Southern Fried Blues (The Officers' Ex-Wives Club) Read online

  Great. Now Anna was an old failure. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “A few years.”

  “It’ll come on back soon enough.” Kaci leaned back in the chair and gave her hair a fluff. “What’re you studying?”

  “Chemical engineering.” How to Make Your Life Implode wasn’t formally offered at James Robert.

  The other girl’s nose twitched. “Military bring you here?”

  No, she always wanted to be underemployed in a place that didn’t recognize ketchup as its own food group. But the words got stuck under the lump in her throat.

  “Aw, sugar. You’re gonna be just fine. Look at you taking classes. That’s something. That’s something real big.”

  She wanted to tell Kaci the lie that had become so easy the last week—that she was already fine—but the girl had sat down. Anna could’ve called Jules, but she didn’t want this spreading around the office. “I’m already failing,” she whispered, because she was afraid if she said it any louder, she wouldn’t be able to recover. She’d walked into class sixteen minutes late, right as Dr. Kelly was collecting the pop quiz he’d started the semester with.

  Timeliness, according to Dr. Kelly, was the sign of a strong mind, and only strong minds would survive.

  “Aw, sugar, you can’t be—” Kaci started, but her encouraging smile dropped off almost as fast as Anna’s marriage had. “What class?”

  “Thermo.”

  Kaci whipped a smart phone out of her messenger bag. “I swear to sweet baby Jesus, if I told that man once, I told him a billion times, teaching ain’t about being an ass.”

  That sinking sensation in Anna’s gut was becoming all too familiar as well. “You know Dr. Kelly?”

  “Oh, I know him.” Her drawl flared. “Know him all too well. Pompous old windbag. Never did care about people needing to make a living first and educating themselves second. I’ve got half a mind to go on over there and give him what for.”

  Her thumbs flew so fast Anna saw smoke. She lunged for the phone. “No. Please, please don’t say anything. I was the only one. He’ll know it was me. I need this class.” Her voice cracked. “I really do. Please.”

  Kaci regarded Anna with a mix of curiosity and sympathy. “Don’t you worry about that pop quiz. Tell you a little secret, sugar. Jim-Bob’s great-great-great grandson sitting over there in the chancellor’s office is making the old bag of bones curve since he flunked his whole last class. Ol’ grandpappy, he likes to feel all important.”

  Anna’s breathing evened out, but her pulse was still hammering faster than a hummingbird’s wings. He couldn’t flunk the whole class. That was a good thing. But she would still have to study her brains out to earn tuition assistance from work.

  “Dr. Kelly’s your grandfather?” She wouldn’t have thought he was old enough to have grandbabies, much less a grown granddaughter. Maybe life was doing her a favor to even out all the bad lately.

  Kaci grinned. “No, sugar, he’s my ex-husband.”

  “Your what?” Anna sputtered. No way Kaci was old enough to have been married. Not with those baby cheeks and flawless skin. And to Dr. Kelly?

  Oh, God. Dr. Kelly was a retired colonel. Kaci was the officers’ ex-wives club.

  Kaci winked. “Chaps his knickers when I call him that.” She fluttered her left hand. Her diamond sent rainbows dancing over the mocha walls. “But it taught me a darn good lesson. I’m going for a younger man this time around.”

  “Is that legal?” The words were barely out before Anna clapped her hand to her mouth. That was rude. Minnesota had minimum age restrictions, but—

  “Sugar, this here’s Georgia,” Kaci said. “Everything’s legal when you’re marrying your cousin.”

  Anna’s lips twitched. Then her chest heaved. Not the pathetic, Titanic-watching, broken label maker kind of heave. More like an amused, my-best-friend-told-a-dirty-joke kind of heave.

  But if Anna wanted to pass thermo, dawdling here tonight probably wasn’t in her best interest.

  The twinkle in Kaci’s eye outshone her diamond. “Just joshin’ ya, sugar. Lance isn’t my cousin. But he is one of them Bama boys. They do things even worse over there. Now listen to me. Here I am scaring your poor Yankee sensibilities.”

  Anna sank back into the chair, fascinated and mildly besotted. She hadn’t made a friend outside the military or work since college. “I don’t think being from Minnesota makes me a Yankee.”

