“Which antagonizes Eric’s boss,” Duffy added.
“While Eric is dating you,” Margot finished.
“So this is a dual-fault fight,” Marianne said.
“Ugh, no, I thought you were supposed to come over and call him names and let me tell you awful secrets about how bad he is in bed while you fed me junk food,” Frankie groaned. “Not convince me that I messed up and should apologize.”
“Does Eric have awful secrets about how bad he is in bed?” Margot asked, feigning a casual tone.
“And I’m out,” Duffy said, standing.
“No.” Frankie sighed. “Not really.”
“I’m back.” Duffy dropped to the beanbag chair.
“He’s awesome in bed. Just like everything else about him, it’s perfect. His body is amazing and—”
Duffy stood. “I’m out again.”
“If you don’t stay, you forfeit the beer and food!” Marianne told him.
“You know my weakness,” Duffy hissed. “Okay, but Frankie, I do not want any details about Eric in bed.”
“Fine,” Frankie muttered. “But just so you know, he’s huge.”
“Ew, no!” Duffy said, spitting out his beer. “Why?”
Margot cackled so hard that her fancy water dribbled out of her mouth. And then she started to cry.
“Oh, honey, is it the bubbles? Sometimes it burns when it goes up your nose.”
“No,” she said, wiping at the tears streaming from her eyes. “No, it’s just . . . I had friends in Chicago. Friends I could meet for drinks or a concert or what have you, but never barbecue and peanut butter cups and laughing until water came out of my mouth. I had a little family, but no people I could be comfortable with. I never dreamed I would have people I could trust to know me so well and love me like this, and to think I could have missed it if those flamingos hadn’t gone rogue and ruined a stupid gala. I’m just really, really happy.”
“Aw, come here,” Frankie said, hugging her. “You’re a crazy person.”
Margot responded by punching her in the side while hugging her closer with the other arm.
“You keep responding to stuff like that and people are going to think you’re pregnant,” Marianne told her.
Margot went pale. “Uh, yeah.”
“I’m going to have to apologize, aren’t I?” Frankie mumbled around a French fry.
“Probably.”
“I’ve never done that before. Every other time some guy’s had a problem with me, I just let him go and moved on to the next one.” She wilted back against her bed. “Oh, Lord, I am spoiled, aren’t I?”
“Willful,” Margot suggested.
“Stubborn,” Marianne added.
“You don’t think that’s forgivin’ him a little too quickly and apologizin’ even quicker?” Duffy asked. “He said some pretty rotten stuff to you, Frankie. And he should answer for those things.”
“I agree,” she said. “and I am still angry at him. I just don’t think I want to live in a community where Landry is in charge of our safety.”
“It wouldn’t be that bad,” Margot said. “It’s not like he would have unlimited power.”
“You watched him lock me in a cell overnight by dropping the keys down a vent.”
Margot sighed. “Okay, fine.”
FRANKIE’S COUSINS DISPERSED sometime around eight, leaving her with a full belly and the ability to get some sleep. The next morning, she walked downstairs to find her mama standing at the stove, flipping pancakes onto a plate. Bob was sipping coffee and reading the paper. Part of her wanted to march right back into her room, forget her whole plan, and avoid hurting their feelings. She’d already called her doctor this morning to schedule a discussion of her anxiety issues and semi-hypochondria. Maybe that was enough personal growth for one day.
“Mornin’, sweetie,” Leslie chirped. “Smiley face pancakes coming your way!”
Frankie sighed. No, this had to be done. The apron strings had to be severed. Frankie McCready needed to grow the hell up.
“Leslie, Bob, I think we need to have a talk,” she told them in what she hoped was a very serious tone.
“What did you do to your hair?” Leslie asked, sliding the pancakes in front of her.
“And what happened to ‘Mama’ and ‘Daddy’?” Bob asked.
“I’m trying to approach you as adults,” she told them. “And as an adult, I’m telling you that I’m moving out in a couple of weeks.”
“What?” Leslie exclaimed, dropping into a kitchenette chair. “Why?”
“Margot is going to be movin’ into Kyle’s place pretty soon, and when she does, I’m going to move into her cabin.”
Bob set his coffee aside. “Did we do something to hurt your feelings, honey?”
“No. I’m twenty-eight years old, and at my age, most people have lived on their own for quite some time. Besides, it’s not like I’m movin’ across the country. I’ll just be a few doors down.”
“So what’s the point of movin’ in the first place?” Leslie asked.
“Because I need privacy. I need my own space. I need to take care of my own clothes, my own meals, my own dishes.”
Leslie’s expression clouded over. “But that’s how I show how much I care about you.”
“And I really appreciate it, Mama, but wouldn’t it be better for me to be able to take care of myself?”
“But I like takin’ care of you. I like seein’ you every day!” Leslie said, shaking her head. “I don’t think this move is a good idea.”
“Is this because of that boy? Did he make you feel bad about livin’ with us?” Bob demanded. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything about commission business, but we met about him yesterday and I’m not sure you should be datin’ him. Vern had some real bad things to say.”
