Griff laid a hand on her arm. The feel of her bare skin against his calloused fingertips created heat from one end of Griffin to the other. "Don't go. I was the one who was insensitive. I wasn't thinking about you or Annie. I was thinking about his fun taking him to Iraq and getting him killed. This damned regatta always brings back the memories. Let's talk about something else. Are you really staying after the way Clarice talked to you, Julie? Or is this a one-year position at the school?" he asked.
Julie pulled the sunglasses down and gave him a long look. "Yes, I am staying. She can't run me off. This is my first home and Annie is adjusting well here. I love it."
"You didn't own anything with your husband?" Griffin was on a fishing expedition for information.
"My husband owned. I merely lived there."
"Daddy, take us for a walk, please. We want to go up the lake and see if our boat is ahead," Lizzy said.
"I'll take you. I'm getting stiff from sitting." Marita didn't show any signs of stiffness as she popped up and got each girl by a hand. Suddenly, she stopped and turned back around. "I'm sorry, Julie. I assumed it was all right that I take Annie, but I should have asked."
"It's fine. But she's not been around a lake like this so she wouldn't understand the danger," Julie explained. "Annie, listen to Marita and don't try to run off."
"I've got to go, too," Griffin said. Another five minutes and he'd never leave. He'd sit right there and listen to Julie's soft southern voice all afternoon.
"What's the hurry? I've got beer in my cooler if we run out in yours," Mamie said.
"Got business to take care of," Griffin said.
"Clarice called you yet?" Mamie asked.
"Oh, yes. I'm hearing from her a couple of times a day. Alvera been on your phone?"
"Not once. She don't have to drag out her soap box and polish it up. Right is right and speaks for itself," Mamie said.
"Amen to that, sister," Julie added.
"I'm not talkin' shop with you women today. Suffice it to say, we're running this election on different plat forms," he said as he left.
"So you got a thing for Griffin?" Julie asked Mamie as soon as he was out of hearing distance.
"Hell no! Griffin is my brother figure. Now if Graham was here, it would be a different story."
"Why? They look exactly the same," Julie said.
"Don't have a damn thing to do with looks. Griffin is the sweetheart. He's the good twin, versus Graham, who was the evil twin. There wasn't a woman in Montague County who wouldn't have fallen over backwards and had their clothes off by the time they hit the ground for Graham. Passion oozed out of him and he was so confident. He'd walk into a room and take his pick for the evening, and we all wished he'd pick us. But Griff was the one that we went crying on his shoulder when we broke up with our boyfriends. He was our big brother figure."
Julie remembered the way Graham had looked at her as if she were his pick of the evening that night in the bar. From the time she literally fell into his arms until they fell into bed, he had eyes only for her. Past that she remembered little, except one hell of a headache the next morning. He must have been good in bed or she would have remembered that he wasn't. Or maybe he wasn't and she wanted to forget.
"So Graham was the resident bad boy of Montague County?" Julie said.
"I'm not sure he wasn't the resident evil boy of the whole state just before he took off for the service. Didn't ever understand that. One day he's running a ranch at the age of twenty-two and the next he's in Iraq. Then we're all at his funeral and weeping because we didn't find a way to go to bed with him. Those who did, wept the hardest. I've wondered why—if it was because he lived up to his reputation or because he didn't. I've got another confession to make. When I saw Annie's picture, I thought she belonged to Griffin. That's why I pushed Edna's house so hard," Mamie admitted.
"Can't hide it in these parts, even though hiding was the reason I came here," Julie said.
"You'd have to understand Griff and Graham, Julie. It was like Graham got all the sex appeal and Griff got the brains. Graham could work on the ranch but he hated it. Griff loves it. Graham just wanted out. He wanted to see the world beyond Saint Jo, Texas. I'm not faulting him or Griff. They looked alike but that's where the twin stuff ended."
Julie shrugged. "I never wanted to understand either of them, Mamie. I didn't love Graham. I was mad at my husband, freshly divorced—or as good as—horny as hell, and wanting a good time. I got it and Annie out of the deal. I don't give a damn about Griffin or his ranch, his attitude, or his money. I just want to raise my daughter and be left alone. I wasn't asking if you had a thing for Griffin for you to feel like you had to tell me anything."
"Hey, lady, don't pick a fight with me because Griff left," Mamie said.
Julie stared at her a moment before a grin finally split her delicate face. "You're damn good. You'll bear watching."
"Just a good people reader," Mamie grinned. "I'm not matchmaking, honest. I don't care if you fight with him every day or kiss him every night or both. I'm comfortable with you. It was there from the beginning. We're friends."
"Shall we get those little bracelets that say BFF on them?" Julie giggled.
"What?"
"You know, best friends forever," Julie said.
"Thank God. I thought the first letter stood for bitches and those two F's…"
Julie put her fingers over Mamie's mouth. "Shhhhh. Annie can hear a bad word from three miles away."
"I've got a confession to make," Mamie said.
"Do we need a curtain between us?"
"Not a 'Father I have sinned, forgive me' confession. It's more like a 'Father I've been ornery again' confes sion," Mamie said.
"Sounds to me like you and Graham were kicked out of the same mold," Julie said.
"Sometimes we were, only he was beautiful and I've always been…"
"Are you talking about my friend again? I told you I wouldn't abide it. Mamie was my first friend and she keeps making me get out in the world when I'd be an old hermit and stay on my five acres making dilled beans if she'd let me. So since she's the one who rescues my psyche, you can't talk about her," Julie teased.
"Confession is good for the soul and the BFF. I made you go to the rodeo because I knew Griffin would be there and I made you come with me today for the same reason. At first I thought Annie had to belong to him and for that to be true, then he would have had to have cheated on his sorry wife. I wanted to put you two together and see what happened."
"Good grief!" Julie whispered.
