The Cherry Cola Book Club - By Ashton Lee Page 0,11

he rose quickly and said, “If there’s nothing else, then, I’ll be seeing you on July 17th at the library. I know you really don’t believe it, but this office is and always has been open to you.”

After she’d left and was heading down the hall, Maura Beth began to get an uneasy feeling about the exchange she’d just had with the man who had hired her. It would be beyond foolish to trust his slick, wolfish demeanor when she imagined him viewing her as Little Redheaded Riding Hood just ripe for the waylaying. He had been far too compliant about everything, and she ended up wondering if she really wanted him there as an observer after all.

3

Missing in Action

The July session of “Who’s Who in Cherico?” was well under way in the library’s drab little meeting room with Miss Voncille Nettles holding forth in her inimitable fashion.

“. . . and this is a photo of the Doak Leonard Winchester Family showing off the brand-new First Farmers’ Bank of Cherico building,” she was saying. “I’ll now pass it around for your perusal. Note especially the big white bows in the ladies’ hair. That was all the rage around the turn of the twentieth century. I know that from my research, of course, not because I was actually there.”

Everyone laughed and began eagerly inspecting the picture, while Miss Voncille looked on approvingly. Though approaching seventy, she projected the vigor of someone ten to fifteen years younger. Especially impressive was the resonance of her voice, even though she was not a large person. Whenever she made genealogical and historical pronouncements as she was now to her handful of followers, they always lapped them up as the gospel truth. Criticisms or disagreements quickly brought out the sharpness of her tongue, enabling her to live up to her prickly surname. Despite the short fuse, however, there were still traces in her face and in the way she carefully arranged her salt-and-pepper hair of the great beauty she had once been, making people all the more curious about her perennial spinster status. If nothing else, she remained the town’s most impeccably dressed woman with no place to go.

On this particular evening, Maura Beth had decided to join Miss Voncille and her loyal members—the Crumpton sisters and widower Locke Linwood—with the deliberate intention of recruiting for her book club. It would be easy enough, she reasoned, to chat with each of them over the fruit punch out of a can and store-bought sugar cookies they routinely trotted out for refreshments. In fact, she had already put a self-serving word in edgewise while ladling a plastic cup for Miss Voncille and was fully counting on closing the deal immediately after the adjournment.

All of a sudden, Mamie Crumpton was shouting about something, and Maura Beth was yanked out of the thoughtful review of her evening agenda.

“Why, Voncille Nettles, you take that back this instant. You simply must retract that outrageous statement. It is most certainly the lie of all time!”

As the older and decidedly overbearing maiden sister of one of Cherico’s wealthiest families, Mamie had already begun hyperventilating, heaving her ample bosom. Her detractors around town—and there were more than a few—had often conjectured that one of these days she was going to puff herself up so big during one of her tantrums that pricking her with a pin might just send her flying all over Cherico like a deflated Goodyear blimp.

The unassuming and far daintier Marydell Crumpton uncharacteristically joined the attack. “You made that up out of a whole lace tablecloth, Voncille Nettles, and everybody in this room with any knowledge of this town knows it!”

“See?” Mamie added, wagging a bejeweled finger. “You’ve upset my little sister, and you should know by now how hard that is to do!”

“Neither of you has to get so worked up and take everything so seriously!” Miss Voncille exclaimed, deliberately averting her eyes from her accusers. “This is just par for the course for you, Mamie. You haven’t changed in all the years I’ve known you!”

Maura Beth blinked in disbelief at the heated exchange, realizing she had not been paying close attention to Miss Voncille’s latest pronouncement. “Now, everyone, please calm down.”

“I have a right to be upset. Armadillos, indeed!” Mamie repeated, practically spitting out the words. “I’ve never heard such a ridiculous thing in my life. The Crumpton Family has been solvent and respectable from the instant we set foot on these shores. We would never have stooped to the