“You’ve got until tomorrow to think about this before you go to that meeting.” Rick held out his plate for more pancakes. “You could change your mind.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so.” Jennie Sue slid the other pancakes off the griddle onto a plate. “When we get finished here, can we go out to the farm? We could take a picnic from the leftovers from last night to the creek.”

“If that’s what you want,” Rick said.

“Not me,” Cricket said. “I’m not crutchin’ it out that far. Drop me at Lettie’s house. Do you mind if I fix up a basket of leftovers to take to her place?”

“Take whatever you like. Why didn’t they come around last night?” Jennie Sue asked.

“They were afraid that the Belles might drown them in the pool. It wasn’t just your mama that couldn’t get along with those two. It was the whole Belle group. When your great-granny started the club, she wouldn’t let their mama join it. That could be why Flora did what she did,” Cricket explained.

“What a tangled mess.” Jennie Sue picked up a piece of bacon and bit off the end. “Perfect. I love it like this. Floppy bacon never did appeal to me, but Daddy loved it.”

“So did my dad, but Mama liked crispy,” Rick said as he put another two pancakes on his plate. “We could wrap up any leftovers of these with bacon in the middle and take it to the creek for our picnic. I bet they’re just as good cold as they are hot.”

“Anything would taste good if we eat it by the creek.” Just making that much of a decision took a burden off her chest. And the fact that Cricket hadn’t gone up in flames when she said that she liked Rick was an added bonus.

Cricket rapped on Lettie’s kitchen door and then opened it a crack. “Hello. Anyone home?”

“In the living room. Come on in here and tell us about the party last night. We were hoping you might sneak away and come by or at least call,” Lettie said. “Get yourself a glass of sweet tea on the way, and bring the pitcher to refill ours.”

Cricket set the brown paper bag holding several baggies full of goodies on the cabinet and yelled, “Can’t carry this much. Y’all come and help me.”

“We forgot that your foot is messed up.” Nadine’s voice preceded her into the kitchen. “And what is this?”

“I brought the party to you since you couldn’t come to it,” Cricket said.

Lettie came in right behind her. “I’ll take that to the living room. We was sittin’ in there, tryin’ to decide whether we wanted to make us a fresh tomato sandwich or go to the café for some lunch. It was so crowded after church that I just brought us on home. Now we can put all this out on the coffee table and have us a picnic.”

“So start tellin’ us about the party while we get things done.” Nadine got out the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and carried it, plus an empty glass, with her. “Come on, girl. I’ll give you the recliner, and me and Lettie can take the sofa and spread out all these goodies.”

“Well, I think Jennie Sue and I have gotten past the hate stage. She fixed my hair last night and even helped with my makeup. I had no idea that green eye shadow would look so much better on me.” Cricket set her crutches to the side and hopped over to the recliner. “And we went swimming after everyone left, and Rick even wore a swimsuit.”

“What did Jennie Sue do?” Lettie popped open the bag of leftover chicken salad and the one of pimento-cheese sandwiches and helped herself to a couple of each.

“She didn’t freak out. And this morning at breakfast, she admitted that she liked him. I hope he’s not in for a broken heart. When you think about the difference in what she’s inherited—well, it could change things.” Cricket took a sip of her tea while they opened all the lids on the leftover containers.

“Go on.” Nadine crossed forks with Lettie’s when she tried to get a bite of the shrimp cocktail. “You can have that chicken stuff. I like this better.”

“Too bad. I’m having at least one bite of the shrimp,” Lettie said. “Now tell us, who all was there, and what did they talk about?”

“I didn’t know a lot of them, but . . .” Cricket went on to talk about the party atmosphere, and what all she’d heard while everyone there ignored her.

“Where’s Rick and Jennie Sue now?” Nadine asked.

“At the farm. They took a picnic to the creek. Jennie Sue said bein’ there calms her down.”

“Her granny Baker was a farm girl,” Lettie said with a bob of her head. “So what’s going to happen to the oil company? Is she going to run it?”

“Not a word can be said outside this room.” Cricket went on to tell them what Jennie Sue planned to do.

“Bless her darlin’ heart.” Nadine wiped a tear from her cheek. “That she’s thinkin’ of doin’ something like that for Mabel shows that her heart is in the right place.”

“And what’s she going to do with all that money if she does sell it all?” Lettie asked.

“She says that she has a plan. I don’t think she’d go back to New York, but she might go to one of those third-world countries and help the women and children by building clinics and schools,” Cricket answered.

Lettie set her mouth in a firm line. “What are you going to do if she asks you and Rick to go with her?”

Both of Cricket’s palms shot up. “No, no, no! I’m not cut out for a clinic in a third-world country. I can’t even look when the doctor has to give me a shot, and I’m sure not smart enough to teach if she decided to build a school or something like that.”

“What if Rick goes with her?” Lettie asked. “He seems to be pretty struck with her.”

“Then I guess I’ll hire a good-lookin’ feller to help me run the farm.” Cricket winked. “And maybe he’ll like women who are curvy instead of skinny as a rail, and we’ll get married and have lots of babies.”

“Sounds like a book I just finished. Someone left it in my lending library out in front of the house. You should read it, Cricket. You might get some bedroom pointers. It gets pretty damn hot in places. I got hot flashes so bad I almost called Lettie to bring me one of her pills.”

“I ain’t had a hot flash in years”—Lettie popped her on the knee—“but I would like to read that book to see what one feels like.”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Cricket said.

Chapter Twenty

It’s not a memorial. It’s just a gathering of friends. These are the people who didn’t get to come to the one with the Belles and the other folks. We want to be there for you,” Lettie said.

“Promise you won’t go to a lot of trouble,” Jennie Sue said.

“We promise,” Nadine told her. “You get a good night’s rest up and sleep in as long as you like. It’s just Amos, the Lawsons, us, and maybe the preacher if he hasn’t made other plans. That’s all.”

“Okay.” Jennie Sue nodded even though she really would rather have spent the afternoon at the farm with Rick.

“So how did the picnic at the creek go?” Lettie asked.

“It was amazing. So peaceful.”

“We’d like a few more details than that,” Nadine pressed her.

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.” Jennie Sue grinned.

“So there was kissin’?” Lettie popped the footrest down on her recliner and leaned forward.

“A couple of times, but that’s all. He took a quilt from the house, and we had lunch, a long nap, a few kisses, and then we gathered in the garden stuff,” she said.

Lettie put the footrest back up. “If I’d gotten a feller that handsome out by a creek on a summer mornin’ at your age, I believe I could’ve done better than that.”

“You always have to dredge up the memories,” Nadine told her. “So you like him for more than a friend?”

“I do, but this whole relationship thing is pretty new, so I’m afraid if I talk about it, I’ll jinx it for sure. Right now, I’m going to take what I brought from the house up to the apartment and unpack it. I may need y’all to help me when it’s time to go back out there and go through personal things,” she said.