"Sorry," Mamie said.
"Not you. Everyone in the county must think the same thing when they see those two little girls together. I really did jump from the frying pan straight into the damned fire." There was nothing she could do to hide it or keep it quiet. One look at Lizzy and Annie and the whole county knew they were either half sisters or cousins.
"BFF's explain everything. Talk it to death, actually. Look at Annie and Lizzy. I don't think they've hushed since they got together this morning. So what in the hell are you talking about? Let's talk it to death," Mamie said.
Julie sighed. "If you thought that then everyone else must think the same. I left Jefferson because… it's a long, long story."
"Give me the old
Reader's Digest
version."
"Okay, married seven years to Derrick and wanted a baby very badly so I went on fertility. Found out Derrick felt pressured and sex was just an automatic thing when the thermometer was right, so he went off and found a mistress who liked things spontaneous. I guess she was giving it to him in the office closet or traveling with him," Julie said.
"Bastard," Mamie muttered. "Don't look at me like that. Annie and Lizzy didn't hear me."
"So I divorced his cheating ass. Divorce was nearly final when my sister, some friends and I went on a girls' night out to Dallas. Guess who I literally stumbled over?"
"Graham Luckadeau? Oh, my! That's such a surprise." Mamie fluttered her hands around her face like a teenager.
"The next week Derrick must've got to thinking about the property settlement of the divorce and came begging me to take him back. Standard story. 'I'll never do it again, blah, blah, blah.' I did and didn't even think about the motel night. Guess who sued me for divorce on grounds of adultery nine months later? Took one look at Annie and walked out of the hospital."
"Sorry bastard," Mamie said.
"Now comes the good part. I moved into my folks' little garage apartment. Momma baby-sat Annie for me during the day while I worked. Jefferson is bigger than Saint Jo but imagine the gossip vines," Julie said.
"On fire, were they?"
"You got it. I thought if I moved away before she started to school maybe she'd just be the little girl with the white streak in her hair. Different, but not a child that would be called names at school because her white trash momma slept with a man while she was married to the richest man in Jefferson County. Poor, poor Derrick. Julie Donavan did him so dirty."
It took Mamie several minutes but finally she pieced the puzzle altogether and had the picture laid out before her in Technicolor as bright as the sails on the boats racing laps around the lake. "Damn!"
"Yep," Julie agreed.
"You left so she'd wouldn't be branded and brought her straight to the part of the world where the iron is hot and the town ready to slap an 'L' for Luckadeau on her butt for sure," Mamie said.
"Yep," Julie said again.
"But you got to realize. No one would…"
Griffin threw himself back on the quilt, prop ping up on an elbow between them. "No one would what? Hand me a beer, please, Mamie. Listening to Mr. Bailey tell Irish stories makes me thirsty." He'd taken care of business and gotten a breather away from Julie, so he'd come back for another beer. At least that was the excuse he'd given himself. He could always invent more excuses to leave if the area got too warm, and he wasn't thinking about the weather. Looking at her sitting there with Mamie was already having its effects.
She handed him a longneck from her cooler.
"Now, what would no one do? What were you talking about?" he asked again.
Mamie poked him on the shoulder. "Darlin' you're like my little brother but me and Julie are new BFF's and we keep secrets even from you."
"I'm hurt," he said.
"You know what BFF stands for?" Julie asked.
"Sure, I do. Lizzy watches that
Raven s
how on television. It's like it stands for like Best like Friends like Forever."
"I wish those Valley Girls would have been strangled at birth," Mamie said.
"Or their mouths taped with duct tape and sent off to a convent that prevented talking," Julie said. "Even my kindergarteners use the word
like
more than any other one in the dictionary. I'm afraid it's like here to like stay."
Marita arrived at that moment, both thirsty girls in tow. She opened the cooler and brought out two juice packs and a bottle of iced tea. "They'd wear an old woman out."
"Is Chuck going to be here?" Annie asked.
"No, he don't get to come to these things," Lizzy said then squealed. "There he is."
His mother had him by the arm instead of the hand and was dragging him across the grass toward a pickup truck several men leaned against.
"Chuck, come sit with us," Lizzy yelled.
His mother stopped and pulled down her sunglasses. She slowed her pace and let go of his arm. She wore a tank top that was two sizes too small and cut-off jean shorts. A barbed wire tattoo circled both of her upper arms and vines ran from her ankles to her knees. Julie wished she had the hoe and an opportunity to use it on the woman. For what those tats cost, she could buy decent clothing for her child and feed him nutritious food.
"Could we take care of Chuck for you the rest of the day?" Julie asked. "I'm his teacher and…"
"I know who you are and I know that kid of yours belongs to Griffin Luckadeau. His wife was my good friend and it looks like she wasn't the only one playin' around. Funny, ain't it, Griffin? Guess what goes around comes around. So you want to take care of the kid the rest of the day? I ain't got no problem with that. You know where we live so you could bring him home tonight?"
"I do," Mamie said.
"I reckon you do. Well, boy, you're stayin' with these people. They'll bring you home come bedtime. I reckon I'll be there by ten but don't hurry yourselves none."
"Don't be too quick to jump to conclusions," Griffin said stiffly.
"Griffin is not Annie's father. His brother Graham was her father," Julie said.
"Well, I'll be damned. Don't the world turn around for the rich folks," she said with a harsh laugh.
Chuck stood there with a grin splitting his face from one side to the other. His jean shorts were worn and smudges of dirt on his knees and elbows said he prob ably hadn't had a bath the night before. His shirt had stains on the front and his glasses needed to be washed, but he looked so happy Julie almost cried.
"You mind your teacher," his mother said as she thumped him on the back hard enough to send him sprawling forward, barely catching himself before he tumbled into the lake. Then she joined the men beside the truck.