Place Your Betts (The Marilyns) (3 page)

Betts let out a long breath and walked up the driveway. The yard had been mowed recently and was edged to within an inch of its life. The lawn screamed perfection, and not one blade of grass dared to grow a millimeter above its comrades because Gigi’s wrath wasn’t worth it.

Betts stood on her tiptoes and ran her fingers along the top of the doorframe until she felt the cold, jagged metal of a key. Why Gigi bothered to lock her front door was beyond Betts. It wasn’t like the old woman had anything to steal, and any thief with an ounce of self-preservation would steer clear of this place. With a twist of the key and a hard push with her shoulder, she stepped into her own personal hell.

It smelled the same—Rose Milk hand lotion, Vicks VapoRub, and the faint, musty, papery scent of books. Lots of them. She stood in the front room, three diagonal windows in the front door casting diamonds of porch light onto the wall-to-wall carpet.

Nothing had changed. The small color TV still sat directly across from the pink floral sofa—Gigi had called it a divan—with two rocking chairs clustered together, complete with matching pink cushions, forming an L-shaped conversation area. The furniture layout had never made sense to Betts. Gigi had no friends, and her conversations were limited to shouting at televangelists on TV.

Betts shivered even though it had to be over seventy degrees in the house. Being alone had never made her feel lonely, but this house had to be the loneliest place on earth.

One night. She could brave this place for one night, and then she’d find a hotel or bed and breakfast—something close to her baby boy.

She laid her sunglasses on the spindly, piecrust coffee table and glanced at the only things that Gigi had ever loved. Books. Hardcover and paperback from every genre except Betts’s favorite—romance—lined cinderblock-and-plank shelves that ran along three walls. The fourth got a reprieve because shelves and a sofa wouldn’t fit on the same tiny wall.

Why hadn’t the old bat invested in an e-reader like the rest of the world? Betts shook her head—of course Gigi wouldn’t have an e-reader. The old woman couldn’t rip it to shreds when she disagreed with the content.

Betts glanced around. Books were the closest things to personal items in the room. No cheesy photographs of family get-togethers or framed needlepoint blessing the house or tacky keepsake pencil holder picked up on a trip to the Grand Canyon. Gigi's house was generic; it was brand X toilet paper in a world full of Charmin. Most grandmothers appreciated children’s artwork and hung it proudly next to the dozens of smiling family photos commemorating school years, vacations, and the random silly moment. Not Gigi. She’d abhorred clutter and sentiment.

Betts had been six years old the last time she’d made a drawing for Gigi—a picture of two people, bodies like potatoes and stick arms, holding hands and singing. Under each figure, Betts had carefully written
Betts and GG
. The old woman had ripped it out of her hand, wadded it up, and thrown it in the nearest trashcan. Her only comment had been that Betts had misspelled her name. Fighting back tears, the six-year-old Betts had calmly turned on her heel and left the room as her self-confidence popped like a balloon left out in the sun. Betts was well acquainted with worthless—it was a feeling her grandmother always brought out in her.

She squeezed past a potted schefflera plant protruding into the hallway and headed into the kitchen. The avocado-green refrigerator hummed in the corner. She yanked the freezer door open, and cold air blasted her face. A neatly labeled pot roast complete with carrots, potatoes, and brown gravy sat on the top shelf next to a blueberry pie. Betts skipped the roast and went for the pie. The frozen pie tin burned her fingertips, so she tossed it on the kitchen table. With a knife she’d gotten from the butcher’s block next to the stove, she pried up a good-sized piece, plopped it on a plate, and popped it into the microwave for five minutes.

Opening the refrigerator again, she pulled out the bottom drawer. The same old tattered maroon towel lay between her and the family secret. After flipping up a corner, she pulled out a Miller Lite. Good Southern Baptists didn’t drink alcohol, and in Gigi’s mind, the Almighty was too busy walking on water and multiplying loaves and fishes to peek under towels. Betts smiled. The only thing that made her grandmother human was her fondness for a cold brew. Maybe if she’d drunk more, people would have liked her.

Betts grabbed a fork from the drawer next to the sink and kicked back in a kitchen chair. The cabinets were pristine white, but the rosebud wallpaper had faded over the years. The last time she’d stared at those little pink rosebuds, she’d been three months pregnant and crying her eyes out. Sympathy had been a lecture on morality and then a boot out the door. Gigi had a true talent for making a bad situation worse.

