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He broke away so suddenly she got a head rush and had to grab the railing. Of course, he noticed. She flipped her hair, sending the dangling rubber band flying. “You are so bored with yourself.”
“I don’t feel bored.” His low, rough voice scraped her skin like sandpaper. “What I feel…” He curled his hand around her bare thigh, just below the hem of her shorts. “What I feel… is a hot fuckable little body…”
Sparks erupted inside her. She licked her lips and tasted him. “Sorry. Now that I’ve had you, my curiosity is satisfied, and I’m not interested. No offense.”
His gaze held steady. He deliberately brushed his fingers across her breast. “None taken.”
As her skin pebbled, he gave her a less than friendly smile, turned away, and let himself out of the house.
Blue felt hungover the next morning as she walked out to the curb to get the Sunday paper for Nita. Last night, Dean had tried to change the rules on her. He had no right to be angry just because she wouldn’t worship and adore like all the rest. When she went to the farm today, she needed to give him as much trouble as possible.
As she leaned down to pick up the paper, she heard a hissing coming from the other side of the hedge. She looked up and saw Syl, the owner of the local resale shop, peeking at her around the shrubbery through a pair of red cat’s-eye glasses. Syl had short salt and pepper hair and thin lips she’d enlarged with dark red lip liner. Blue had enjoyed her sense of humor when they’d met at the Barn Grill after the big fight, but Syl was all business now, hissing like a garden hose and gesturing for Blue to approach. “Come here. We need to talk to you.”
Blue tucked the paper under her arm and followed Syl around the corner. A gold Impala sat parked on the opposite side of the street, and two women climbed out: Dean’s real estate agent, Monica Doyle; and a slender, middle-aged African American woman Syl quickly introduced as Penny Winters, the owner of Aunt Myrtle’s Attic, the town’s antique store.
“We’ve been trying to get you alone all week,” Syl said as the women gathered around. “But whenever you show up in town, she’s always around, so we decided to stake out the house before we went to church.”
“Everybody knows Nita has a fit if she doesn’t get her Sunday paper first thing.” Monica pulled a tissue from the navy and yellow Vera Bradley bag that matched her dressy blue suit. “You’re our last hope, Blue. You have to use your influence with her.”
“I don’t have any influence,” Blue said. “She can’t stand me.”
Penny fingered the gold cross at the neck of her red dress. “If that was true, she’d have gotten rid of you by now like she has everybody else.”
“It’s only been four days,” Blue replied.
“A record.” Monica gave her nose a delicate toot. “You have no idea how she runs over everybody.”
That was so not true.
“You have to convince Nita to support Garrison Grows.” Syl shoved her cat’s-eye glasses up on her nose. “It’s the only way we can save this town.”
Garrison Grows, Blue quickly learned, was the plan the city’s leaders had put together to revitalize the town.
“Tourists drive through here all the time on their way to the Smokies,” Monica said, “but there’s no decent restaurant, no lodging, hardly any shopping, and they never stop. If Nita will let us go ahead with Garrison Grows, we can change all that.”
Penny tugged on the small black button between her breasts. “With no national franchises here, we can take advantage of the nostalgia factor and make this place look like everybody’s memory of what small American towns were before KFC moved in.”
Monica slipped her purse to her shoulder. “Naturally, Nita refuses to cooperate.”
“It would be so easy to draw tourists if she’d only let us make a few improvements,” Syl said. “Nita wouldn’t have to pay for a dime of it.”
“Syl’s been trying to open a real gift shop next door to her resale shop for five years,” Penny said, “but Nita hated her mother and won’t rent her the space.”
As the church bells rang, the women began outlining other parts of the Garrison Grows plan, which included a bed-and-breakfast, converting Josie’s into a decent restaurant, and letting someone named Andy Berillo add a coffeehouse to the bakery.
“Nita says coffeehouses are only for Communists,” Syl said indignantly. “Now what would a Communist be doing in East Tennessee?”
Monica folded her arms across her chest. “And who worries about Communists anyway these days?”
“She just wants to make sure everybody in town knows how she feels about us,” Penny said. “I don’t like to talk bad about anybody, but she’s letting this town die out of spite.”
Blue remembered Nita’s anxious-to-please expression in those early Garrison photographs and wondered how different things might have been if the local women had welcomed her when she’d arrived instead of shunning her. No matter what Nita said, Blue didn’t believe she had any intention of selling the town. She might hate Garrison,
but she had nowhere else to go.
Syl squeezed Blue’s arm. “You’re the only person who has her ear right now. Convince her these improvements will mean money in her pocket. She likes money.”
“I’d help if I could,” Blue said, “but the only reason she’s keeping me around is to torture me. She doesn’t listen to anything I say.”
