was in this house. She sighed. She passed the master bedroom, peeking in to see an empty bed. Tyler was gone. Must have had a buddy pick him up.

This was how it always seemed to happen. Another new house, another hopeful fresh start, another quick revelation that it was nothing more than a new address. Then six months of trying to get all the bills to actually show up while living out the same old pain. Would she finally be changing the pattern?

She noticed that Miss Daisy was trotting ahead of her in the hall. “Need to potty?”

The dog’s tail wagged and her eyes seemed to bug out even farther, if that was possible. Grace followed her into the kitchen, wondering what time it was. She squinted hard at the numbers on the stove. Ten o’clock. She must have been dead to the world.

She opened the back door to the fenced-in yard. “Go potty, baby girl.” Miss Daisy trotted off. Grace left the door open, went into the kitchen, and turned the oven on broil. She pulled a piece of wheat bread from the wrapper and stuck it in the
oven. And that simple act triggered a memory of when she’d begun making toast this way.

During her separation from Tyler, Grace had spent a month at her parents’ house, then returned home to find that Tyler had taken the toaster. Her morning ritual was a piece of peanut-butter toast, and she’d been furious that he’d taken the one thing she used every morning. Then she’d gathered her ingenuity, stuck her bread underneath the oven broiler, and discovered she liked it much better that way, toasted on only one side. It had been virtually a declaration of independence. She’d never used a toaster again.

She shook off the memory and went to the door to check on Miss Daisy. She noted that their wicker rockers on the back porch looked nice against the deep-yellow siding, but she didn’t see a puff of champagne fur anywhere. She ventured farther onto the porch and looked to her right. The fence ran up to the edge of the house, so there was really no place to hide. She stepped off the porch and moved toward the side where the gate was. Her heart dropped when she saw the gate pushed open wide enough for a small dog to get through. Someone had left it open. And Miss Daisy was gone.

Grace’s heart pounded as she ran through the gate and into the front yard. She saw nothing but manicured lawns and neat houses, heard only the sounds of cars moving along Third Avenue. Her new house was way too close to the town square for her comfort with Miss Daisy on the loose.

“Miss Daisy!” she called, knowing as she did that the dog wouldn’t come unless she wanted to. She never had. When Miss Daisy was a puppy, Grace had gone out one night to find her nose-to-nose with a possum. She had yelled at the top of her lungs for the dog to get inside. But Miss Daisy had just looked up
at her, then back at the possum. Finally she’d decided the possum didn’t look too interesting and sauntered back into the house.

“Miss Daisy! Come on, baby girl. Want a treat?” Grace was trying to keep calm. She darted around to the other side of the house, praying she’d find her there. No sign of her. She returned quickly to the front. Still nothing. By the time she’d covered every side again, her insides were screaming.

“Miss Daisy! Baby, come to Mama. Oh, God, please help me find her.” Now panic was setting in. She walked quickly up the street, her eyes searching madly between the houses as she called Miss Daisy’s name. Every few moments she’d glance at the road, praying she wouldn’t see a squashed ball of fur. The last thing she needed today was to lose her baby.

The tears began when she finished covering one full side of the street. She dashed to the other side and repeated her search, each section of sidewalk accelerating her fears that Miss Daisy might be gone. She could have been hit by a car, snatched up by anyone. She was yelling the dog’s name now and running wildly up the street.

She didn’t see Scarlett Jo until she ran into her. The collision almost knocked her down.

“Grace, honey, what is it?” Scarlett Jo’s big arms encased her, her own voice urgent.

“It’s Miss Daisy.” She didn’t even try to conceal her heartbreak, tears, or panic. “My dog. I can’t find her. I’ve called and called, and she’s nowhere.”

“Come on, sugar. I’ll help you look.” Scarlett Jo grabbed Grace’s hand and pulled her up the street. They both yelled Miss Daisy’s name as they ran, Grace in her bare feet and Scarlett Jo in the biggest pair of lemon-colored wedges ever sold in Franklin.

It wasn’t until they rounded the curve onto Church Street that they saw her—nose buried in an azalea bush, oblivious to her name being called for the last ten minutes.

“Miss Daisy!” Grace screamed.

The dog lifted her head and trotted over. Grace fell to the ground and buried her face in Miss Daisy’s fur. Her body shook with heaves. She couldn’t help it. Nor did she care if anyone saw. She kissed Miss Daisy’s head over and over again, murmuring, “Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God.”

She felt Scarlett Jo’s arm come around her and pull her from her knees. “Let’s get you home, sugar.”

They walked along the street together, Miss Daisy snug in Grace’s arms. As soon as they reached the door, she smelled the burnt toast. She put Miss Daisy down and ran into the kitchen, yanking open the oven door. Smoke rushed out as if desperate for air. Grace grabbed the scorched piece of bread, burning her hand as she did. She hurled it into the trash, turned on the exhaust fan over the stove, and leaned against the kitchen counter.

