“Small towns!” Jennie Sue groaned.

She’d begun to think that the hospital had swallowed both of her new friends and had started to pace around the small emergency room when she heard Nadine and Lettie arguing loudly.

“You cut down one of my trees, and I’ll set fire to your house and blame it on them damned little bald-headed fellows from outer space.” Nadine’s tone was high and squeaky.

“You have to promise me with one hand on Mama’s Bible and the other raised to God that you will never climb up in one of those trees again or I’ll do it,” Lettie said. “You’re lucky this time, but next time you might kill your fool self. If the trees need trimmin’ or pears need pickin’, you can hire the work done. You’re not poor, for God’s sake.”

“Waste not, want not!” Nadine continued to argue.

“I’ll pay for it if you are that tight,” Lettie said.

The lady bringing Nadine back rolled her eyes and escaped as the doctor entered the room. He stuck the big negatives up on a screen and shook his head. “By all reasons, you should have broken every bone in your body, Miz Clifford. What on earth were you doin’ in a tree?”

“Trimmin’ it, and I don’t want to hear a lecture. Lettie’s already bitched at me enough. Just get me out of this thing and let me go home,” Nadine told him.

“I should do an MRI for precautionary reasons. You might have scrambled your brain,” he said.

“No!” Nadine squealed. “I’m not gettin’ in no tube.”

“You’ll have to sign a form saying that you refused the test,” he said.

Nadine held out a hand. “Give me a pen. It knocked the wind out of me and that’s all. I was on the lowest limb on my way down when my foot slipped, and I tucked and rolled. My brain is fine.”

“Might have even knocked some sense into her,” Lettie snorted. “Anyone as cantankerous as she is right now can’t be hurt too bad. And I’m not goin’ to feel sorry for you one bit because you have to wear a hospital gown home.”

Nadine shook a finger at the doctor. “Don’t you charge me for this ugly thing. I’ll wash it and bring it back to you, but when I see my itemized bill, this better not be on it.”

Jennie Sue could imagine the argument if they charged Nadine for the faded gown and hoped that she was around when the bill came.

Chapter Twelve

How’s Nadine?” Cricket asked first thing that Friday night when Jennie Sue and Rick entered the house. “I’ve talked to her twice today, and she says she’s sore and got a bruise on her shoulder—and that aliens pushed her out of the tree. Did it do something to her brain?”

“Same thing she tells me and Lettie. She hasn’t told you about the aliens before now?” Jennie Sue kicked off her shoes at the door.

“No, what’s she talkin’ about?” Cricket straightened up and leaned forward.

“She and Lettie think that outer-space people can listen in on our technology.” Jennie Sue grinned. “Like on cell phones and X-ray machines.” She headed to the kitchen to make supper. After a week, she’d pretty much gotten things set into a routine. She kept it fairly simple so she and Rick could get out to the garden early enough to harvest the crops for a few hours before dark.

“Just because we’re barely friends doesn’t mean you should know stuff about Lettie and Nadine that I don’t.” Cricket picked up her crutches and went to the kitchen with Jennie Sue.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t already know,” Jennie Sue said.

Rick pulled out two chairs—one for Cricket to sit in, the other to prop her foot on. “Lettie told me to tell you that the ladies at the church meetin’ missed you yesterday and they were prayin’ for you.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Cricket said. “If I promise to keep my foot propped up, can I go to the farmers’ market tomorrow?”

Well, praise the Lord and kiss the angels! Cricket was showing a kind side to her personality.

Jennie Sue glanced over at Rick. She’d loved going with him the week before and had looked forward to Saturday all week, but Cricket could take money and make change while sitting. It had helped her to go to the bookstore, but not nearly as many people came in after that first day, and it would give her an outing.

“I think that would be a great idea,” Jennie Sue agreed. “I’ve been procrastinating about going to see Mama, and it will be a good day to do that.”

“Rick?” Cricket looked past Jennie Sue at her brother.

“Don’t see why not, if you keep your foot iced and propped up,” he answered. “Right now I’m going out to the melon field and get what we need to take to the market. Be back by the time supper is ready.”

He’d barely cleared the door when Cricket blurted out, “Everyone thinks you are some kind of angel with a halo and wings, but I know better, Jennie Sue Baker. You’ve got to have an angle in all this.”

“All what? And why would I have an angle in anything at all? I’m not that kind of person.”

“Bein’ nice to Lettie and Nadine when they’re your mama’s enemies. Bein’ nice to me and Rick when we aren’t anywhere near your league. People are talkin’ even worse than when you came home and word got out that Percy left you. They’ve got bets goin’.”

“Bets on what? That I’m stayin’ or goin’? And what are you betting, Cricket?”

“That you’re using the whole bunch of us to make your daddy give you a job in his oil company. Charlotte is mortified, and she’ll do anything to get things right in her fancy world again. So when she comes home, she’ll fall all over herself to let you have your way about a job, and you’ll never speak to any of us again,” Cricket answered. “As for me, I don’t care, because I’m not believin’ one bit of this, but I hate to see Rick hurt. Not to mention Lettie and Nadine.”

“You really think I’m that kind of person?” Jennie Sue set a skillet on the stove and added oil to fry okra. “And why would Rick be hurt? Even if I did go to work, it wouldn’t mean that I wouldn’t remain friends with him or with Lettie and Nadine. And maybe barely friends with you.”

“I thought we were civil friends,” Cricket argued.

Jennie Sue came back with, “You’re the one who just used the term barely friends, not me.”

“Well, it just slipped out. ‘Civil friends’ sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it? But you were one person in high school, and now you are pretending to be another altogether.”

“Maybe I was pretending in high school, trying to fit into the mold that I’d been given from birth. Maybe I didn’t like that world or the one I got when I got married. And maybe I like this world a lot better,” she said as she kept working. “How are Lettie and Nadine betting?”

“They both think you have glitter on your wings, but they’re old,” Cricket said.

“You better not let either of them hear that.” At least her two sweet friends didn’t think she was using them.

“And before you ask,” Cricket went on, “Rick won’t listen to rumors. I don’t know where he stands.”

Jennie Sue sautéed bell peppers and onions in a second skillet to make meatballs for supper. Served over rice and with okra, sliced tomatoes, and cucumbers, it was one of Percy’s favorite meals. The idea of him coming home to their fancy apartment, expecting the table to be set perfectly and his food ready to serve, made her think again of the friends they’d had in New York. Ladies she’d served on fund-raising committees with, those she’d gone shopping with or out to lunch with. They’d all forsaken her when he got into trouble and fled with his new girlfriend. So three friends who believed in her in spite of her past seemed like a pretty big blessing to her that evening.

“You don’t have anything to say?” Cricket asked.

Jennie Sue shook her head. “All the talk in the world won’t change your mind or the minds of people in town, so no, I don’t have anything to say. What would you say if our roles were reversed and you were in my shoes?”