  Kaci cocked her head. “Whatcha call that war the States fought back in the 1860s?”

  “The Civil War?”

  “See right there? Yankee. But don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.”

  Anna’s smile grew. “Thanks.”

  “So. What’d he do to you?”

  “Dr. Kelly?”

  “No, sugar. Your man.”

  And there went her momentary happy. “What man?”

  Kaci pointed to Anna’s ring finger. The indentation from six years of wearing a wedding ring had completely faded already, but the spot burned under Kaci’s scrutiny. “That man,” Kaci said. “You got the look, sugar.”

  Anna slouched. “I’m fine.”

  Kaci pursed her lips, then nodded. “You bet your britches you are.”

  Anna could’ve made an excuse and left. Gone back to her apartment, pulled out her label maker and used it until she felt better about having to downsize in the first place. But there was something perceptive about Kaci’s gaze. Something that told Anna Kaci got it in a way her family and her friends couldn’t.

  So Anna took a sip of her chai latte, then went for the distraction. “What are you studying?”

  “Efficient combustion physics.”

  Anna stifled a hiccup of surprise. “Grad student?”

  Kaci grinned. “Professor.” She gave her own baby cheeks a pat. “Good genes, sugar. Still working on my tenure.” She gestured to the scattered papers on her table. “Means I get to babysit the high school programs too, but that’s the most fun part. Still got some influence over those minds. You need any physics classes?”

  Anna shook her head. “Those transferred.”

  “Perfect. You got plans Friday night? Some of us girls are having a pinot and pedicures night. You come on over, and I guarantee you’ll be happier than a goose on tequila come Saturday morning. Most of the rest of ’em are busy tonight.”

  A girls’ night.

  With real girls.

  Longing welled in her chest and almost choked her. “I can’t.”

  “Kids?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “Well, you’ve got my blessing to slug the first person who says that’s a good thing.”

  “They don’t really say that, do they?”

  “Sugar, they say all kinds of crap. That kid question, it’s barely the start. Hope you got some good family to back you up.”

  Anna’s chai latte got stuck between her throat and her stomach right about where her heart used to be.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t support her. They were simply disappointed.

  “He did you good, didn’t he?” Kaci said.

  And there was that damn stinging in her eyeballs again.

  “Don’t you worry,” Kaci said. “Whenever you’re ready, I got just the thing for you.”

  Anna leaned into the table, a real smile threatening to show. “I hid his electric toothbrush so he’d have to ask me where it was.”

  “Good on you, sugar. Good on you.”

  “And—some other things.”

  “He notice they’re missing yet?”

  Anna’s shoulders sagged.

  “Then you’re better off without him. You really busy Friday, or you telling me that so you can slink away without giving me your number?”

  There was a time she would’ve slunk home and gossiped with Neil about the crazy chick who married her grandfather, but Kaci was growing on her. “I promised a friend we’d go do karaoke.”

  “Y’all aren’t planning on doing Aretha, are you? Gl
oria Gaynor? Sugar, you can do better than that.”

  “Grease. With her new brother-in-law. I kind of owe her a favor.” And between the high schoolers filtering in to report on their progress with the physics-themed scavenger hunt Kaci had sent them on while she waited for losers like Anna looking for friends, Anna’s story came tumbling out.

  An hour later, Anna had her second phone number of the night, but this one she intended to use. Kaci had anointed herself Anna’s guardian divorce angel, and Anna was smart enough not to argue with a woman who kept instructions for a divorce survival kit in her purse at all times.

  Plus, as Kaci said, a friend who made you laugh was worth ten ex-husbands, and Anna needed all the laughter she could get.

  AFTER JACKSON GAVE Louisa an earful about how to use the Jetta’s new vegetable oil engine and made sure Radish, his old spaniel, was fed and watered and happy, he made himself scarce before Momma got hold of him and made him stay for dinner. He had a date at the bowling alley. Didn’t take long to find Mamie and her crew. Only had to look for the gray-hairs with the highest scores.

  “Gimme a minute to get this here strike, sugarplum,” Mamie called as he approached. “I got me a game to win.”

