Sue Ellen surprised her by countering, “Do you tell
your
friends a lot about me?”
“Not exactly,” Leena had to admit, squirming a bit in her chair.
“Well, I’m an only child,” Lulu announced dramatically before reaching for another slice of pizza. “Do you know how many only children commit suicide?”
“Stop with the suicide stuff. You’re going to give my sister the wrong impression,” Sue Ellen said.
Lulu just laughed. “She got the wrong impression the second I sat down. It was written all over her face.”
“That wouldn’t happen if you’d let me redo your makeup,” Sue Ellen said.
Lulu glared. “I thought you wanted to be a realtor now. That you’d left your Mary Kay Cosmetics dreams behind.”
“I have. My sister is a model,” Sue Ellen said proudly. “A famous one.”
“Famous, huh?” Lulu wasn’t impressed. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“Like you’re an expert on the fashion industry,” Sue Ellen retorted. “And Skye, I know you’re funny about things like animal testing on beauty products.”
“There’s nothing funny about it,” Skye said.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you guys a lot about her before. I wanted you to meet Leena first.”
“She doesn’t talk much, does she?” Skye gave Leena a mocking look.
“You three were doing so well without my input, I didn’t see the point,” Leena said. “To paraphrase Lulu, you’d already made up your mind about me the second I arrived.”
“I don’t judge people by their looks.” Skye sounded highly insulted.
“Neither do I,” Leena shot back.
“Oh, come on,” Lulu scoffed. “You looked at me and thought ‘weirdo.’ ”
“Sure I did,” Leena readily admitted. “Which is exactly what you wanted me to think.”
Lulu blinked. “Huh?”
“Your fashion is your statement. You don’t like being told what to do. You want to be noticed. You don’t color between the lines. I like the T-shirt by the way.” Leena pointed to the PROCRASTINATE NOW message. “But you and Skye both wanted me to feel uncomfortable here tonight. I can’t help wondering why.”
“I bet you could figure it out if you really tried,” Skye said.
Leena sighed. “What is it with you people?”
“And what people might that be?” Skye growled.
“People who like Rock Creek,” Leena said.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re a fan of your hometown.”
“I’m not,” Leena admitted.
“If you hate it so much, why’d you come back?” Skye asked.
Leena was asking herself the same question. Maybe she should have gone to visit her parents down in Florida instead of coming here. Hard to tell which would make her feel like more of a loser: parking herself on senior citizen’s row or having parakeets park themselves on her head.
Florida, however, was looking better by the second. Especially with Sue Ellen’s friends giving her a hard time.
At least Sue Ellen
had
friends, even if they were strange. Unlike Leena, who was feeling very isolated at the moment. No merry band of gal pals to hang out with her.
Sudden tears filled her eyes.
“Look. You made her cry,” Lulu told Skye.
“You’re supposed to be my friends, and you made my sister cry!” Sue Ellen’s voice rose with every word. So did Sue Ellen, who was now standing and glaring at her friends.
“I’m not crying.” Leena desperately yanked her sister back into a chair. “I’ve got allergies.”
“Since when?” Sue Ellen asked suspiciously.
“Since coming to Rock Creek,” Leena muttered.
Skye leaned forward to stare at Leena. “You remind me of my sister Julia.”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing,” Sue Ellen warned Leena.
“That’s not true. Julia and I have made up,” Skye said. “We’re no longer feuding like we used to. I’ve told you that.”
“Uh-huh.” Sue Ellen didn’t appear convinced.
“And your sister may be bossy, but you’re no slouch in the bossy department yourself, Sue Ellen,” Skye said.
“Thank you.” Leena lifted her glass and toasted Skye, who grinned at her.
“I am not bossy!” Sue Ellen shouted.
Skye, Lulu, and Leena all rolled their eyes. And in that moment, a bond of sorts was formed. Maybe Sue Ellen’s friends weren’t so bad after all . . .
An hour later, they were on their second pizza and giggling over some story Lulu had just told them when they were interrupted by a man’s voice.
“Sue Ellen, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
“Russ.” Sue Ellen fluttered her eyelashes.