Scarlett Jo walked into the kitchen and looked at her with sympathetic blue eyes that all but lit up against the yellow floral jacket draping her body like a summer tablecloth.

Grace wondered if she knew. This new friend she had made—did she have any clue what a mess Grace’s life had become?

Scarlett Jo’s words came out quicker than even she had expected. “I watched the news this morning. I’m thinking your life has just exploded.”

Grace stared at her. She didn’t say a word, but her expression
made it clear she knew exactly what Scarlett Jo was talking about.

“How long has he been drinking?”

Grace’s body seemed to curl in on itself. She still didn’t answer.

Scarlett Jo had wanted to be quiet. She really had. But when there was an elephant in the room, she couldn’t pretend she was a circus ringmaster. She simply had to get it out of the way. “I’m not judging him, sweetie. Just asking a question.”

Grace’s shoulders fell slightly. Miss Daisy trotted out of the kitchen as if they were both an inconvenience to her day. Grace looked up and leaned against the edge of the black granite countertop. “Years.”

Scarlett Jo started opening kitchen cabinets. When she found the glasses, she took one out. She pressed the rim against the water dispenser on the refrigerator door, then offered Grace the cool drink. Grace looked at the glass as if the water were a foreign substance.

“Right. Something stronger.” Scarlett Jo dumped the clear liquid into the sink and returned to the refrigerator.

“The tea,” Grace said. “Sweet tea—in the pitcher.”

“Of course, dumpling.” Scarlett Jo pulled it out. “Sugar is your friend. Especially when your gingerbread house is crumbling.” She pressed the ice dispenser, added tea to the glass, and handed it to Grace. “Wanna sit?”

Grace nodded and moved zombielike to the back door. She crossed the yard to the fence, latched the gate firmly, then returned to the porch and finally sank into one of the rockers. Scarlett Jo took the one beside her. They both stared in front of them at the wood fence and the three large magnolia trees
that lined it. Miss Daisy came outside and plopped next to their feet.

“Wanna tell me about it?”

Scarlett Jo watched as Grace studied her. She knew the look. She’d been measured on this scale so many times—the can-I-trust-you? scale. People needed to know that their heart was safe, their story was safe.

Scarlett Jo turned her face to the neatly manicured yard, pushed the heels of her fancy new shoes against the concrete of the porch, and set the chair to rocking. “Baby girl, you don’t have to tell me a thing you don’t want to. I’ll just sit here with you and watch the sun move across the sky if that’s what you want to do. Whatever you need today is what I’m offering you.” And then she waited.

It took a while, but eventually Grace spoke. Almost everybody did sooner or later.

“At first I didn’t know what it was. Tyler just started getting angry for no reason. It was like everything I did irritated him. I never knew what I would get when I’d wake up in the morning. Then I started finding liquor bottles. He used to hide them—in drawers, under the car seat, in the bathroom. I’d confront him. We’d argue. Eventually he didn’t bother hiding them anymore. He’d just go out and come home drunk. Eventually I got tired of confronting him. It didn’t seem worth it.

“Then as I started to get more recognition at work and Tyler’s career had more challenges, things got worse. There were days when I wanted to quit my job. I thought if I wasn’t so well-known, then maybe he would stop the . . .” Her thoughts seemed to trail off. “You always think you can stop it.”

She rocked for a bit before she continued. “But I couldn’t
quit my job. Tyler’s a spender, and it takes money to keep up our lifestyle, so we needed everything I made. Needed it for houses too—and cars—and counselors. Except we didn’t actually have to pay that much for counseling, because Tyler decided the counselor was a quack and dropped him.” She smiled sadly. “It’s always someone else’s fault—especially mine.

“That’s the really hard part, you know? The more I tried to help, the more he’d pull away from me. He puts up this big act about being loving in public—holds my hand, kisses me—but at home there’s no intimacy at all. He’s just not interested.”

Scarlett Jo’s brow furrowed. “Like . . . no hanky-panky?”

Grace never looked at her. “Like nothing. He doesn’t touch me anymore. I thought it was me at first, that I wasn’t attractive enough. But the more I researched it, the more I learned about alcoholism and what it does to a body.”

“Oh, my side, don’t tell Jackson that. He might want to get me some Jack Daniel’s.” Scarlett Jo leaned closer. “People think Jackson must be really hot to trot, you know, because we have five children. But I will not tell a lie. It’s me. That man turns me on quicker than I can spot a pair of fancy shoes.” Scarlett Jo’s hand shot to her mouth as soon as the words escaped her. “Oh, Grace, I’m sorry. Sometimes my mouth gets out of control.”

Grace smiled. “It’s okay. I like your mouth.”

“Well, that’s a good thing because I can’t seem to stop spoutin’ off with it. But I’ve got to say, that stuff about alcohol and libido is news to me. I always thought it was the opposite. You know, people getting drunk and—”

“Oh, they get drunk and lose their sexual inhibition, but that doesn’t mean they can, um, follow through. And after a while . . .”