  When she grinned big like that, her face exploded in wrinkles, but she was still near about the prettiest thing he’d seen today. Near about. “Go on and make me proud, Mamie.”

  He settled in with her normal crowd, asking after Miss Flo’s great-grandbabies and Miss Dolly’s poodle while Mamie cleaned up the lane. Miss Ophelia must’ve seen him coming, because she walked into the pit with a big old cup of root beer like she used to when he was shoulder-high to an armadillo. “You’re sweet as ever, Miss O. How’re them boyfriends treating you?”

  “Ain’t you a sugar-pie, worrying over little old me,” she said with a pinch to his cheek.

  “Aw, shucks, ma’am, it ain’t nothing. Just making sure you’re keeping Mamie stocked with ideas for those books of hers.”

  The ladies tittered. Down the lane, ten pins exploded against the back wall. Mamie pumped her fist in the air. “Eat my ashes, you old biddies,” she called.

  Jackson gave her a high five, then helped her off the lane. Not that she needed it. She’d probably be handing him his own cane some day, rate she was going. “Ain’t you a little young to be trash-talking like that?” he said.

  She gave him a squeeze. “Such a charmer, you. Go on and fetch me my phone. I gotta Tweet the score.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After Mamie updated her Twitter and Facebook accounts, and after Miss Dolly and Miss Flo got on their phones and fired back some gently bred insults of their own, Jackson followed the ladies up to the snack bar and treated them to a pizza party.

  “You planning on sticking around a while this time?” Mamie asked over the normal din of the bowling alley. “Us girls could use a strong handsome man to fetch our balls.”

  “What’s wrong with my Cletus?” Miss Ophelia said. “I thought he done a right good job of ball-fetching.”

  “But he ain’t the looker Jackson here is.” Miss Dolly wiggled her penciled-in eyebrows. “He grew up right pretty, he did.”

  “Right perfect,” Mamie corrected.

  Jackson grinned. These sweet old gals could show a Yankee girl how to flatter a man. “I ain’t got nothing on you fine ladies, and you know it.”

  “You keep sweet-talking, I’m gonna start thinking you’re here looking for something,” Mamie said.

  “Just looking for time with my favorite gals,” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” Miss Dolly said. Miss Flo stretched her neck out and peered at him over her glasses.

  Miss Ophelia adjusted her hair. “What’s her name, and how far along is she?”

  Jackson choked on his root beer.

  “Now why would you think that about my sweet Jackson?” Mamie demanded. “He might could have a couple other things bothering him.” She dropped her voice and leaned into him. “It ain’t a girl, is it, sugarplum?”

  Jackson wiped his mouth. “No girl,” he assured her.

  She pinned him with the same stare his daddy’d always used. “You getting out of the service?”

  He’d be getting out about as soon as he’d be planning on being a daddy himself, and Mamie knew it. “Got orders.”

  All four women sucked in a breath as one. Miss Flo gave herself the sign of the cross.

  “You be careful over there, y’hear?” Miss Ophelia said.

  “Moving orders,” Jackson clarified.

  Their breaths whooshed out as one too.

  “To Gellings.”

  Mamie let out a whoop, and Miss Ophelia gave his cheek another pinch. “Don’t you be scaring us like that, y’hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle.

  “You looking to settle down while you’re here?” Miss Flo wanted to know. “I got a granddaughter about your age. She’s real nice. Bakes good biscuits too.”

  “That means she ain’t got the looks God gave a porcupine, bless her heart,” Miss Ophelia said.

  “She’s a real sweet girl,” Miss Flo insisted.

  “That she is,” Miss Dolly agreed. Miss Ophelia added an “Mm-hmm,” but Mamie rapped a knuckle on the table. “Y’all leave my grandbaby alone. Just ’cuz he’s back here in God’s country with all these nice Southern girls don’t mean he’s gonna pick the first one what comes along. He’s gonna be trying biscuits all over half the state when the mommas find out he’s come home, you mark my words. How long you gonna be here, sugarplum?”

  “Couple years.” But he wouldn’t be sampling just any biscuits. A few assignments ago he would’ve, but he’d learned the hard way when he sampled the biscuits, the biscuit baker expected him to bring home the butter, and he sure wasn’t planning on doing that.

