ten scariest places in the world, and started naming the ten scariest places to eat, this would probably make the cut. She’d bet it was on an FDA watch list somewhere.
Finally, though, she forced herself inside. Knowing Aunt Ida Mae and Aunt Ivy were very untrusting, she suspected they hadn’t even crawled out of their hiding places yet, much less unlocked any doors.
“Hey there, missy, thought you was gonna spend your whole week here without comin’ in to see me!”
This comment came from the owner, Tootie herself, who was shaped like a box—as wide as she was tall—with hair the color of congealing sausage gravy. But she had always been nice to Jen as a kid. Even if Jen’s mother had always made her throw away any cookie or treat Tootie had slipped to her during a family visit.
“Hi,” she said. “I, uh, need to use the ladies’ room.”
Jen immediately wished she hadn’t put it like that. She knew she’d been overheard when a meaty guy at a nearby table, wearing a Bud T-shirt and a backward baseball cap, snickered like a third grader who’d spotted a little girl’s underwear.
That, of course, instantly made her think about the conversation she and Mike had had earlier…and his wickedly erotic comment about the soft fabric between a woman’s soft thighs. The soft fabric between her soft thighs had gotten a mite damp after the remark, that was for sure. And just thinking about Mike now could probably make it more so.
Forget it. He’d driven away—twice—without mentioning the possibility of seeing her again. Besides, she didn’t like the big, strong, drop-dead gorgeous, dangerous, silent type.
Hmm. Maybe…No. Not her type, even though her friends all thought she should be happy with any guy who was breathing. But she wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
“Sorry, sweetie, facilities are for paying customers only,” the proprietress said with an apologetic shrug, her loud reply ensuring they were being overheard now.
Then the words sank in. Perfect. She was actually going to have to eat here? “Oh, uh…”
“Meat loaf’s on special.”
She was tempted to ask what type of meat was in it—armadillo, mastodon—but wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Unfortunately, every other place in town was probably already closed. This might be the only bite she’d have until she could get her aunts to let her in. That could take a week.
“Could you just get me a plain salad and an iced tea?”
Tootie nodded. “I’ll have Scoot put in the order, but you’ll have to sit at the counter. There’s no tables.”
She glanced at the counter, seeing a sea of men wearing red plaid and wife-beater T-shirts. All packed shoulder-to-shoulder, heads down, like horses at a trough. All probably having heard her ladies’ room comment and right now thinking about her walking into the next room and pulling down her panties.
Eww.
“Can I get it to go?”
“Didn’t she already say she had to go?” a phlegmy voice asked. The question was accompanied by a lascivious chuckle. Both had emanated from a guy at the closest table who, judging by his comma-shaped posture, was between one hundred and death.
Tootie leaned close. “I don’t blame you, sugar. Some of these fellas act like mongrels over a bone when a pretty woman comes around. Me ’n’ Scoot have taken to giving each other signals when we need help extricating ourselves from one when he gets over-amorous.”
Scoot. That was the waitress. Tootie’s assistant. Practically Tootie’s twin. The hottest single ladies in Trouble?
“Ooo-kay,” she murmured, keeping her eyes forward, focusing on the door to the ladies’ room. “I’ll be back.”
Once inside the bathroom, however, she realized she’d made a tactical error. “This place is dirtier than the ground,” she muttered, staring in dismay at the mildew climbing up the backs of the sinks and the peeling, puke-green linoleum on the floor. She’d be better off cleaning her cuts in a truck stop men’s room.
If there had been a hotel anywhere in the vicinity, she would have given up for the night, blowing off Ida Mae and Ivy’s houses for clean sheets, hot water that wasn’t the color of dirt and free HBO. But, if she recalled correctly, Trouble had only ever boasted two inns and both were now closed. One—Seaton House, where she had once stayed with her parents as a child—due to the death of its former owner. And the other, the Dew Drop Inn—where she had never stayed with her parents as a child because the owner was a nudist—also closed. From what the aunts said, the owner, Mr. Fitzweather, had had a bit of a run-in with a dog during his nudist days and had since retired.
“This is ridiculous,” she told her reflection, continuing to shift her toes to keep them protected by the flip-flops, so they wouldn’t come into contact with the dirty floor. “There has to be something I can do.”
Then she remembered something. And started to smile.
During Jen’s last visit, Ivy had nastily told her that Ida Mae was a loose woman, praying for a burglar to come along and ravish her. In order to make it easier for said burglar, Ida Mae always kept a spare key under the rusty iron bench sitting on her front porch. Knowing Ivy, she’d probably forgotten she’d spilled the secret five minutes after the words had left her lips, just as Jen had forgotten the comment. Which meant Ida Mae probably hadn’t removed the key.
A half hour later, when she returned to Ida Mae’s, holding a plastic container full of salad, she checked. And hit pay dirt. The key was there.
“Oh, Luuuucy, I’m home,” she called as she let herself into the house, hoping Aunt Ida Mae had calmed down and could be reasonable. She didn’t dare hope for such a thing from Aunt Ivy.
“How did you get in here?” a stern-sounding voice said, emerging from the dark, cluttered parlor.
Jen immediately swung toward it and strode into the room, carefully picking her way through the maze of furniture. Good thing she’d become familiar with it during her week’s stay because it was nearly dark outside and not a single light was on within. The heavy oak and crushed-velvet pieces stood in odd positions around the room, competing for every inch of floor space. It was like being inside a child’s antique dollhouse which had too much toy furniture. Jen had never left this house without a bruise or two from having banged into something.
She’d already been bruised, battered and cut enough at her aunts’ hands today, thank you very much, and didn’t need any more war wounds. “I used your spare key,” she said, plopping onto the sofa and opening her bag of food. She’d ditched the drink right after leaving Tootie’s because, after sucking in a big mouthful through the straw, she’d had tea leaves coating her tongue.
“Who said you could come into my house?”
“Technically, Aunt Ida Mae, since I cover your mortgage, paid for the new roof and am responsible for all the utilities, I think it’s partly my house.”
That got the old woman out of the darkness. She came out of the corner and expertly wove her way across the room, flipping on a single lamp as she went by it. The whiteness of her round face, emphasized by dark circles under her brown eyes, said she’d been tense, waiting for this confrontation.
Ida Mae had probably never been considered pretty—though Ivy had. Judging by the pictures Jen had seen, the younger Feeney sister had been more than pretty; she’d been a knockout. But the older one would have to be described as handsome rather than pretty, even today at seventy-eight. Ida Mae carried herself well and was proud of her thick, snow-white hair. Usually up in a bun, it now hung loose, halfway down her back, stark against her pink housecoat. Thick and lovely, it was definitely her best feature.
Way nicer than her smile. Which almost never got any use. Kind of like Mike Taylor’s.
“You can have your roof and your utilities.”
Jen