Ain't She a Peach? Read online

  Frankie’s expression was so horrified, a little bit of beer trickled out the side of her mouth.

  “Not helpful.” Duffy nodded. “You are in a pickle, Frank.”

  “Thanks. That’s why I came here, for your folksy wisdom.”

  “Look, your parents will eventually accept that it’s time for you to move out. You just have to find the right time to approach them and have a place to move in completely ready. You might even wait until after you’ve already moved to tell them. They’ll be upset, but eventually they’ll see that it’s for the best.”

  “Or you could tell them for me. They’ve always liked you.”

  “Oh, hell no.” Duffy drained his bottle, stood up, and opened his screen door. “There isn’t enough beer in the world.”

  “Good night,” she called after him.

  “Good night!”

  Frankie heaved herself off the porch and walked to her family’s cabin. She went into the kitchen to ferret out something for a late dinner. As predicted, Mama had left her helping of stew in the microwave, ready to heat, with a little Post-it note that read Don’t forget to eat.

  Frankie rested her forehead against the cool metal of the fridge. “Maybe the apprentice apartment wouldn’t be so bad.”

  WHILE THERE WERE some perks to living with her parents, there were other things Frankie refused to put on the family shopping list. She usually shopped for those items late in the evening, when most people were zoned out in front of the TV or recovering from big family meals.

  She pushed her cart full of sugary snacks and “personal items” through the Food Carnival, enjoying the relative quiet of the store. Her mama had these crazy ideas about serving Frankie oatmeal for breakfast in the morning, which was the one thing she made that Frankie hated, so she’d taken to keeping little boxes of cereal in her desk at work.

  Standing in front of the display of Cocoa Puffs, Frankie pondered how grown-up she could really be if she was sneaking forbidden cereal into her parents’ house to avoid her mother’s lovingly prepared meals.

  Probably not very.

  Frankie knew she would eventually have to move out of her parents’ place. She was twenty-eight years old. It was time for her to leave the nest.

  Maybe now that Margot seemed likely to move out of Marianne’s cabin and in with Kyle’s family at some point, Frankie could slip into the vacant spot without making a big deal out of it. Her parents would just wake up and see her van parked in front of Marianne’s old place.

  That probably wasn’t very grown-up, either.

  “Is it really takin’ you that long to read a cereal box?” a smug voice cracked from behind her. “I thought you went to college.”

  Frankie whipped her head around to see Jared Lewis standing behind her, his arms crossed over his orange polo shirt. Jared had his mom’s weak chin and small dark eyes, which gave him a weaselly appearance. He was short for his age, and thin, eye level with Frankie, though she was wearing flats. He had the collar of his shirt popped so hard he looked like a villain in a ski comedy from the 1980s.

  She rarely saw Jared in person if she could help it, and sometimes she wondered if she allowed her mental image of his adolescent awfulness to become exaggerated in his absence. It was nice to be reminded that she wasn’t wrong.

  Frankie glanced around for Marnette Lewis, but it seemed that Jared had made a solo trip to the grocery store now that he had a driver’s license and a shiny new SUV from his parents. Jared was shopping for a giant bag of Atomic Mouth-Burners and two cans of black Krylon paint. She frowned at the contents of his cart, which only made him smirk harder.

  He was taunting her with hateful cinnamon candy and spray paint.

  “Oh, wait, you didn’t go to college, did you, McCready? You went to one of them creepy ‘learnin’ to cut people up’ schools.”

  Frankie’s bright blue eyes narrowed. She had gone to college, but she wasn’t about to argue fine points with a jackass-in-training. “Well, I did learn enough grammar to know to avoid phrases like ‘one of them schools.’ Which is good for me, really. Not all of us can go on lame little crime sprees and have their daddies clean it up.”

  Jared flushed beneath his acne scars. “You can’t talk to me like that. My mama says that you’re not allowed to accuse me of things I haven’t done.”

  “Which is convenient, because I haven’t accused you of doing anything. I’m just observin’ that some people in this life are held accountable for their actions, while others are allowed to destroy property and cause problems for hardworkin’ families for no other reason than being entitled little creeps.”