“Okay, first of all, that boy is over thirty,” Frankie told her father. “And no, it has nothing to do with him, but if I ever managed to have a successful relationship and decided to move in with my boyfriend—”
Bob made a disapproving noise.
“—or get married! How am I supposed to take care of my own household if I’m used to you doin’ everything for me? Am I just supposed to move my husband into my childhood bedroom and let you fix us breakfast every morning?”
Leslie shrugged. “Well, it’s not the worst idea in the world.”
“Mama, no!” Frankie gasped. “I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person who never took on adulthood, and you wouldn’t want to have raised one. You wouldn’t want me marryin’ someone who was okay with sleeping on my little twin bed under your roof, either.”
“She’s right.” Bob sighed. “Everybody’s gotta grow up sometime. We’ve just put it off longer than we should have. You’re our baby. We came so close to losing you, and I guess we just tried to grab on to as much extra time with you as we could.”
Her mama wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
“Well, you’ll have less to do,” Frankie said. “So maybe you can take up reading or knitting, or I don’t know, have sex in the living room if you want, without me cramping your style.”
Leslie made an indignant squawking noise. Bob pursed his lips as if he was considering it.
Frankie told them, “You two have earned some time together.”
“You’ll still come over every once in a while for dinner, won’t you?” Leslie asked.
“I’m sure I’ll have to at first. I’m probably going to burn half of what I cook.”
“Well, I can get you through the basics before you go,” Leslie said.
“I love you both, but I think it’s time for a change. Before we become some creepy film noir cliché,” she said. “And another thing: I want you to stop agreeing with me.”
“What?” Bob exclaimed.
“When I do things that upset you, I want you to tell me. I don’t want you to bite your lip because you’re afraid of upsettin’ me. I’ve seen what happens when parents treat their k
ids like that.”
Leslie sat back in her seat. “Honey, you’re not gonna turn out like Jared Lewis. For one thing, you’re not a teenage boy.”
“We don’t parent you the way the Lewises parent Jared,” Bob protested. “We’ve never scrambled around to hide something you’ve done. And do you know, I think Vern paid for all those posters for Landry around town. He was hinting at it pretty heavily at the special session yesterday. Saying he was takin’ care of the problem.”
“Yes, I do believe that. And please, just humor me and tell me when I’ve upset you,” she said. “Also, I’m an adult, so the parenting, it’s over now.”
“No,” Leslie said, shaking her head. “I won’t speak ill of you to your face.”
“I don’t think it’s healthy for resentment and hurt feelings to build up. So when you’re upset with me, I want you to tell me.”
Leslie’s face scrunched up in refusal.
“Come on, let me have it.”
“Frances Ann McCready!” Mama bellowed in a tone more forceful than Frankie could ever remember her using with her. “What in the Sam Hill were you thinking?”
Frankie craned back in her seat. “In regards to?”
“Smashing the Lewis boy’s headlight!” Leslie hissed. “I didn’t raise you to behave like this, Frankie.”
“But that was . . . days ago . . . Have you been upset with me about that this whole time?” she asked. “See, this is what I’m talkin’ about, you have to tell me . . . Oh, I mean, um, Mama, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I smashed the kid’s headlight. It’s minor damage.”
“You know I’ve always been supportive of you. I’ve encouraged your spirit and your energy because I believed you needed it. You have every right to be as lively as you want to be. But this? This is just crazy. And irresponsible. And pointless. You didn’t prove anything by smashing that boy’s car up, other than that he got under your skin. You’re always saying that you’re a grown-ass woman, so you can have orange hair. You’re a grown-ass woman, so you can wear platform sneakers covered in dancing bears. Well, now I’m telling you, you’re a grown-ass woman, act like it.”
Leslie clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my.”
“Dang,” Frankie said, holding up her hand for a high five. “That was quality lecturing, Mama. Both pointed and guilt-inducing, without being over the top. Good job.”
Her mama nodded primly. “Thank you.”
“Also, you owe the swear jar seventy-five cents.”
“Frankie.”
Frankie snickered. “And you’re right. I shouldn’t have smashed up Jared’s headlight. But if it led to him eventually gettin’ disciplined and learning to behave better, which one could argue was true considering that he didn’t break into the funeral home over Halloween, you could say that I actually helped Jared.”
“Frances Ann,” Bob intoned.
“So I was stretching a little,” she said, shrugging as she pushed back from the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to Tootie. And then, Daddy, you and I need to go to work so I can catch up on everything I missed yesterday.”
“I’m just glad I’m back to ‘Daddy,’ ” Bob muttered as she walked out the kitchen door.
As she skipped toward Tootie’s cabin, Frankie couldn’t help but notice that Margot’s seemed completely unoccupied. She hoped that meant her cousin had grown a pair of lady balls and told Kyle about their pending bun in the oven.
Frankie knocked on Tootie’s door. The expected thunder of paws on the floor was followed by a cacophony of barking. No pizza man in his right mind would deliver to this house.
Tootie opened the door, chewing on one of those awful beige taffy things that only sold around Halloween. Tootie was the only one in the family who could tolerate them, which was why she bought about five pounds of them every year.
The dogs raced out, sniffing at Frankie’s ankles.
