The Cherry Cola Book Club - By Ashton Lee Page 0,17

like broccoli, she decided to go ahead and capitalize on it. Thus was born The Becca Broccoli Show, weekday mornings at seven-thirty. Don’t you realize what this means for your club?”

“She can review cookbooks for us?” Maura Beth ventured, unable to resist.

“Seriously, now. Think about the publicity angle, girl. She can mention the club over the radio whenever she has a mind to. She has a huge audience. You’re a bit slow on the uptake tonight!”

Maura Beth briefly debated whether to mention all the hoopla at the “Who’s Who?” meeting but thought better of it. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. But I’ve got a sign-up myself at this end. Miss Voncille Nettles of ‘Who’s Who in Cherico?’ is on board. So now we’ll have at least four people for our organizational meeting next week. And if you could find a way to join us—”

“Like I said before,” Periwinkle interrupted, “I just don’t have the time, honey. Not to read books and run the restaurant six days a week, too. Just let me hand out flyers here at The Twinkle and talk you up that way. Reading recipes is more my speed. Anyway, you got you a good one in Becca Broccoli, and who knows how many more’ll eat at The Twinkle and end up in your club?”

“Thanks, Periwinkle,” Maura Beth said. “You really are my eyes and ears, even without your cell phone camera.”

An hour later, Maura Beth was propped up in bed against her purple pillows, smiling down at her wiggling, freshly painted, pink toenails. “You are such a girlie girl sometimes, Maura Beth,” she said out loud, pouting her lips playfully.

Anyone surveying her bedroom would have thought so. She had changed the nondescript wallpaper she had inherited to a lavender floral design, and her solid lavender bedspread picked up the theme. What little money she had managed to put aside—with significant help from her parents, of course— had been spent on the brass bed, which was the centerpiece of the room. Altogether, it was an environment that had yet to welcome its first male visitor, and Maura Beth wasn’t particularly happy about that.

Before turning out the lights, she decided to open the top drawer of her night stand and retrieve her journal. She had been keeping it off and on since her freshman year at LSU, and whenever she needed a boost of any kind, she would trot it out and turn to page twenty-five. Tonight was one of those nights.

It read:

THREE THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH

BEFORE I’M THIRTY, PLUS A P.S.

1. —Become the director of a decent-sized library (city of at least 20,000 people).

2. —Get married (but not out of desperation).

3. —Have two children, one of each (natural childbirth—ouch!). P. S.—Hope one of the bambinos has red hair. (We’re such a minority!)

Maura Beth gingerly rubbed the tips of her fingers on the page and slowly closed the journal. Then she put it away, sighing resolutely. Would any of those things ever happen, even past thirty?

4

Out of the Mouths of Babes

It was nearly ten after seven on the evening of July 17, but the organizational meeting of The Cherico Page Turners had not yet begun. Maura Beth had decided to disdain the meeting room because of the claustrophobia it never failed to produce. Instead, she was standing behind a podium she had placed in front of the circulation desk in the main lobby, gazing out at the half-circle of folding chairs arranged before her. Connie McShay, Miss Voncille, along with her guest, Locke Linwood, and Councilman Sparks had arrived early and were talking among themselves in their seats. But Mrs. Justin Brachle (aka Becca Broccoli) had not yet made an appearance, and Maura Beth was beginning to worry. Their numbers were paltry enough as it was.

“If Mrs. Brachle doesn’t show up within the next five minutes, we’ll begin without her,” Maura Beth announced.

But no sooner had those words escaped her than the celebrated Becca Broccoli breezed through the front door wearing a summery yellow frock and apologizing profusely as she approached the group. “I know I’ve kept everyone waiting,” she began, “but I had to feed my Stout Fella. That’s my husband, Justin, you know. He was trying to wind up one of his real-estate deals over the phone, and he just wouldn’t come to the table—” She broke off and flashed a smile. “I guess none of you are really interested in all this. Except, I owe you an introduction, at the very least. I generally go by