  Mamie might write those nice books with happy endings, but he knew firsthand the biscuits went stale and the butter spoiled. He’d rather not have the biscuits at all.

  Milk, though, that’d be hard to give up all together.

  Mamie was looking at him like his daddy used to whenever Jackson would get a notion to head out with Craig for some no-good fun. Like she could read his brain cells. “Ain’t you a little young to be talkin’ smack about forever?” she said softly.

  He reckoned she was in a position to think so. But it wouldn’t change his mind. “You go on and write me a happy ending, Mamie.”

  ’Cuz that was the only forever he’d be buttering in this lifetime.

  Chapter Five

  When she first made a splash in the world, she rippled out of her comfort zone in small waves. When the world made a splash in her life, she discovered in her possession a tidal wave of sparks with which to splash back.

  —The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels

  FRIDAY NIGHT, ANNA climbed off the stage at Taps, hot and sweaty and laughing after a rusty rendition of “Summer Nights.” She sucked as Sandy, but Rodney was worse as Danny. And he’d reveled in his badness for every last horrific second.

  They made their way through the crowd to their table. Brad jumped up on his chair and gave a whistle. “More! More!”

  Jules yanked at his belt loops. “God, how can you still hear after that? Get down.”

  “You kidding, babe? That was like angels. Angels. If I’d been up there—”

  “My eardrums would still work,” Jules said.

  He hopped down and bumped into their waitress. Her tray flew out of her hands. Full soda cups went flying. People at the next table skittered for cover. Anna shrieked and ducked, but she got splattered with half a Sprite.

  “Smooth, bro.” Rodney held out a fist, and Brad bumped it. “You okay, Anna?”

  Jules handed her a wad of napkins. They disintegrated on the sugary liquid on Anna’s arms. “Just wet,” she said.

  “So to speak,” Rodney and Brad said together. They shared another fist bump and a “Giggidy.”

  “Could you quit acting like Neanderthals?” Jules said
.

  “Sorry, babe.” Brad grinned at her like, well, a Neanderthal. He and Rodney went down on all fours to help the waitress, and he gave her a grin too. “Sorry, ma’am. You can add ’em to my tab.”

  Jules rubbed her forehead. “He is such a doofus. But he’s my doofus.”

  “I’ll let you have him.” Anna gestured toward the ladies’ room. Jules followed her.

  Anna had dressed for a night in a bar. Jeans, sparkly top, and boots that made squeaky noises on the restroom floor once the noise of the bar and karaoke were shut out by the door. “Rodney’s totally checking you out,” Jules said.

  Anna went straight for the sink. “Technically still married here.”

  “Don’t be like that.” Jules leaned into the mirror and checked her mascara.

  “Like what?”

  “Bitter about me getting the better brother.”

  Anna was up to her elbows in pink bathroom soap and chlorine water, with jeans that were stuck to her legs, and she was laughing for the second time in five minutes. “No offense, Jules, but I wouldn’t have picked either of them.”

  “Yeah, well look what you pick—erm, what you’re missing out on.” Jules pulled a lipstick out of her back pocket.

  Look what you picked. Right. But Jules using her verbal filter for once made up for the near insult. “Yeah, can you picture the in-law Christmases? Imagine the toys Rodney and I could come up with to give you in front of their parents.”

  Jules gave her a withering look. “Dude. Did I tell you what he gave us for the wedding?”

  Soapy hands or not, Anna clamped her hands over her ears. “La la la, not listening.”

  “Exactly,” Jules said with a smirk. “You’d totally tame him. Nothing else with spikes for us.”

  Anna shuddered. Sex was great exactly the way it was meant to be. With two bodies, on a bed, in the dark. Maybe next to the bed, but that had to be planned in advance in case things got messy.

  Jules fussed with her hair while Anna finished cleaning up as best she could. “Ready?” she asked Jules a minute later. She reached for the door. Jules grabbed her arm.

  “Hey, listen. Rodney’s not really into commitment, but I’ve never heard a complaint about his skills from any of his girlfriends, so if you wanted to” —Jules cleared her throat— “with him, to, you know, get experience with someone else, maybe take the edge off, I’m cool with that.”