Betts shivered and shoved a large chunk of pie in her mouth. Her eyes closed, and her taste buds took a ride on the sin wagon. Gigi might have been the devil incarnate, but she made heavenly pie. And she had the blue ribbons to prove it.

Betts glanced at the wall of awards opposite the refrigerator. The fork fell out of her hand, clattered against the pie tin, and bounced on the table. Right next to the Gregg County Fair blue ribbon for Best Fruit Pie was a photo of Betts holding her first CMA Entertainer of the Year award. She walked over and peered at the framed picture. It had been cut from the cover of a magazine. Next to it was another framed magazine cover, but this time it was the Austin City Limits awards. She stepped back. With the exception of the top row, every other space on the wall, from floor to ceiling, was covered in framed photos of her.

Heart knocking against her chest, she took them in one by one. Awards, concerts, charity events—all milestones in her public life—superimposed on the rosebud wall of Gigi’s kitchen. She closed her eyes and squeezed the bridge of her nose. This was all wrong. Gigi hated her.

What on earth were all these pictures doing here?

Betts looked at the wall again. She swallowed the small amount of hope that her grandmother had actually cared about her in favor of realism. Some well-meaning church friend had hung these up after Gigi’s death. That was it. A kind soul had thought it would be comforting for Betts to find some remnant of familial love. To prove it, she picked up the closest one.

A rectangular patch the exact size of the photo frame was at least two shades darker.

She hugged the photo to her chest. If she’d been knocked upside the head with a two-by-four, she couldn’t have been more shocked. Hands shaking and breathing turned shallow, she checked behind every photo. They all had dark patches suggesting that the pictures had been up for years.

It didn’t make sense. Had Gigi put these here to brag about Betts? That would imply that there was someone to whom her grandmother could brag. It was easier to believe she’d hung these here to remind her of how much she hated her granddaughter and so she’d have faces to look at when she was in a ranting mood. Betts chewed on her upper lip.

Betts turned her back on the wall. This revelation was just one too many in a day chock full of them…and they could stop coming any time now.

With the beer in one hand and the pie in the other, Betts made her way to the one and only bathroom. The old shotgun house had been built at a time when indoor plumbing was considered a modern convenience. She flipped on the light and balanced the pie on the sink. Betts turned on the hot water to the tub.

After some groaning and moaning, the pipes belched out a thin stream of lukewarm water. Betts shook her head. Gigi still had the same water heater that had been on the brink of death seventeen years ago. The old lady donated all of her Gregg County librarian’s retirement money to the church, and personal luxuries like hot water were pure heathen indulgence.

Betts froze.

Gigi
had
donated, not donated.

That mean old lady was gone forever.

Ever since Betts had walked into the house, she half expected Gigi to pop out of a bedroom to say something nasty and then go about her business. Out of the corner of Betts’s eye, something red caught her attention. Size-six red, plastic Crocs sat mud-spattered and discarded by the tub—mundane evidence of a life lived. And gone.

Betts slumped against the tub. Ninety-nine percent of her was relieved that the old bag was dead, but one stinking percent clung to the need for family. Bad family was better than no family. The only things Gigi had given her were misery and the Baptist Church—both had played a part in making Betts the woman she was today.

Tears stung the inside of her nose. Gigi was gone. No more lectures or disapproval. No more chicken-fried everything or warm, homemade cinnamon rolls. No more home full of disdain and the smell of baking bread. Sure, it was bad, but it was the only home Betts had ever known. Summers here and the rest of the year wherever her mother was tending bar. Everyone needed a safe harbor, even a cold one. Now hers was giving Satan directions on running hell.

Sitting down on the toilet, she wrapped her arms around her middle and welcomed the tears. Weakness and vulnerability weren’t qualities she allowed herself in public. Tonight, she was a just a girl who’d lost her grandmother and found her son. Tears were her only celebration.

***

Twenty minutes later, Betts toweled off and slipped on her wrinkled black dress. Her eyes were puffy, but the tears had done her good. She finger-combed her hair and then used the edge of a pristine white hand towel to dab her mascara smudges. She was clean and somewhat fresher; it was time to introduce herself to her son. The butterflies in her stomach slam danced against each other. She nodded to her reflection. Her son. She’d finally get to see him again.