Skye and Lulu performed another eye roll.
“This is Coach Russ Spears,” Sue Ellen announced.
“I know,” Skye said. “I taught his football team yoga, remember?”
“That lettuce position really works,” Russ said.
Skye sighed. “It’s lotus position, Coach.”
But he wasn’t listening. “And who’s this?” He stared at Leena.
Sue Ellen made the introduction. “This is my sister Leena.”
Russ frowned. “You never told me you had a sister. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, turning toward Leena and shaking her hand with enough force to make her wince. “Would it be okay if I stole Sue Ellen away for a few moments?”
“Sure, take her,” Lulu said.
“How long has she been dating the coach?” Leena asked her sister’s friends once Sue Ellen was gone.
Lulu’s eyes widened. “She’s dating the coach?”
“Never mind,” Leena hurriedly said. “Forget I said anything. My bad.” She’d had several today.
“Tell us everything you know about your sister,” Lulu demanded. “Starting with the coach.”
Skye spoke first. “If you paid more attention to things outside of Cosmic Comics, Lulu, then you’d know that Sue Ellen and the coach have been seeing each other for a couple weeks now.” Turning her attention to Leena, she said, “Let’s talk about you.”
“I don’t use cosmetics from companies that do testing on animals,” Leena quickly assured her. “And I don’t wear fur.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I want to know what we said to make you cry earlier.”
Leena looked away. “I told you, I’ve got allergies.”
“Right.”
“I don’t cry in front of people.”
“Maybe you should.”
Leena blinked. “What?”
“Maybe you should let your emotions out sometimes instead of keeping them all bottled up.”
“Skye’s family is into that kind of touchy-feely stuff,” Lulu told Leena. “Except for their grandmother Violet. She rocks.”
“I met Julia and your mother Angel at the clinic today,” Leena said. “Well, we weren’t formally introduced or anything, given the situation.”
“Cole’s a good guy,” Skye abruptly said.
Leena wondered where that comment came from. She was having a hard time keeping up with Skye’s free-flowing topics of conversation. They were all over the map. That must be one of the reasons she got along so well with Sue Ellen, who had a similar communication style. “I heard Cole is very popular with the female population in town.”
“We’re very protective of him.”
“He seems perfectly capable of looking after himself.”
“He is.”
“Then there’s no problem.” What a lie. Leena had more problems than she could count. Including her too-sexy boss. But she also had a plan and a time line on her BlackJack. She simply had to follow it and she’d be back on the road to success. Never underestimate the power of a woman with a plan . . .
Of course, she’d had a plan back in Chicago too, and that had blown up in her face.
Maybe she should have stayed in Chicago and gotten a job as a barista at the local Starbucks, but the thought of someone she knew seeing her handing out skinny espresso macchiato solos had sent her into a blind panic.
Far better to hide out in Rock Creek until she was back on her feet.
It was just that Leena had gone from up-and-coming to down-and-out so fast she still found it hard to accept.
Okay, so she wasn’t a young ingénue, not some fresh-faced sixteen-year-old. And yes, twenty-eight was considered old in the modeling business. But dammit, she wasn’t ready to quit yet.
So she’d stick to her plan. And remember that Julie Andrews quote: “Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.”
Sue Ellen wondered why the coach wanted to speak to her privately. He’d told her to call him Russ, which she did in public, but privately she thought of him as “the coach.” Or the manly man. A manly man respected by the entire community.
Finally Sue Ellen had a chance at something she’d never attained. Respectability. Not that she’d ever admit that desire to her friends.
Sue Ellen was no dummy. She realized what some people thought of her. What
most
people thought of her. That she was outlandish. Strange. But they didn’t know her. Not even Skye. Not really.
Sue Ellen knew that Skye didn’t care what anyone else thought of her. Sometimes Sue Ellen wished she could be more like that. Because caring could hurt big-time.
No, Skye and Lulu wouldn’t understand. Neither would Leena.
But that didn’t matter because Sue Ellen knew what she wanted and she wanted it so much that it made her downright nervous. She’d never been this nervous. Not since her divorce ages ago. She’d been stupid to marry Earl as a teenager, but at least she’d been smart enough to dump him.