  “I told you before. I didn’t have anything to do with the problems you’ve been having at your crappy little funeral home. My mama said you’re kissing up to the sheriff, trying to get him on your side. But maybe you’d like to do a little more than kissing up, huh?”

  Frankie made a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. “Do you realize how many sentences you start with the words ‘my mama’? It’s a little unnatural at your age.”

  Jared continued as if she hadn’t spoken, but based on the clench of his jaw, she knew the insinuation had landed. “She saw you trying to flirt with the sheriff, said it was the saddest thing she’d ever seen.”

  Frankie rolled her eyes. Marnette hadn’t seen Frankie doin’ anything close to flirting. Frankie wasn’t sure she knew how to overtly flirt. The guys she normally hooked up with were susceptible to overtures as simple as “How ’bout it?”

  “You wanna know the saddest thing about you?” he asked, crowding her against the shelf, as much as a boy shaped like a banty rooster could crowd anybody. “You’re too much of a freak for anybody in this suck-town to like you, but you’re not even smart enough to get out of here. Nobody here wants you around, but you don’t get the hint. You’re just gonna die alone in that basement of yours with nothing but a bunch of cats and body parts in jars.”

  Frankie didn’t want to admit that the words of a sixteen-year-old imbecile could cut deep, but they did. She was alone; among all of her family, she was the only one who was single except for Uncle Stan, who had been married once upon a time . . . and Duffy and whatever the hell Duffy had going on with Lana. She wasn’t like Marianne, who had been brave enough to flee to a faraway college at the first opportunity. Frankie could have moved away years before, but she was scared. She loved Lake Sackett and its people, even if they didn’t always love her back. But she also knew that a big part of her sticking close to home was being unsure if she could make it out there in the world on her own. But she wasn’t about to admit that in front of Jared Lewis.

  Instead, she stared at a spot in the middle of Jared’s forehead, as if she could burn it like a laser using only the power of her mind. She did this long enough that he started to squirm under her gaze. And when she smiled, he flinched. She stepped forward and he backed away, suddenly not so interested in crowding her.

  “Jared,” she said, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, “tell your mama I said hi.”

  ERIC HAD PROMISED back at the diner to stop by the next day to look at the blacked-out security video and camera equipment, but from what Frankie heard, he got delayed by the discovery of an actual moonshine still about a mile from the dam. Finding a still wasn’t that big of a deal—the more rural residents of Lake Sackett had made shine for generations. Local law enforcement tended to overlook it as long as they were discreet about it and didn’t blow anything up. The problem with this particular still was that, being so close to the dam, it was technically on federal land. Feds didn’t find that sort of thing very amusing.

  When he finally arrived at McCready’s a few days later, he found Frankie sitting on the dock, enjoying the cool autumn afternoon and one of her mother’s Turkey Day Rolls—a full Thanksgiving meal in a crispy fried shell.

  “I don’t want to know, do I?” he said, pointing at the enormous fried ball of holiday goodness.

  “Mama’s tweaking her breadin
g recipe again. You hungry?”

  “No,” he said, helping her to her feet. “Don’t tell your mama. She’ll see it as a challenge.”

  “So you’ve had an interesting week, huh?”

  “Moonshine stills,” he said. “We did not get those in the city.”

  “Is that why you left the city? Not enough moonshine action?”

  Eric didn’t answer, so Frankie added, “Well, I don’t want to be a narc, but you’re gonna want to talk to the Dawsons. Carl’s cousins are the only locals dumb enough to build a still on federal land. My cousin-in-law is a magical unicorn exception to his extremely shallow gene pool.”

  “Thanks, that is . . . very helpful,” he said, casting his eyes sideways at her as she led him across the parking lot. “What’s your angle?”

  “I’m tryin’ this new thing where I don’t needle you without reason.”

  “I don’t think I like it,” he said. “I got used to being the target of your snark. It was like my mornin’ coffee, but for the parts of my brain that make sarcasm and spite.”