A delicate knock sounded at the front door. Betts turned off the light and played possum. Maybe if they thought no one was home, they’d go away. She didn’t want to entertain; she wanted to see her son.

The delicate knocking turned into hammering. “We know you’re in there. Open up.”

It was her friend Lucky’s voice.

“Unlock the door or Lucky’s going to pick the lock.” That was Charlie. “FYI, she’s pulling out a little black manicure case probably filled with all sorts of legally ambiguous tools.”

Her best friends had come because they knew she needed them. An honest-to-God smile spread across her face. She wouldn’t be alone in this Godforsaken house.

“‘Legally ambiguous’? Christ, you sound prissy even when we’re breaking and entering.”

Betts opened the door before they got into a fight. Relief at seeing her oldest friends released most of the tension that had been gnawing at her. “Y’all just in the neighborhood or you selling Girl Scout cookies?”

“Mama called us and told us about Tom. Charlie drove in from Dallas and picked me up in Longview.” Lucky Strickland ducked her head so she could get her six-foot-two frame through the door.

“We thought you might need some support. Lucky and I have cleared our schedules for the next couple of days.” Charlie Guidry didn’t have to duck her head to get her four-foot-eleven body through the door.

Betts pulled them into a group hug. When she had needed them, they had dropped everything and come. The Marilyns, the three musketeers, the sisters she’s always wanted.

Lucky pulled away first. “We know the family stuff rattles you. You tend to lead with emotion and throw logic under the bus. Not saying that’s always a bad thing, but sometimes you need to take a step back.”

Betts glanced down at her wrinkled dress and shoeless feet. Her friends might have a point.

“You,” Charlie pointed to Betts, “need to change out of that walk-of-shame dress.”

“I’ll find out where Tom lives.” Lucky sat down and opened her laptop.

When in crisis mode, the Marilyns didn’t waste a minute on small talk; they got down to business.

“I’ll save you the trouble. Tom lives on the Swanson Cattle Ranch in the big house with his father.” Betts brushed at the creases on her skirt. “And I don’t have any other clothes.”

“They’re in the car.” Charlie crossed to the sofa and daintily sat down. “What kind of friend would I be if I let you go out in public looking like you’d slept in your clothes?”

Since Charlie’s father was the most flamboyant governor in the history of Louisiana, being image-conscious and fully expecting to be center stage was a by-product of her childhood on the campaign trail. It was common knowledge that the Republican Party had its eye on him to run for president someday. Betts knew that Charlie wished her father would retire from politics so that she could do the same.

“I’ll get the luggage.” Lucky went out to the car and returned with a backpack slung over one shoulder and pulling a rolling suitcase in each hand. “Where do you want these?”

“Down the hall on the left.” Betts plopped down next to Charlie and propped her feet on the piecrust coffee table. Since Betts was a little girl, she’d been dying to put her feet on this table.

“Have you seen him?” Charlie sat primly with her legs crossed at the ankles, the picture of southern charm and grace. She might be a proper southern lady on the outside, but inside beat the heart of a junkyard dog.

“No, I haven’t seen Tom.” Betts’s voice was an octave higher than normal. Maybe her friends wouldn’t notice.

Charlie’s almond-shaped brown eyes zeroed in on Betts. “But you have seen…him.” The last word dripped hostility. Some of that junkyard dog was peeking out. “Tell me you haven’t seen the a-hole.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re thirty-two years old; it’s time you learned to say asshole.” Lucky unlooped the backpack from her shoulder, unzipped it, and pulled out the power cord for her laptop.

“A lady doesn’t need to resort to vulgarity to get her point across.” Charlie looked down her upturned nose at Lucky.

Lucky said, in her best Arnold Schwarzenegger, “She’s the Prim-i-nator—a robot sent from the 1950s to torture us with good manners and proper grammar.” Lucky’s eyes narrowed, and her voice went back to normal. “You should be flipping me off right now. I feel like such a failure.” She pulled a rocking chair closer to the coffee table, opened her laptop, and sat. “Tom Swanson,” she typed.