Page 12 of Deadly Little Scandals
Charlotte’s sharp intake of breath was audible. “I didn’t raise you to talk to me that way, Campbell Caroline.”
“You raised me to be a lady,” Campbell countered lightly. “And ladies play to win. It’s not my fault you’re slipping, hiding out here with your tail between your legs like we have something to be ashamed of.”
“I am not having this argument with you,” Charlotte said, her voice low in a way that would have sounded a lot more ominous if she weren’t drunk enough to slur her words.
“Then don’t,” Campbell replied simply.Don’t argue. Don’t make a scene.Campbell turned back to me and held out an electric-orange swimsuit. I took it.
Charlotte straightened, doing a passable impression of someone who wasn’t fall-down drunk, and shifted her attention wholly and pointedly to me. “I suppose that I should offer you a beverage.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Charlotte stared at me so hard that I could feel her gaze on my skin. “It’s only a matter of time before your roots start showing, you know.” Her voice was strangely pleasant. She barely even slurred the words. “It doesn’t matter how they dress you up, or what little tricks you learn, or how well you think you can blend. You are what you are, sweetheart, and you’ll never be anything else.”
She took a long drink out of the glass in her hand—whiskey, by the smell of it.
“You can tell your mama I said so.” She smiled daggers at me and shook Campbell off when her daughter tried to lead her back down the hall. “Or better yet, pass the message along to your aunt.”
iv?” For years, Charlotte had prided herself on knowing the right thing to say in every situation. She was the sensitive one. Julia was the blunt, take-no-prisoners type. And Liv…
Liv hadn’t been herself since they’d buried her daddy.
Charlotte hovered in the doorway to the late Mr. Taft’s home office, her eyes fixed on the silhouette in the window.
“You can’t stay cooped up in here all day, Livvy,” she said delicately.
“I can do anything I want to.” Liv’s tone was calm, with just the slightest lilt. “That’s what he used to say. ‘Sky’s the limit, Bug.’” There was a pause. “He called meBug.”
“I know.” Despite her best efforts, Charlotte could not find any words of honeyed comfort beyond that.
Liv probably didn’t want to be comforted.
“Come on.” Liv pushed off the window frame and stalked past her second-oldest friend.
Second-best,a voice inside Charlotte always whispered.
“Call Julia and tell her to meet us at the cemetery,” Liv ordered. She’d always been the charismatic one, enough so that people—male and female, young and old—did what she suggested.
Under any other circumstances, Liv being Liv might have gotten under Charlotte’s skin, but not today. Not when Liv Taft was finally starting to sound like herself.
“Don’t just stand there, Char. Get a move on. We can raid the liquor cabinet on the way.”
here was a board nailed across the door to The Big Bang, like the whole place had been condemned. I had to look twice to determine that it was for show.
“Mama would have a heart attack if she knew where we were,” Lily said beside me, straightening her dress. “Or worse, a conniption.”
We’d told Aunt Olivia we were spending the night with Sadie-Grace. For good measure, I’d also passed along Charlotte’s regards, which seemed wiser than saying,Campbell’s mama sends vague insults and whiskey-laden predictions about the future.
“Do you want to open the door?” I asked Lily. “Or should I?”
She took a deep and cleansing breath. “Here’s to a legendary evening.”
She pulled the door open, and a cacophony of country music, loud voices, and what sounded like a live piano hit me all at once. The lighting inside the bar was dim, but there were colored Christmas lights strung along the entire perimeter of the open room, and a massive crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. There was a baby grand piano on the far side of the room, and behind it, silvery curtains that had been drawn to reveal the bar’s name in a spotlight on the wall. Gas station memorabilia hung along the other three walls, with a dozen or more signs for filling stations deeming themselvesThe Last Chance.
The entire place looked like it had been decorated by a couple, one of whom had readThe Great Gatsbya few too many times, and the other of whom had a fondness for all things mom and pop.
“It shouldn’t work,” someone said behind me. “But it does.”
I turned to see Campbell. When Lily had dropped Walker off and picked me up earlier, Cam hadn’t said a word to either of them about what I’d told her. She was good at keeping secrets—if she wanted to.