  “I’ll throw in a snarky insult every once in a while,” she promised. She pointed toward the camera mounted over the bay door.

  Eric took off his sunglasses and inspected the Krylon-covered lens. “Yep, that’s spray-painted, all right.”

  “How many weeks did you have to spend trainin’ for that expert opinion?” she asked. He frowned at her. “See? Your recommended daily allowance of snarky insult.”

  “Thank you. I can get through my day now.” He turned and scanned the parking area. “You know, you’re pretty lucky you haven’t had more security problems. Remote location like this, open access to the water, multiple entrances . . .”

  “Yeah, we kind of inherited it like that. Not much we can do about the setup.”

  “And people don’t find it weird, showing up to fish where other people are goin’ to a funeral? Or havin’ a funeral when there’s boat engines gunnin’ outside?” he asked.

  “No, my great-grandfather set up the parking lot so the two groups wouldn’t cross paths. And it’s not so weird, once people get used to it. Everybody tries to stay respectful of each other.”

  “Must be nice, havin’ your whole family around,” he said, nodding to the Snack Shack. “Y’all seem to get along pretty well.”

  “Sometimes it’s the greatest thing in the world. Other times I wanna take a run right off that dock.”

  “I can see that, too. I never had much family to speak of, but I guess it can be a ‘careful what you wish for’ sort of thing.”

  “Right. Off. The. Dock,” she said again.

  He laughed, flashing her a million-watt smile she’d never seen before. She swore her knees turned to pudding. Just whoosh, right out from under her. If not for the thunderous rumble of a pack of dogs scrambling across the gravel, she might have death-dropped RuPaul’s Drag Race style.

  “What the hell?” Eric said, stepping between Frankie and the pack. As usual, Tootie’s entrance was heralded by her ever-changing rotation of stray dogs. Lulu, a sable pit bull wearing a pink tutu, led the pack, barking sharply at a tubby bulldog who attempted to usurp her front position. An older Dalmatian with a spade-shaped ear scrambled to keep up with two fluffy mutts of indeterminate breeding. Frankie couldn’t make out the others because they were moving too damn fast. Since Tootie had opened her dog shelter, the pack had shrunk to the county-enforced eleven dogs. They sniffed and herded and chewed the shoes of anyone else who crossed their paths, but Tootie was the unquestioned alpha.

  “That’s just Tootie’s entourage,” Frankie told him as the lady herself walked around the corner of the office building.

  “What are you two up to out here?” Tootie called.

  “Hey, Miss Tootie,” Eric yelled back. “I’m just checkin’ out your camera situation.”

  The largest dog in the pack, the handsome but depressive German shepherd, Hercules, had perked up the moment he saw Eric. He trotted right up to Eric and barked sharply, then sat on his haunches. And if dogs could have expectant expressions, he would have had it in spades.

  Eric took a step back. The dog took a step forward and sat on his haunches, then barked again. Tootie watched, her head tilted at an intrigued angle.

  “Um.” Eric looked to Tootie. “What is happening here?”

  Tootie cocked her head and considered for a long moment. “Hercules is a retired airport security dog. His handler died and a friend of mine at one of the bigger city shelters sent him out here because he wasn’t coping well in crowded quarters. To be honest, he’s not coping too well in my quarters, either. He does not like sharing me with this many dogs, real anxious and fretful. This is the calmest he’s been since he got here.”

  Eric took another step back and the dog stood and followed, stopping again and sitting as if awaiting orders. “This is gettin’ sort of upsetting.”

  Tootie chewed her lip, considering. “He’s probably reactin’ to your uniform. His handler must have worn something similar.”

  “Aw, poor thing.” Frankie clucked her tongue sympathetically, but she knew better than to pet one of Tootie’s dogs when he was having a “moment.”

  “Have you ever had a dog, young fella?” Tootie asked.

  “When I was a kid,” Eric said. “But I’ve never had the time as an adult. I’ve always worked a lot.”

  Tootie pulled a tennis ball out of her enormous shoulder bag. Because of course she had both an enormous old-lady shoulder bag and an “in case of emergency” tennis ball.