She never thought about the divorce or Earl these days. So why now? What was up with that? Sue Ellen wiped her damp palms on the knees of her daisy-printed cropped pants, pausing to admire the tiny yellow daisies painted on her acrylic nails.
She could do this. She could snag the coach. She
would
snag the coach.
“Did you hear what I just said?” Russ asked.
“Sure I did.” Sue Ellen hated admitting otherwise.
“And what’s your answer?”
She stalled. “What do you want my answer to be?”
“Yes.”
“Well then my answer is yes.”
“Great. So you can have four dozen cupcakes baked by tomorrow morning and ready to bring to the high school bake sale by 7 a.m., right?”
Bake? That required an oven, didn’t it?
Sue Ellen stored her scrapbooking materials in the oven. She hadn’t turned it on since moving in. Even so, she said, “Sure. No problem.”
“Thanks, Susie. I appreciate it.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she hated the nickname Susie. Instead she smiled as he kissed her cheek right there in front of everyone at Angelo’s Pizza. Which was only about eight people, but still . . .
Smiling dreamily, she watched him walk out before turning back to her friends and sister.
“Four dozen cupcakes?” Leena had wondered why Sue Ellen had followed her home instead of letting her retreat to her own space. “Are you crazy? You don’t bake.”
“This oven is empty.” Sue Ellen slammed it shut.
“Yeah, so?”
“So we can bake in it.”
“There’s no
we
here. There’s only
you
. You can go home and bake in your own oven.”
“I can’t. I’ve got stuff stored in there.”
“Then take it out.”
Sue Ellen shook her head. “No time. We need to get started.”
“No. I need to go to bed. I’ve had a long day and I’ve got another one tomorrow.”
“So do I. I have to have these cupcakes done by tomorrow morning.” Sue Ellen reached into her huge purse, pulled out a laptop computer, and turned it on.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, I forgot. This place isn’t wired for DSL Internet connections.”
“Why do you want to get on the Internet?”
“They have recipes there. I’ve seen them. Even copied and pasted them. Never used any, but I might someday.” She frantically hit several keys. “But I don’t have any for cupcakes in my recipe file here. I don’t know where to start.”
“By going to Gas4Less Mini-Mart and buying cupcakes.”
“They only have doughnuts. I already called them on my cell to ask.”
“Why do you need four dozen cupcakes by tomorrow?”
“Because Russ needs them for the bake sale.”
“Then let him make them.”
“I can’t. I promised him I’d do it.”
“That was dumb.”
“Like you’ve never done a dumb thing in your life.”
“I’ve done plenty.” Coming home to Rock Creek was beginning to look like dumb mistake numero uno.
“Do you know how to make cupcakes?” Sue Ellen asked her.
“No, but there’s probably a recipe on a cake-mix box.”
“Great.” Sue Ellen started opening kitchen cabinets.
“What are you looking for?”
“Cake-mix boxes.”
“I don’t travel with cake mix. You have to go buy some.”
“Come with me.”
“Why?”
“For moral support.”
“Since when do you need moral support to buy cake mix?”
“Since right now.” Sue Ellen manacled Leena’s wrist and yanked her out to the car. The giant pink car. A castoff of some Mary Kay salesperson, no doubt.
“I can tell that you don’t like the pink Batmobile any more than you liked my Elvises,” Sue Ellen said as she peeled out of the trailer park. “But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that I don’t let Russ down. He’s counting on me. He needs to know that I’m dependable. Reliable. I recycle, you know.”
“Which is relevant because . . . ?”
“Because it proves I’m a responsible person.”
Leena was concerned at how much her sister cared about Russ’s opinion. She was also concerned at how fast her sister was driving. They made it to the mini-mart in record time.
“Cake mix. Remember we’re looking for cake mix.” Sue Ellen sounded like a drill sergeant barking out orders. “Don’t get distracted by the Doritos or the Twinkies. Twinkies aren’t cupcakes. Tastykake chocolate cupcakes
are
cupcakes, but they don’t have any. Let’s fan out. I’ll take this side of the store, you take the other. Run, run, run!”