“It’s eight in the morning,” Frankie told her, nodding at the taffy.
“You have a very serious expression on your little face,” Tootie said. “I don’t like it.”
“Remember two years ago, when you dinged the hearse and I didn’t say anything because E.J.J. had just fussed at you for parking too close to it?” Frankie said. “I’m calling in my favor.”
“I knew this day would come.” Tootie scowled at her. “What do you want?”
“I need you to activate the kitchen and beauty shop network,” Frankie said. “I need you to bring up all of the stupid things Landry Mitchell has done since he was a toddler, particularly the bit about him shooting himself in the foot and that time he rammed a squad car into a light pole trying to get to the Dairy Queen drive-through. And then I want you to point out how well things have run since Eric took over. We haven’t had any break-ins at homes or at the businesses—besides McCready’s, that is. Our drunk driving arrests are up and we haven’t had a fatal car accident all month. We are a safer and more stable community with Eric Linden in office.”
Tootie crossed her arms over her chest. “What did you do?”
“Why do you think I did something?”
Tootie told her, pale gray eyebrow raised, “Because I’ve known you since the day you were born.”
“Eric was officially reprimanded by the county commission because of me, in the week before the election. He thinks it’s possible that he’s going to lose. To Landry Mitchell.”
Tootie shuddered. “Aw, that would be a shame. Landry is not ready for that sort of responsibility. Maybe he should start with a nice ant farm.”
“Yes, so let’s not put him in charge of the county and give him the key to the department’s gun cabinet.”
“I guess you feel pretty bad about this, huh?” Tootie asked.
“No. I have no particular feelings about it at all, other than being a good citizen. Plus, this reprimand on top of all the posters and stuff the Lewises paid for? That’s not fair. Elections should be fair in our town.”
Tootie smirked. “And it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that your shenanigans with Jared Lewis got him reprimanded in the first place?”
Frankie shook her head. “Nope.”
“Or that you think Eric Linden is the bee’s knees?”
“Nope.”
“Frances Ann.”
“I don’t think that we need to bring my full name into this, Eloise.”
“You like this boy. And that means something. You don’t let yourself get involved. You are, as Duffy would say, a ‘hit it and quit it’ girl.”
“Never let those words leave your mouth again,” Frankie told her.
“Honey, it’s just that you don’t get emotionally attached to people outside the family circle. You treat everybody else like they’re just stoppin’ by and you can’t wait to shove ’em back out the door, pie in hand. You’re actually putting yourself out for him, tryin’ to help him stay here. And right now, I think you need to stop worryin’ yourself with busywork and try to figure out why.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to activate the kitchen grapevine?”
“Oh, I’m gonna do it. Because I don’t feel safe havin’ Landry in charge of us if somebody declares martial law.”
“Well, on that note, I will be callin’ Janey down at the sheriff’s office, and if she happens to call you with some crime statistics information, maybe share that around town, too.”
“What are you up to?” Tootie asked.
“Trying to grow up.”
IT TOOK A lot of effort to dodge a prominent man in a small town.
It was difficult for her to stay away from Eric, to avoid calling or texting him. The town was only so big. Also, they were expected to communicate professionally, which she managed to do over e-mail. Fortunately, the citizens of their fair hamlet managed to die in purely natural ways for a week or so.
She’d voted for him. And she hoped that was enough.
Well, that and she’d activated every possible contact she had in the Go
od Ol’ Girls network. She’d called in favors from the company that printed promotional materials for McCready’s and had some emergency posters printed within twenty-four hours. She’d asked Stan to use the funeral home van to transport some of the older, less mobile voters to the polls. She had Marianne casually bring up Eric’s enforcement of school zone speed limits at her room mom meeting. Margot wanted to put a special thank-you to Eric in the e-mail blast to volunteers for the Trunk-R-Treat, but Frankie was afraid it would come across as sarcastic.
True to her word, Tootie had talked to all the most dedicated gossips in town. And Frankie’s discussion with Janey had generated a tidy crime report listing all the statistic changes in the month since Eric had taken office. And if a copy of that report just happened to land in the hands of Jeanette Foy, Gary Thrope’s chief rival down at the Ledger, so she could slip those numbers onto the front page days before the election, well, that was just a lovely coincidence.
And then, three days before Election Day, as an ecstatic Kyle had packed boxes of Margot’s clothes into his truck, he’d dropped a piece of gossip on her.
“This is going to sound very convoluted, but one of my students told me that his babysitter’s older brother’s girlfriend said something about Jared Lewis planning to break into the funeral home while everybody’s at the courthouse waiting for the poll results to come in. He figures that your guard is down now and since you won’t be expectin’ him to break in after Halloween, it will be even more of a gut punch.”
“Jared Lewis,” she growled.
“I don’t know if it’s true, but I figured if I didn’t say anything and he broke in, you would shave off my eyebrows while I slept,” he said. “And with Margot in her current delicate hormonal state, she would probably let you into the house to do it.”
“You’re right. She is a loyal thing,” Frankie said. “Also, you knocked up my cousin. Outside of marriage. If I had pearls, I would clutch them.”