  “Throw this for him,” Tootie commanded.

  When Eric hesitated, Frankie told him, “You should just go ahead before she gets forceful.”

  Frowning, Eric tossed the ball across the parking lot. Herc took off after it like a lightning bolt, catching it midbounce and bounding back to Eric to drop it at his feet. When Eric didn’t pick it up for another throw, Hercules whined and pushed the ball with his paws.

  “Herc was only allowed to fetch for his handler. That’s how they train the dogs, so they’re completely dependent on the handlers for food, approval, play. And once they’re trained, they only get to play when they find drugs or explosives or whatever they’re being trained to find. It seems that Herc here has picked you as his handler. Nate and Aiden tried throwin’ the ball for him for hours and he wouldn’t budge.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked. “I don’t know how to be a handler. The K-9 unit at the department hated me. Growled at me every time he saw me. Hell, he peed on my leg while I was standing at attention at a memorial service.”

  “But that was one dog, not all dogs. This dog clearly likes you. How would you feel about taking Herc home with you?” Tootie asked.

  Eric shook his head, taking another step back. Herc followed again. “Not great. I still work a lot. I wouldn’t be able to walk him or play with him the way he needs. I couldn’t take him to work with me or anything.”

  “Well, Herc is pretty self-sufficient. Do you have a fenced-in yard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you allergic to dogs?”

  “No,” he said, sounding resigned.

  “Are you emotionally attached to your couch?”

  “What?”

  Tootie tried to pull her best “innocent old lady” face. “Nothing.”

  “Look, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “What if you just take him home on a temporary basis?” Tootie suggested. “Until I can find a forever home for Herc. Think of it as a foster situation.”

  “I . . .” Eric was still shaking his head when Herc put his wet nose in his hand. The dog looked up at the sheriff with his shiny wet brown eyes. Eric’s rigid face softened ever so slightly.

  “But Frankie says that you’re really particular about the families who take your dogs home,” he protested weakly.

  “Well, if Frankie is fond of you, that’s enough for me.”

  “I’m not all that fond of him,” Frankie said. “I just lear
ned to sort of tolerate him a little bit ago.”

  “I’ll bring the paperwork by the sheriff’s department for you to sign. Marianne says we have to keep things official for the county. Come on, dogs!” Tootie whistled as she walked away, and the pack followed in a gamboling swarm of fur and slobber.

  Eric looked at Herc and then at Frankie. “What just happened?”

  “I can’t believe Aunt Tootie gave you one of her pack!”

  “Yeah, it was a shock to both of us, I think.”

  “Doesn’t he seem kind of young to be a ‘retired’ working dog?” she asked.

  “Not really. Some K-9 units have a pretty limited window to work because they burn out fast. Also, Herc’s handler died, and it can be difficult for a dog to switch handlers. Given the amount of money they spend training dogs, I imagine the airport’s police department tried every solution to help him work before putting him out to pasture.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It is,” he said. “I kind of understand how he feels, going from the prime of your work life to being sent to a strange place full of weird people.”

  Frankie snickered. Eric bent to scratch behind Herc’s ears. The dog leaned into the scratch and rubbed his face against Eric’s leg. Frankie smirked. Herc would have his own embroidered dog bed in Eric’s bedroom by the end of the month, or she would dye her hair back to its natural brown.

  E.J.J. REFUSED TO have birthday candles on his cake after an “incident” in which the sheer number of tiny flames turned one of Tootie’s favorite tablecloths into a sputtering inferno. So, for the past ten years, his birthday had been cake-free, but consistently involved chicken and dumplings, simmered all day in an ancient boulder-size iron pot in a stone pit near the shore. Because one source of meat for any meal was never enough, Bob and Stan spent most of the day using a cabinet smoker to roast a pork shoulder. E.J.J.’s birthday dinner was one of Frankie’s favorite days of the year, the perfect time for all-day outdoor cooking. Cool, mostly bug-free, with enough breeze to carry the smoke across the water. While she was Southern to the bone, Frankie would take the charms of autumn over bone-softening heat and humidity any day.